wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cBut the Americans claim that they have been killed in action. Despite their futile efforts, the truth is not something they can hide for too long.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US military, however, quickly refuted the claims with its own statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iranian \u2060regime is \u2060doing everything it can to peddle lies and deceive. \u200cThis is yet another clear example,\u201d said US Navy Captain Tim Hawkins in response to Larijani\u2019s post.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson from US Central Command (CENTCOM) echoed Hawkins\u2019s denial in a statement to Al Jazeera Arabic.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Iranian regime\u2019s claims of capturing American soldiers are yet another example of its lies and deceptions,\u201d the spokesman said.<\/p>\n
At least six members of the US armed forces have been killed since the war began on February 28, after the US and Israel launched a joint attack. The administration of US President Donald Trump dubbed the military campaign \u201cOperation Epic Fury\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Tasnim news agency in Iran reported this week that an estimated 1,332 people have been killed in the war since last week. That death toll includes approximately 180 children who died in a strike on a school in the southeastern city of Minab.<\/p>\n
An analysis from The New York Times has suggested the school was struck by the US. Trump, however, blamed Iran as he took questions from reporters while on board the presidential plane, Air Force One.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on what I\u2019ve seen, that was done by Iran,\u201d he said on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Trump spent the day travelling back and forth between his resort in South Florida \u2013 where he was hosting Latin American officials \u2013 and Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where the bodies of the killed soldiers were transferred.<\/p>\n
All six were killed on March 1, one day into the war, during an Iranian drone strike on a Kuwait port.<\/p>\n
The US military has identified the dead soldiers as Declan Cody, Jeffrey O\u2019Brien, Cody Khork, Noah Tietjens, Nicole Amor and Robert Marzan.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very sad day. I\u2019m glad we paid our respects. It\u2019s tough. It\u2019s a tough situation,\u201d Trump said as he left the \u201cdignified transfer\u201d ceremony on Air Force One.<\/p>\n
Still, he struck an upbeat note about the war itself, calling its progress \u201cas good as it could be\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aWe\u2019re winning the war by a lot. We\u2019ve decimated their whole evil empire,\u201d Trump said of Iran.<\/p>\n
Trump has yet to rule out deploying US soldiers to Iran. In an interview last Monday with The New York Post, Trump refused to commit either way.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery president says, \u2018There will be no boots on the ground\u2019. I don\u2019t say it,\u201d he told the publication.<\/p>\n
Trump and officials like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have also warned that the US death toll could continue to rise.<\/p>\n
In a telephone call with NBC News, Trump said, \u201cWe expect casualties, but in the end, it\u2019s going to be a great deal for the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has estimated the war could last four to five weeks.<\/p>\n
The war has divided Trump\u2019s Make America Great Again (MAGA) base, with some expressing frustration with the president\u2019s latest military offensive.<\/p>\n
Critics pointed out that Trump campaigned for re-election on the promise not to \u201cfight endless wars\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly can\u2019t believe we\u2019re doing this again,\u201d conservative media host Megyn Kelly posted on social media on Friday, responding to reports that Trump was considering \u201cboots on the ground\u201d in Iran.<\/p>\n
Former Congress member Marjorie Taylor Greene, meanwhile, criticised Trump for betraying his \u201cAmerica First\u201d campaign promises.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrump and his admin betrayed their campaign promises of No More Foreign Wars\/No More Regime Change,\u201d Taylor Greene wrote on Wednesday, warning of voter backlash during the midterm elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe voted for America FIRST and that means AMERICANS FIRST AND AMERICANS ONLY,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
A poll on Friday from the news agencies NPR and PBS and the research firm Marist found that a majority of US citizens disapproved of the war.<\/p>\n
Of the 1,591 adults surveyed, 56 percent opposed the conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an unpopular war, according to all the polling data we\u2019ve seen in the last week,\u201d said Al Jazeera correspondent Kimberly Halkett.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost Americans believe that this is one that cannot be afforded \u2013 and cannot be afforded in terms of the potential loss of life, given the fact we\u2019ve now had six Americans killed, and their bodies returned to the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ali Larijani, the head of Iran\u2019s National Security Council, claimed that his country has captured United States soldiers since the outbreak of war last week. The comments came in a post on Saturday on the social media platform X, in which Larijani suggested the US was concealing the captures. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}