US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has received a rare and direct rebuke from the British government after suggesting that nearly all of America's NATO allies avoided combat during the war in Afghanistan.

Downing Street issued an unusually blunt response after Hegseth claimed that only a handful of the countries represented at NATO headquarters in Kabul had contributed meaningfully to the fighting, according to The Guardian.

"The facts speak for themselves when it comes to the UK's and NATO's contribution to Afghanistan," a spokesperson for Prime Minister Andy Burnham said when asked about Hegseth's claim.

The spokesperson called Hegseth "wrong" and pointed to the hundreds of British service members who died in the conflict. "Thousands of British and Allied families made huge sacrifices to play their significant part in that war and uphold our values, and more than 450 British personnel never returned," the spokesperson said.

Hegseth made the remarks during a speech at the University of Tennessee while discussing his own service in Afghanistan. "I was a captain in Afghanistan and we would go to the headquarters in Kabul and there would be 50 flags at the headquarters," he said. "It was a beautiful thing to see, 50 different countries contributing to the Nato alliance and the Isaf [International Security Assistance Force] mission there."

He then questioned how many of those countries actually took part in the fighting. "Except there were maybe five that contributed," he said. "It was actually closer to one or two that by the end were actually involved in kinetic operations." Hegseth added that American troops joked that ISAF stood for "I Saw Americans Fighting."

The ISAF mission Hegseth referenced was a NATO-led coalition that, at its height, drew troops from roughly 50 nations, with the United States the largest contributor. Britain was among the countries that deployed troops into combat. While Hegseth has combat experience, he served as an instructor during his deployment to Afghanistan.

Downing Street also made clear that British soldiers and other allied forces gave their lives after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on American soil. "Their sacrifice and that of other NATO forces was made in the service of collective security and in response to an attack on our ally," the spokesperson said. "We are incredibly proud of our armed forces and their service and sacrifice will never be forgotten, and it is wrong to diminish their role," the statement continued. That framing referred to NATO's invocation of Article 5 of its founding treaty — the provision holding that an attack on one ally is treated as an attack on all — for the first time in the alliance's history after the 2001 attacks.

The dispute is notable because Burnham's new government has sought to avoid a contentious relationship with the Trump administration.

Hegseth's remarks echo comments made by Trump in January, when the president claimed that NATO allies had stayed away from the front lines in Afghanistan. The previous prime minister, Keir Starmer, called Trump's remarks "insulting and frankly appalling." Trump eventually walked back the remarks with praise for British troops on Truth Social after the backlash; it remains to be seen whether Hegseth does the same.