U.S. Suspected of War Crimes After School Missile Strike

Evelyn Hockstein / Reuters The United States could be guilty of war crimes for a pair of deadly strikes on Iran, including one on a school, a new report has found.

Investigators said they found reasonable grounds to believe U.S. forces were behind an attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in the city of Minab, where more than 150 people were killed, including around 120 schoolchildren, according to Iranian officials.

Investigators reached a similar conclusion about a second strike on a sports center in the city of Lamerd, which damaged nearby homes and a school and killed or injured 22 civilians.

The findings come from the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, a body examining the conduct of both the United States and Iran during the war that began in February, in a report set to be submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, according to Reuters .

The mission concluded the Minab strike was an indiscriminate attack causing civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure, amounting to a war crime under international law.

Investigators said the U.S. failure to update its targeting information on the school, which sat next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval complex, and to confirm the building was a military objective, went beyond mere negligence.

“Rather, the U.S. directed the strikes at the building of the school while being aware of a substantial risk of striking a civilian object and acting recklessly as regards the possibility that this would happen,” the mission wrote.

President Donald Trump said in June that “nobody” purposefully attacked the girls’ school, citing an ongoing investigation.

That came after an initial internal U.S. military investigation reportedly found American forces were likely responsible for the strike.

The Pentagon has since elevated its probe but has not published any findings.

The U.N. mission said the school was clearly identifiable as a civilian building and found no evidence it was being used for military purposes.

U.S.

Central Command said in March that American forces did not strike Lamerd.

The mission also found Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity in a separate crackdown on anti-government protesters, involving unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearances.