Trump says US forces sink 9 Iranian warships

WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump said on Sunday the US forces have sunk nine Iranian warships and largely destroyed Iran's navy headquarters.

"I have just been informed that we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

"In a different attack, we largely destroyed their Naval Headquarters," Trump said, adding that the US military is going after the rest of the Iranian navy's fleet.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump told Fox News that 48 senior Iranian officials have been killed in the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

The US Central Command also said on Sunday that US forces struck an Iranian Jamaran-class corvette at the start of the military campaign dubbed Operation Epic Fury on Saturday morning.

"The ship is currently sinking to the bottom of the Gulf of Oman at a Chah Bahar pier," the command said.

The US military has carried out strikes against over 1,000 Iranian targets so far since starting the operation on Saturday, including the headquarters of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the command said.

On Saturday night, US B-2 stealth bombers, armed with 2,000 pounds of bombs, struck Iran's hardened ballistic missile facilities, it said.

The command also denied Iran's claims to have struck USS Abraham Lincoln with ballistic missiles.

"The Lincoln was not hit. The missiles launched didn't even come close," it said.

Three US soldiers were killed in action and five others seriously injured as part of the military operation against Iran, the command said.

The United States and Israel began large-scale airstrikes against Iran on Saturday morning, prompting Tehran to retaliate with waves of missile and drone attacks on Israel and US military bases in the Gulf region.