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The Pentagon said Monday that nearly 100 U.S. troops have been injured in the war with Iran over the past two weeks, as the U.S. military identified two soldiers killed in Friday's attack on a Jordanian air base and faced questions over the accuracy and timeliness of its casualty reporting.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote on X: "While nearly 100 service members were deemed to have some degree of injury since July 7, 2026, 96% have returned to duty. They are determined to get back in the fight. The vast majority of injuries experienced were minor concussions. Further updates will be posted on the Defense Casualty Analysis System."
Parnell's post came in response to a New York Times (NYT) report claiming the Pentagon had withheld dozens of U.S. military injuries sustained in the war with Iran.
CNN separately reported that the military had been slow to disclose injuries, saying the Pentagon described the delay as intended to protect service members.
The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon's online casualty database, the Defense Casualty Analysis System, had been stagnant for days or weeks, showing 14 dead and 427 injured since the war began Feb. 28.
According to the Post, figures updated briefly on Monday evening showed 18 dead and 447 injured. These totals included casualties from Friday's attack at Jordan's Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, which killed three U.S. troops (one still unidentified at the time) and wounded several others.
The Post reported that, with no explanation from the Pentagon, the database reverted Monday night to the earlier, lower figures.
The Post noted that if Parnell's disclosure of nearly 100 injuries in the past two weeks alone is accurate, the cumulative number of service members injured since February could exceed 500.
The Pentagon identified the two soldiers killed in Friday's attack as 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas.
Gonzales died the night of the strike; Feehan died the following day from injuries sustained in the same attack. Feehan served with the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, while Gonzales was assigned to the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Ansbach, Germany.
A third service member remains unidentified.
The Pentagon said unidentified remains were found at the Jordan base after a service member had been listed as missing in action (MIA).
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the attack that killed Feehan and Gonzales was one of the three separate Iranian missile strikes on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base within a 24-hour period last week, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The Journal reported that during the first strike, debris hit the base's gym after a siren gave troops time to shelter. Some personnel were wounded en route to the bunkers, but none were killed.
A second missile, fired hours later, struck an empty aircraft hangar, according to the Journal. The third strike hit containerized housing units where soldiers had been sleeping. Sirens sounded a third time, but reports indicate that not everyone made it to shelter.
The report noted that it was unclear whether the soldiers who died were inside the housing units or caught outside en route to shelter. Furthermore, U.S. officials have not released evidence indicating that Iran specifically targeted the housing units to maximize casualties.
At least 18 U.S. service members have been killed supporting the war effort since it began nearly five months ago, including three since combat resumed roughly a week earlier, the two soldiers in Jordan and a service member killed Saturday in northern Iraq during what CENTCOM described as a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone.
At least nine American service members have been killed in drone and missile strikes on air bases in Jordan and Saudi Arabia and at a U.S. Army operations center in Kuwait since the war began. Six were killed when a refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq in March, and a sailor went missing and died after a helicopter made an emergency landing in the Arabian Sea on July 1.
One military official familiar with the matter, speaking to the Post on condition of anonymity, said Iran has launched approximately 8,500 drones and missiles at regional targets since Feb. 28, of which roughly 100 have penetrated U.S. and regional partner air defenses.
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