United Nations human rights experts have said there are reasonable grounds to believe that the United States committed war crimes in two strikes in Iran that killed at least 177 civilians.
The Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said missile attacks on a primary school in Minab and a sports complex in Lamerd in February amounted to indiscriminate attacks that resulted in civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure.
The report said at least 156 people, including 120 children, were killed when a missile struck Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab on February 28, the day the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran. Local authorities said the school was hit twice.
According to the experts, the school was located beside an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval complex that was also attacked, but it was clearly identifiable as a school and there was no evidence that it had been used for military purposes.
They said evidence, including media reports of a preliminary US military inquiry and the fact that the US was the only party in the conflict known to possess Tomahawk missiles, provided reasonable grounds to believe American forces carried out the strike.
The experts also investigated a separate attack on a sports complex and residential area in Lamerd, where at least 21 civilians, including seven children, were reportedly killed.
They said evidence indicated that Precision Strike Missiles were used and noted that the US was the only party to the conflict possessing the weapon.
The US military has denied carrying out a strike on Lamerd and disputed reports that a PrSM missile was used.
Washington also said it did not accept the findings of the UN mission, while the US military has yet to release the findings of its investigation into the Minab strike.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has previously said the US would “never target civilian targets”.
In both cases, the fact-finding mission concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe that the US committed the war crime of launching an indiscriminate attack resulting in loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects”.
The report also accused Iranian authorities of committing crimes against humanity during a violent crackdown on mass anti-government protests held across the country in December 2025 and January 2026.
The experts described the killings by security forces across Iran’s 31 provinces as occurring on “a staggering and unprecedented scale”.
They said protesters were shot at from rooftops and other elevated positions, while some suffered severe injuries from metal shotgun pellets.
The mission further alleged that security forces attacked healthcare facilities, arrested wounded protesters and medical workers, and subjected tens of thousands of detainees to torture, solitary confinement and denial of legal counsel.
It said at least 29 men had been executed after expedited trials over charges linked to the unrest, while noting that the overall death toll could not be independently verified.
The Iranian government has previously rejected allegations of systematic human rights violations and blamed the unrest and deaths on what it described as “terrorists” and “rioters”.
The experts concluded that the alleged abuses by Iranian authorities amounted to “the crimes against humanity of murder, imprisonment and other severe deprivation of physical liberty, torture, and other inhumane acts, committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population”.
