The Pentagon announced a new casualty category for U.S. service members involved in renewed fighting with Iran, tying the change to the end of Operation Epic Fury. The department removed four service members who died and dozens injured in recent clashes with Iran from the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), its public database tracking war deaths and injuries, and placed them under a new rubric titled “Overseas Operations.”

A Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Hill on Wednesday, July 29th, 2026, that since Operation Epic Fury has concluded, casualties are now classified as overseas operations within the U.S. According to DCAS data, 18 service members have been killed and 624 wounded since the U.S. and Israel initiated the conflict in late February.

This reclassification comes amid increased scrutiny of the Pentagon's transparency regarding the mounting human cost of the conflict, which has persisted for over five months. The department has not held a press conference since early May.

During recent testimony before Congress, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not suggest the war with Iran had ended and reported that the conflict’s cost has risen to $37.5 billion. Meanwhile, tensions escalated when Iran fired a series of ballistic missiles at a U.S. base in Jordan on Tuesday evening, July 28th, 2026, following a pause on strikes announced by President Trump over the weekend.

President Trump stated on Wednesday that it is now the U.S. military’s "turn" to strike Iran after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched five ballistic missiles at the U.S. base. "In the meantime, we’re going to be hitting them very hard because it’s our turn to hit them," Trump said.

Sources