US probe finds American forces behind strike on Iranian elementary school

A preliminary U.S. military investigation found that American forces were responsible for a deadly strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Iran in late February after outdated intelligence data led to a targeting mistake, the report said Wednesday.

The strike occurred in the early hours of the war that Israel and the U.S. started against Iran, and officers at U.S. Central Command generated strike coordinates using outdated Defense Intelligence Agency data that still identified the school building as part of an adjacent Iranian military base, a designation that was no longer accurate.

Daily Sabah

Iranian officials said the attack killed scores, many of them children.

The Pentagon did not respond to Anadolu Agency's request for comment.

Multiple independent analyses and media outlets reached similar conclusions linking the strike to U.S. forces.

CBS News reported a preliminary U.S. assessment that American forces were "likely" responsible and cited possible use of dated intelligence.

Daily Sabah

Bellingcat and The New York Times found evidence that a Tomahawk missile, a weapon only the US is known to possess among the warring parties, struck a compound of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps near the school.

The New York Times said the school was hit at the same time as precision strikes on an adjacent IRGC naval base with a former U.S. Air Force official calling the most likely explanation "target misidentification."

Other outlets and forensic teams documented damage patterns and local accounts that supported reports of a precision strike and possible follow-up explosions.

BBC Verify reported multiple impact sites and burn marks around the school and nearby IRGC facilities, with analysts saying the damage pattern suggested the use of a penetrating munition.

A reconstruction by Britain’s The Guardian placed the school directly adjacent to an IRGC compound, separated only by a wall built in recent years.

Middle East Eye cited survivors and first responders reporting a possible "double-tap" strike, and CBC News noted the attack coincided with the first wave of U.S.-Israeli strikes across southern Iran.

Responses and formal attribution remain unresolved: U.S. President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the strike, saying Tehran's munitions lacked accuracy.

UNESCO described the killing of students as a "grave violation" of protections for educational facilities under international humanitarian law and called for a full investigation.

Daily Sabah

Several outlets cited American officials who said investigators believe U.S. forces were likely responsible but that no conclusion had been reached.

The article notes that no side has formally claimed responsibility.