Iran’s Mehr News agency today shared a video that it claims to show “the moment when Israeli and American terrorists struck Minab school.” The Feb. 28 attack, in the first 24 hours of the surprise attack on Iran, killed some 168 girls between 7 and 12 years of age, along with a handful of teachers. At the time of the direct hit upon the school, the U.S. air assault destroyed several military facilities in the area. (Minab is near the Straits of Hormuz and includes a naval complex.) Both the Washington Post and New York Times have verified the authenticity of the footage, using satellite imagery, social media posts, and other geolocated videos.
Previously, experts have described the type of damage showing up in satellite photos as reflecting the pattern of an air assault, though not specifically by a Tomahawk missile. Now, expert analysis of the brief video adds that a Tomahawk is the lead candidate. Wes Bryant, a former US Air Force Special Operations targeting expert, told the Washington Post that the missile’s outlines correlate with those of a Tomahawk. According to NPR, Jeffrey Lewis, a professor of global security at Middlebury College, separately confirmed the assessment. Lewis added that the missile did not resemble any known weapons in Iran’s arsenal. Eight independent munitions experts, according to the Post described the clip as the latest indication of likely US involvement in the strike.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been unapologetic, only repeating that an investigation is still ongoing and suggesting that Iran targeted the school. Despite this, it is generally suspected that his reliance upon AI-generated targets with no human review may have allowed a property and a building, which 13 years ago was converted to a schoolyard and school building form a military installation, to be targeted and decimated. Any normal review of targets would have had no trouble in identifying the playground and other such recognizable features. However, such niceties as the ‘rules of warfare’ have been properly denounced and ridiculed by the clueless warrior.
