US troop casualties in Iran war surpass 600 as fighting pauses

The number of U.S. service members wounded in the war with Iran has surpassed 600, according to the latest figures posted to the Pentagon’s casualty tracking database.

The updated casualty figures come as U.S. forces have gone three consecutive days without reporting strikes on Iran following nearly two weeks of sustained fighting over the Strait of Hormuz.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said last week that nearly 100 service members had been wounded in the retaliatory attacks since July 7. That number is now 207, with the majority of injuries coming from the Army, according to the Defense Casualty Analysis System.

The Pentagon also appears to be separating Iran war-related casualties into two categories, Operation Epic Fury and “overseas operations,” which began July 7. Combined, the two operations account for 624 wounded service members. 

Eighteen U.S. service members have been killed in the war, four of whom died in the weeks since armed combat resumed following the collapse of a tentative ceasefire.

The new operation began the same day President Donald Trump informed Congress that the nation was once again at war with Iran, a move the administration says restarted the 60-day clock that allows the president to use the military without congressional approval. 

U.S. Central Command on Friday halted its attacks on Iran after 13 consecutive days of strikes targeting Iranian air defenses, coastal surveillance sites and drone and missile storage facilities. 

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said Sunday that the strikes were on hold to allow for diplomatic discussions to progress. 

“What the president is doing right now, as we’ve seen all along, is giving some talks some space,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press. 

But he didn’t rule out escalation in the future. 

“The U.S. military is locked and loaded,” he said. “In fact, more assets have gone into the region.”

The fighting was paused in part over worries about dwindling munitions stockpiles, various news outlets reported.

U.S. forces have relied heavily on the expensive Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense systems to intercept thousands of Iranian missiles and drones over the last five months.

That has raised concerns about how many interceptors would be available in a future conflict against Russia or China. 

Waltz said Trump inherited a depleted stockpile from the Biden administration, which used the weapons to support Ukraine and combat the Yemen-based Houthi militant group.

The Trump administration carried out strikes against the Houthis for nearly two months last year in a response to threats against commercial shipping.

But the Pentagon has everything it needs to conduct the campaign against Iran, Waltz said.

“The people that are leaking this nonsense deserve to be in jail,” he said of reports about munition shortages. 

The war began on Feb. 28 with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes that killed many of Iran’s top leaders and has since evolved into a fight over the Strait of Hormuz, a critical international waterway through which nearly a fifth of the globe’s oil usually passes. 

The U.S. Navy earlier this month reinstated its naval blockade on Iranian ports after Tehran fired on oil tankers that it said were attempting to transit the waterway without Iranian permission. 

The virtual chokehold on the strait has hurt economies around the world and led to a global spike in fuel prices. As of Monday, the price of a barrel of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil prices, was hovering around $85, a slight increase from June but well below the May peak of $118.