U.S. Military Admits Mistaken Missile Strike on Iranian Girls School

The United States Department of Defense determined that American forces were responsible for a February 28, 2026, missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran. The attack, part of the opening wave of a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign known as Operation Epic Fury, killed between 150 and 180 people, predominantly children. Preliminary findings indicate U.S. Central Command utilized a Tomahawk cruise missile to strike the school after relying on outdated coordinates from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which erroneously listed the school as part of an adjacent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval base.

Investigations revealed that senior military commanders bypassed warnings about obsolete intelligence to expedite target identification. The school had been separated from the military compound since 2016, yet targeting databases remained unupdated. Reports also link the targeting process to Palantir's Maven Smart System and Anthropic's Claude AI, though the specific role of AI in the error remains under review.

President Donald Trump initially deflected responsibility, suggesting the strike was an Iranian misfire or that Tomahawks are generic weapons used by other nations, before later stating he would accept the investigation's results. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced intense scrutiny from over 45 U.S. senators for scaling back the Pentagon's civilian harm mitigation staffing by over 90%, which critics argue eroded safeguards. Iranian officials condemned the strike as an unforgivable war crime, and UNESCO described it as a grave violation of international humanitarian law.