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A United Nations fact-finding mission on Iran said Thursday it had reasonable grounds to believe the United States was behind two military strikes on a school and sports facility in Iran in February, and that these constituted war crimes.
It also found that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during their deadly crackdown on anti-government protests that occurred just weeks before the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran on Feb. 28.
The findings in a new report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, examined the American conduct during the Iran war that began in February and the Iranian government’s response to nationwide unrest that began in late December.
The Iranian and U.S. permanent missions in Geneva did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
U.S. officials have previously said military operations are conducted in accordance with the law of armed conflict, while Iran has consistently rejected allegations of systematic rights violations.
Dozens of schoolchildren killed
The UN experts said they found reasonable grounds to believe U.S. forces were responsible for an attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, where more than 150 people were killed, including around 120 schoolchildren, according to Iranian officials.
The attack constituted an indiscriminate attack causing civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure, amounting to a war crime under international law, the mission concluded.
U.S. media, including the New York Times and Reuters, are reporting that preliminary findings of an internal military investigation suggest that a deadly missile attack on a girls’ school in Minab, Iran, may have been the result of U.S. use of outdated targeting data.
According to the report, the U.S. relied on intelligence suggesting a senior Iranian military commander was present at the site but failed to adequately verify the information before launching the strike. Investigators said the failure to update targeting intelligence and confirm the building was a military objective amounted to more than mere negligence.
“Rather, the U.S. directed the strikes at the building of the school while being aware of a substantial risk of striking a civilian object and acting recklessly as regards the possibility that this would happen.”
Reuters first reported that an initial internal U.S. military investigation showed U.S. forces were likely responsible for the fatal strike in Minab.
The Pentagon has since elevated the probe but it has not published any preliminary findings. U.S. President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the attack.
UN experts said the school was a clearly identifiable civilian object and found no evidence that it was being used for military purposes.
The experts reached a similar conclusion over a strike on a sports centre in Lamerd, Iran. The report said the attack damaged nearby residential buildings and a school, and killed and injured 22 civilians. It concluded that the strike was indiscriminate and therefore constituted a war crime.
U.S. Central Command said in a statement in March that American forces did not launch any strikes into the city of Lamerd on that day.
Iran’s biggest crackdown in decades condemned
The UN mission probe found that the Iranian authorities carried out a widespread and systematic attack against civilians during protests that erupted in late December last year, involving unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and severe restrictions on freedom of expression.
Rights groups say bystanders were among those killed during the biggest crackdown since Shia Muslim clerics took power in the 1979 revolution. Tehran blamed “terrorists and rioters” backed by exiled opponents and foreign foes, including the U.S. and Israel.
In June, CBC senior international correspondent Margaret Evans and videographer Lyza Sale were granted rare access to report from inside Iran. Where they could travel and what they could report on was tightly controlled, but Iranian authorities had no editorial influence on the content and were not given access to CBC News material before it was published.
The probe said it could not independently verify the death toll, but that it believed the number of dead and injured was likely far higher than official figures which say 3,038 people were killed and 25,000 people were injured.
The government’s response to the protests — including violence and killings, cutting off the internet and use of the death penalty — marked a significant escalation from previous patterns of suppressing dissent, the report said.
Read the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran’s report:
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