{"id":42685,"date":"2026-03-06T06:04:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42685"},"modified":"2026-03-06T06:04:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:04:28","slug":"us-investigation-points-to-likely-us-responsibility-in-iran-school-strike-sources-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42685","title":{"rendered":"US investigation points to likely US responsibility in Iran school strike, sources say"},"content":{"rendered":"
US 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, but have not yet reached a conclusion or completed \u200btheir investigation, two US officials told Reuters.<\/p>\n

People and rescue forces work following an Israel strike on a school in Minab, Iran, February 28, 2026. Abbas Zakeri\/Mehr News\/WANA (West Asia News Agency) PHOTO: REUTERS<\/p>\n

Reuters was unable to determine more details about the investigation, including what evidence \u200ccontributed to the tentative assessment, what type of munition was used, who was responsible, or why the US might have struck the school.<\/p>\n

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth acknowledged the US military was investigating the incident.<\/p>\n

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, did not rule out \u200bthe possibility that new evidence could emerge that absolves the US of responsibility and points to another party responsible for \u200bthe incident.<\/p>\n

Reuters could not determine how long the investigation would last or what evidence US investigators are seeking before the assessment can be completed.<\/p>\n

The girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran, was hit on Saturday during the first day \u200bof US and Israeli attacks on the country. Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said the strike killed 150 students. Reuters \u200bcould not independently confirm the death toll.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon referred questions from Reuters to the US military\u2019s Central Command, whose spokesperson, Captain Timothy Hawkins, said: \u201cIt would be inappropriate to comment given the incident is under investigation\u201d.<\/p>\n

The White House did not directly comment on the investigation, but press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement \u200bto Reuters, \u201cWhile the Department of War is currently investigating this matter, the Iranian regime targets civilians and children, not the United States \u200bof America\u201d.<\/p>\n

Read: Trump says he needs to be involved in selecting Iran’s next leader, Axios reports<\/p>\n

Asked about the incident during a news briefing, Hegseth said: \u201cWe\u2019re investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets. But we\u2019re taking a \u200clook and \u2060investigating that\u201d.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the United States would not deliberately target a school.<\/p>\n

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

Israeli and US forces have until now divided their attacks in Iran both geographically and by target type, a senior Israeli official and a source with direct \u200bknowledge of the joint planning said. \u200bWhile Israel was striking missile \u2060launch sites in western Iran, the United States was attacking such targets, as well as naval ones, in the south.<\/p>\n

The UN human rights office, without saying who it believed was responsible for the strike on \u200bthe school, called on Tuesday for an investigation.<\/p>\n

“The onus is on the forces that carried out \u200bthe attack to investigate \u2060it,” UN human rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a press briefing in Geneva.<\/p>\n

Images of the girls’ funeral\u00a0were 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.<\/p>\n

Deliberately attacking \u2060a school \u200bor hospital or any other civilian structure would likely be a war crime under \u200binternational humanitarian law.<\/p>\n

If a US role were to be confirmed, the strike would rank among the worst cases of civilian casualties in decades of US conflicts in the \u200bMiddle East.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US 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, but have not yet reached a conclusion or completed \u200btheir investigation, two US officials told Reuters. People and rescue forces work following an Israel strike on a school in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}