Amid Iran conflict, ‘non-hostile’ deaths of 2 US airmen raise overseas toll — SkimNews
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- Pentagon's recently updated Defense Casualty Analysis System lists two U.S. airmen who died last week as 'non-hostile' deaths, raising American military fatalities since the war in Iran began on Feb. 28 to 23.
- Defense Casualty Analysis System lists one death as illness- or injury-related and the other as 'pending,' with the Air Force confirming the pending case is under investigation but not identifying the investigating department.
- Air Force withheld both airmen's identities despite the usual Department of Defense policy of releasing names 24 hours after next-of-kin notifications, and would not say whether it had contacted the families; DCAS describes both men as white and in mid- to senior-enlisted E5–E9 grades.
- CENTCOM's area of responsibility, spanning Northeast Africa across the Middle East to Central and South Asia, covers the site of one airman's death, while the other died in the United States, with the service declining to say where he was operating from or how he was transported to the U.S.
- Operation Epic Fury — the Pentagon lists both deaths under the 'Overseas Operations' category, which starts July 7, because it deems Epic Fury concluded; a defense official previously gave May 5 as the termination date, and officials would not specify when the operation ended.
- Hegseth drew criticism from Democratic members of Congress, who accused the defense secretary of using the Overseas Operations classification to hide casualties.
- Defense Casualty Analysis System records 866 service members wounded in action since the war began — 417 under Epic Fury and 449 under Overseas Operations — while the Overseas Operations death list holds eight service members, four hostile and four non-hostile, against 15 under Epic Fury.
Why it matters: By declaring Operation Epic Fury concluded and moving two recent deaths into 'Overseas Operations,' the Pentagon split 23 American fatalities across two categories, prompting Democratic lawmakers to accuse Hegseth of obscuring the war's toll. The 866 service members wounded since Feb. 28 sit on both sides of that same accounting split.
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