Two additional U.S. service members were killed in Jordan on Saturday, raising the total number of American deaths in the Iran conflict to 16, U.S. Central Command said. The deaths show that risk of death can exist without ground troops, as the fighting involves drones, missiles and aircraft. American forces are deployed across the Middle East, making other nations potential targets as the conflict intensified after peace talks collapsed. President Donald Trump said the war is necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but he had not issued a separate statement on the latest deaths; the White House instead released a statement from U.S. Central Command. The first U.S. fatalities occurred on February 28 after an Iranian drone struck a civilian port in Kuwait, killing six soldiers who were part of a logistics unit based in Iowa and were working in a container‑style building without defenses. A seventh soldier died more than a week later from wounds sustained in a March 1 attack on the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. In late March, six service members were killed when a KC‑135 refueling aircraft supporting U.S. operations crashed in Iraq; U.S. Central Command said the aircraft was in friendly airspace at the time of an unspecified incident involving another aircraft. On Monday, the U.S. military reported that a Navy pilot died in a helicopter crash in the Arabian Sea; the Navy initially described the July 1 incident as an emergency landing and said there was no indication of hostile action, and three other crew members were rescued. On Saturday, U.S. Central Command said two service members were killed in Jordan while defending against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks, and one service member remains missing. The military said it will withhold additional information, including the names of the deceased, until 24 hours after families have been notified. Iranian authorities reported at least 50 people killed and more than 500 wounded in U.S. strikes over the past three weeks, including eight deaths in a bridge strike on Friday, and casualties among ship crews and foreign workers in the Gulf, Israel and Lebanon.