The United States has opened a formal investigation into a missile strike that hit a girls’ school in Iran and killed at least 165 civilians, including many children, after an early assessment indicated the United States may have been responsible. According to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly, the inquiry is expected to take several months and will involve interviews with individuals at every stage of the operation, from planners and commanders to personnel who executed the strike.
If investigators ultimately confirm that the United States carried out the attack, the incident would represent one of the deadliest civilian casualty events linked to the U.S. military in decades. In previous years, Congress established a special Pentagon office aimed at preventing accidental strikes on civilians, but that effort was significantly reduced after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took office last year.
“This investigation is ongoing. As we have said, unlike the terrorist Iranian regime, the United States does not target civilians,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.
The Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment regarding the strike or the ongoing investigation.
Questions About Targeting and the Weapons Used
During a press conference shortly after the conflict began, Hegseth publicly criticized what he described as “stupid rules of engagement,” arguing that such restrictions interfere with military victory.
Earlier reporting by NPR indicated that the strike on the school appeared to be part of a precision-guided weapons attack. Video footage later released by Iranian state media showed what appeared to be Tomahawk missiles striking a compound that included the school. Iranian state media also published images showing fragments of Tomahawk missile components displayed on a table outside the damaged school building.
NPR had previously reported that the girls’ school was once part of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard naval base and may have remained listed as a military structure on outdated U.S. targeting databases. Historical satellite imagery reviewed by NPR suggests the school was physically separated from the base sometime between 2013 and 2016 when a wall was built dividing the two properties.
A public health clinic located on the same base was also struck during the attack. Satellite imagery indicates the clinic was separated from the base by a wall around 2024 and was opened in 2025, according to reports from local media outlets. Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander-in-chief Hossein Salami attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the clinic when it opened. He was later assassinated by Israel that same year.
At a press conference earlier this week, President Donald Trump suggested that Iran or another country might have launched the missile responsible for the strike, describing U.S.-manufactured Tomahawk missiles as “very generic” weapons. However, several military analysts who spoke with NPR said that the missile shown in the video footage did not resemble any missile known to be used by Iran.
“Tomahawks are only used and operated by a very small number of nations,” said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, a technical intelligence consultancy that provides munitions analysis to governments and NGOs. He noted that the United States is the only country involved in the conflict that operates those missiles.
“I think it’s pretty clear from the emerging information that it’s likely a strike that’s gone wrong,” he said. “The most likely scenario at this point is that somewhere along the way in the targeting process, there was an intelligence failure.”
Civilian Protection Programs Reduced in Recent Changes
Following a series of civilian casualty incidents during U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Congress passed legislation in 2019 directing the Pentagon to take steps to reduce civilian harm during military operations. During the Biden administration, the Defense Department launched the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response initiative as part of those efforts.
Specialized civilian mitigation teams were created to work with military commanders on target planning and to confirm that potential targets were legitimate military sites. These teams also helped develop “no strike” lists that included locations such as religious sites, cultural landmarks, and schools. In addition, they provided assessments regarding the number of civilians potentially present in targeted areas and recommended the use of precision munitions or smaller weapons when possible to reduce civilian casualties.
According to the report, those mitigation teams were reduced by roughly 90 percent after Hegseth took office. The changes significantly scaled back the resources previously dedicated to civilian casualty prevention.
“At every level, civilian protection has been deprioritized,” said Oona Hathaway, a professor of International Law at Yale Law School and the director of its Center for Global Legal Challenges. “A modern army has to fight according to the law, and the law requires that you protect civilians.”
The U.S. official who spoke with NPR said that Hegseth’s decision to reduce the program meant that U.S. Central Command — which oversees American military operations in the Middle East — was left with only a single staff member assigned to civilian casualty mitigation efforts. The official also stated that because funding for civilian protection initiatives had been reduced at the Defense Department level, some military commands had begun paying for analysts out of their own operational budgets to continue work that had previously been centrally coordinated.
Ongoing Investigation Into the Strike
The investigation into the strike is expected to examine the entire targeting process, including intelligence assessments, planning decisions, and the execution of the attack. Officials say interviews will be conducted with everyone involved in the operation in order to determine how the strike occurred and whether failures in intelligence, targeting, or oversight contributed to the incident. The inquiry is expected to take months to complete, and its findings could have implications for military procedures and civilian casualty mitigation efforts in future operations.
