US strike hits Iran wedding house in Kuhestak, four killed

A missile strike hit a fisherman's home in Kuhestak during his daughter's wedding celebrations. The attack has intensified scrutiny over civilian casualties in the US campaign in southern Iran.

In Short

• Iranian media said more than 60 people were wounded in blast
• A nearby port communications tower and pier were reportedly struck too
• Security footage showed fireballs over Kuhestak along the Strait of Hormuz

A US missile struck a house in southern Iran where dozens of people had gathered for the wedding of a fisherman's daughter, according to a rights group and Iranian media. Iranian state media said four people, including two women and two children, were killed and more than 60 were wounded, while the US military said it was looking into the reports.

The strike in the coastal town of Kuhestak came during the latest round of American bombardment in southern Iran, which the US military said was aimed at air defences, radar systems and maritime assets. Iranian media said a nearby communications tower at the port was also hit, while weapons experts who examined images of missile fragments told The Associated Press they appeared to be from a US-made SLAM-ER cruise missile.

Heavy explosions shook Kuhestak on the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, and security footage carried by Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency showed fireballs lighting up the night sky. Kuhestak is among a string of small towns along the barren coastline of the Strait of Hormuz, which has become a central front in the six-month war. The town is about 30 kilometres from Minab, where more than 100 children were killed in a US missile strike on a primary school on February 28, the opening day of the war launched by the US and Israel.

According to state media, at least one missile hit the home of Ali Mallahi, a fisherman who was celebrating his daughter's wedding at the time. Mallahi told state television: "The missile completely destroyed the ceiling of the house," as he pointed to the damage. He said a neighbouring house in the same yard was hit by another missile. Like most of the town's population, Mallahi belongs to Iran's Baluch ethnic minority.

There was no immediate video footage of the moment of impact. However, videos aired by Iranian media showed a crater, severe damage to the building's walls and roof, a smashed car nearby, and debris scattered around, including the shoes of wedding guests.

IRNA and state television said two women and two children, aged 4 and 16, were killed and at least 68 people were wounded. Shortly after the strike, the province's deputy governor, Ahmad Nafisi, had told Iranian state television that five people were killed, but no explanation was given for the revised toll. At the hospital in Minab, where the wounded were taken, Iranian media showed at least two girls and a woman in bandages. One of the children appeared to still be in shock.

A man at the hospital, with bandages on his head and arm, said he was heading to the wedding when he heard jets overhead. The explosion came as he arrived. "Blocks were falling and hitting people's heads. And many small children and women that were there were terribly injured. So many," he said in a video posted by the Iranian Red Crescent, which did not identify him.

State media said a communications tower at Kuhestak's port, about 100 metres from Mallahi's house, was also struck in the same round of attacks. Moein Arjomand, director of the Balochistan Human Rights Documentation Network, told AP that witnesses had told his group at least two missiles hit the communications tower and another hit a pier at the port. The group said the 16-year-old was killed by shrapnel while riding his motorcycle near the communications tower, and not at the wedding as reported by Iranian media.

Separately, Iran has said four members of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and 10 members of the Guard's volunteer Basij forces were killed in the latest round of US attacks. State media said the total number of wounded in these attacks stood at 108.

Two weapons experts told AP that images of missile fragments, which Iranian media said came from the strike on Mallahi's home, were from a US-made SLAM-ER cruise missile. Trevor Ball of Armament Research Services said the SLAM-ER was "developed as a very precise weapon" and could be retargeted in flight by a human operator using an infrared camera. N.R. Jenzen-Jones, the group's director, said a fin fragment was distinctive to an upgraded SLAM-ER, an air-launched Boeing missile with a range of more than 270 kilometres. He said the missile is also used by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, though Iran has repeatedly attacked both countries during the war and neither has reported carrying out any recent strikes on Iran.

US Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said the US military was looking into the reports of the strike on the wedding, but did not say whether a formal investigation had been launched. Central Command also declined to comment on the analysts' findings. The attack on the wedding home, the strike on the nearby port and the differing accounts of the casualties have left only a limited but grim picture of what happened in the remote town of Kuhestak.

With PTI Inputs

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