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An investigation seen by CBC News of new satellite images and images on social media suggests that Saturday’s bombing of an elementary school in Iran was the result of a precision airstrike on a military base near the building.
The strike, which killed at least 165 people, most of them children, according to Iranian state TV, took place on Saturday, during the US and Israeli offensive against Iran. Soon after, several videos surfaced showing the badly damaged Minab girls’ school.
While the facility served as a school, CBC News confirmed a previous New York Times report that the building was part of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base.
In the immediate aftermath of the bombing, there were competing stories about who hit the school — and whether it was intentional — from social media and official sources. Iranian media said it was “a brutal attack by the American-Zionist enemy.” Others, such as posts on social media, suggested it was a failed Iranian missile that hit the school.
A team of CBC visual investigators reviewed and confirmed multiple videos from the scene showing several different plumes of smoke, indicating the area was hit more than once. This was confirmed by a satellite image released on Wednesday by Planet Labs, which revealed many impact craters within the area.
“It was targeted directly at the IRGC military base,” said Yousef Riazi, a military researcher at Factnameh, an Iran fact-checking group based in Toronto. “According to the satellite images, the impacts show a pattern of precision guided weapons … there should be no errors.”
He says the fact of the school shooting shows that “it’s either a weapons error or a big mistake by CENTCOM in intelligence gathering.”
According to the Washington DC-based Middle East Institute, the site has houses 16 Assef Coastal Missile Groupand the Martyr Absalan Specialized Clinic, which is part of the Medical Command of the IRGC Navy. The unit is part of the Saheb al-Zaman 1st Naval District, a strategic command that monitors and controls traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
“This missile complex belongs to the IRGC navy and operates in the field of naval attack ships and missiles,” said Mahdi Saremifar, another researcher at Factnameh. “This [headquarters] of the Asef Missile Group.”
Neither the Israeli military nor the US military claimed responsibility for the strike. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces told CBC News, that the IDF strike in the area was “unusual” and told us to reach out to US Central Command.
CBC News shared its visual analysis with CENTCOM, but did not receive a response by deadline.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the location of the strikes corresponds to a clear “division of labor” in the ongoing campaign. The US is targeting missile bases and explosives in southern and central Iran, while Israel is focusing its operations in the north.
Minab’s location in the south, near the Strait of Hormuz, puts it in the main area of operation of the American army, and it is compatible with other US strikes at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, about 80 kilometers west of Minab, and facilities in Konarak, which is 400 kilometers to the southeast.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was asked about the incident at a press conference on Wednesday and confirmed that they will investigate the strike that hit the school.
On Tuesday, thousands of people gathered in Minab for the funerals of many victims of the strike.
“What is clear is that elementary school children and teachers were killed,” said Shiva Amelirad, of the Cooperative Council of Iranian Teachers Trade Associations, a network of teachers’ unions in Iran, based in Canada.
“The place should be safe regardless of who did the strike,” said Amelirad. “[We have a] the personal and legal responsibility to protect the school and the children.”
