UN: US Strikes on Iran School, Sports Complex Killed 172 Civilians, May Be War Crimes
A United Nations fact-finding mission says there are "reasonable grounds" to believe the United States committed war crimes in two February airstrikes in southern Iran — including one on a girls' school that killed more than 150 people.
The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran announced Thursday that it found reasonable grounds to believe U.S. forces carried out two military strikes in February — one on a girls' school in Minab and another on a sports complex and residential area in Lamerd, both in southern Iran — and that the strikes amounted to war crimes [243827][243402][243481].
The Minab strike killed more than 150 people, including approximately 120 children, according to the report. The mission said the U.S. "committed the war crime of launching an indiscriminate attack resulting in death or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects" [243481]. A separate report cited a missile strike on a primary school that killed more than 150 people and another airstrike that killed 22 civilians [244261].
In the Lamerd bombing, the report said precision missiles "spread clouds of tungsten pellets over a clearly identifiable sports complex and residential area and killed 22 civilians" [243481].
Under international law, attacks on schools and sports facilities may count as war crimes if they target civilians or civilian sites [243859].
The three-expert mission was created in 2022 to examine Iran's repressive excesses, and its mandate was extended for another two years last January [243481].
The same report also found that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during their deadly crackdown on anti-government protests. The mission found that state security forces committed killings "on an alarming scale in all 31 provinces," with at least 221 children killed, some as young as two years old [243481]. The experts said they cannot determine the exact death toll from the protests but have solid grounds to believe it was much higher than the 3,038 the government admitted in February [243481].
The findings will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council [243827][243481].
Washington has rejected the findings [244261]. The United States has not acknowledged carrying out the attacks [243699].
The report's conclusions are based on information gathered from interviews with 73 people — 39 men, 32 women and two children — including members of Iran's ethnic and religious minorities, both inside and outside the country. The mission also collected satellite images, video and photographic material, and information from reliable human rights organizations and forensic, military and other experts [243481].