Multiple news outlets have reported that video, satellite images and expert analysis indicate that the United States was likely responsible for the Feb. 28 bombing of an Iranian school for young girls, contradicting President Donald Trump’s unsupported claim that the deadly strike “was done by Iran.”
When a reporter aboard Air Force One asked Trump on March 7 if the U.S. had bombed the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school, the president said, “No, in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran.” He continued: “We think it was done by Iran – because they are very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was standing near Trump at the time, didn’t echo the president’s version of events when a reporter asked if that claim was accurate.
“We’re certainly investigating,” Hegseth said, before adding that “the only side that targets civilians is Iran.”
But the available evidence suggests that Iran wasn’t at fault, according to several news reports.
The bombing happened on the first day of U.S. and Israeli airstrikes against Iran as part of the joint military mission known as Operation Epic Fury. The school was located in very close proximity to an Iranian naval base operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that was bombed in the air attacks. NBC News reported that the naval base had closed more than a decade ago, according to an official with Iran’s education ministry and a mother the network interviewed.
Iranian officials have said that more than 160 people, mostly students, were killed when the school was hit. But the number of casualties hasn’t been independently verified.
A video posted March 8 by the Mehr News Agency, which has been described as a semiofficial Iranian news service, shows a missile striking in the vicinity where the naval base and school were in southern Iran, according to news reports. Smoke was already visible in the surrounding area when the missile landed and exploded, creating a new, darker plume of smoke and debris. Multiple news organizations verified the video using geolocation tools.
The New York Times reported that satellite images it obtained from Planet Labs show “that multiple precision strikes hit at least six Revolutionary Guards buildings along with the school,” including four buildings that were completely destroyed. The Times, citing a timeline of the strikes, said that the video suggests that the school could have already been struck when that missile made impact with another structure.
The Washington Post reported that eight munitions experts said that the missile seen in the Mehr News Agency video, based on its shape, appears to be a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, which the U.S. developed and is known to have used in its air assault on Iran. The U.S. military has released several videos and photos of those long-range missiles being launched from Navy warships during the now 11-day conflict.
Trevor Ball, a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician who covers munitions for the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, wrote in a thread on X that the posted video “shows a US Tomahawk missile hitting an IRGC facility in Minab, Iran, on Feb 28, showing for the first time that the US struck the area.” He said, “The footage appears to contradict President Donald Trump’s claim it was an Iranian missile that hit the school.”
In a March 9 press conference in Miami, Trump still insisted that Iran could be responsible, saying it “also has some Tomahawks” and Iran “wish[es] they had more.” The president added: “But whether it’s Iran or somebody else, the fact that a Tomahawk, a Tomahawk is very generic.”
But there is no evidence that Iran has acquired Tomahawk missiles. “Iran has none, though it has lots of missiles of different kinds,” Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told us in an email.
Ball wrote on X that the U.S. “is the only participant in the war that is known to have Tomahawk missiles.”
In addition, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a news conference on March 4 that the initial U.S. airstrikes were focused in the south of Iran, where the school bombing occurred. Israel “predominantly” targeted air defense systems in Iran’s “northern flank,” he said.
“An Israeli military official said the military was looking into the school incident but wasn’t aware of an Israeli strike in that area” with the school, the Wall Street Journal reported.
When asked about the school bombing, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, Capt. Tim Hawkins, told reporters that “it would be inappropriate to comment given the incident is under investigation.”
Meanwhile, Reuters, citing two unnamed U.S. officials, reported on March 5 that “U.S. military investigators believe it is likely that U.S. forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls’ school.” U.S. officials requesting anonymity to speak about the preliminary findings told the Associated Press, CBS News and the Wall Street Journal the same thing.
CBS News said “[t]he preliminary U.S. assessment suggests that the United States is ‘likely’ responsible for the deadly attack but did not intentionally target the school and may have hit it in error, possibly due to the use of dated intelligence which wrongly identified the area as still part of an Iranian military installation.”
In response to early reports about the probe, a White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly, issued a statement to reporters saying that the “investigation is ongoing” and has reached “no conclusions at this time.” She called it “both irresponsible and false for anyone to claim otherwise.”
Reuters said in its reporting that the officials it spoke with “did not rule out the possibility that new evidence could emerge that absolves the US of responsibility.”
Even with satellite images and video of the airstrikes, remnants of the missile would need to be examined to more definitively determine culpability, N.R. Jenzen-Jones, an arms and munitions intelligence specialist who directs the Armament Research Services, told the newswire.
Complicating matters, the AP said, is the fact that “[n]o independent agency has reached the site during the war to investigate.”
At the March 9 press conference, Trump was asked why he is the only person in the U.S. government claiming that Iran was responsible for the bombing of the school. He replied: “Because I just don’t know enough about it. I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation, but Tomahawks are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have tomahawks. They buy them from us.”
But Cancian told us that the only countries other than the U.S. using Tomahawks are the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and the Netherlands.
The U.K. and Australia have previously purchased the missiles, according to their own defense departments. The U.S. State Department approved selling the weapons to Japan and the Netherlands, in 2023 and 2025, respectively.
Those four countries are not involved in the U.S-Israeli conflict with Iran.
Ultimately, once the investigation is complete, “whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that report,” Trump said.
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