Four American troops killed in recent weeks during renewed fighting between the U.S. and Iran are no longer counted under the Iran war death toll in the Pentagon’s official casualty figures. They have instead been moved into a new, separate category on the Defense Casualty Analysis System website.

The change has raised questions about how the U.S. government is accounting for the impact of the conflict on American service members. Casualty categories are not just administrative labels: they shape how the public, Congress and military families track the human cost of overlapping U.S. missions abroad. The Trump administration has escalated strikes on Iran as part of an effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while offering limited public detail on how it plans to wind down a conflict that remains unpopular with many Americans.

The Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, has repeatedly been cited by Pentagon officials as the definitive source for the number of U.S. troops killed and wounded in the conflict. Last week, the system removed the four fallen soldiers and dozens of wounded troops from its Iran war tally.

On Sunday, a new category titled “Overseas Operations” appeared on the DCAS website. It listed the four Army deaths by name and recorded 207 wounded personnel. It was not clear whether all 207 wounded were injured in the Iran conflict.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East, referred questions to the Pentagon. The Pentagon and the White House did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Pentagon press secretary Joel Valdez said Thursday that the decline in casualty figures shown in the online system was not an attempt to conceal the war’s growing human toll. He attributed the change to “anomalies” and “temporary data disruptions” that he said were being resolved “imminently.”

As recently as Tuesday, the DCAS website listed the official toll from the war at 18 killed and 482 wounded.

That figure appeared to include four soldiers killed after fighting resumed despite the signing of an interim ceasefire agreement last month. Three were killed at a base in Jordan that was struck on July 17 by Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, and one was killed in Iraq the following day during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone.

The Pentagon’s own announcements added to the uncertainty. When it disclosed two of the deaths in Jordan, it said the troops had been supporting the U.S. mission to counter the Islamic State group. The other two deaths were announced in press releases that described the troops only as supporting overseas operations.

President Donald Trump also confirmed the higher total. In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, he wrote that the “Iran Military Conflict” had claimed 18 lives.

By Wednesday, however, the Iran war figures in the Pentagon system had fallen back to 14 dead and 420 wounded. A U.S. official told The Associated Press at the time that the actual number of wounded personnel in the war had grown to well over 500 troops.

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, posted on social media that day that the reported decline was a “temporary data disruption.”

The U.S. and Israel launched the war in Iran on Feb. 28, and 14 U.S. troops were killed in the initial waves of fighting. Washington and Tehran agreed to a ceasefire in April and later signed an interim deal in mid-June to end the war.

The agreement did not hold. On July 7, Iran struck three merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz that were moving along a route near the coast of Oman overseen by the U.S. military. American forces responded with strikes after the attacks on ships in the key energy shipping corridor. Trump soon declared that the ceasefire was over.

The Pentagon system’s new “Overseas Operations” category says it counts casualties beginning July 7. That start date aligns with the renewed hostilities described by U.S. officials, but the category name does not specify Iran, leaving unresolved how casualties tied to the same period should be compared with the separate Iran war tally.

Since then, the U.S. and Iran have exchanged regular fire as both sides have sought to control the crucial waterway. The U.S. hit Iranian targets nightly for nearly two weeks, while Tehran responded with attacks on neighboring countries that host American forces. There have been no strikes for two nights as mediators press for diplomacy.

Since the renewed hostilities began, the Pentagon has released even less information about military strategy and casualties than it did during the first phase of the conflict. The department has not held a press briefing about the war since early May, and officials at U.S. Central Command have stopped providing casualty updates to reporters.

Pentagon officials, including Valdez and Parnell, have maintained that the DCAS website demonstrates the department’s commitment to transparency about the number of U.S. troops killed and injured in the war.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.