The United States may have been responsible for the strike on the Iranian girls' school in Minab, where over 175 people were killed, The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing a newly published video by Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency that it had later independently verified.
In the video, first reported by the research collective Bellingcat, a Tomahawk cruise missile appears to be seen striking a naval base belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) located near the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school building. The video was reportedly filmed from a construction site opposite the base.
The US military is the only force operating in the current conflict against the Islamic regime that possesses Tomahawk missiles, which would rule out an Israeli attack or an Iranian misfire, if the video footage is accurate.
According to the NYT, satellite imagery, social media posts, and other verified videos indicate that the school had been damaged by a “precision strike that occurred at the same time as attacks on the naval base.”
Several other buildings inside the base were also severely damaged in the strike on the base, the NYT reported.
The NYT further noted that US Central Command said that one of the videos it had published of several Tomahawks being launched from Navy ships was filmed on February 28, the same day the base and the school were hit.
Trump denies US ties to strike, Pentagon, CENTCOM investigating
The NYT asked US President Donald Trump about the incident on Saturday. The president replied that the US was not responsible, and that in his "opinion" and based on what he has seen, the strike was "done by Iran. They're very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions."
Last week, two US officials told Reuters that while US military investigators believed it is likely that US forces were responsible for the apparent strike, they had not yet reached a final conclusion or completed their investigation.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that the US was investigating the strike, adding that "we, of course, never target civilian targets. But we’re taking a look and investigating that."
Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine said in a Wednesday conference that the US was carrying out strikes in southern Iran at the time the hit occured. At the time, Caine showed a map that included a strike on the area where Minab is located, near the Strait of Hormuz.
Caine also acknowledged to reporters at the Pentagon last Monday that the US Navy has used Tomahawks during its strikes on southern Iran.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.