Admiral Brad Cooper, head of US Central Command, warned American troops that online videos shared by service members can directly aid Iran in targeting US bases across the Middle East. In a previously unreported letter dated July 28, Cooper stated that Iran leverages news reports and online posts, including footage from troops' cellphones, to assess the success or failure of its strikes in near real time. This open-source intelligence, he wrote, carries a "direct, unavoidable cost" that "could be measured in the lives of American service members and civilian residents in targeted Gulf countries." He urged troops to "redouble our focus on operational security."
Sources familiar with the situation confirmed that some deployed personnel in Jordan, a frequent target of Iranian strikes, have been informed their phones will be confiscated in the coming days. This potential seizure of personal devices is under consideration across the region due to operational security concerns. The prospect has already stoked significant anxiety among family members, who remain on edge after months of reading Iranian claims of deadly strikes on foreign bases throughout the Middle East.
Information Control and Regional Conflict
Cooper's letter specifically cited a video posted online this month, recorded on Meta smart glasses by a US service member. The footage depicted soldiers running for shelter during a deadly Iranian attack on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on July 17. This video, he explained, showed "where and how the individual had evacuated to a bunker during an Iranian missile and drone attack." Normally, Iran faces considerable difficulty in determining the effectiveness of its strikes, largely due to US military electronic jamming and other tactics employed in conflict zones. "Iran knows the weapons were fired; however, their forces do not know if they missed by 50 meters, hit an empty tarmac, or successfully struck a crowded facility," Cooper wrote. He asserted that "detailed lists, descriptions, and analyses of what was hit, openly published by news outlets, are essentially performing Iran’s Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) for them, free of charge." Such public disclosures, he warned, "can become an immediate green light for Iranian forces to launch a secondary, much more devastating wave of attacks."
This warning from the US commander emerges amid growing tensions between the military's desire to control information and the reality of real-time news reporting, often supported by satellite imagery and first-person accounts. The ongoing conflict with Iran, which began on February 28 in the current year, has already claimed the lives of 18 US troops and wounded more than 600 others. These casualties have intensified public concern in the United States, where only one in three Americans express support for the protracted regional engagement.
US Military Accountability Questions
The Pentagon has consistently sought to carefully manage the release of information, citing "operational security concerns." This approach often involves declining to comment on Iranian attack claims or to detail individual incidents that have led to injuries among US troops stationed abroad. However, this lack of transparency has drawn criticism. Democratic lawmakers have called for greater disclosure regarding the conflict, including specific details about damage to US infrastructure at bases, such as radar towers, barracks, and aircraft hangars. They have also demanded the release of a US military investigation into a likely US strike on a girls’ school in Iran, an incident first reported by Reuters on the opening day of the conflict, February 28.
For years, US officials have cautioned that certain mobile applications, including fitness apps, can be exploited by adversaries due to their location data capabilities. A Reuters report in May detailed how commercially available location data, harvested from smartphones and other devices, has been utilized to target or surveil US forces. The current move to potentially confiscate phones underscores the US military's struggle to maintain control over information in an era of pervasive digital communication, even as its presence in the region continues to fuel instability and draw scrutiny over its operations and their consequences.