The number of U.S. military fatalities linked to the Iran war has increased to 19 after the death of a female officer, it has been reported. The service member had a fatal medical emergency while flying to Saudi Arabia on a military flight, an unnamed defense official told the military publication Task & Purpose. According to the Pentagon’s casualty database, the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), the service member was a female officer aged over 35.
The reported fatality is the 19th death listed under the two sections of the database referring to the Iran war. It comes amid questions over the Trump administration’s casualty accounting practices for the conflict. Newsweek has contacted the Pentagon for comment outside of office hours.
News of the latest fatality followed The Washington Post reporting last week that more American service members had died in the Middle East since the Iran conflict started on February 28 than the Pentagon has publicly disclosed. Five U.S. officials told the Post at least 22 service members had died in the Middle East since the Trump administration initiated the Iran war. A sixth official put the tally at 23.
As of Tuesday, the DCAS showed 19 U.S. personnel had died because of hostile and nonhostile action in the Iran war and more than 820 had been wounded. Among the U.S. military deaths deemed non-hostile but resulting from "accidents" was a Navy officer, who died in a helicopter crash, and six airmen who were killed in a crash of a KC-135 tanker aircraft. When fighting resumed in July following a ceasefire, three U.S. soldiers were killed in Jordan after attacks on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base which Iran has repeatedly targeted.
A fourth soldier died in Iraq while troops tried to disable a crashed Iranian drone. Also in July, the Pentagon lowered its official death toll for the Iran war from 18 to 14 after four service members killed were removed, sparking controversy. The Pentagon denied that the change was an attempt to conceal casualties, maintaining instead that it was the result of "temporary data disruptions" that would be corrected.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has rejected claims that U.S. war casualty figures were not accurate, saying last week, "even if we wanted to attempt to hide a combat death, we never would and we never could." Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Matthew Robinson and Tony Phillips.
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