Media: The U.S. Conceals Casualty Numbers in Middle East Situation

A detailed investigation by the media shows that the real human cost of the U.S. military deployments in the Middle East is far higher than the numbers publicly acknowledged by the Pentagon. Since October 2023, nearly 750 U.S. service members in the region have been killed or injured.

The report says the casualty figures published by U.S. Central Command are outdated and incomplete, while it also refuses to clarify basic information about the number of U.S. personnel killed or injured and the scale of attacks on U.S. facilities—an action described by a defense official as a “casualty underreporting.”

The report notes that in just the Friday attack by Iran on the air base of Saudi Prince Sultan (Sultan’s Air Force base) there were at least 15 U.S. service members injured. Overall, more than a month into the U.S. campaign against Iran, hundreds of U.S. service members have been injured or killed, while the publicly released figures by Central Command are clearly far lower.

U.S. Central Command previously issued a statement saying: “Since the launch of Operation Epic Fury, about 303 U.S. service members have been injured.” But when the data was released, it was already three days behind, and the report says it did not include at least 15 injured soldiers from Friday’s attack. Central Command did not respond to requests made multiple times to update the data.

The command also refused to release official statistics on U.S. service members killed in the region since the start of the war. Based on analysis and estimates, the number of deaths is “no fewer than 15.”

An anonymous defense official told the outlet: “Clearly, this is a topic that U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth and the White House are desperately trying to conceal.”

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Edited by Liu Mingliang