More than 100 days after U.S. airstrikes destroyed an elementary school in the Iranian city of Minab, the incident remains under investigation. The president stated that the inquiry is still ongoing.
A memorial for the victims of the school, where officials report at least 175 fatalities, mostly children, was held. This tragic event has garnered significant attention, as questions about responsibility and accountability continue to persist.
At the Group of 7 summit in France, President Trump addressed the press regarding the U.S. strikes that occurred on the first day of the war. He stated, ‘Mistakes are made. War is nasty,’ indicating a potential acknowledgment of U.S. involvement.
The president noted that the Pentagon is still probing the airstrikes on Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab. Meanwhile, military insiders have privately admitted that American forces executed the strikes. They attribute the incident to an intelligence oversight.
The school’s vicinity to a base used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy complicated matters. The site of the school was originally part of this military base. Officials have discovered that the imagery used for target selection had not been updated for seven years and failed to indicate the presence of a school.
Two individuals familiar with the site evaluation had recognized that a building seemed to have been transformed into a school. However, this information did not reach those responsible for targeting, leading to the misclassification of the site as a military target.
Dozens of students perished in the initial airstrike, and the subsequent ‘double tap’ attack claimed more lives. Imagery analyzed by The New York Times revealed that numerous precision strikes targeted both the school and six Revolutionary Guards buildings.
The incident marks the worst civilian casualty event by the U.S. military since 1991. In that year, a U.S. stealth bomber attacked a civilian shelter in Baghdad, resulting in over 400 deaths, including many women, children, and the elderly.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs provided additional coverage from Évian-les-Bains, France, and reporting was contributed by Max Bearak, an international correspondent for The Times.