The United States sank an Iranian warship in international waters with a torpedo fired from an American submarine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday, as the widening military conflict continues to intensify.

“We are just accelerating, not decelerating,” Hegseth said at the Pentagon.

Iran has stepped up retaliatory strikes across the Middle East, firing on Bahrain, Kuwait and Israel and threatening to plunge the region into a prolonged war.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in Iran since the U.S.-Israeli weekend assault on Tehran, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. At least 11 people have been killed in Israel.

Six U.S. service members have died in retaliatory strikes, according to the U.S. Central Command. The names of four of the dead Americans were released by the Pentagon on Tuesday afternoon. They were killed by a drone strike while stationed in Kuwait, according to the Department of Defense.

President Trump has defended ordering the U.S. strikes without congressional approval, saying Iran's refusal to halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons, combined with a growing ballistic missile program, posed “an intolerable threat.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the United States will “unleash” even more attacks in the near future that will mark a significant increase in the scope and in the intensity of its assault on Iran.

Trump and U.S. officials have not ruled out sending ground troops into Iran.

The president said that he expects the U.S. military campaign — dubbed “Operation Epic Fury” — will last four to five weeks but also said that the United States has the capability to go “far longer than that.”

Writing on Truth Social Monday night, Trump added that wars “can be fought ‘forever.’” (Yahoo! News)

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