The US reportedly lacks the capacity to investigate the killing of nearly 170 children in Minab after cutting civil defense units by 90%.
According to a Politico report, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has reportedly dismantled Pentagon oversight offices that normally help investigate a deadly US strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed at least 170 people last month.
Current and former civil defense officials told the outlet that the number of Pentagon employees tasked with reducing civilian casualties has dropped from nearly 200 under Hegseth to less than 40.
The Civilian Protection Center of Excellence was one of the offices cut last year, while the civilian damage management team at Central Command was reduced from ten staff to just one. Hegseth explains that these units are not contributing to his goal “Morality.”
On February 28, the first day of an unprovoked US-Israeli attack on Iran, the Shazareh Tayebeh Primary School in Minab, southern Hormozgan province, was hit by one or more missiles, killing at least 168 schoolgirls aged 7-12 and a dozen lone teachers and staff members.
Geolocated videos by several media outlets show a US Tomahawk missile striking a school near an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval facility.
Hegseth dismissed the publicly available evidence, he told reporters Tuesday “Open source is not the place to decide what happened or what didn’t happen.”
US President Donald Trump offered an explanation for the change, first hinted at “So wrong” Iranian missiles were blamed, with Tehran later claiming without evidence that it “has some Tomahawks,” a missile operating separately from the US in the conflict.
Last week, thousands gathered for a mass funeral in Minab, where rows of small, shallow graves were prepared for the victims.
International condemnation was expressed for this strike. Russian Foreign Ministry said “definitely condemned” Attack, and UNESCO called it “serious breach” International Humanitarian Law. The United Nations human rights office has called for an investigation.
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