The Pentagon has faced criticism after four US soldiers killed in Jordan and Iraq were removed from its official death toll for the Iran war, reducing the reported total from 18 to 14. The change has prompted accusations that Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s department is attempting to minimise the human cost of the conflict by excluding deaths occurring after President Donald Trump’s April ceasefire.

A Pentagon official reportedly attributed the alteration to temporary disruptions on its casualty website and said it would be corrected quickly. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy called the removal of the soldiers’ names an “abomination”, arguing that excluding them because they died after the ceasefire insulted their sacrifice and obscured the war’s true toll.