The Pentagon lowered its official Iran war death toll to 14 from 18 in the space of a day, removing four service members killed this month.
The department's casualty database showed seven of the 14 total deaths were classified as "hostile," said the database, and listed the entries as updated as of Wednesday; all deaths listed occurred in March.
Three military officials said the four service members killed this past weekend — three in Jordan and one in northern Iraq — were removed from the count because their deaths came after President Donald Trump declared a ceasefire in April.
The acting press secretary for the Pentagon, Joel Valdez, attributed the change to "temporary data disruptions" on the department's casualty website and said the disruptions would be fixed quickly.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said on Monday that Trump has not shared Iran war casualty statistics with Congress and that "there has been no transparency from the President or the Pentagon about the full extent of equipment losses and casualty statistics."
The Pentagon has released little on U.S. military strategy since the ceasefire collapsed and hasn't held a major briefing on the war since early May.
Trump has used the higher figure for the death toll; at an event on Thursday he said, "I had a very sad day yesterday. I went to Dover, four great American patriots killed. That's 18 and one is too many, but it's 18."
The Pentagon and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesperson, said on X that the removals were caused by "temporary data disruption" and that "site anomalies are currently being resolved in coordination with the Military Services." He criticized what he called collusion with anonymous sources, saying the episode was being used to "push a completely fake story." The site was last updated on July 22 and still showed 14 killed as of Friday.
The Congressional Research Service says when an active-duty service member dies the service "is required to complete a form (DD 1300 Report of Casualty) that includes circumstances related to death" and that information is then entered into the Defense Casualty database.
A separate report cited three sources who said the names were removed because the service members had died after a ceasefire declared in April, but the four were killed about one week after Trump notified Congress in a letter on July 10 that the ceasefire had ended and military action had resumed on July 7.
The deaths in the war with Iran have been listed on the site under Operation Epic Fury. When the Pentagon released the names of two of three killed in an attack in Jordan last week, it initially classified them under Operation Inherent Resolve and later amended the releases to say they had died in "overseas operations." Earlier in the week the four service members' deaths appeared under Epic Fury and then their names no longer appeared there.
The "names of the fallen" list under the operation shows only 13 names rather than 14, and the Navy has a "pending death" entry for July that could bring the total to 14 if confirmed. The Navy identified Cmdr. Gabriel Edwards as missing after a helicopter's emergency landing in the Arabian Sea on July 1.
Parnell confirmed that nearly 100 U.S. service members had been injured since July 7 and said 96% of those had returned to duty and that the vast majority of injuries were "minor concussions." The casualty site listed 420 wounded in the war as of Friday, down from 482 earlier in the week; a U.S. official said even the higher number would not accurately reflect the latest count of those injured since the war began.
Parnell said further updates will be posted on the Defense Casualty Analysis System.