United States forces have launched strikes on Iran for a ninth consecutive night, hours after the military confirmed a third soldier was killed in combat. 

CENTCOM announced on social media Sunday night that it fired at Iran starting at 7pm EST, vowing to ‘continue degrading Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz.’

American forces have already devastated Iranian missile depots, drones and air defenses in a barrage of airstrikes over the weekend, as the US military promised ‘swift punishment’ for the deaths of two service members.
Those strikes concluded at 11.30pm on Saturday and were targeted at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces responsible for the fatal attack on US assets in Jordan on Friday.

But on Sunday, CENTCOM announced that a third service member was then killed during a ‘controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone’ in Northern Iraq during action on Saturday. 

The military has not released any of the soldiers’ identities out of respect for the families, as more than 50,000 soldiers were deployed across the Middle East.

Those troops were described as ‘highly vigilant, focused, lethal, and ready.’

 United States forces launched strikes on Iran for a ninth consecutive night on Sunday. A recent strike on Iranian assets is pictured

A heavily-damaged bridge which was hit by a US strike is pictured along the road connecting Roudan and Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on July 18

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.