U.S. missile strike on Iranian school kills 120 children
A U.S. missile strike on an Iranian elementary school on February 28, 2026, killed an estimated 120 children after outdated intelligence misidentified the site as a military facility. A 2019 analyst warning that the building had become a school was entered into a disconnected database and never conveyed to commanders. The Pentagon's investigation found years-long failures in the targeting system and fragmented intelligence databases.
What happened
On February 28, 2026, a U.S. missile struck an elementary school in Minab, Iran, which the military had outdated intelligence identifying as a naval facility belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. An intelligence analyst had remarked in 2019 that the site had changed and become a school, but this information was entered into a digital tool that was not linked to the official intelligence database used to develop strike targets, so commanders were never informed.
The same building was reviewed several more times over the following years without the targeting database being updated. A Pentagon investigation uncovered missed analyst remarks and unconnected databases as contributing causes of the strike.
Reported impact
The strike killed an estimated 120 children and nearly 200 people in total, representing the worst incident of civilian harm resulting from U.S. operations in decades.
Index analysis
The incident exposes years-long failures in the military's targeting system, including outdated intelligence records and fragmented information systems that prevented critical updates from reaching military commanders. The failures include unconnected databases and missed analyst remarks that were not conveyed through official channels.
Governance controls
A Pentagon investigation probed the incident; results have not been publicly released. The Pentagon has revised its targeting doctrine as of April 2026, opening the way for AI to make critical wartime decisions with human monitoring rather than human initiation, though it is unclear whether this reflects lessons from the Iran school strike.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.