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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A total of 186 students and teachers have been killed and 114 others are injured from the U.S-Israeli attacks on different locations across Iran, according to the Iranian education ministry.
About 20 education centers have been either damaged or fully destroyed, the statement added.
-ABC News' Somayeh Malekian
Two Israeli sources briefed on the matter told ABC News on Wednesday that Israel had killed Rahman Makdem, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' special operations division who was alleged to have been behind the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in 2024.
The location of the killing was not immediately clear. Trump was informed of the operation by the Israelis, the sources said.
-ABC News' Jordana Miller and Joe Simonetti
Iranian state television said that the mourning ceremony for Iran's slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei planned for Wednesday evening had been postponed and will be held later at a time yet to be announced.
The announcement came after another wave of intense strikes targeting the capital Tehran.
-ABC News' Morgan Winsor
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are scheduled to hold a press conference at 8 a.m. ET on Wednesday, the Department of Defense said in a statement.
