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Pete Hegseth, the secretary of War, told a press conference on Friday that the U.S. will continue to investigate the school bombing inside Iran that killed at least 175 people, mainly girls between the ages of seven and 11.
Hegseth said the review, which will be conducted by a general officer from outside the U.S. Central Command, will take as “long as necessary.”
U.S. officials, based on preliminary reports, have told The New York Timesthat the Pentagon is almost certainly responsible for the missile strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab. The strike occurred on 28 February, the first day of the joint U.S. and Israeli attacks on the country.
CNN, citing sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings, said the Pentagon came up with target coordinates prior to the strike that were provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which may have had outdated information.
Trump told reporters earlier this month that he believed Iran was responsible for the school strike based on his own “opinion.”
“In my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran … they’re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever. It was done by Iran,” he said, according to The Guardian.
Trump claimed that Iran “also has some Tomahawks,” according to the Financial Times.
The British paper said the school is near buildings that belong to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and was once part of the military complex. But the paper said it is clearly no longer part of the military barracks, and there are “clear visual indications” that it was an educational facility.
The Times noted that the weapon used in the school bombing was a Tomahawk missile, and the U.S. is the only country in the conflict that uses these munitions.
“We’re certainly investigating,” Hegseth said earlier this month, according to The Times. “But the only… the only side that targets civilians is Iran.”
Eliot Higgins, the founder of open-source research group Bellingcat, toldthe FT that governments often try to withhold data when the facts could be problematic.
“This is one of the most restrictive information environments that I’ve seen,” he told the paper.
He continued, “We have the video of the missile hitting the compound, and we also have Tomahawk remnants that were presented in front of the school. But the problem with that is those remnants could have come from anywhere.”
TREND FORECAST: As the Bronx saying goes, “Bullshit has its own sound. And the facts prove that Hegseth and the Trump administration are full of bullshit. On Monday, Amnesty International said details prove the United States is responsible for the attack on an Iranian primary school that killed at least 170 people, most of them children. And, they said that the U.S. should be held accountable for its murderous Tomahawk missile attack on the school on 28 February… the day that U.S. and Israel began the Iran War.
The so-called U.S. investigation will drag on, and the school bombing will be long forgotten. (See “EUROPEAN POLITICIANS CONDEMN IRAN, BUT SUPPORT ISRAEL GENOCIDE WAR” (3 Mar 2026), “ISRAEL SAYS OPENING ATTACK ON IRAN WAS ITS MILITARY’S LARGEST STRIKE EVER” (3 Mar 2026), and “WWIII: NETANYAHU CLAIMS KHAMENEI’S KILLING GIVES IRANIANS A CHANCE TO OVERTHROW GOVERNMENT” (3 Mar 2026).
This is the same tactic that the Israelis used during the ongoing genocide in Gaza every time its forces bombed a hospital or school that resulted in civilian deaths.
Hegseth is known for his bombastic press conferences and said on Friday that the Iranians will have “no quarter.”
“We will keep pressing. We will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies,” he said during a press conference.
Al Jazeera reported that his comments appeared to be in violation of the Hague Convention “and other international treaties.”
“It raises questions about whether this belligerent, lawless rhetoric is being translated into how the war is being conducted on the battlefield,” Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, told the outlet.