{"id":467652,"date":"2026-03-10T11:13:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T11:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467652\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T11:13:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T11:13:10","slug":"minab-school-bombing-what-evidence-is-there-that-the-us-was-responsible-us-israel-war-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467652\/","title":{"rendered":"Minab school bombing: what evidence is there that the US was responsible? | US-Israel war on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bombing of a primary school in Minab on 28 February killed scores of people, most of them seven- to 12-year-old girls. The strike is the worst mass killing of the US and Israel\u2019s war on Iran<\/a> so far \u2013 and has been described by Unesco as a \u201cgrave violation\u201d of international law.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, the US president, Donald Trump<\/a>, declared that Iran was responsible for the school bombing. \u201cIn my opinion, based on what I\u2019ve seen, that was done by Iran \u2026 they\u2019re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president presented no evidence for his claim. His assertion has not been repeated by spokespeople for the US military, who have said only that they are \u201cinvestigating\u201d the bombing.<\/p>\n

But a growing body of evidence indicates that the strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school was carried out by the US. Here is what we know \u2013 and why it points to the US being responsible.<\/p>\n

The school\u2019s location<\/p>\n

The Shajareh Tayyebeh school was adjacent to a cluster of buildings that form the local Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval barracks and support buildings. The Guardian cross-referenced verified videos<\/a> from the site of the bombing with satellite imagery to confirm the location of the primary school.<\/p>\n

Historic satellite imagery shows that while the school\u2019s building was once part of the wider IRGC complex, it has been walled off from the barracks for at least nine years. For years, it has had clear visual indications that it is an educational facility, including colourful murals on the walls and small sports playing fields \u2013 both visible in some satellite imagery.<\/p>\n

There is no indication that the school was a military-use building at the time of the strike. Its location, however, provides a plausible reason why the US or Israel may have selected targets in that area.<\/p>\n

An annotated satellite view of the area in which the school was located.<\/a><\/p>\n

A number of videos of the bombed school, which have been verified by the Guardian, were shared on Iranian social media in the immediate aftermath of the explosion. At least four show what is clearly the same site from different angles and approaches, with shared motifs such as the school\u2019s distinctive, colourful murals.<\/p>\n

One of those videos shows the rubble of the destroyed school and pans to show thick smoke rising over the fence \u2013 from the direction of the IRGC base. The video was one of the first indications that the bomb that hit the school was one of a series of strikes that also targeted the IRGC complex next to it.<\/p>\n

\"PanicPanic as smoke rises after strike on girls\u2019 elementary school in Minab, southern IranSatellite imagery of the strikes<\/p>\n

On 4 March, the first satellite images were released showing the aftermath of the strikes. They show the destroyed school building and four other destroyed buildings in its immediate vicinity, all within the walls of the IRGC complex.<\/p>\n

A satellite image of Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school after it was hit.<\/a>An aerial view of the school and surrounding areas taken on 4 March with bombed sites markedThe Tomahawk video<\/p>\n

On 8 March, Iranian state media Mehr news agency released a video of a missile hitting a location in Minab. The video was geolocated by the investigative collective Bellingcat<\/a>. Geolocation is the process of cross-referencing physical features shown in an image or video (such as buildings, billboards, signage or mountains) with verified images of a site, such as satellite images, to confirm where it was captured.<\/p>\n

Bellingcat was able to match buildings, water towers, trees and roads from the video with satellite images of the Minab site, to locate what angle it was filmed from and where the missile landed. It determined that the missile had struck the IRGC compound next to the school.<\/p>\n

The missile shown in the video has been identified by munitions experts as a Tomahawk missile.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the belligerents, that indicates it is a US strike, as Israel is not known to possess Tomahawk missiles,\u201d said NR Jenzen-Jones, the director of Armament Research Services, an intelligence consultancy that provides munitions analysis to governments and NGOs. The US is the only country involved in the Iran war to have this weapon.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cDespite various claims circulating online, the munition in question is clearly not an Iranian Soumar missile: the Soumar has a distinctive external engine located towards the rear, on the underside of the munition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA Tomahawk missile hits naval base next to Minab primary schoolWhere the US was operating during the strikes<\/p>\n

While the US has not explicitly admitted to striking the school or adjacent IRGC barracks, it has said it was conducting strikes in the area. In a briefing at the Pentagon led by Pete Hegseth on 4 March, the US military shared a graphic<\/a> showing where the US and Israel had conducted strikes during Operation Epic Fury.<\/p>\n

While Minab is not labelled on that map, one of the points marked as the location of a US\/Israeli strike corresponds to where Minab is located. The graphic also marks where \u201cIranian strikes\u201d had taken place according to the US military \u2013 none are marked in the Minab area.<\/p>\n

The map is reinforced by broader US\/Israeli intelligence briefings,<\/a> in which officials have said the US focused its initial strikes along Iran\u2019s southern coastline (where Minab is located), while Israel focused its strikes on the west of the country.<\/p>\n

A graphic shared by the US military on 4 March showing where they and Israel had conducted strikes. Photograph: Konstantin Toropin\/APWidely circulated images of a \u2018misfire\u2019 debunked<\/p>\n

Shortly after the bombing, a number of social media accounts made viral claims similar to those made by the president: that the school had been struck by a misfired Iranian missile. The photographs of the misfire<\/a> that those accounts present as evidence, however, were taken about 994 miles (1,600km) away from Minab, in the much colder northern city of Zanjan.<\/p>\n

The backdrop of the alleged \u201cmisfire\u201d photo shows snow-covered mountains, but Minab lies on the far warmer southern coast of Iran; satellite imagery shows no snow-capped mountains in its vicinity. In the foreground of the misfire image, signs for a dentist\u2019s clinic<\/a> are visible \u2013 experts also geolocated that office building to Zanjan. The president has not directly referenced the circulated image, and has provided no further evidence of a misfire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The bombing of a primary school in Minab on 28 February killed scores of people, most of them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-467652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}