By Nilo Tabrizy, Edward Carron, Idrees Ali and George Sargent
Sept 4 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President JD Vance said that the United States was investigating a deadly strike on an Iranian wedding earlier this week that an analysis published by Reuters showed likely resulted from a direct hit by a U.S. munition.
An explosion that ripped through a wedding celebration in southern Iran on Tuesday likely resulted from a direct hit by a U.S. munition and not a ricochet off another target, according to an analysis on Thursday by weapons experts who reviewed images and video verified by Reuters.
The United States has not accepted responsibility for the incident. President Donald Trump's administration is facing growing domestic public pressure to end a war that is weighing on his approval ratings ahead of crucial November midterm elections.
Iranian state television on Thursday said that a 22-year-old woman had died in hospital following the strike that hit a home during a wedding, taking the total reported death toll to five. Iranian officials said that nearly 70 were wounded.
Funeral-goers assembled in the late afternoon on Thursday outside the village of Kuhestak in Sirik County, along a stretch of the Strait of Hormuz coast that was hit by heavy U.S. airstrikes late on Tuesday to mourn their loved ones.
Vance told reporters on Thursday that the United States was looking into the incident. "We're investigating it because obviously we care. We want to know," he said.
"If we do make mistakes, again, this is a big difference between us and Iran, when our military makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them," Vance added.
The U.S. military said it was aware of the Iranian reports but it "never targets civilians".
A U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said the government is looking at various scenarios related to the casualties at the wedding, including whether they were caused by a U.S. strike, some sort of ricochet of an Iranian air defence missile, or an errant interceptor itself.
Reuters shared video and images of the incident with four military weapons experts who said the damage was consistent with a direct hit, as opposed to secondary damage from a munition ricocheting off a different target.
Three of the experts said the munition was likely a U.S. weapon, rather than an errant Iranian air defence missile. One of the experts said the weapon may have simply missed its objective.
The incident came some six months after a missile destroyed a primary school in an incident that Iranian officials said killed more than 175 children and teachers.
Reuters previously reported that an initial, internal U.S. military investigation showed U.S. forces were likely responsible for that strike. The Pentagon has not publicly released the findings of its probe.
MOURNING THE VICTIMS
At the funeral on Thursday for four victims from the wedding, Iran's Mehr news agency video showed a pickup truck carrying a flag-draped coffin beneath a canopy of palm fronds.
A reporter in front of the truck said, "This is the body of Martyr Amir-Mohammad Karimi, a 4-year-old child who was martyred in an attack on the country’s south by the criminal American regime."
In other footage of the funeral, mourners threw petals into the air as doleful music played from a loudspeaker. A casket was carried past a row of soldiers standing at attention with rifles.
“If it was a military location, it wouldn’t be so painful. This was a wedding ceremony, but they turned people's joy into mourning," the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted a local man as saying.
Washington launched the airstrikes on Tuesday, hitting what it said were military targets along the coast in retaliation for Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The sudden escalation of the Iran war has caused a surge in oil prices to levels unseen since July. Prices rose for a fourth straight day on Thursday, taking Brent crude futures over $96 a barrel. [O/R]
Iran reported 18 dead in the last U.S. assault.
It responded on Wednesday to the U.S. strikes with attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, and carried out further attacks early on Thursday, saying it was targeting another U.S. base, in Kuwait.
Kuwait's military said its air defences had intercepted missiles and drones.
But following that, the war's biggest flare-up since July appeared to subside, with no more major attacks from either side reported on Thursday.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Costas Pitas; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
