Trump administration denies reports that Iran captured US soldiers 

Ali Larijani, the head of Iran’s National Security Council, claimed that his country has captured United States soldiers since the outbreak of war last week.

The claims came in a post Saturday on the social media platform X, in which Larijani suggested the US was concealing the captures.

“It has been reported to me that several American soldiers have been taken prisoner,” Larijani wrote.

“But the Americans claim that they have been killed in action. Despite their futile efforts, the truth is not something they can hide for too long.”

The US military, however, quickly refuted the claims with its own statement online.

“The Iranian ⁠regime is ⁠doing everything it can to peddle lies and deceive. ‌This is yet another clear example,” said US Navy Captain Tim Hawkins in response to Larijani’s post.

A spokesperson from US Central Command (CENTCOM) echoed Hawkins’s denial in a statement to Al Jazeera Arabic.

“The Iranian regime’s claims of capturing American soldiers are yet another example of its lies and deceptions,” the spokesman told Al Jazeera Arabic.

At least six members of the US armed forces have been killed since the war began on February 28, after the US and Israel launched a joint attack. The Trump administration dubbed the military campaign “Operation Epic Fury”.

The Tasnim news agency in Iran has reported this week that an estimated 1,332 people have been killed in the war over the week since. That death toll includes approximately 180 children who died in a strike on their school in the southeastern city of Minab.