Hegseth announces Pentagon probe into deadly strike on Iranian school

This picture obtained from Iran’s ISNA news agency shows the site of a strike on a girls’ school in Minab, in Iran’s southern Hormozgan province, on Feb.28, 2026.(Ali Najafi/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images)

Satellite imagery and reporting from Iranian officials indicate the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school sat roughly 600 meters from the adjacentIslamic Revolutionary Guard Corpsnaval facility in Minab, Iran, underscoring how closely civilian and military infrastructure were positioned.

“I’m leaning more toward that this is complete misidentification,” from the U.S., he said, arguing that the likely issue would be a failure to properly vet or update targeting information rather than a random malfunction.

�This investigation is ongoing.As we have said, unlike the terrorist Iranian regime, the United States does not target civilians.”  

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Possible Tomahawk missile and strike location

Open-source video analysis and reported missile remnants have fueled speculation that the munition resembled a U.S.Tomahawk cruise missile — a weapon Iran does not operate. 

The Tomahawkis fielded by the U.S.and a limited number of close allies, including the United Kingdom and Australia, neither of which has been firing missiles in the conflict.

The Tomahawk is a long-range, precision-guided cruise missile capable of striking targets hundreds of miles away and typically carrying a high-explosive warhead.

Independent open-source investigators, including Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group specializing in open-source analysis, have examined video and satellite imagery from the area and reported that multiple strikes hit the compound within a short time window. 

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However, commentators on social media have their own theories. 

“The wing-to-body ratio of the munition in question matches an Iranian Kh-55–derived Land Attack Cruise Missile,” said podcast host and veteran Matt Tardio on X.“So what could have caused this?Simply put, GPS jamming of an Iranian KH-55.The USA and Israel were, and continue to actively jam the Iranian airspace.”

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An aerial view shows funerals underway at a graveyard in Minab, Iran, March 3, 2026, for students and staff from a girls school who authorities said were killed in a Feb.28 strike.(Handout/Getty Images)

Former National Security Council official Javed Ali, now a professor at the Gerald R.

“How solid was the intelligence picture on that facility?” Ali said.“How good was the intelligence that went into what’s called a target package?”

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Ali, who previously worked on targeting analysis at the Defense Intelligence Agency, said military strikes are typically built from multiple streams of intelligence — human, technical, geospatial and open source — designed to provide high confidence that a structure is a legitimate military objective.

“Clearly something went wrong,” Ali said.

Civilian proximity raises targeting questions

Bryant said the Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence and broader civilian harm mitigation enterprise were scaled back in 2025, reducing the number of personnel available to conduct investigations into civilian harm.

The center was established byCongressto help the military minimize harm to civilians in conflict, but reporting shows its dedicated staff were folded into broader bureaucratic units or removed as part of a departmental reorganization. 

Its teams were designed to work with commanders on target planning to make sure targets were active military sites and advise on the potential for civilian harm, according to Bryant. 

Tehran with smoke visible in the distance after explosions were reported in the city, on March 2, 2026, in Tehran, Iran.(Contributor/Getty Images)

The Pentagon has not publicly detailed the current status or staffing of the office, nor confirmed whether the office is involved in the ongoing Minab, Iran, school investigation.

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Analysts say when civilian casualties occur during precision strikes, the explanations generally fall into three categories: intelligence failure, technical malfunction or human error.

Mourners attend the funeral of children killed in a reported strike on a primary school in Minab, Hormozgan province, Iran, on March 3, 2026. (Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images)

Human error — such as incorrect coordinate entry — is another possibility. 

If an investigation ultimately finds negligence or a breakdown in targeting procedures, the U.S.military has a precedent for imposing consequences.

Bryant pointed to the 2015 U.S.strike on a hospital in Kunduz,Afghanistan, that killed dozens of patients and medical staff at a facility operated by Doctors Without Borders, the international humanitarian medical charity.

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A U.S.military investigation later concluded that airstrike was “a tragic and avoidable accident” caused primarily by human error and procedural failures, with the medical facility mistakenly identified as a combat target.

“In that case, a couple of different commanders were removed,” Bryant said, noting that accountability can range from administrative measures to the revocation of certifications, depending on findings.