UN probe puts US strikes in Iran under war-crimes scrutiny

The United States may have committed war crimes in Iran by striking a school and a sports complex, a UN-mandated fact-finding mission has found.

The mission said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe US forces launched indiscriminate attacks on 28 February, killing or injuring civilians and damaging civilian buildings. The finding raises immediate questions about whether Washington will publish its own investigation and whether anyone responsible will face scrutiny.¹

• At least 178 civilians were killed in the two strikes examined by the mission, although the final toll remains unsettled.¹
• The first strike hit Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in Minab, southern Iran. Iranian officials have said more than 150 people died, including about 120 children.²
• The second hit a sports complex and nearby homes in Lamerd. The mission said 22 civilians were killed or injured; US-made missiles dispersing tungsten pellets were identified as the likely weapon in independent analysis.¹³
• The mission found no evidence that the school was being used for military purposes. It said US forces relied on intelligence suggesting a senior Iranian commander was at the site but failed to verify it properly.²
• US Central Command denies striking Lamerd. The Trump administration has not published the Pentagon’s investigation into the Minab bombing.¹³

The legal significance is not that a UN court has convicted the United States. It has not. The fact-finding mission is an investigative body, not a criminal tribunal. But its conclusion moves the allegations from battlefield claims into a formal international record, based on evidence gathered for presentation to the Human Rights Council.

That record now collides with Washington’s secrecy. The Pentagon has acknowledged investigating the school strike but has released no findings. Central Command’s denial over Lamerd also sits against an AP review of damage patterns, videos, satellite imagery and weapons evidence that pointed to Precision Strike Missiles being used near civilian buildings.³

The same UN investigation accused Iranian authorities of crimes against humanity during a crackdown on protests. That does not dilute the allegations against the US. It leaves Iranian civilians facing two forms of impunity at once: repression by their government and civilian deaths in an American-led war.

Footnotes

1. Associated Press, “UN-backed experts cite possible US war crimes in Iran strikes” ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. The Guardian, “Iran school bombing: grounds to believe US was behind atrocity, UN finds” ↩ ↩²

3. Associated Press, “New US missile appears to have left wide path of death and destruction in Iranian city, report says” ↩ ↩² ↩³