WASHINGTON — Outdated targeting data may have caused a U.S. strike during the opening hours of the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran to hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab, southern Iran, instead of a nearby Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps compound, according to people familiar with a preliminary U.S. military investigation and new reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press, March 12, 2026.
The emerging explanation suggests one of the deadliest school attacks of the conflict may have flowed from stale intelligence and a flawed target package rather than a deliberate decision to strike a civilian site. The Pentagon has not released a final public finding, but the school’s location beside a Guard-linked compound has become central to investigators’ working theory of how the strike may have gone wrong.
Casualty figures remain unsettled. U.N. experts have cited reports that at least 165 schoolgirls were killed, while Reuters reported that Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva put the toll at 150 students, a figure Reuters said it could not independently verify. What appears consistent across the reporting is that investigators are examining whether a military site in the same block, not the classroom building, was the intended target.
Iran girls school strike timeline raises pressure on Washington
The public record tightened in stages. In its first response, Reuters reported March 2 that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said U.S. forces “would not deliberately target a school.” Three days later, Reuters reported March 6 that U.S. investigators tentatively believed American forces were likely responsible. AP then said newly released footage and weapons analysis further pointed to a U.S. Tomahawk strike, adding technical evidence to the case as the internal review continued.
That pressure is now political as well. Reuters reported Wednesday that nearly every Senate Democrat signed a letter demanding a swift investigation, more detail about possible civilian harm and answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by March 18. Lawmakers said the majority of those killed were girls ages 7 to 12.
International scrutiny has intensified, too. In a sharply worded statement, U.N. experts called for an independent investigation and said there is “no excuse for killing girls in a classroom,” underscoring the diplomatic and legal stakes if the Pentagon confirms U.S. responsibility.
The central unanswered questions are whether the school itself was ever mistakenly designated, whether the adjacent Guard compound was the actual target and what validation checks failed before launch. Until those answers are public, the Minab strike is likely to remain a defining test of Washington’s civilian-harm safeguards in the Iran war.
