The Pentagon has confirmed that Operation Epic Fury ended on 5 May, despite military personnel being instructed in August to stop using the name for continuing US operations linked to the conflict with Iran.
An Air Force email dated 7 August directed senior public affairs officers to avoid the operation’s title when discussing the fighting. Instead, commanders were told to use the broader description “overseas operations” in the US Central Command area of responsibility.
The guidance was issued by the office of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and circulated beyond the Air Force across the Department of Defence, according to US military officials familiar with the instructions.
The Pentagon said the named operation formally concluded on 5 May, after an April ceasefire. It said subsequent activity had involved freedom of navigation missions and strikes intended to reduce threats from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to commercial shipping, Gulf states and American forces.
Operation Epic Fury officially ended on 5 May
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the change at the White House on the same day, telling reporters: “The operation is over. Epic Fury is — the president notified Congress — we’re done with that stage of it. We’re now on to this Project Freedom.”
President Donald Trump had told Congress four days earlier that the “hostilities” had ended. However, the Pentagon and US Central Command declined for months to provide a formal date for the conclusion of Operation Epic Fury.
Hegseth also described Project Freedom as a separate, defensive mission intended to protect commercial shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz. He referred to Epic Fury in the past tense during a Pentagon briefing but did not explicitly state that it had ended.
The Pentagon’s explanation leaves unresolved why its public affairs office issued instructions in August not to use the operation’s name while US forces continued conducting missions connected to the Iranian conflict.
The broader confrontation did not end on 5 May. Trump notified Congress that US military action against Iran had restarted on 7 July, around the time talks between Washington and Tehran collapsed and the April ceasefire was declared over.
Iranian forces have since continued attacking US troops and commercial vessels, while American forces have carried out further strikes. Project Freedom was also placed on hold for a short period to allow negotiations, although its current status has not been made clear.
Casualty figures add to questions over the military’s classifications
The disputed terminology has consequences beyond public messaging, because named operations are used to record the duration of campaigns and classify deaths and injuries suffered by service personnel.
The Pentagon’s casualty database initially recorded four US service members killed in July as having died during Operation Epic Fury, even though the department now says the operation had ended two months earlier.
First Lieutenant Tyler James Feehan, Staff Sergeant Angel Rampersad and Private First Class Isabella Gonzales were killed on 18 July when an Iranian missile struck their barracks at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. Staff Sergeant Michael Emmanuel Swinton died the following day in Iraq during the controlled detonation of an Iranian attack drone.
The four were later moved into a new “overseas operations” category, reducing the number of deaths listed under Epic Fury from 18 to 14. Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, attributed the original entries to a temporary data disruption and said anomalies on the website were being addressed.
The casualty system has continued to show some later deaths and injuries under the Epic Fury heading. Its figures include five service members wounded in June and one killed in July, while no formal end date is displayed on the operation’s public record.
A Pentagon official said that, because Operation Epic Fury had concluded, casualties were now classified as overseas operations in the Central Command region. The department has not explained why later incidents remained attached to the operation in its database, or why senior leaders were told not to use its name months after the declared end date.
