A United Nations fact-finding mission on Iran stated on Thursday that it had reasonable grounds to conclude that the United States was responsible for two military attacks on a school and a sports facility in Iran in February, and that these actions amounted to war crimes.
The mission also determined that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity in the course of their lethal suppression of anti-government protests.
A new report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, which will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, reviewed U.S. actions during the Iran conflict that started in February, as well as the Iranian authorities’ handling of the nationwide unrest that erupted in late December.
The Pentagon refused to comment on a report prepared by an external organization.
The investigation is still in progress and there are currently no announcements to share, the statement said. In reaction to the report, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the UN Human Rights Council had "achieved nothing for human rights," and asserted that Iran was the only party in the ongoing conflict that had carried out war crimes.
The Iranian permanent mission in Geneva did not promptly reply to Reuters’ requests for comment.
U.S. officials have previously stated that their military actions comply with the law of armed conflict, while Iran has repeatedly denied accusations of systematic human rights abuses.
UN fact-finding missions serve as investigative rather than judicial bodies and therefore do not themselves initiate criminal proceedings. Their conclusions, however, may be used as evidence in criminal investigations by national courts or international tribunals, including the International Criminal Court.
States are expected to examine and debate the report’s findings when it is submitted to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.
MINAB SCHOOL STRIKE
UN experts reported that they had reasonable grounds to conclude that U.S. 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 approximately 120 schoolchildren, according to Iranian officials.
The mission determined that the strike was an indiscriminate attack that resulted in civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, constituting a war crime under international law.
The report states that the United States’ failure to update its targeting databases with information about the school—located next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval facility—and to verify that the building was a legitimate military target constituted conduct that went beyond simple negligence.
Instead, the U.S. targeted the school building despite knowing there was a significant risk of hitting a civilian structure and behaving recklessly regarding the likelihood that this would occur.
In June, U.S. President Donald Trump stated that “nobody” had deliberately targeted a girls’ school in Iran in February, referring to an investigation into the event. Reuters initially revealed that a preliminary internal U.S. military inquiry indicated that American forces were probably responsible for the deadly strike in Minab, in southern Iran.
The Pentagon has upgraded the investigation, but it has yet to release any initial conclusions.
UN experts stated that the school was a clearly recognizable civilian facility and that they found no evidence it was being used for military purposes.
They reached a similar conclusion regarding a strike on a sports center in Lamerd.
According to the report, the attack damaged nearby residential buildings and a school, and resulted in 22 civilian casualties, including both deaths and injuries.
The report concluded that the strike was indiscriminate and therefore amounted to a war crime. In a statement issued in March, U.S. Central Command said that U.S. forces did not carry out any strikes in the city of Lamerd on that day.
The UN fact-finding mission concluded that Iranian authorities conducted a broad and systematic assault on civilians during the protests that began in late December last year, which included unlawful killings, acts of torture, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and harsh limitations on freedom of expression.
Rights organizations report that bystanders were among those killed in the largest crackdown since Shi'ite Muslim clerics assumed power in the 1979 revolution.
Tehran attributed the violence to “terrorists and rioters” allegedly supported by exiled opponents and foreign adversaries, namely the United States and Israel.
The investigation stated it was unable to independently confirm the casualty figures, but believed the actual number of dead and wounded was probably much higher than the official count of 3,038 people killed and 25,000 injured.
The report said the government’s response to the protests featuring violence and killings, internet shutdowns, and the application of the death penalty represented a major intensification compared with earlier methods of quashing dissent.