Pentagon assessment: U.S. military operations killed 153 civilians in 2025, up from 2 in 2024, with Yemen strikes cited and more incidents under review
U.S. military operations in 2025 killed 153 civilians and wounded 243, a U.S. official said on Tuesday, citing Pentagon assessments.
This compares with a Pentagon assessment that two civilians were killed and two were injured by U.S. military operations in 2024.
A Pentagon report submitted to the U.S. Congress and published by U.S. media said that all the death and injury tolls against civilians recorded in 2025 were due to three U.S. strikes in Yemen.
The Pentagon report said the U.S. Central Command had assessed that the three strikes in April 2025 in Yemen “more likely than not” resulted in civilian harm.
The Pentagon report also said that as of February 2026, there were 15 other incidents in Yemen that the U.S. Central Command was currently assessing in response to reports received through non-governmental organizations.
The U.S. military says it aims to degrade the capabilities of Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.
The Pentagon report did not include any casualties from U.S. strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
The report said as of February 1, 2026, the U.S. Southern Command assessed that “there were no incidents in which civilian casualties more likely than not resulted from U.S. military operations in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility in 2025.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has struck vessels that it accuses of transporting narcotics in the Eastern Pacific, casting its targets as “narco-terrorists.”
The U.S. military’s strikes on such vessels have killed more than 200 people since September 2025, according to a tally of death tolls published after each strike.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International consider such strikes unlawful extrajudicial killings. The American Civil Liberties Union casts the assertions by the Trump administration against those it targets as “unsubstantiated, fear-mongering claims.”
