The still-unattributed strike on the girls’ school in Minab in southern Iran on the first day of the war was of the “double-tap” variety, a tactic first made infamous by Al Qaeda in Iraq during the U.S. occupation. According to eyewitnesses interviewed by Middle East Eye, the first strike was followed moments later by a second, more powerful blast, after staff had moved the girls into what they thought was a safer location. “When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them,” one of the Red Crescent medics said, citing conversations he had had at the time with survivors. “The principal called the parents and told them to come and pick up their children. But the second bomb hit that area as well. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived.”
Almost all the 165 people killed in the attack were girls, ages between 7 and 12, according to local officials. There were around 170 girls at the school at the time. “Double-tap strike” is an informal term for a tactic that is a war crime, MEE explained. It appears to have been previously used by Israel in Gaza and by the U.S. in the Caribbean as recently as last year.
