Human rights experts: ‘Reasonable grounds’ to believe US committed war crimes with Iran strikes

The United Nations’s fact-finding mission on Iran said Thursday it found “reasonable grounds” that the U.S. military committed war crimes in two airstrikes inside Iran and accused Iran’s government of carrying out crimes against humanity against its citizens during the forceful crackdown on anti-government protests earlier this year.

The mission is made up of independent experts and was established in November 2022 by the U.N.’s top human rights body, the Human Rights Council.

The Pentagon told The Hill it declines to comment on a report conducted by an outside organization, adding that the department’s investigation “remains ongoing” and “we have nothing to announce at the moment.”

In late February, at the start of the U.S. war against Iran, an all-girls school in the south of the country, Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School, was struck, killing nearly 160 people, including more than 120 schoolchildren.

The U.N. experts concluded in their report that the strike was a Tomahawk missile fired by the U.S. military on Feb. 28 at the school in Minab.

“The Mission considered the area of operations of the parties; its assessment of the origin and type of weapon used; several corroborated reports indicating that a preliminary U.S. military inquiry found U.S. forces responsible for the strike; the U.S. CENTCOM Commander’s assertion that the strike on the school ‘correlates’ with a U.S. strike; and the fact that the U.S. is the only party to the conflict that possesses Tomahawk missiles,” the group said in the 18-page report .

Top Trump administration officials have repeatedly said the U.S. military follows the laws of armed conflict and does not target civilians. Military officials have said for months that the Minab school strike is under investigation.

The mission also said a strike on a sports complex in Lamerd city, Fars Province, on Feb. 28, where more than 20 people were killed, was done by U.S. Central Command (Centcom) forces. Open-source analysis done by multiple news outlets found that the U.S.-made Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) was used in the airstrike.

Centcom said in March that U.S. forces did not fire missiles at Lamerd that day.

“The Mission notes key visual features of the PrSM’s silhouette identifiable in verified video, namely the long and sharp nose cone, smooth fuselage and short tail fins at the very base of the exhaust nozzle. It also observes that the missile detonations seen in verified videos occur directly above the target and not upon impact, which is consistent with a PrSM’s airburst’ mechanism,” the group said in the report.

The report also said Iran’s government carried out “violent repression” against anti-government protesters during late 2025 and early 2026 with widespread lethal forces that resulted in mass killings.

The killings by state security forces took place in all 31 provinces, with the highest death tolls reported in Karaj, Mashhad, Isfahan, Rasht and Tehran.

Security forces fired at protesters from rooftops. In Karaj, the regime forces fired tear gas to “trap demonstrators in narrow alleys before shooting them,” the report said, adding that at least 220 children were killed.

“Security forces also attacked healthcare facilities, beating and arresting wounded protestors and arresting some healthcare workers, which deterred victims from seeking life-saving care,” the experts said.

The mission “has strong grounds to believe” that the true number of those killed and injured is “significantly higher” than Iran’s government figures of 3,038 people killed and about 25,000 injured, which were presented in February.

“Iran has also used the death penalty against children in connection with the 2025/2026 protests, meaning individuals under the age of 18 at the time of the alleged offence,” the experts said in the report. “This is absolutely prohibited under international human rights law.”