Pentagon elevates probe into Iranian girls’ school strike as preliminary findings point to possible U.S. role
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military said today it has elevated its investigation into a Feb. 28 strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in southern Iran, following media reports that preliminary findings indicate U.S. forces were likely responsible. Iran says 168 children were killed, a toll that, if confirmed, would make it among the deadliest civilian casualty incidents linked to U.S. military action in the Middle East in decades.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declined to address the probe’s initial conclusion, first reported by Reuters on March 5. “We’re not going to let reporting lead us or force our hand into indicating what happened,” he said at the Pentagon, adding the command investigation “will take as long as necessary to address all the matters surrounding this incident.”
Three U.S. officials said the review has been elevated to a formal command investigation under Army Regulation 15-6, an administrative process that can form the basis for disciplinary action. Such inquiries typically include sworn statements and interviews with those involved. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal procedures.
Adm. Brad Cooper, head of U.S. Central Command, ordered the 15-6 last week after an initial review was completed, the officials said, and an outside officer was appointed yesterday to lead it. The move underscores concern inside the Pentagon about potential U.S. culpability and the need to comprehensively reconstruct the events surrounding the strike in Minab, a town in southern Iran.
Preliminary findings suggest U.S. forces may have relied on outdated targeting data that did not adequately distinguish between the school and an adjoining Iranian military base, according to one of the officials. Video and other evidence indicate the site was hit by a Tomahawk cruise missile, a precision-guided weapon fielded by few countries beyond the United States.
The investigation is proceeding despite initial public doubts from President Donald Trump about possible U.S. involvement. Without offering evidence, Trump had suggested Iran may have attacked the school and even posited that Tehran could possess Tomahawk missiles — a claim military experts consider extremely unlikely. On Monday, he said he would “certainly” accept the U.S. investigation’s outcome: “Whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that report.” A second U.S. official said those comments suggest the president is moving toward accepting the preliminary results, and that the public scrutiny surrounding the probe will make it politically difficult to reject the final findings.
Iran’s new supreme leader blamed the country’s enemies for the school strike in his first message to the nation yesterday, without explicitly naming the United States.
External evidence about the school’s identity has accumulated. A Reuters visual investigation published yesterday found the Shajareh Tayyebeh School maintained a years-long, public online presence featuring dozens of photos of its students and activities. It was one of 59 schools within the Persian Gulf Martyrs’ Cultural Educational Institute, a network affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which reports to Iran’s supreme leader, according to archived copies of the institute’s website.
The school’s site includes images of students gathering in its yard that match verified post-strike videos shot outside the building. Satellite imagery from mid-2015 shows the school compound walled off from the neighboring Iranian military base and indicates it has operated as a school since at least 2018, when painted murals first appear on its outer walls.
“It signals a recognition that something went wrong and to try to understand what happened and why,” said Annie Shiel, U.S. advocacy director with the Center for Civilians in Conflict, of the Pentagon’s decision to launch the 15-6 inquiry.
There is no public timeline for completion. Officials said the expanded probe is intended not only to determine responsibility but also to identify procedural failures — including potential targeting, intelligence and command-and-control breakdowns — and recommend corrective measures.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
