The United States is most likely responsible for a strike that reportedly killed scores of people at an elementary school in southern Iran, according to a New York Times investigation.
The February 28 strike hit an elementary school in the Iranian town of Minab and killed at least 150 people, according to Iranian officials.
Neither Israel nor the United States has claimed responsibility for the attack, which was in close proximity to sites controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
The US Department of Defence has said it is investigating the incident.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that US military statements indicating forces were attacking naval targets near the Strait of Hormuz, where an IRGC base is located, “suggest they were most likely to have carried out the strike.”
An analysis of social media posts from the time of the attack, as well as photos and videos from witnesses, indicated that the Shajare Tayyebeh elementary school was struck at the same time as a Revolutionary Guards’ naval base site, the Times said.
Two unidentified US officials told Reuters that military investigators “believe it is likely” that US forces were responsible for the strike.
AFP has been unable to reach the location to independently verify the toll or the circumstances of the attack.
General Dan Caine, the top US military officer, said on Wednesday that the United States was carrying out strikes along the southern Iran at the time.
A map he presented, the Times reported, indicated an area including Minab had been targeted by strikes in the first 100 hours of the operation.
Caine noted that Israel had mainly been operating further north in Iran.
The school was at one point part of the IRGC’s naval base, according to satellite images from 2013 reviewed by the Times.
However, the paper said publicly available historical satellite imagery “shows the structure bears the hallmarks of a school, including a sports field and other recreational areas that were added over time.”
“Given the U.S.’s intelligence capabilities, they should have known that a school was in the vicinity,” Beth Van Schaack, a former State Department official who teaches at Stanford University’s Centre for Human Rights and International Justice, told the Times.
The Norway-based rights group Hengaw said the school was holding its morning session at the time of the attack and reportedly had about 170 students present.
Asked on Wednesday whether the United States was involved in the strike, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt replied: “Not that we know of.”
AFP
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