A preliminary US military investigation has reportedly determined that Washington was responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile attack on an Iranian primary school in February that killed dozens of children.
According to the New York Times, citing unnamed U.S. officials and others familiar with the initial findings, the investigation has concluded that the Feb. 28 attack on the Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School building was the result of a targeting error made by U.S. military planners.
Iranian officials had put the death toll from the attack at at least 175 people, most of them children, in one of the worst and most shocking US attacks resulting in civilian deaths in recent memory.
The findings appear to confirm claims by Tehran, that it had produced video footage of the attack with US missiles and fragments of US-made missile parts, despite Donald Trump’s efforts to suggest that Iran had attacked the building.
According to the report, the investigation, which has not yet been completed, found that U.S. Central Command officials created target coordinates for the attack using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
While an independent analysis of the attack had strongly pointed to US culpability, the Trump administration has continued a policy of evasion surrounding the attack that hit the school in the city of Minab, near buildings used by the naval forces of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
On Saturday, Trump declared that Iran was responsible for the school attack. “In my opinion, from what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran… They are very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They are not accurate at all. It was done by Iran.” The president did not present evidence for his claim.
His statement has not been repeated by US military spokesmen, who have only said that they are “investigating” the bombing.
But the Trump administration’s efforts to avoid responsibility for the attack continued on Wednesday, with the Pentagon saying in a five-word statement to The Guardian: “The incident is under investigation.”
Historic satellite images show that while the school building was once part of the broader IRGC complex, it has been walled off from barracks for at least nine years. It has had clear visual indications that it is an educational facility, including colorful murals on the walls and small sports fields, both visible in some satellite images.
There is no indication that the school was a military building at the time of the attack. Its location, however, provides a plausible reason why the United States or Israel may have selected targets in that area.
Several videos of the bombed school, which have been verified by The Guardian, were shared on Iranian social media after the explosion.
At least four show what is clearly the same site from different angles and approaches, with shared motifs, such as the school’s distinctive, colorful murals.
One of those videos shows the rubble of the destroyed school and pans showing thick smoke rising above the fence, from the direction of the IRGC base. The video was one of the first indications that the bomb that hit the school was one of a series of attacks that also targeted the IRGC compound next to it.
On March 8, Iran’s state news agency Mehr News published a video of a missile hitting a location in Minab. The video was geolocated by the Bellingcat research collective. Geolocation is the process of comparing physical features shown in an image or video (such as buildings, billboards, signs or mountains) with verified images of a site, such as satellite images, to confirm where it was captured.
Bellingcat was able to compare buildings, water towers, trees and roads in the video with satellite images of the Minab site, to locate what angle it was filmed from and where the missile landed. He determined that the missile had hit the IRGC compound next to the school.
The missile shown in the video has been identified by munitions experts as a Tomahawk missile.
“Given the belligerents, that indicates this is a US attack, as Israel is not known to possess Tomahawk missiles,” said NR Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, an intelligence consultancy that provides munitions analysis to governments and NGOs. The United States is the only country involved in the Iran war that has this weapon.
He added: “Despite several claims circulating online, the munition in question is clearly not an Iranian Soumar missile: the Soumar has a distinctive external motor located towards the rear, at the bottom of the munition.”
Additional reporting by Joseph Gedeon in Washington
