Stories
UN Panel: US Airstrikes in Iran May Be War Crimes, Including School Attack
- •A UN-backed fact-finding mission found “reasonable grounds” to believe US forces committed war crimes in two Iran airstrikes, including one on a primary school.
- •The Minab school strike killed over 150 people, including approximately 120 schoolchildren; experts found no evidence of military use and deemed it an indiscriminate attack.
- •A separate US strike on a Lamerd sports facility also caused civilian casualties and damage, leading experts to conclude it was an indiscriminate attack and a war crime.
- •Failures in US intelligence systems and outdated targeting databases contributed to the Minab strike, despite an analyst flagging the site as an elementary school.
- •The Pentagon declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation, while the White House rejected the UN findings, accusing Iran of war crimes.
Key Questions Answered
A UN-backed fact-finding mission found reasonable grounds to believe that US forces committed war crimes during two separate airstrikes in Iran, including an attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab and a strike on a sports facility in Lamerd.
The Pentagon declined to comment on the report, stating that its own internal investigation remains ongoing. Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly rejected the UN findings entirely and blamed the Iranian government for war crimes.
A Pentagon investigation examined failures including disconnected intelligence systems and outdated information in US targeting databases. Although an intelligence analyst previously flagged that the former military site was operating as an elementary school, that information was not incorporated into targeting systems.
