Amid mounting evidence that it was possibly an American airstrike that killed around 170 people, more than 100 of them students at a girls’ school in Iran’s Minab, US President Donald Trump at first said he did not “know enough”, but then went on to say he was willing to “live with” whatever a probe report would find.
Besides statements by the Iranian government, there are reports by rights groups and investigations by media houses such as the BBC and the New York Times have pointed towards a US-made Tomahawk missile being involved in the school hit, part of US-Israeli strikes on day 1 of the war on February 28.
US President Donald Trump has so far blamed Iran, while the Pentagon has said it is investigating the incident. Iran has dismissed suggestions that it would harm itself to blame it on the US or Israel. “Who is attacking us? It’s the US and Israel. We are not the aggressors here,” its foreign minister Abbas Araghchi has said.
The NYT has reported, “A body of evidence… including satellite imagery, social media posts and other verified videos — indicates that the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school building was severely damaged by a precision strike that occurred at the same time as attacks on the naval base.”
The only military using Tomahawks in this war is the United States’, it underlined.
Footages that NYT and BBC have verified showed dust and smoke rising from the direction of the school, indicating at least one earlier explosion. The US military’s Central Command has released footage of Tomahawk launches filmed on February 28, the day Minab was hit, while senior US officers briefed that early salvoes included Navy Tomahawks across Iran’s southern flank, news agency AFP reported on Tuesday, March 10.
What Iran says
Iran has said more than 170 people were killed in what President Masoud Pezeshkian described as US-Israeli strikes on the school. According to state media, Iran held funerals for at least 165 people, including students killed in the attack.
State television carried images showing a large crowd of mourners weeping over bodies wrapped in white shrouds. Other images showed individuals preparing coffins draped in the Iranian flag, some bearing photographs of children. Another aerial image showed excavators digging out at least 100 graves at an unidentified mass burial site.
Norway-based rights group Hengaw said the school was holding its morning session at the time of the reported attack and had about 170 students present.
What Trump says
President Trump first reacted on Saturday. “We think it was done by Iran. Because they are very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
On Monday, Trump said the United States was investigating the strike “right now”.
“Whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that report,” Trump said, adding he did not “know enough about” the strike while also suggesting Iran may have used a Tomahawk missile, a weapon it does not possess, to hit the school itself.
Here’s how the question-answer went.
A reporter said to Trump: “You just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk missile and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you’re the only person in your government saying this…”
Trump replied, “I just don’t know enough about it. I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation. But Tomahawks are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have Tomahawks. They buy them from us.”
He then added, “But I will certainly… whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that report.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week said the United States would not intentionally target a school and said the Pentagon was investigating.
US Democratic lawmakers on Monday urged the Pentagon to conduct an impartial probe into what happened under the Republican President’s watch.
Israel’s military, meanwhile, said it was not aware of any US or Israeli strike on a school. “We’re operating in an extremely accurate manner,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters.