Outdated intel likely led US to carry out deadly strike on Iranian
elementary school, AP sources say
[March 12, 2026]
By AAMER MADHANI, JULIA FRANKEL, MICHAEL BIESECKER and
ERIC TUCKER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Outdated intelligence likely led to the United States
carrying out a deadly missile strike on an elementary school in Iran
that killed over 165 people, many of them children, in the opening hours
of the conflict, according to a U.S. official and a second person
briefed on findings of a preliminary U.S military investigation into the
incident.
The bombing of the school and its casualties involving children has
become a focal point of the war, and if ultimately confirmed to be at
the hands of the U.S., would also stand among the highest civilian
casualty events caused by the American military operations in the last
two decades.
President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the attack, later said
he wasn’t certain who was to blame, and then said he would accept the
results of the Pentagon’s investigation. The issue took on added urgency
on Wednesday after the New York Times first reported that a preliminary
investigation found that the U.S. was responsible.
U.S. Central Command relied on target coordinates for the strike using
outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to
the person familiar with the preliminary finding.
The agency did not respond to a request for comment.
The preliminary finding prompted immediate calls for more information
from the Pentagon. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said
that “the investigation is still ongoing.”
Both the U.S. official and the person familiar with the matter spoke to
The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the
sensitive matter.
Dozens of Democratic senators demanded answers from the Trump
administration on Wednesday as a growing body of evidence suggested that
the U.S. was likely responsible for the strike.
The letter from more than 45 senators pressed Defense Secretary Pete
Hegseth on whether the U.S. was culpable for the strike and what
previous analysis of the building had been done. The senators also
raised concerns about the Pentagon hollowing-out a congressionally
mandated office set up specifically to reduce civilian casualties.
“Under this administration, budgetary and personnel cuts at the
Department have robbed military commands of crucial resources to prevent
and respond to civilian casualties,” the senators wrote. Those include
cuts at U.S. Central Command, whose forces are leading the military
campaign against Iran, and the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence,
which was signed into law in 2022 as part of a Pentagon ambition to
reduce death tolls from strikes.
The revelation could threaten to erode public support in the U.S. effort
against Iran at a time when Trump, who as a candidate railed against
American involvement in “stupid” overseas wars, faces persistent
questions about the purpose and of the conflict and what would bring it
to an end.
One former Pentagon official said the Feb. 28 strike that hit Shajareh
Tayyebeh Elementary School, which is located near a neighboring base for
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, came as a natural result of changes
made by the Trump administration to reduce staff to mitigate civilian
harm and Hegseth’s emphasis on lethality over legality.
Evidence mounts pointing to US responsibility for strike
There are several indications that the strike on the school may have
been avoidable.
It happened Saturday morning, the start of the Iranian school week, when
the building was full of young children. Satellite analysis by the AP
shows that the school, as well as other targets struck the same day, had
characteristics visible from the air that could have identified them as
civilian sites before they were struck.
The AP reported last week that satellite images, expert analysis, a U.S.
official and public information released by the U.S. military all
suggested it was likely a U.S. strike. That evidence grew stronger on
Monday, as new footage emerged showing what experts identified as a
U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missile slamming into the military compound as
smoke was already rising from the area where the school was located.
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Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the
aftermath of a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran,
Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)
Publicly available satellite imagery shows the school building was
part of the military compound until about 2017, when a new wall was
added to separate the two. A watchtower on the property was also
removed. Around the same time, the imagery shows the walls
surrounding the building were painted with murals in vibrant colors,
primarily blue and pink, so bright they're visible from space
The school was clearly labeled as such in online maps and has an
easily-accessible website full of information about students,
teachers and administrators.
International law governing warfare bars strikes on structures,
vehicles and people that are not military objectives and combatants.
Civilian homes, schools, medical facilities and cultural sites are
generally off limits for military strikes. The proximity of a school
to a valid military target does not change its status as a civilian
site, said Elise Baker, a senior staff lawyer at the Atlantic
Council, a Washington-based nonprofit think tank.
If the U.S. is found responsible, said Sen. Tim Kaine during a
briefing with journalists on Wednesday: “It’s either we’ve changed
our traditional targeting rules or we made a mistake.”
“If we’ve changed our traditional targeting rules and we no longer
provide the same level of protection for civilians, that would be
tragic,” Kaine said.
Some Republicans, too, are sounding alarms.
Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told reporters that an
investigation needs to “get to the bottom of it,” and then “admit if
you know whose fault it is.”
If the U.S. was behind it, Cramer said, the military must “do
everything you can to eliminate those mistakes going forward.”
He added: “But you also can’t undo it.”
Guardrails to curb civilian deaths have been gutted
Congress directed the Pentagon to create the Civilian Protection
Center of Excellence in late 2022 as part of the wide-ranging annual
defense authorization bill, which passed both chambers with broad
bipartisan support. The bill said the center was to
“institutionalize and advance knowledge, practices, and tools for
preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian harm.”
The measure put into law an initiative that had already been started
by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier that year. The 36-step
action plan was “ambitious and necessary,” Austin said at the time.
In April 2023, that office had a full-time director hired by the
Army and an initial core staff of 30 civilians, according to a 2024
Pentagon report that said that the workforce was expected to grow.
Wes Bryant began working there in 2024 as the Branch Chief of Civil
Harm Assessments. One of the things the office was discussing was
updating the “no strike list,” he said, a series of civilian targets
in other countries that the Pentagon keeps. When he was working at
the Pentagon, it was well known that the list was out-of-date, he
said. But under Hegseth, the office's size was slashed and the work
on updating the no-strike lists stopped, he said.
“They have no budget. They're just sitting there trying to maintain
any semblance of the mission,” he said.
Capt. Tim Hawkins, the spokesman for U.S. Central Command, denied
reports that the military command only had a single person assigned
to the mission but would not offer any further details, citing the
ongoing investigation.
____
Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Mary Clare
Jalonick, Konstantin Toropin and Joey Cappelletti in Washington
contributed to this report.
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