US investigators believe strike on Iranian girls’ school probably carried out by US forces

 

 Iran has said more than 160 people were killed in the strike on the school in Minab on 28                February. Photograph: Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News/WANA/Reuters

US military officials briefed on investigation make disclosure, while Pentagon has confirmed only that inquiry is under way

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  Minab school bombing: how the worst mass casualty event of the Iran war unfolded – a visual guide

Military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children on Saturday but have not yet reached a final conclusion, according to two US officials.

Reuters was unable to determine further details about the investigation, including what evidence contributed to the tentative assessment, what type of munition was used, who was responsible or why the US might have struck the school.

The Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, on Wednesday acknowledged the US military was investigating the incident.

Two US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, did not rule out the possibility that new evidence could emerge that points to another responsible party.

The girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran, was hit on Saturday during the first day of US and Israeli attacks on the country. Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said the strike killed 150 students. Reuters could not independently confirm the death toll.

The Pentagon referred questions to Central Command, whose spokesperson, Capt Timothy Hawkins, said: “It would be inappropriate to comment given the incident is under investigation.”

The White House did not directly comment on the investigation, but its press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a statement: “While the Department of War is currently investigating this matter, the Iranian regime targets civilians and children, not the United States of America.”

Asked during a news briefing on Wednesday about the incident, Hegseth said: “We’re investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets. But we’re taking a look and investigating that.”

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told reporters on Monday that the US would not deliberately target a school.

“The Department of War would be investigating that if that was our strike, and I would refer your question to them,” Rubio said.

Israeli and US forces have, until now, divided their attacks in Iran geographically and by target type, a senior Israeli official and a source with direct knowledge of the joint planning said. While Israel was striking missile launch sites in western Iran, the US was attacking similar targets, and naval ones, in the south.

The UN human rights office has called for an investigation into the attack on the school, without saying who it believed was responsible.

“The onus is on the forces that carried out the attack to investigate it,” Ravina Shamdasani, a UN human rights office spokesperson, told a press briefing in Geneva.

People attend a mass funeral for those killed in the strike on the school in Minab on Tuesday. Photograph: Amirhossein Khorgooei/Reuters

Images of the girls’ mass funeral on Tuesday were shown on Iranian state television. Their small coffins were draped with Iranian flags and passed from a truck across a large crowd towards the grave site.

Deliberately attacking a school or hospital or any other civilian structure would probably be a war crime under international humanitarian law.

If a US role were to be confirmed, the strike would rank among the worst cases of civilian casualties in decades of conflicts in the Middle East.

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