U.S. President Donald Trump announced Sunday that nine Iranian naval ships have been sunk as part of combat operations against Iran.
“I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important,” Trump wrote in a post on X, adding that Iran’s naval headquarters has been “largely destroyed” in a different attack.
“We are going after the rest — They will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also!” Trump wrote.
U.S. Central Command officials said earlier Sunday that an Iranian Jamaran-class corvette was struck by U.S. forces at the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.
“The ship is currently sinking to the bottom of the Gulf of Oman at a Chah Bahar pier,” the statement reads. “As the president said, members of Iran’s armed forces, IRGC and police ‘must lay down your weapons.’ Abandon ship.”
Three U.S. service members have been killed in action during combat operations against Iran, CENTCOM officials announced Sunday. Five more have been listed as “seriously wounded.”
U.S. B-2 stealth bombers struck Iran’s hardened ballistic missiles with 2,000-lb. bombs Saturday night, CENTCOM announced in a separate post Sunday.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ claim that it struck the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles a “lie” in a post on X on Sunday.
“The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn’t even come close,” CENTCOM said in the post. “The Lincoln continues to launch aircraft in support of CENTCOM’s relentless campaign to defend the American people by eliminating threats from the Iranian regime.”
The Lincoln carrier strike group is one of two U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups deployed to the region, alongside the Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group, as part of the largest buildup of U.S. firepower in the Middle East in a generation.
The assault by U.S. and partner forces began Saturday at 1:15 a.m., CENTCOM officials stated, with the goal of knocking out “the Iranian regime’s security apparatus, prioritizing locations that posed an imminent threat.”
Among the primary targets of the operation were Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and military airfields, according to the statement.
The compound of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was also targeted in the operation. A senior Israeli official told Reuters that Khamenei was killed in the strike. Trump later confirmed in a Truth Social post on Saturday that Khamenei was killed in the attack, calling the moment “the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country.”
At least 201 people have been killed and more than 700 injured across Iran, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
Beth Sullivan is an editor for Military Times. Previously, she worked as a staff reporter for The Daily Memphian and as an assistant editor at The Austin Chronicle.
J.D. Simkins is the executive editor of Military Times and Defense News, and a Marine Corps veteran of the Iraq War.
