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Nearly 100 U.S. service members injured in Iranian strikes this month

▶ Watch Video: Nearly 100 U.S. service members injured in Iranian strikes this month, Pentagon says

Washington — Nearly 100 American service members have been injured in multiple Iranian airstrikes on bases in the Middle East region this month, U.S. officials told CBS News.

Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed the numbers in a statement to CBS News, saying almost 100 people “were deemed to have some degree of injury since July 7, 2026,” 96% of whom have returned to duty.

“They are determined to get back in the fight. The vast majority of injuries experienced were minor concussions,” Parnell said.

The injuries follow an uptick in hostilities between the U.S. and Iran as a monthslong ceasefire between the two countries disintegrates. The U.S. military has carried out nightly strikes on Iranian targets for more than a week, saying it is seeking to stop Iran from attacking commercial ships, and Iran has reacted by striking U.S. assets in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain and other U.S.-allied states.

CBS News reported Friday that several U.S. service members had been injured on Jordanian military bases last week.

Over the weekend, the Defense Department announced that two American soldiers were killed on a military base in Jordan, and unidentified remains were found at the location where a third U.S. service member went missing. Another service member was killed in Iraq during a “controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone.”

The Pentagon has not publicly disclosed the exact number of service members injured or damage assessments from the latest round of Iranian attacks. 

The military’s Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) lists 413 U.S. service members who were wounded in action since the start of the U.S.-Iran conflict, but that count does not include any injuries from this month. Elsewhere on the DCAS website, the military lists 427 injuries. Some 14 Americans have been killed, not including last weekend’s deaths.

President Trump has vowed to retaliate for the deaths in Jordan and Iraq, writing in a Monday afternoon Truth Social post: “Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!” He said that directive was delivered to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and other military leaders.

The White House said Monday that Mr. Trump would attend the dignified transfer of the service members killed. 

Chinese rocket carrying satellite explodes seconds after launch

By CNN
Hong Kong (CNN) — A Chinese rocket set to launch a satellite into orbit blew-up seconds after liftoff Monday, marking the relatively rare failure for a rocket considered a workhorse of Beijing’s space program.The Long March 7A rocket erupted into a massive fireball just 85 seconds after blasting off from the Wenchang Space Launch Site on the island of Hainan on Monday night, video showed.State news agency Xinhua confirmed the failure three hours after the launch, saying “the rocket experienced an anomaly during flight.” The cause is under investigation, it added, without providing further information.SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who has watched a number of his own rockets explode after launch, commented on X saying: “Rockets are insanely hard.”Long March 7A is a satellite delivery rocket designed by China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the main state-owned contractor for China’s space program.This was to be the Long March 7A’s 18th mission – it’s only failed on one previous occasion, during its maiden flight in 2020. The second attempt in March 2021 succeeded, with images showing crowds that had gathered to witness the launch.Wenchang, home to one of China’s major rocket launch sites, is known for its space tourism. Tourists and residents often gather at Wenchang Space Launch Viewing Center and other locations to watch launches where there’s a clear view.Gasps could be heard on one video posted online after Monday’s failed launch, as the rocket appeared to break apart midair just after 8 p.m.. The rocket was carrying the Zhongxing-4B or ChinaSat-4B, to provide radio, television and other communications services to users around the world, according to Chinese state media.Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ambitions to make China a world leader in space science by 2050, and the country’s locked in an intense competition with the US on multiple fronts, including reusable launch technology, moon research and satellite launches.Following the failure of the Long March 7A on Monday, the much-anticipated launch of the Zhuque-3, planned for Tuesday morning at Jiuquan satellite launching station, was delayed, according to Yicai, a Shanghai-based financial news outlet citing sourced information.The Zhuque-3, developed by Chinese private rocket company LandSpace, is the country’s first serious attempt to build a reusable launch rocket. It made its first voyage in December 2025, but the first stage of the rocket caught fire before crashing near the target recovery site.Last month, China successfully recovered the first stage of the rocket during a subsequent test – a breakthrough for the country’s reusable rocket program. In that test, the first-stage booster returned to a floating platform about six minutes after ⁠the separation of its first and upper stage, according to state broadcaster CCTV.“This mission … signifies a historic breakthrough in China’s reusable rocket technology and a solid foundation for accelerating the improvement of China’s space access capabilities,” the rocket-maker China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said in a post to social media at the time.Unlike the Zhuque-3, the Long March 7A is a three-stage rocket that’s not designed for re-use.Measuring almost 200 feet (60 meters) in length, the rocket has four boosters and the capacity to send seven metric tons of payload to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) – approximately around 22,000 miles (35,405 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface.CNN’s Fred He contributed to the reporting.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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