{"id":210725,"date":"2026-03-08T20:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T20:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210725\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T20:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T20:49:08","slug":"7th-u-s-service-member-dies-in-iran-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210725\/","title":{"rendered":"7th U.S. service member dies in Iran war"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The U.S. and Israeli war against <\/a> Iran<\/a> entered its ninth day Sunday with no clear path toward de-escalation \u2014 and a seventh U.S. service member killed \u2014 as President Trump said deploying American ground troops to the Middle East remains under consideration and Iran\u2019s foreign minister rejected calls for a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Saturday, Trump declined to rule out the possibility of sending U.S. forces inside Iran, saying it could \u201cpossibly happen\u201d as the conflict intensifies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere would have to be a very good reason,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI would say if we ever did that they would be so decimated that they wouldn\u2019t be able to fight at the ground level.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. military on Sunday announced that a U.S. service member died Saturday night from injuries sustained March 1 in Saudi Arabia during Iran\u2019s \u201cinitial attacks\u201d on U.S. allies and facilities across the region, in response to attacks from U.S. and Israel. The service member was not immediately identified, pending notification of family.<\/p>\n

Other deaths were also reported in the region. Israel reported two of its soldiers were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon \u2014 its first military deaths of the war \u2014 while Saudi Arabia reported two people were killed and 12 wounded by a military projectile that fell in a residential area there.<\/p>\n

The death toll in Iran has been difficult to nail down, but Iran\u2019s ambassador to the U.N. on Friday put the number at more than 1,300.<\/p>\n

Iran has said it is prepared to continue fighting the war despite sustaining heavy losses, and would be ready to fight American ground troops if they descend into the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have very brave soldiers, who are waiting for any enemy who enters into our soil to fight with them, and to kill them and destroy them,\u201d Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in an interview<\/a> with NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Araghchi added that Iran is not considering a ceasefire at this time. He said the United States and Israel would first need to explain \u201cwhy they started this aggression and then guarantee there would be a permanent end of the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless we get to that, I think we need to continue fighting for the sake of our people and our security,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Araghchi also pushed back on Trump\u2019s demand last week that he be involved in determining Iran\u2019s future leadership<\/a> as a condition to ending the conflict. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe allow nobody to interfere in our domestic affairs. This is up to the Iranian people to elect their new leader,\u201d Araghchi said. \u201cIt\u2019s only the business of the Iranian people, and nobody else\u2019s business.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of Sunday, it remained unclear who would succeed Iran\u2019s former leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, who was killed by American and Israeli strikes on the first day of the war. But the clerical body that will choose Iran\u2019s next supreme leader appeared to be close to reaching a majority consensus on its pick, according to several news reports.<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump said last week that Mojtaba Khamenei \u2014 the son of the former leader and a reported leading contender to succeed his father \u2014 would be an \u201cunacceptable\u201d choice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In addition to mounting deaths and widespread destruction, the economic toll of the war has also continued to rise, particularly in energy markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the war continues like this, there will be neither a way to sell oil nor have the ability to produce it,\u201d Iran\u2019s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a social media post<\/a> Sunday. He added that the war would affect not just the U.S., but also the rest of the world \u201cdue to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu\u2019s delusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israeli strikes on Sunday hit an oil storage facility<\/a> in Tehran, marking what appears to be the first time a civil industrial facility has been targeted in the war. Black smoke billowed over the Iranian capital, with officials there warning of the hazardous health effects for residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy targeting fuel depots, the aggressors are releasing hazardous materials and toxic substances into the air, poisoning civilians, devastating the environment, and endangering lives on a massive scale,\u201d Iran\u2019s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on X. <\/p>\n

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that there\u2019s currently a \u201cfear premium in the marketplace\u201d and sought to assure Americans that the soaring oil prices are a short-term problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never know exactly the time frame of this,\u201d Wright said in an interview<\/a> with CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union.\u201d \u201cBut in the worst case, this is a weeks, this is not a months thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed the same assurances in an interview<\/a> with Fox News\u2019 \u201cSunday Morning Futures,\u201d calling the rising gas prices a \u201cshort-term disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately taking out the rogue Iranian regime is going to be a good thing for the oil industry,\u201d Leavitt said. \u201cThose prices are going to come back down just like they have over the course of the past year, because of President Trump\u2019s American energy dominance agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

The strike on the oil storage facility came as Netanyahu promised \u201cmany surprises\u201d for the next phase of the conflict.<\/p>\n

According to Araghchi, a U.S. airstrike damaged an Iranian desalination plan on Qeshm Island that is a critical drinking water supply in the parched deserts of the Persian Gulf.<\/p>\n

\u201cAttacking Iran\u2019s infrastructure is a dangerous move with grave consequences. The U.S. set this precedent, not Iran,\u201d Araghchi wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n

The United States has also come under scrutiny after evidence suggested that an American strike was probably responsible for an explosion at an Iranian elementary school that killed more than 165 people, most of them children.<\/p>\n

Trump administration officials have said the matter is under investigation and that no determination has been made as to who was responsible for the strike. But on Saturday, Trump said Iran was to blame for the explosion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was done by Iran,\u201d Trump told reporters. \u201cThey\u2019re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked Sunday if Iran had any evidence that the strike was conducted by the Americans, Araghchi said it had to have been either the U.S. or Israeli military and said that Trump\u2019s suggestion that Iran was responsible for the attack was \u201cfunny.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is our school, these are our students and our girls, and they are attacked by an American fighter, a jet fighter, and they have been killed. Why [is] Iran responsible?\u201d Araghchi said.<\/p>\n

Other world leaders and nations have called for a halt to fighting and added their own estimates to its toll.<\/p>\n

Lebanon said more than half a million people have been displaced by the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.<\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron said he had spoken with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday, and urged him to stop strikes in the region. Macron is the first Western leader to speak with Pezeshkian since the start of the war, the Associated Press reported.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo XIV wrote on X on Sunday that reports out of Iran and the wider Middle East \u201ccontinue to cause deep dismay and raise the fear that the conflict will expand, and that other countries in the region, including dear Lebanon, may once again sink into instability.\u201d<\/p>\n

He asked the world to pray \u201cfor the roar of bombs to cease, weapons to fall silent, and space to open for dialogue, in which people\u2019s voices may be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The U.S. and Israeli war against Iran entered its ninth day Sunday with no clear path toward de-escalation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96957,96960,96959,1520,19378,48,52,51,47,50,49,96961,60614,592,86,776,1519,43610,96958,435,2664],"class_list":["post-210725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-abbas-araghchi","tag-ceasefire-possibility","tag-conflict-intensifie","tag-interview","tag-iran","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-netanyahu","tag-oil-price","tag-people","tag-strike","tag-sunday","tag-trump","tag-u-s-force","tag-u-s-ground-troop","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}