US probe said to indicate American forces likely launched strike that hit Iran girls school

Officials stress US military investigators haven’t yet reached final conclusion or completed investigation, which Hegseth confirms: ‘We, of course, never target civilian targets’

US military investigators believe it is likely that American forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed scores of children on Saturday, but have not yet reached a conclusion or completed their investigation, two US officials told Reuters.

Reuters was unable to determine additional details about the investigation, including what evidence contributed to the tentative assessment, what type of munition was used, who was responsible, or why the US might have struck the school. An earlier report by the New York Times suggesting American responsibility for the strike said it occurred at the same time as a series of US attacks on an adjacent naval base belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, indicating it was accidentally struck by the US as it targeted Iranian military assets nearby.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday acknowledged the US military was investigating the incident.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, did not rule out the possibility that new evidence could emerge that absolves the US of responsibility and points to another party responsible for the incident.

Reuters could not determine how much longer the investigation would last or what evidence US investigators are seeking before the assessment can be completed.

The girls’ school in Minab, in southern Iran, was hit on Saturday during the first day of US and Israeli attacks on the country. Iran’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said the strike killed 150 students. Iranian authorities have been the only ones to provide a death count from what would be the deadliest strike of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic. Their figures have not been independently confirmed.

The Pentagon referred questions from Reuters to the US military’s Central Command, whose spokesperson, Captain Timothy Hawkins, said: “It would be inappropriate to comment given the incident is under investigation.”

The White House did not directly comment on the investigation. Still, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to Reuters, “While the Department of War is currently investigating this matter, the Iranian regime targets civilians and children, not the United States of America.”

Asked about the incident during a news briefing on Wednesday, Hegseth said: “We’re investigating that. We, of course, never target civilian targets. But we’re taking a look and investigating that.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Monday that the United States would not deliberately target a school.

“The Department of War would be investigating if that was our strike, and I would refer your question to them,” Rubio said.

An Israeli military spokesperson told The Times of Israel on Tuesday that it was unaware of any Israeli strikes carried out in the area of Minab, adding the matter was under further review.

Israeli and US forces have until now divided their attacks in Iran both geographically and by target type, a senior Israeli official and a source with direct knowledge of the joint planning said. While Israel was striking missile launch sites in western Iran, the United States was attacking such targets, as well as naval ones, in the south.

The UN human rights office, without saying who it believed was responsible for the strike on the school, called on Tuesday for an investigation.

“The onus is on the forces that carried out the attack to investigate it,” UN human rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a press briefing in Geneva.

Images of the girls’ funerals on Tuesday were shown on Iranian state television. Their small coffins were draped with Iranian flags and passed from a truck across a large ​crowd towards the grave site.

Deliberately attacking a school, hospital or any other civilian structure would likely be a war crime under international humanitarian law.

If a US role were to be confirmed, the strike would rank among the worst cases of civilian casualties in decades of US conflicts in the Middle East.