US soldier killed and one injured after Iranian attack in Iraq

The US military says a service member was killed after an Iranian attack in northern Iraq on Saturday, a day after an attack on a base in Jordan killed two US soldiers and left another missing.

US Central Command (Centcom) said the individual was killed during “a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance” from a downed Iranian attack drone, which also wounded a second service member.

In its update, Centcom said it had found “unidentified remains” after a search of the location of Friday’s attack in Jordan. “An examination process to verify the remains is ongoing,” it added.

It comes as the US and Iran exchanged strikes for an eighth day of escalating attacks.

Both sides have been accused of striking critical infrastructure in recent days. Meanwhile, Washington has reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports and Tehran has declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and targeted US allies in the region, as a preliminary ceasefire collapsed less than a month after it began.

The US military said its latest attacks had been designed to “degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping” in the strait, and to “swiftly punish” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces it said were responsible for the attack in Jordan.

Verified footage from inside the Jordanian facility showed at least two impacts and an explosion.

The US death toll in the conflict has now reached 17, after an American Navy pilot who went missing earlier this month was declared dead.

In Iran, at least 50 people have been killed and more than 500 injured in US strikes over the past three weeks, the country’s health ministry has said.