A B-52 Stratofortress bomber flies over Edwards Air Force Base in February 2026. U.S. Central Command reported the bomber type was used to hit Iranian missile sites on Tuesday. (U.S. Air Force)
Battlefronts in the war with Iran stretched 3,600 miles as of Wednesday morning.
Turkey, in southeastern Europe, reported an Iranian missile attack while the U.S. sank an Iranian warship in international waters near the southern tip of India.
The incidents illustrated the unrelenting nature of attacks and counterattacks since the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran five days ago. U.S. officials say they have made more than 2,000 airstrikes since the initial attack on Feb. 28. Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said Iran had launched more than 500 ballistic missiles and 2000 drones since Saturday.
Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based news agency said Wednesday that the Iranian Red Crescent had reported 1,045 killed in Iran. The figure could not be independently confirmed by groups or media outside Iran. The death tolls elsewhere remained unchanged — at least 11 in Israel, six US soldiers and nine killed in Gulf states.
Cooper, in a recorded statement, said that the military campaign was going as planned.
“My overall operational assessment is that we are ahead of our game plan,” he said. “We continue with 24/7 strikes into Iran from seabed to space and cyberspace.”
Cooper said the U.S. and Israel had established air superiority over Iran.
“Our B-2 bombers and B-1 bombers have executed uncontested surgical strikes against multiple missile facilities deep inside Iran,” he said. “Then just last night, a B-52 bomber force struck ballistic missile and command and control posts.”
Cooper also said the Army launched its new Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), called “prism,” which has a maximum range of 300 to 600 miles, depending on the variant. Video released by CENTCOM showed an Army M142 HIMARS system launching the missiles.
Task Force Scorpion, the Army’s first drone strike force, has launched several one-way LUCAS (Low‑Cost Uncrewed Combat Attack System) drones at Iranian targets. The LUCAS is a reverse-engineered version of the Iranian Shahed-136 drone.
“We took them back to America, made them better, and fired them right back at Iran,” Cooper said.
The Precision Strike Missile was fired in December 2025 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. (U.S. Army)
LUCAS drones are positioned on the tarmac at a base in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility on Nov. 23, 2025. The aircraft are part of a one-way attack drone squadron CENTCOM recently deployed to the Middle East. (U.S. Central Command)
Israel’s military said Wednesday that one of its F-35 fighters shot down an Iranian Yak-130 light attack plane on Wednesday in the first reported shootdown involving manned aircraft in the war.
At sea, Cooper said the U.S. has sunk 17 Iranian ships and a submarine.
A U.S. submarine sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena off the coast of Sri Lanka, about 2,000 miles from Iran, according to Sri Lankan officials.
The ship made a high-profile appearance at a regional naval event last month in Visakhapatnam, the headquarters port of the Indian navy’s Eastern Command.
The U.S. Navy 7th fleet also took part in the event, MILAN 2026. “Milan” in Hindi means “meeting.”
CENTCOM confirmed that a submarine had sunk a major Iranian ship using a Mark 48 torpedo but did not identify its target by name. The Mark 48 is designed to dive beneath a ship’s hull and explode beneath the centerline, breaking the keel of the target.
Sri Lanka identified the ship as the IRIS Dena. Rescue teams pulled 32 sailors out of the water and recovered 87 bodies, according to a statement by Sri Lankan foreign minister Vijitha Herath.
The U.S. also reported “putting a hole” in Iran’s “most operational submarine.”
Iran has three Russian-built diesel-electric powered Kilo-class submarines that it purchased from Russia between 1992 and 1996 for $600 million, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a policy forum monitoring arms developments.
The vessels were designed in the 1970s and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, were sold to several countries, including Iran, Poland, Algeria, and Vietnam.
A photo of IRIS Dena, the Iranian ship sunk by a U.S. submarine this week. The photo is from a “welcome” message from the Eastern Command of the Indian navy posted on X for a port visit by the IRIS Dena to Visakhapatnam on the Bay of Bengal. (Indian navy Eastern Command on X)
A U.S. reconnaissance photo of a Russian-built, Kilo-class diesel submarine in the central Mediterranean in January 1996 on its way to Iran. Ships and aircraft from the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet tracked the voyage. Navy officials said this was the third of three of the Russian submarines purchased by Iran. (Department of Defense)
The Iranian submarines were last reported at the end of 2025 to be based at Bandar Abbas in the Strait of Hormuz, where two were operational at any time, according to NTI. The submarines have been deployed in the past to the eastern mouth of the Strait of Hormuz and have also been reported in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
Iran continued its missile and drone counterattacks, primarily targeting the Gulf States. The New York Times reported an Iranian drone had hit the CIA station at the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday. No one was injured in the attack, the newspaper reported.
Iranian counterattacks spread Wednesday as Turkey announced it had shot down an Iranian ballistic missile headed for a target in the country, which is a part of NATO.
France, the United Kingdom and Germany did not take part in the attack on Iran, but all have taken defensive measures as Iran attempts to widen the conflict into a regional war.
The French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, along with its air wing and two frigate escorts, has been ordered from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean. French President Emmanuel Macron announced late Tuesday.
Macron said Rafale fighter jets and anti-missile systems were being moved into the Mediterranean following the attack on a British airbase in Cyprus. Macron said Cyprus was a member of the European Union and France had a duty to help protect it from attack.
In the U.S., concern by petroleum companies over the impact of the war drove the price of regular gasoline up nearly 9 cents, a day after it rose 11 cents. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 325 points at 3 p.m. Eastern Time, recovering much of the losses on Tuesday.
