UN mission finds grounds to believe US school strike in Iran was a war crime, Tehran protest crackdown included crimes against humanity

A UN fact-finding mission on Iran says it has reasonable grounds to believe the United States was behind two military strikes on a school and a sports facility in Iran in February, and that these constituted war crimes.

It also finds that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during their deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.

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, come after an examination of the US’s conduct during the Iran war that began in February and of the Iranian government’s response to nationwide unrest that began in late December.

The Iranian and US permanent missions in Geneva do not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

US 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.

The UN experts say they found reasonable grounds to believe US forces were responsible for an attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in the city of 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 concludes.

According to the report, the US 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.

UN experts say 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 center in Lamerd. 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.

US Central Command said in a statement in March that US forces did not launch any strikes into the city of Lamerd on that day.

The UN mission probe also finds 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 Shiite Muslim clerics took power in the 1979 revolution. Tehran blamed “terrorists and rioters” backed by exiled opponents and foreign foes the US and Israel.

The probe says it cannot independently verify the death toll, but that it believes the number of dead and injured is likely far higher than official figures, which say 3,038 people were killed and 25,000 people 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 says.