Independent investigation of Iran school bombing points to US – National strikes
The investigative group Bellingcat says that the newly released video “seems to contradict” US President Donald Trump’s allegations that Iran was responsible for the explosion of an Iranian school that killed more than 165 people at the beginning of the war in the Mideast.
It comes as evidence mounts that the US is responsible for the February 28 strike, which targeted a school near a Revolutionary Guard camp in Minab, Iran, in the country’s southern Hormozgan Province. Experts interviewed by the Associated Press, citing analysis of satellite imagery, said the school may have been hit by bombs in quick succession.
The video shared by Bellingcat is a three-second clip of footage taken the day the school was struck and distributed on Sunday by Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency. The video shows gunfire landing on top of a building, sending black debris into the air mixing with smoke that may have come from previous strikes on the compound. Trevor Ball, a Bellingcat researcher, posted the video in an area near the school, something the AP also did.
Ball identified the cluster as a Tomahawk cruise missile – the only one the US is known to have in this war. First evidence of the weapons used in the strike.
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The US Central Command has admitted to using Tomahawk missiles in this war and even released a photo of the USS Spruance, part of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group at the school, firing a Tomahawk missile on Feb. 28.
Complicating any assessment of the incident is the lack of photographs of the bomb fragments from the explosion. No independent agency has accessed the site during the war to investigate.
When asked by a reporter on Saturday if the US was responsible for the explosion, which killed most of the children, Trump replied, without giving evidence: “No, in my opinion, based on what I saw, it was done by Iran.” Trump added that Iran is “absolutely not good” with its weapons. The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, quickly stepped in and said the US was investigating.
Janina Dill, an international law expert at Oxford University, wrote in X that even if the strike was false – and the attacker believed the school was part of a neighboring IRGC base – “it would be a serious violation of international law.”
“Attackers are under an obligation to do everything possible to ensure the status of the target object,” he wrote.
Several factors point to a US strike.
Another is the launch of an incident investigation by the US military. According to the Pentagon’s directives on procedures to reduce civilian casualties, the test was launched after a team of investigators made a preliminary determination that the US military might be responsible.
A US official told AP that the strike was in the US The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive issue.
Another location of the school – near the base of the Revolutionary Guards and near the military camp. The US military has focused on naval targets and has approved strikes in the province, including one near a school. Israel, which has denied carrying out the strike, has focused on Iranian areas close to Israel and has not reported any strikes south of Isfahan, which is 800 kilometers (500 miles) away.
Neither the U.S. military’s Central Command nor the Israeli military immediately responded to requests for comment Monday from the AP for Bellingcat’s analysis.
Speaking about the US operation at a press conference on March 2, Hegseth said: “The United States, regardless of what international institutions say, is launching the deadliest and most accurate air power campaign in history.”
“There are no stupid rules of engagement,” he said.
“There are no fair battles in politics. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or people’s lives.”
© 2026 The Canadian Press
