This image obtained from Iran’s ISNA information company reveals the positioning of a strike on a ladies’ faculty in Minab, in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, on February 28, 2026.
Ali Najafii/ISNA/AFP through Getty Pictures
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Ali Najafii/ISNA/AFP through Getty Pictures
The U.S. has launched a proper investigation right into a missile strike on an Iranian ladies’ faculty that killed at the very least 165 civilians, after a preliminary evaluation decided the U.S. was at fault, in accordance with a U.S. official who was not licensed to talk publicly. The investigation is predicted to take months and can embrace interviews with all these concerned, from planners and commanders to those that carried out the strike.
If the U.S. position within the assault is confirmed, it will rank among the many army’s most dangerous incidents involving civilians in a long time. Congress created a particular Pentagon workplace to forestall the unintended concentrating on of civilians however it was dramatically scaled again by Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth quickly after he took workplace final 12 months.
NPR was the primary information group to report that the strike on the varsity seemed to be a part of an assault involving precision weapons. Subsequent video of the strike launched by Iranian state media gave visible indications that Tomahawk missiles struck a compound that included the varsity. Iranian state media additionally launched footage of Tomahawk missile parts on a desk in entrance of the varsity
NPR beforehand reported that the women’ faculty was as soon as a part of what had been an Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval base and should have been proven on outdated U.S. goal lists as a army constructing.
The varsity was walled off from the bottom someday between 2013 and 2016, in accordance with historic satellite tv for pc imagery reviewed by NPR. A public well being clinic on the bottom was additionally struck. Satellite tv for pc photos present that clinic was walled off from the bottom round 2024, and opened in 2025 in accordance with native media studies. Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander-in-chief Hossein Salami reduce the ribbon for the clinic’s opening. He was assassinated by Israel later that 12 months.
At a press convention this week, President Trump instructed that Iran or one other nation fired the missile, calling Tomahawks “very generic” weapons. However a number of army analysts instructed NPR that no Iranian missile resembled the one within the video. Solely a handful of nations on the earth have entry to the U.S.-made Tomahawks, and the U.S. is the one nation within the battle that makes use of them.
After a collection of deadly strikes involving civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress directed the Pentagon to cut back civilian casualties as a part of a 2019 legislation. In the course of the Biden administration, the Protection Division created the Civilian Hurt Mitigation and Response initiative.
The civilian mitigation groups work with army commanders on the right track planning, and ensuring that targets are literally army websites. The groups assist give you “no strike” lists, together with spiritual and cultural websites and colleges. They’ve offered particulars on whether or not potential goal areas have excessive concentrations of civilians. They’ve additionally instructed utilizing precision munitions, or smaller weapons to mitigate hurt.
The U.S. official instructed NPR that Hegseth’s determination to cut back these efforts meant that the U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces within the Center East, had just one staffer assigned to civilian casualty mitigation operations. The official additionally mentioned that as a consequence of Hegseth’s determination to chop Protection Division funding to forestall civilian casualties, army instructions have been paying out of their very own finances for analysts to do the work that had as soon as been centrally deliberate.
NPR’s RAD workforce contributed to this report.
