Sarah: Ten straight nights of U.S.
Sarah: strikes on Iran — and tonight, for the first time, the Pentagon has put names to the American dead.
Sarah: If you're just joining us: a June agreement briefly cooled the U.S.-Iran war, but that lull broke in July.
Sarah: U.S. strikes expanded across Iran — including Bushehr and Darkhovin — while the Strait of Hormuz turned back into a battlefield.
Sarah: Mediators are still trying to keep a negotiating channel open
Sarah: even as the fight now mixes nuclear-infrastructure risk
Sarah: port and blockade pressure
Sarah: and attacks on U.S. and allied positions.
Rich: This is Iran War Daily.
Rich: Tonight: two soldiers, now named, a nuclear plant the watchdog won't condemn, and Gulf bases catching return fire. Stick with us.
Sarah: CBS News writes:
Quote: The U.S. military carried out a tenth consecutive night of strikes on Iran on Monday, the Central Command said.
Quote: Iran's army said it hit back, targeting U.S.
Quote: assets in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Quote: At least two U.S. soldiers were killed over the weekend in an Iranian attack on a U.S.
Quote: base in Jordan, and another is listed as missing in action.
Sarah: Tenth consecutive night of U.S.
Sarah: strikes on Iran — that's Central Command's own count, Monday.
Sarah: And Iran's army says it hit back at U.S.
Sarah: assets in Kuwait and Bahrain.
Rich: Kuwait and Bahrain. Those are the addresses.
Rich: The retaliation stopped being a forecast and started landing on named bases.
Sarah: The casualty numbers are getting harder
Sarah: too — at least two soldiers killed at a base in Jordan
Sarah: one more in Iraq after a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone
Sarah: and one listed missing.
Sarah: Nearly 100 injured across bases this month, per U.S. officials to CBS.
Rich: And overnight, Jordan says it knocked down five more Iranian drones — no casualties that time.
Rich: The Revolutionary Guard's owning it, saying they were aiming at a housing complex for U.S.
Rich: forces near Rukban. So the interim deal is now officially rubble.
Sarah: A week ago, this was resumed fighting around Hormuz.
Sarah: Now it's ten nights of strikes, with retaliation spread across three host countries.
Sarah: The military track has widened geographically; nobody's formally severed the diplomatic one, but nobody's feeding it either.
Rich: If contacts are still live while Iran is hitting Bahrain and Kuwait, what exactly are the mediators proposing to do with that?
Rich: You can't paper over a base attack with a one-page memo.
Sarah: One thing I'd be careful about: the Kuwait and Bahrain target claims still run through Iranian state sources.
Sarah: The strikes, CENTCOM confirms.
Sarah: The specific hits inside those two Gulf states — I want a second reference outside Tehran before I call them landed.
Sarah: PBS NewsHour, with Jon Gambrell:
Quote: The United States military said late Monday it was carrying out its 10th consecutive night of strikes on Iran in a push to reopen the Strait
Quote: of Hormuz. The renewed bombings followed the death of another American service member
Quote: and came after Iran launched attacks on American allies Kuwait
Quote: Jordan and Bahrain home of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
Sarah: Tenth consecutive night, per U.S.
Sarah: Central Command's own social post
Sarah: and CENTCOM says the goal plainly: further degrade the Iranian capabilities used to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Rich: Reopen the Strait.
Rich: That's the whole war in three words — the strikes exist because a fifth of the world's seaborne oil moves through that gap
Rich: and it's contested right now.
Sarah: And the sequence matters: CENTCOM says these strikes followed the death of another American service member
Sarah: and came after Iran hit Kuwait
Sarah: Jordan and Bahrain — Bahrain being home to the Navy's 5th Fleet.
Rich: So Iran is now landing on the 5th Fleet's front door.
Rich: The retaliation I kept saying would find an address — it found one. Bahrain. Kuwait.
Sarah: I'd hold the line on that, though — CENTCOM confirms the strikes it's running.
Sarah: Iran's claims about what it hit at those Gulf sites still come mostly from Iranian state media.
Sarah: I'm keeping those ledgers separate.
Rich: Fair. But even the buried line in this piece admits “glimmers of hope” on the diplomatic front while night ten is underway.
Rich: Ten nights of bombing and someone's still calling the channel alive?
Sarah: That's the question I want someone to push: is any mediator proposal actually getting a public response from either side
Sarah: or is “suspended” quietly becoming permanent while the strikes run?
Rich: Ask the war-risk underwriters that.
Rich: When Bahrain and Kuwait are targets, Lloyd's isn't reading press releases — they're repricing every Gulf hull and contractor.
Rich: That number tells you if anyone believes the glimmer.
Sarah: Mehr News Agency writes:
Quote: The IAEA is looking into reports of an overnight attack on the construction site of a planned nuclear power plant in Darkhovin, Iran.
Quote: The facility is in the very early stages of construction and contained no nuclear material when last visited by the IAEA.
Sarah: The IAEA has now addressed the Darkhovin strike directly — on its own X account, reported through Mehr.
Sarah: Grossi's agency says the site is in early construction, held no nuclear material when last inspected, and poses no radiological risk.
Sarah: What it did not say is the word “condemn.”
Rich: Right. A strike on a nuclear power plant
Rich: and the nuclear watchdog musters up a “call for military restraint in the vicinity.” That's the strongest verb Grossi could find.
Sarah: And note the split screen: the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran calls it terrorist, criminal, a violation of international law.
Sarah: The IAEA calls it a report it's “looking into.” Same event, wildly different tone.
Rich: Darkhovin isn't Bushehr — no Russian fuel, no Russian staff, no live reactor, empty concrete in Khuzestan.
Rich: So the radiological risk really is low.
Rich: But if the agency won't name a strike on nuclear infrastructure as a strike, what exactly is it there to do?
Sarah: That's the important signal, and it's separate from anything Tehran or Washington is claiming.
Sarah: The guardrail system around Iran's nuclear sites is under real strain — and the loudest thing the IAEA said this weekend was what it left
Sarah: out.
Sarah: From Stars and Stripes:
Quote: The Pentagon on Monday identified the two active-duty Army soldiers killed in Jordan late last week as 1st Lt.
Quote: Tyler James Feehan, 25, and Pvt.
Quote: Isabella Gonzales, 19.
Quote: They were serving at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base when it came under Iranian attack on Friday.
Quote: The Defense Department is investigating, according to a statement.
Sarah: The Pentagon on Monday named the two soldiers killed at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on July 18: 1st Lt.
Sarah: Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt.
Sarah: Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas.
Sarah: Both Army air defense artillery.
Sarah: That's the authority I wanted on the record — a name, a unit, a base, and the Defense Department attributing it.
Sarah: Feehan out of Fort Bragg, Gonzales out of Ansbach.
Sarah: A third service member is still being identified from remains found near the site, per CENTCOM.
Rich: Read the unit assignments again, Sarah.
Rich: Air defense artillery.
Rich: These were the people whose entire job is stopping Iranian missiles and drones from hitting that base.
Rich: Iran put a missile through the crew manning the shield.
Rich: And Gonzales was nineteen — nineteen, at a forward air defense position taking incoming fire.
Rich: That's who's actually standing in the gap out there.
Sarah: Seventeen U.S. troops killed now across this war, per Stars and Stripes, with another death in Iraq on Saturday.
Sarah: These two are the first identified American dead — the count has names now, not just a number.
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Host: Links to every story we covered today are in the show notes, so if one caught your attention, you can dig into the original reporting there.
Host: That's Iran War Daily for today.
Host: This is a Lantern Podcast.