IranAn Accounting and an Enforcement: The Pentagon Admits 153 Civilian Deaths in Yemen While the US Disables a Blockade-Running Tanker
Day 165 in one line: the Pentagon put a number on the civilian cost of the campaign that preceded this war — 153 dead in Yemen, its first such admission — while the blockade it runs today disabled another tanker, and the Hormuz talks stayed frozen on the compensation demands each side made of the other.
153 Civilians: The Pentagon’s First Accounting
The Pentagon told Congress that US military operations in 2025 killed 153 civilians and wounded 243, submitting its annual civilian-harm report to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Every confirmed casualty was attributed to three April 2025 airstrikes in Yemen during Operation Rough Rider, the air and naval campaign against the Houthis that CENTCOM assessed "more likely than not" caused civilian harm. The Washington Post described it as the administration’s first public acknowledgment since taking office that the military caused significant harm to noncombatants in any conflict. The scale of the change is in the comparison: the equivalent 2024 assessment recorded two civilians killed and two injured.
What the Report Leaves Out
The accounting is bounded in ways that matter for this tracker. It covers calendar year 2025 only, so it does not include any casualties from the war against Iran that began in February 2026. It excludes the strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific — roughly 120 deaths last year and 95 this year — which the administration frames as counter-narcotics operations and some legal experts have called extrajudicial killings. And it acknowledges 15 further incidents in Yemen still being assessed as of February 2026 in response to reports from non-governmental organisations.
The Monitors’ Numbers Are Higher
Independent trackers put the Yemen toll well above the official figure. Airwars reported that at least 258 civilians may have been killed in Operation Rough Rider; the Yemen Data Project counts at least 238 killed and 467 injured. Officials quoted anonymously called the Pentagon figures lowball numbers, with one saying a single attack killed 68 people. This tracker records the official 153 as the confirmed floor and the monitor counts as the contested range, rather than treating either as settled.
The Blockade Bites: A Panama-Flagged Tanker Disabled
US forces disabled a Panama-flagged tanker for violating the naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. The action continues the counter-blockade enforcement CENTCOM last quantified at 44 redirected vessels on Day 157, and it lands while Iran is demanding that same blockade be lifted as a precondition for reopening the waterway. Enforcement and negotiation are proceeding on the same water at the same time.
Yemen: Ballistic Missiles at al-Makha and Marib
Houthi forces launched ballistic missile attacks on the Red Sea port of al-Makha and on Marib, continuing the twin-track campaign against the government-held coast and the inland front. No casualties were logged for the Marib strike. The al-Makha attacks follow the strikes that killed seven there on Day 163 and the port damage recorded on Day 164.
Elsewhere in Washington
Defense Secretary Hegseth travelled to Panama to meet President José Raúl Mulino and Colombian officials as the US deepens defence cooperation in the hemisphere — logged here because it places the Secretary outside the region while the Hormuz negotiation and the blockade enforcement both continue.
Status Assessment
Tracker status holds at WAR RESUMED. Day 165 is an accountability day rather than a battlefield one: the first official US admission of mass civilian harm in Yemen, arriving with the qualifier that it covers a period before this war and excludes the theatre now being fought. The practical picture is unchanged — US strikes on Iran remain paused since August 1, the strait remains closed, the blockade is still being enforced against ships that try to run it, and the compensation demands logged on Day 164 remain unresolved on both sides.