The Pentagon has acknowledged that more American troops died in the Middle East during operations against Iran than it had publicly reported, raising the official death toll to 21 in a late-Friday update to its casualty database — weeks after the department's leadership insisted nothing was missing.
The revised figures follow reporting by The Washington Post last month, which cited six U.S. officials as saying actual losses were higher than the numbers listed in the Defense Casualty Analysis System, the Pentagon's public casualty database. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed that reporting as "a complete lie" in a social media post at the time. Late Friday, the database was updated anyway.
The two newly acknowledged deaths are those of Maj. Sorffly Davius, 46, an Army National Guard member who died in Kuwait on March 6, and an unidentified Navy sailor who died by suicide in September, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The casualty system now also lists 865 wounded service members.
The military additionally recognized Sgt. Devin A. Seibel, 26, who was killed in a training accident in Iraq in May — but placed his death under Operation Inherent Resolve, the decade-long campaign against the Islamic State, rather than the Iran operations. That change brings the broader number of U.S. military deaths in the Middle East since February 28, when operations against Iran began, to 22.
The Pentagon has split casualties from the Iran war across two administrative categories. Operation Epic Fury, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, counts 15 deaths and 417 wounded. A second "overseas operations" category, covering casualties since July 7, lists six deaths and 448 wounded. A Pentagon official told the Associated Press in July the second category was created because Epic Fury had concluded and renewed fighting would be recorded under the new designation.
Reporting on the losses was further complicated after President Trump declared Operation Epic Fury over even as fighting continued, with later deaths recorded under different contingency operations instead of being counted alongside the Iran campaign.
House Armed Services Committee Democrats welcomed what they called a long-overdue public correction. "There is no excuse for a mistake of this magnitude," said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, calling it "an embarrassment" for the military that Congress had to get involved to force the correction.
The Pentagon did not concede its earlier figures were wrong, but said it would add a new "pending adjudication" category to its casualty reporting. Approached by the Washington Post, the department said only that it "continues to maintain a steadfast commitment to the transparent, accurate accounting of all service member casualties."
The revised toll is likely to keep pressure on the Pentagon to explain how the deaths were excluded from its official statistics for so long — and whether every disputed case has actually been resolved.