Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, was killed in Saudi Arabia.
President Donald Trump announced "major combat operations" against Iran on Feb. 28, with massive joint U.S.-Israel strikes attack targeting military and government sites, officials said.
Iranian state television confirmed that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was among those killed in Tehran on the first day of strikes. His son Mojtaba Khamenei was chosen on Sunday to succeed him.
Iran is responding to the operation with missile and drone attacks targeting Israel, regional U.S. bases and multiple Gulf nations. Israel is also intensifying its long-running strike campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
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The State Department says it's aware of 27,000 Americans who have safely returned to the U.S. from the Middle East since Saturday.
The State Department said it is working to proactively call Americans to offer charter flights or ground transportation.
Three United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon peacekeepers were injured inside their base in southwestern Lebanon amid heavy firing on Friday, the peacekeeping mission said.
Two of the wounded were treated at an internal medical facility and the third, who was the most severely injured, had to be transferred to a hospital in Beirut for treatment, according to UNIFIL. A fire at the base had to be extinguished, it said.
UNIFIL said it "will investigate the circumstances of this terrible event," noting it's "unacceptable that peacekeepers performing Security Council-mandated tasks are targeted."
The U.S. military was striking targets in Iran on Saturday in an area where an elementary school was hit and dozens of children were killed, according to two people familiar with the initial findings.
Sources say that while the U.S. investigation into the incident remains ongoing, officials believe it is possible American forces are responsible for the attack, because they were conducting strikes in the vicinity of the school and the Israelis were not.
Reuters reported Thursday that military investigators believed it was "likely" that U.S. forces were responsible.
Iran's Education Ministry says 168 people were killed in the attack, which destroyed a girls' elementary school in Minab.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday referred questions about the strike to the Pentagon. Both Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Central Command have declined to provide specifics on the probe, saying the investigation is ongoing.
An analysis of satellite imagery by ABC News suggests the school was near an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps compound, but had been separated more than decade ago. A comparison of Google Earth images from 2013 and 2016 shows a wall has been built sometime in those three years, effectively separating the school that had been part of a cluster of IRGC buildings.
Full story here.
President Donald Trump wrote on social media on Friday that "there will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!"
"After that, and the selection of a GREAT & ACCEPTABLE Leader(s), we, and many of our wonderful and very brave allies and partners, will work tirelessly to bring Iran back from the brink of destruction," he wrote.
Later on Friday, in a phone interview with Axios, Trump explained, "Unconditional surrender could be that [the Iranians] announce it. But it could also be when they can't fight any longer because they don't have anyone or anything to fight with."
Full story here.
