UN Mission Says Grounds to Believe US War Crimes in Iran School Strike

A United Nations fact-finding mission said Thursday it has reasonable grounds to believe the United States carried out two February strikes in Iran that killed scores of civilians and amounted to war crimes, according to Reuters. The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, whose report goes to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, also concluded that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during a deadly crackdown on anti-government protests that erupted in late December.

The experts focused on two of the conflict’s deadliest attacks on civilians. On Feb. 28, Tomahawk missiles struck Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in the southern city of Minab, killing at least 156 people—including around 120 children—according to Iranian officials cited by the mission. Investigators said the school sat near an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval complex also hit that day, but found no evidence the school itself was used for military purposes and concluded it was the intended point of impact.

A second strike the same day hit a sports complex and residential area in Lamerd, killing at least 21 civilians, including children, the report found. The mission said Precision Strike Missiles dispersed tungsten pellets over clearly identifiable civilian sites and that the attack likewise constituted an indiscriminate strike amounting to a war crime, BBC News reported. Washington has previously said it is investigating Minab and denied carrying out strikes on Lamerd; Iranian and U.S. missions in Geneva did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment on the new findings.

UN fact-finding missions are investigative, not judicial, bodies, but their conclusions can feed national or international criminal probes. States are due to discuss the report when it is presented to the Human Rights Council on Monday. U.S. officials have long maintained that operations follow the law of armed conflict; Iran has rejected allegations of systematic rights abuses.

On the protest crackdown, the experts said Iranian authorities carried out a widespread and systematic attack on civilians involving unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and severe limits on expression. They could not independently verify the death toll but said the number of dead and injured was likely far higher than official figures of 3,038 killed and 25,000 injured. Rights monitors have floated higher tallies; Tehran has blamed “terrorists and rioters” backed by exiled opponents and foreign foes.

“Civilians in Iran are caught between gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by their own government and the nation’s deadly conflict with the United States and Israel,” the mission warned in a statement quoted by BBC News—underscoring a dual accountability story that lands as the seven-month Iran war continues to reshape regional politics and oil risk.