UN experts say grounds to believe US committed war crimes in Iran strikes

UN human rights experts say there are reasonable grounds to believe the US committed war crimes in two strikes in Iran that killed at least 177 civilians.

A new report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said February’s missile strikes on a primary school in Minab and a sports complex in Lamerd constituted indiscriminate attacks causing civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure.

The US previously denied striking Lamerd and said it was investigating what happened in Minab. A State Department official said the US did not give credibility to the findings in the report.

The experts also found Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during a crackdown on mass anti-government protests in January.

They said killings by security forces occurred on “a staggering and unprecedented scale” across all 31 provinces.

Iran has also not yet commented on the findings, but it has previously rejected allegations of systematic violations of human rights.

“Civilians in Iran are caught between gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by their own government and the nation’s deadly conflict with the United States and Israel,” the fact-finding mission warned in a statement on Thursday.

For their latest report to the UN Human Rights Council, the mission’s three independent experts investigated two of the deadliest attacks on civilians during the conflict.

On 28 February, when the US and Israel launched their war against Iran, Tomahawk missiles struck Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in the southern town of Minab, killing at least 156 people, including 120 children, according to local authorities.

The fact-finding mission’s experts said the school was adjacent to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) naval complex also attacked that day, but that the school was clearly identifiable and that no information indicated that it was used for military purposes.

The experts said that, based on the evidence gathered – including media reports indicating that a preliminary US military inquiry found US forces responsible, and the fact that the US is the only party to the conflict that possesses Tomahawk missiles – they had reasonable grounds to believe that the strike on the school was carried out by the US.

They also concluded that the school was “the intended point of impact and that the damage did not result from an errant strike or collateral damage” from the attack on the IRGC complex, citing survivors as saying the school was struck twice.

The US military has yet to release the findings of its investigation into the Minab strike, but Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has said it would “never target civilian targets”.

Also on 28 February, Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM) dispersed clouds of tungsten pellets over a sports complex and residential area in the town of Lamerd, killing at least 21 civilians, including seven children, according to local authorities.

Again, the fact-finding mission’s experts said the sports complex was clearly identifiable and that no information indicated it was used for military purposes.

They concluded by saying there were reasonable grounds to believe that the strike was carried out by the US, citing evidence including the fact that the US is the only party to the conflict that possesses PrSM missiles.

The US military has said it carried no strikes on Lamerd that day and disputed reports identifying the weapon used as a PrSM.

In both incidents, the fact-finding mission’s experts said 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”.

Anita Ghasemi was wounded in the strike on the sports complex in Lamerd

The fact-finding mission’s report also covers the Iranian authorities’ violent repression of the mass protests that took place across Iran in December 2025 and January 2026.

The experts said it was an unprecedented escalation from past crackdowns, marked by the widespread use of lethal force resulting in mass killings and injuries, and extensive arrests.

They cited witnesses, health workers and victims’ families as saying that security personnel positioned themselves on rooftops and other elevated positions, firing their assault rifles into crowds.

Protesters also sustained severe wounds to the head, chest and eyes from metal shotgun pellets, causing permanent blindness.

As the crackdown escalated, security forces attacked healthcare facilities, beating and arresting wounded demonstrators and arresting some healthcare workers, which deterred victims from seeking life-saving care, according to the experts.

They also found that the tens of thousands of people detained during the protests faced torture, solitary confinement and denial of legal counsel.

The experts warned that the government had since intensified its use of the death penalty against protesters, with at least 29 men executed following expedited trials on charges connected to the unrest.

The fact-finding mission’s report noted that it was not possible to independently verify the death toll from the crackdown, but said there were strong grounds to believe that it was significantly higher than the official figure of 3,000, the majority of whom the government identified as members of the security forces or bystanders.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana) has said it has confirmed the killing of more than 7,000 people, almost all of them protesters.

The fact-finding mission’s experts concluded that Iranian authorities had committed “many gross human rights violations” during the crackdown, and that these 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”.

Iranian authorities accused the US and Israel of fomenting the unrest and blamed the deaths on what they described as “terrorists” and “rioters”. – BBC

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