Reacting to the news, NBC News Tehran bureau chief Ali Arouzi told host Chris Matthews that "30 U.S. soldiers have been killed in this attack," an utterly false claim by the Iranian government which Arouzi quickly repeated.
Arouzi said, "The IRGC was saying that, Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of this country, was in the control center coordinating these attacks. This is — this bit of — I’m not sure about, but Iran state media is claiming that 30 U.S. soldiers have been killed in this attack. Now, this is not confirmed. This is just coming from Iranian media."