A United Nations-backed investigation has concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe that United States armed forces committed war crimes during two separate bombardments directed at civilian sites in southern Iran. The precision aerial strikes, executed on the morning of 28 February, destroyed an elementary school in the city of Minab and ripped through a public athletic facility in Lamerd, ultimately taking the lives of at least 178 people.

On Thursday, 17 September, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran announced that both operations breached international humanitarian law because they were conducted indiscriminately. While the investigative panel does not function as a legal tribunal or issue formal judicial sentences, the documentation, testimonies, and physical evidence assembled in its dossier are structured to support future criminal accountability proceedings. The panel of investigators is scheduled to formally introduce its full investigative report before the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.

Over 150 Lives Lost in Bombardment of Minab Elementary School

The heaviest civilian casualties occurred at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in the southern Iranian hub of Minab. Domestic Iranian state broadcasters documented 168 fatalities at the campus. In its own independent verification, the United Nations fact-finding team determined that more than 150 people were killed in the blast, with approximately 120 school-age children among the dead.

United Nations investigators established that the structure was an unambiguous civilian educational institution. Their field inquiries uncovered no trace or indication that the compound was housing active combatants, storing ordnance, or serving any military purpose whatsoever when the munitions landed.

The primary school sat directly adjacent to a naval installation operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Evidence reviewed by the United Nations mission indicated that American operational commanders neglected to refresh their reconnaissance intelligence and failed to confirm whether the facility retained any active military function before launching the strike.

The fact-finding body stressed that this breakdown went far beyond an operational oversight or simple error. According to the findings, American forces pushed forward with the lethal strike despite confronting a substantial, observable risk that the target was an active civilian site. Based on this disregard for civilian safeguards, the inquiry determined there are reasonable grounds to conclude the bombardment amounted to a war crime.

Addressing the controversy during public remarks in June, US President Donald Trump insisted that “nobody” had deliberately targeted the school site. Although preliminary internal evaluations conducted by the American armed forces acknowledged that US units were very likely responsible for the devastating strike, the Pentagon has not yet published the conclusive results of its formal inquiry.

Devastating Aerial Attack on Lamerd Sports Facility Leaves Civilians Dead and Wounded

The United Nations mission documented a second parallel bombardment that struck a municipal sports complex and adjacent residential neighborhoods in Lamerd.

Forensic teams determined that high-precision missiles loaded with fragmentation warheads filled with dense tungsten pellets struck the community. The blast and flying shrapnel killed and injured 22 civilian men and women, while tearing through nearby family residences and shattering an adjacent local school.

Investigators concluded that the strike on Lamerd violated basic protections outlined in international humanitarian law, finding reasonable grounds to designate the strike as an indiscriminate assault on a non-combat zone. At the time of the incident, United States Central Command dismissed reports of American involvement, outright denying that its forces had carried out any combat sortie or missile launch in Lamerd on that date.

When the United Nations published its documentation on Thursday, the US federal government did not immediately issue a formal statement or counter-assessment. Across both the Minab classroom strike and the Lamerd sports facility bombardment, the United Nations inquiry confirms a total civilian death toll of at least 178 people.

United Nations Report Details Separate Abuses Committed by Iranian Security Forces

Alongside the findings against the United States military, the United Nations fact-finding mission documented severe, systemic human rights violations carried out by the government of Iran against its own population during widespread domestic unrest that erupted in late 2025.

The investigative report concluded that Iranian state agencies enacted a “widespread and systematic” campaign of violence against civilians as demonstrations spread nationwide. The dossier outlines unlawful lethal force, systematic torture, arbitrary roundups, and enforced disappearances carried out across Iranian territory.

Iran's official government registers recorded 3,038 deaths linked to the domestic demonstrations, with roughly 25,000 citizens sustaining documented injuries. However, the United Nations panel noted that independent corroboration indicates the actual casualty count is substantially higher than Tehran’s official statistics acknowledge.

The Iranian administration has categorically denied the conclusions in the United Nations report, asserting that the civil unrest and accompanying bloodshed were engineered by foreign-funded “terrorists and rioters.”

On the other side of the conflict, American defense officials maintain that all United States overseas operations are planned and executed in strict adherence to the international law of armed conflict.

In its closing determination, the United Nations fact-finding mission directed urgent demands to both Washington and Tehran, calling on both powers to halt all violations immediately, grant full and unreserved financial and humanitarian reparations to surviving victims and their families, and install binding operational safeguards to ensure these mass civilian tragedies do not occur again. The findings place severe scrutiny on non-combatant safety across two fronts: the conduct of American military strikes inside Iranian borders, and the Iranian state's violent suppression of civilians within its own cities.