Deadly US strike on Iran school may have been a war crime, UN report finds

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

Two deadly US strikes on Iran during the opening salvo of the war, including one that hit an elementary school, may have been war crimes, a United Nations investigation concluded in a new report .

At least 156 people, including 120 children and 26 teachers, were killed when the school in the southern city of Minab was struck on February 28, according to Iranian officials. While there have been slight variances in the reported death toll, it would be considered one of the worst civilian casualty incidents in recent US military history.

The UN investigators also examined a second US strike on the same day, which hit a sports center and residential area in the southern city of Lamerd. The strike killed 22 civilians, according to the UN.

In both strikes, investigators “found reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in the loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects,” said the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission .

A US State Department official told CNN that the Trump administration did not find the report credible. They pointed out that President Donald Trump had formally withdrawn the US from the UN Human Rights Council in February 2025, just weeks after he took office, accusing the body of antisemitism.

The Department of Defense declined to comment, beyond noting that an investigation was ongoing and it had nothing to announce at the moment.

The US has not yet published its own investigation. But early evidence suggests the military accidentally hit the school due to outdated intelligence, as it attacked a neighboring Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval base, sources said.

Majid-Asgaripour/Wana News Agency/Reuters

Exclusive: US military hasn’t conducted standard review of intelligence tied to strike on school in Iran, sources say

The UN report was compiled by a team of independent investigators who analyzed satellite imagery, video and photos, information from credible organizations and experts, and conducted dozens of interviews both in and outside Iran. Their findings will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council.

The UN report also analyzed Iran’s repression of anti-government protesters in late 2025 and early 2026, before the war with the US kicked off. The brutal crackdown killed thousands of people, while detainees were tortured and “disappeared” without notification to their families, it found.

These “gross violations amount to crimes against humanity,” the UN investigators said, describing the crackdown as “a widespread and systematic attack on civilians.” CNN has reached out to Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

The investigators asked for unhindered access to Iran, which the Iranian government did not grant. Of all the UN’s information requests, Iran only responded to about a quarter, the report said.

They also requested meetings with US government officials, and information from the Israeli government, which went unanswered.

While the US is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the global body that investigates war crimes, it does have its own war crime laws.

US Central Command created target coordinates for the strike that hit the Shajareh Tayyiba school in Minab using outdated information provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which contributed to the mistake, two sources briefed on the preliminary findings of the ongoing internal investigation told CNN in March.

Satellite imagery from 2013 showed that the school and the IRGC base were once part of the same compound . But images from 2016 revealed that a fence had been erected to separate the school from the rest of the base, and that a separate entrance to the school had been built.

Imagery from December 2025 showed dozens of people in the school’s courtyard, apparently playing.

“No information indicates that the school was used for military purposes at the time,” the UN report found. “The US failed in its obligation to do everything feasible to verify that it was a military objective.”

Trump had initially asserted that Iran might be to blame for the strike, though when pressed on why no one in his own administration seemed to be publicly supporting that claim, he responded: “ Because I just don’t know enough about it. ”

Exclusive: US commanders bypassed warnings about outdated intelligence ahead of strike that hit school in Iran, sources say

But the Pentagon’s internal investigation has been stuck in limbo for months.

The first two stages of a standard investigation were completed within a week of the strike – answering basic questions about whether the strike had hit the intended target, and determining that the US was responsible. But the third stage, where Defense Intelligence Agency analysts review satellite imagery and other intelligence sources, has not yet been ordered by the Pentagon, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN in July.

That review would typically provide a more holistic determination about what took place and how a strike impacted the broader mission, and would almost always be conducted in the immediate aftermath of a noteworthy strike, they said.

Another independent investigation was separately launched, which included interviews with military service members involved in the strike. But any information gleaned from those interviews has been “locked down” by US Central Command with only a handful of officers permitted access to the details, sources said.

CNN previously reported that senior US military commanders bypassed warnings in critical databases that intelligence about potential targets in Iran was severely out of date and went ahead with approving strikes – including one that hit the school.

CNN’s Christian Edwards, Thomas Bordeaux, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Quinta Thomson, Isobel Yeung and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

联合国一项调查在一份新报告中得出结论，战争初期美国对伊朗发动的两次致命袭击，其中一次击中了一所小学，可能构成战争罪行。

据伊朗官方消息，2月28日，南部城市米纳布的一所学校遭到袭击，造成至少156人死亡，其中包括120名儿童和26名教师。尽管官方公布的死亡人数略有出入，但这起事件仍被认为是美国近代军事史上最严重的平民伤亡事件之一。

联合国调查人员还调查了当天美国发动的第二次空袭，该空袭袭击了南部城市拉默德的一个体育中心和居民区。据联合国称，此次空袭造成22名平民死亡。

联合国独立国际实况调查团表示，在这两起袭击事件中，调查人员“有合理理由相信美国犯下了发动不分青红皂白袭击的战争罪行，导致平民伤亡或民用物体受损”。

美国国务院一位官员告诉CNN，特朗普政府认为这份报告不可信。他们指出，唐纳德·特朗普总统在2025年2月正式宣布美国退出联合国人权理事会，当时距离他上任仅几周，他指责该机构存在反犹主义。

美国国防部拒绝置评，仅表示调查仍在进行中，目前没有什么可以宣布的。

美国尚未公布其调查结果。但消息人士称，初步证据表明，由于情报过时，军方在袭击邻近的伊斯兰革命卫队海军基地时，误击了这所学校。

马吉德-阿斯加里普尔/瓦纳通讯社/路透社

独家消息：消息人士称，美军尚未对与袭击伊朗学校有关的情报进行标准审查。

这份联合国报告由一个独立调查小组编写，他们分析了卫星图像、视频和照片，收集了来自可信组织和专家的信息，并在伊朗境内外进行了数十次访谈。他们的调查结果将提交给联合国人权理事会。

联合国报告还分析了伊朗在2025年末和2026年初，即美伊战争爆发前，对反政府示威者的镇压。报告指出，这场残酷的镇压导致数千人死亡，被拘留者遭受酷刑，并在未通知家属的情况下“失踪”。

联合国调查人员表示，这些“严重侵犯人权的行为构成反人类罪”，并将此次镇压行动描述为“对平民的广泛而系统的攻击”。美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）已联系伊朗外交部寻求置评。

调查人员要求不受阻碍地进入伊朗，但伊朗政府拒绝了这一要求。报告称，在联合国提出的所有信息请求中，伊朗仅回应了约四分之一。

他们还要求与美国政府官员会面，并向以色列政府索取信息，但均未得到回应。

虽然美国不是负责调查战争罪行的全球机构——国际刑事法院的成员国，但它有自己的战争罪行法律。

据两名了解正在进行的内部调查初步结果的消息人士3月份向CNN透露，美国中央司令部使用国防情报局提供的过时信息创建了袭击米纳布沙贾雷·塔伊巴学校的目标坐标，这导致了这次错误。

2013年的卫星图像显示，这所学校和伊朗伊斯兰革命卫队基地曾经是同一区域的一部分。但2016年的图像显示，学校与基地其他部分之间已经竖起了围栏，并且学校还建了一个单独的入口。

2025 年 12 月的影像显示，学校的庭院里有数十人，显然是在玩耍。

联合国报告指出，“没有任何信息表明该学校当时被用于军事目的。” “美国未能履行其义务，尽一切可行措施核实该学校是否为军事目标。”

特朗普最初声称伊朗可能是此次袭击的罪魁祸首，但当被追问为什么他自己的政府中似乎没有人公开支持这一说法时，他回应说：“因为我对此了解得不够多。”

独家消息：消息人士称，美军指挥官在对伊朗一所学校发动袭击前，无视了有关情报过时的警告。

但五角大楼的内部调查已经陷入停滞数月之久。

袭击发生后一周内，标准调查的前两个阶段就已完成——解答了关于袭击是否击中预定目标以及确定美国对此负责的基本问题。但据三位知情人士7月份向CNN透露，五角大楼尚未下令启动第三阶段，即国防情报局分析人员审查卫星图像和其他情报来源。

他们说，这种审查通常会对所发生的事情以及袭击对更广泛任务的影响做出更全面的判断，而且几乎总是在发生重大袭击之后立即进行。

另一项独立调查也已启动，其中包括对参与此次袭击的军人进行访谈。但消息人士称，从这些访谈中获取的任何信息都被美国中央司令部“严密封锁”，只有少数军官获准查阅细节。

CNN此前报道称，美国高级军事指挥官无视关键数据库中有关伊朗潜在目标的情报严重过时的警告，执意批准了打击行动——其中一次就击中了这所学校。

CNN 的 Christian Edwards、Thomas Bordeaux、Gianluca Mezzofiore、Quinta Thomson、Isobel Yeung 和 Zachary Cohen 对本报道亦有贡献。