The U.S. Department of Defense publicly claimed its 2025 bombing campaign in Yemen killed no civilians, even as internal Pentagon assessments and independent monitoring groups documented hundreds of civilian deaths and injuries, according to newly released documents.
Three U.S. airstrikes in April 2025 during Operation Rough Rider accounted for most of the disputed casualties, according to NBC News.
Sources with direct knowledge of the strikes said that the first two attacks likely killed about 150 civilians and wounded roughly 200 more, while a clear casualty count for the third strike could not be established. Despite that, the Defense Department publicly maintained the campaign caused no civilian deaths or injuries.
A letter obtained by NBC News and sent to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., states that U.S. Central Command has since reviewed dozens of strikes from the campaign during the campaign, including the three April attacks and concluded they “more likely than not resulted in civilian casualties.” The finding directly contradicts the Pentagon’s earlier public position and came after months of pressure from congressional Democrats seeking an accounting of the campaign’s toll.
The Yemen campaign
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launched Operation Rough Rider on March 15, 2025, with the stated goal of stopping attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels on commercial shipping and U.S. allies in the Middle East.
Civilian casualties have been disputed since the campaign began. The London-based monitoring group Airwars tracked reports of at least 224 civilians killed during the operation, a figure researchers say nearly doubled the total civilian death toll attributed to U.S. strikes in Yemen since 2002. The estimate suggests nearly as many civilians were reportedly killed during the 53-day campaign as in the previous 23 years of U.S. airstrikes and commando raids combined.
The Yemen Data Project, another independent monitoring organization, estimated at least 238 civilians were killed and 467 injured.
One of the campaign’s opening strikes came under scrutiny after details surfaced in a Signal group chat that inadvertently included The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg.
In the chat, then-national security adviser Mike Waltz wrote that, to kill a Houthi missile official on or around March 15, 2025, the U.S. military destroyed a civilian apartment building, writing that the target had “positive ID.”
Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, along with Warren and Tim Kaine of Virginia, later wrote to Hegseth after a separate strike on the Ras Isa fuel terminal. They said reports indicated the attack “killed dozens of civilians, potentially more than 70,” and warned that using explosive weapons in populated areas “always carries a high risk of civilian harm.”
Human rights groups demand accountability
Human rights organizations raised concerns about the campaign’s civilian toll well before CENTCOM’s review became public. Groups monitoring the strikes reported the April 2025 attacks caused “large-scale civilian casualties” and urged the United States to investigate them as potential war crimes.
Amnesty International has since criticized both the White House and the Pentagon for withholding information about the deaths.
“The Trump administration’s response has been abysmal,” Amanda Kalsing, the organization’s national director for government relations, said in a statement provided to NBC News. “This administration has gutted the Pentagon’s programs meant to prevent civilian harm and has evaded any public accounting for cases of civilian harm.”
Kalsing said the lack of transparency extended beyond Yemen to a separate incident in Iran, where the Pentagon has also declined to provide a full public accounting of civilian deaths.
The Minab school strike in Iran
The Iran incident Kalsing referenced occurred on February 28, the opening day of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran.
A strike hit Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the Shahrak-e Al-Mahdi neighborhood of Minab, Hormozgan province. The school, which taught boys and girls on separate floors, was located next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps compound.
Amnesty International found the school was directly struck alongside 12 other structures within the adjacent IRGC compound using guided weapons. The organization said the attack suggested U.S. forces failed to take feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm and that it amounted to a serious breach of international humanitarian law.
Casualty figures fluctuated in the days after the strike as rescue efforts continued, with early Iranian and U.N. estimates reaching as high as 165.
Amnesty International’s subsequent investigation concluded the strike killed 156 people, including 120 children.