Pentagon updates official count of US service members killed during Iran war - report

The Washington Post reported in September that the previous official count of 18 may have been inaccurate and that at least four service members were potentially excluded from the official tally.

The Pentagon officially updated its count of US service members who have been killed in connection with Operation Epic Fury and the ongoing war with Iran to 21 from the previous figure of 18, according to a Saturday report from The Washington Post.

The update to the US’s Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) included the two noncombat deaths of Army National Guard Maj. Sorffly Davius, who died in Kuwait in March, and an unidentified Navy suicide, an anonymous US official told The Washington Post.

The Washington Post reported in September that the previous official count of 18 may have been inaccurate and that at least four service members were potentially excluded from the DCAS tally, at the time citing six US officials familiar with the Pentagon’s internal casualty accounting data.

Following the update, 15 deaths are included in the DCAS count for service members killed during Operation Epic Fury, and an additional six are listed as military deaths during overseas operations.

According to The Washington Post, the category of military deaths during overseas operations was created after US President Donald Trump declared that Operation Epic Fury had officially ended, despite ongoing hostilities and exchanges of strikes. 

Hegseth labeled reports of inaccurate death count a 'complete lie'

In September, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decried The Washington Post’s report that the official Pentagon death count was inaccurate as “a complete lie.”

In a post on X/Twitter at the time, Hegseth said The Washington Post was “worse than Iranian state media.”

US House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith and Military Personnel Subcommittee Ranking Member Chrissy Houlahan, who previously urged the US Department of Defense to look into the discrepancies in casualty numbers, released a statement on Friday responding to the correction.

“There is no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude,” they wrote, adding that “requiring Congress to step in to rectify such an egregious error is an embarrassment for the Department [of Defense].”

They stated that they are glad to see that the incorrect count had been updated, but vowed to continue to fight for transparency, accountability, and procedures to ensure such miscounts do not happen in the future.