Pentagon Ends 'Epic Fury' Operation
PHOTO CAPTION: U.S. Sailors move across the flight deck of USS Gerald R. Ford after loading ordnance onto an F/A-18E Super Hornet while supporting Operation Epic Fury in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, March 2, 2026. U.S. Navy photo.
The Pentagon instructed military personnel this summer to stop referring to ongoing U.S. operations connected to Iran as “Operation Epic Fury,” even though officials now say the named operation had formally ended months earlier.
An Aug. 7 Air Force email obtained by CBS News directed senior public affairs personnel to avoid the Epic Fury name and instead describe the military’s continuing activity more broadly as overseas operations in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. Military officials told CBS the guidance was distributed across the Defense Department and was not limited to the Air Force.
The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday that Operation Epic Fury officially ended May 5, the same day Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly said the operation was over and the United States was moving on to a separate maritime mission known as Project Freedom.
Rubio said at the time that Epic Fury had achieved its objectives. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also described Project Freedom as separate from Epic Fury, though the Pentagon and CENTCOM had previously declined for months to provide an official end date for the operation.
The broader U.S.-Iran conflict did not end with Epic Fury. American and Iranian forces have exchanged fire intermittently since May, and U.S. forces have continued carrying out operations connected to threats from Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
That makes the August guidance unusual: personnel were being specifically told not to use the name of an operation the Pentagon now says had already been over for roughly three months.
The issue could have consequences beyond terminology.
CBS reported that the Defense Department initially listed four service members killed in separate July incidents as casualties of Operation Epic Fury, despite the Pentagon now saying the operation ended May 5. Those deaths were later moved into a newly created “overseas operations” category.
Three of the service members were killed July 18 when an Iranian missile struck their barracks at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. A fourth service member was killed the following day in Iraq during the controlled detonation of an Iranian attack drone.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell previously attributed changes in the casualty database to a temporary data disruption. The department now says casualties occurring after Epic Fury concluded are classified under overseas operations in the CENTCOM area of responsibility.
However, CBS also found that the Pentagon casualty database still lists some personnel killed or wounded after May 5 under Operation Epic Fury, leaving unanswered questions about how the department is categorizing troops affected by the continuing conflict.
The Pentagon has not publicly explained why personnel needed to be reminded in August to stop using the Epic Fury name if the operation had officially ended in May.
Source: CBS News; U.S. Department of Defense
