{"id":331879,"date":"2026-10-09T06:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T06:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=331879"},"modified":"2026-10-09T06:59:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T06:59:22","slug":"araghchi-real-toll-of-us-aircraft-downed-by-iran-in-recent-war-far-higher-than-reported","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=331879","title":{"rendered":"Araghchi: Real toll of US aircraft downed by Iran in recent war \u2018far higher\u2019 than reported"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Damage to US planes from Iranian strike on Prince Sultan AFB, Saudi Arabia<\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>PressTV \u2013 Oct 8, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><strong>Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says the real number of American military aircraft downed by Iran is \u201cfar higher\u201d than reported by the US.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Araghchi made the remark in a post on his X account on Thursday, citing figures from the US Congressional Research Service as he questioned Washington\u2019s account of losses at its military bases.<\/p>\n<p>He said the Congressional Research Service had acknowledged in May that Iran\u2019s armed forces had downed 42 American military aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>However, the figure has now increased to 81, he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cReal toll is far higher,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>As evidence of a cover-up, the top Iranian diplomat pointed to CENTCOM\u2019s refusal to allow a sitting US senator to inspect bases that it claims are undamaged, without providing further details.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou can fool all the people some of the time&#8230;,\u201d Araghchi added, referring to a famous quote by Abraham Lincoln:\u00a0&#8220;You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">In May, the Congressional Research Service admitted that Iran\u2019s Armed Forces had taken out 42 U.S. military aircraft. Now: 81. Real toll is far higher. Proof? CENTCOM won\u2019t let a sitting Senator inspect bases it claims are fine. You can fool all the people some of the time&#8230; https:\/\/t.co\/eB3fRrJFt4<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/araghchi\/status\/2108074539355701620?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 8, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on Monday says the United States has lost or sustained damage to at least 81 military aircraft and drones during Trump\u2019s war on Iran, with the total replacement cost estimated at $1.9 billion to $3.3 billion.<\/p>\n<p>The tally covers manned aircraft, helicopters and unmanned systems and includes combat losses, alleged accidents and aircraft damaged or destroyed on the ground.<\/p>\n<p>MQ-9 Reaper drones account for more than half the total. The list also includes high-value platforms such as an F-35A fighter jet and an E-3 Sentry, as well as up to 12 F-15E Strike Eagles, seven KC-135 tankers and seven helicopters.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, CNN has put the total cost of the war at more than $45 billion, noting that the \u201cfigure doesn\u2019t include damage to infrastructure at US bases in the region, including those where some of the aircraft losses happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This came as in recent months the Pentagon has been facing accusations of underreporting casualties among American forces in West Asia.<\/p>\n<p>The administration of President Donald Trump \u2014 which calls itself the \u201cmost transparent administration in history\u201d \u2014 is facing scrutiny over its lack of transparency after a report cited US officials as saying that more American troops have died in the 40-day war against Iran than the Pentagon has disclosed.<\/p>\n<p>Iran has experienced two major rounds of unprovoked US-Israeli military aggression over the past Iranian year (March 2025-March 2026).<\/p>\n<p>The first was a 12-day war in June 2025, during which more than 1,000 people were killed in Iran, including women and children, according to Iranian official figures.<\/p>\n<p>The second round began on February 28, when joint US-Israeli strikes targeted locations across Iran.<\/p>\n<p>The war continued for around 40 days before a ceasefire was reached in April. Iranian health authorities reported that more than 3,500 people were killed during the aggression, including hundreds of women and children.<\/p>\n<p>During both wars, Iranian armed forces responded with forceful retaliatory strikes against the attacking forces, while maintaining military pressure that contributed to the eventual ceasefire.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.presstv.co.uk\/Detail\/2026\/10\/08\/777870\/Iran-US-Araghchi-aircraft\">Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi says the real number of U.S. military aircraft lost in the war with Iran is \u201cfar higher\u201d than officially acknowledged. As evidence of a cover-up, Aragchi cites CENTCOM\u2019s refusal to allow a sitting US senator to inspect bases that it claims are undamaged<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":331132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-331879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature-posts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=331879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331880,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331879\/revisions\/331880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/331132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=331879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=331879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=331879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}