Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine conduct a news briefing on Operation Epic Fury at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., on Friday, March 13, 2026. (Eric Brann/Department of Defense)
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday said Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is “wounded and likely disfigured” during a Pentagon briefing that was at times combative and defensive in tone.
“His father dead, he’s scared. He’s injured, he’s on the run, he lacks legitimacy,” Hegseth added. “Who’s in charge? Iran may not even know.”
Khamenei’s father and predecessor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed on Feb. 28, the first day of extensive U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Khamenei vowed in a written statement Thursday to keep attacking neighboring countries, comments that drew threats from President Donald Trump to unleash significant retaliation on Iran.
Khamenei called on Gulf nations to “shut down” U.S. bases in the region and said that protection promised by the U.S. was “nothing more than a lie.” Khamenei has not been seen in public since taking over as Iran’s leader, and his statement was read by a state TV anchor.
In a social media post Friday morning, Trump said “watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today,” while claiming that Iran’s military had been decimated and that its leaders had been “wiped from the face of the earth.”
The mood was more somber as Hegseth and Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed the crash of an Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker in Western Iraq on Thursday.
Earlier on Friday, U.S. Central Command said that four of the six crew members who were aboard have been confirmed dead. More than an hour after the press conference, CENTCOM confirmed that all six crew members were dead.
“Bad things can happen,” Hegseth said when acknowledging the crash.
CENTCOM said the identities of the service members are being withheld until 24 hours after the next of kin have been notified.
Caine said the crew was on a combat mission.
The refueler went down in friendly airspace at approximately 2 p.m. Eastern on Thursday. The circumstances of the crash are still under investigation but CENTCOM said it was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.
Thirteen service members have been killed as of Friday, the 13th day of Operation Epic Fury.
Six Army reservists assigned to the 103rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) were killed in a drone attack in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, on the second day of Operation Epic Fury. Another soldier, Army Sgt. Benjamin N. Pennington, 26, died Sunday after being wounded during a March 1 attack on the Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia.
More than 140 service members had been wounded but most injuries were minor and 108 had already returned to duty, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
The tanker is the fourth U.S. aircraft reported lost since the conflict with Iran began. Three F-15s were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti forces in a friendly fire incident on March 1.
The U.S. and Israel launched extensive strikes against Iran on Feb. 28 after months of stalled negotiations over the country’s nuclear program.
The U.S. military has struck more than 6,000 targets and “strike packages continue to launch every hour,” Caine said.
Included in those targets are more than 60 ships and 30 minelayers, CENTCOM said. The targeting of minelayers came as Iran’s new supreme leader said Thursday, in his first public statement since taking office, that the country would continue to restrict trade through the Strait of Hormuz.
Caine said three times during the news conference that Friday “will be our busiest day.”
“This mission remains complex, dangerous and difficult,” the chairman added.
Hegseth said as of Wednesday, Iran’s entire ballistic missile production capacity has been “functionally destroyed.”
“Soon, and very soon, all of Iran’s defense companies will be destroyed,” he said.
After nearly five minutes of speaking, Hegseth shifted gears to complain about the media covering the Iranian conflict. He called out CNN for its reporting that the Trump administration underestimated the war’s impact on the Strait of Hormuz.
“CNN doesn’t think we thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report. The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Hegseth said, drawing gasps from folks in the room. Ellison is the CEO of Paramount Skydance, which owns CBS and is in the process of acquiring Warner Bros. Discover, CNN’s parent company.
Hegseth’s defensive posture for the media was discussed before acknowledging the KC-135 crash.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC in an interview Thursday the U.S. Navy is not ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Wright’s comments come after a post on his social media account wrongly claimed on Tuesday that the Navy had escorted a tanker through the strait. The post was quickly deleted from his account.
Iran has continued to threaten vessels passing through the strait, and U.S. intelligence has assessed it is taking steps to place mines in the waterway, CBS News reported Tuesday.
Caine told reporters that it is a “tactically complex environment before I think we want to take anything through there at scale.”
An ongoing military investigation has determined that the U.S. is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the preliminary findings The New York Times reported.
Hegseth, when asked about the reports, said CENTCOM has designated an investigative officer to complete the review. A command investigation will take as long as necessary to address all the matters surrounding the incident.
“But I will note to this group, and to the world, there’s only one entity in this conflict between US and Iran that never targets civilians. Literally never target civilians,” Hegseth added. “I look at the process that’s used on dynamic strikes or on boat strikes and others. We have a very high-fidelity process in that case. So we don’t target, Iran does. We will investigate, we’ll get to the truth, and we’ll share it when we have it.”
Since the war began, at least 1,230 people have been killed in Iran, at least 480 in Lebanon and 12 in Israel, according to officials.
Stars and Stripes reporter Lara Korte contributed to this report.
