Investigation Suggests US Struck Iranian School, Killing 165

AP, March 9, 2026, Jerusalem : The investigative group Bellingcat says the newly released video “appears to contradict” US President Donald Trump’s claim that Iran was responsible for an explosion at an Iranian school that killed over 165 people at the start of the Mideast war.

Mounting evidence points to US culpability for the February 28 strike, which hit a school adjacent to a Revolutionary Guard base in Minab, in Iran's southern Hormozgan Province. Experts citing satellite image analysis say the school was likely struck amid a quick succession of bombs dropped on the compound.

The video shared by Bellingcat is a three-second clip taken the day the school was struck and circulated by Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency. It shows a munition falling on a building, sending a dark plume into the air that mingles with smoke likely from earlier strikes.

Trevor Ball, a Bellingcat researcher, geolocated the video to a site near the school, corroborated by the AP. Ball identified the munition as a Tomahawk cruise missile, which only the US is known to possess in this war. US Central Command has acknowledged using Tomahawk missiles and released a photo of the "], part of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group is “very inaccurate” with its munitions. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the US was investigating.

Janina Dill, an international law expert at Oxford University, wrote on X that even if the strike was a misidentification — with the attacker believing the school was part of the neighbouring IRGC base — it would still be “a very serious violation of international law.” She added, “Attackers are under an obligation to do everything feasible to verify the status of the targeted object.”

Several factors indicate a US strike. One is that the US military launched an assessment after investigators determined the military may bear culpability. An anonymous US official told the AP that the strike was likely carried out by the US.

Another factor is the school’s location — next to the Revolutionary Guard base and close to barracks for a naval unit. The US military has focused on naval targets and acknowledged strikes in the province, including near the school.

Israel, which has denied conducting the strike, has focused on areas closer to Israel and hasn’t reported any strikes south of Isfahan, 800 kilometres away.

Neither the US Central Command nor the Israeli military immediately replied to AP requests for comment on Bellingcat’s analysis.

Speaking about the US operation at a press conference on March 2, Hegseth said: “America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history. No stupid rules of engagement. No politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don't waste time or lives.”