The Trump administration is preparing for a possible ground invasion of Iran, with thousands of U.S. ground forces — including Special Operations Forces, seaborne marines, and elite Army paratroopers — arriving in the Middle East. The buildup follows the loss of two U.S. warplanes and a large-scale rescue mission to recover downed airmen from inside Iranian territory.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump vowed to strike Iran's power plants and bridges if by Tuesday night the regime did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran replied that it would not open the strait, through which a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas flows, unless the United States pays for war damages. Iran also warned that it would retaliate more crushingly and extensively. Trump posted on Truth Social: "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again." In a separate post, he wrote, "We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World."

Over the weekend, Iranian forces shot down a U.S. F-15E fighter jet, and the two airmen aboard ejected over southwestern Iran. A second U.S. warplane, an A-10 Warthog dispatched as part of a rescue mission for the F-15E crew, was hit multiple times, but its pilot flew out of Iran and ejected safely over Kuwaiti airspace before the aircraft crashed. A U.S. HH-60W Jolly Green II combat helicopter also came under heavy fire; its crew sustained minor injuries but left Iranian airspace without mishap.

The F-15E pilot was rescued shortly after ejecting. The second airman, an Air Force weapons officer, fled into a mountainous region, climbed ridges several thousand feet high despite being injured, and evaded Iranian forces for more than a day. He hid in a rock crevice and activated an emergency beacon to signal his location.

The beacon set off a rescue mission deep inside Iran involving SEAL Team Six commandos, hundreds of other military personnel, and 155 aircraft, including 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft, and four bombers. Two U.S. transport planes landed at a remote forward operating base inside Iran to extract the team and the airman but experienced mechanical problems, and three additional planes were dispatched hours later. Before departing, the team destroyed the immobilized aircraft to prevent sophisticated technology from falling into Iranian hands. No U.S. service members died in the operation.

At a White House press conference on Monday, Trump said, "It's a risky decision, because we could have ended up with a hundred dead, as opposed to one or two. It's a hard decision to make, but in the United States military we leave no American behind."