Four U.S. troop deaths and dozens of wounded were removed from the Pentagon’s official Iran war tally and shifted into a new “Overseas Operations” category that now lists four dead and 207 wounded.
Tuesday’s database had shown 18 killed and 482 wounded in the Iran conflict, but by Wednesday it fell to 14 dead and 420 wounded; Pentagon spokesmen called the drop a temporary data disruption.
The four deaths came after fighting resumed in July—three troops were killed at a Jordan base hit by Iranian missiles and drones, and one died in Iraq during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone.
The new category starts on July 7, when Iran struck merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. resumed strikes, yet the Pentagon has offered little public explanation and has not held a war briefing since early May.