A US missile killed Iranian schoolchildren four months ago. We still don’t know the full story
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- The Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, Iran was struck by at least one US missile on Feb. 28, killing at least 168 people — most of them children — in the deadliest reported strike of the US-Israeli war against Iran.
- The Pentagon possessed evidence almost immediately that the school had been hit, but more than 120 days later has not released its investigation findings, according to a US official who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
- Trump said last week he hadn't read the Pentagon's report and disclaimed US responsibility: "I don't think it was us."
- The AP's analysis of satellite imagery found multiple munitions struck at least five buildings in the compound — which shared a walled perimeter with an IRGC base — and hundreds of pounds of explosives collapsed the school, though the exact number of munitions and a complete victim list remain unknown.
- The school served both children of Revolutionary Guard officers and local Sunni Baluch children — an ethnic minority that faces repression from the Iranian government, per the Balochistan Human Rights Group.
- Iran's government controlled the narrative around the attack, with state media calling the dead "martyrs," the national soccer team wearing #168 pins at the FIFA World Cup, and the war negotiating team naming itself "Minab 168" — tactics an Amnesty International report called "exploiting the suffering of victims' families."
Why it matters: The Pentagon's 120-day silence on a strike that killed at least 168 — most of them children at a school inside an IRGC compound — means families of the dead have no official accounting while Trump publicly disclaims US responsibility. For Iran's Baluch minority, the attack became both an Iranian propaganda tool and an American accountability void.
