Iran and Israel launch fresh wave of strikes as ayatollah calls for ‘shedding’ of Trump’s blood

Who bombed a girls’ school in Iran?

A CBC News visual investigation of new satellite imagery and social media footage suggests the bombing of an Iranian elementary school was the result of a precision airstrike on a military complex immediately adjacent to the building. 

The strike, which killed at least 165 people, mostly children, according to Iranian state TV, occurred on Saturday, during the first wave of U.S. and Israeli operations against Iran. 

While the facility in Minab was functioning as a school, CBC News has confirmed a previous New York Times report stating the building was once part of an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base.

The CBC’s visual investigations team reviewed and verified multiple videos from the scene showing several distinct smoke plumes, indicating the area was hit more than once. This was confirmed by satellite imagery released Wednesday by Planet Labs.

“It was precise targeting of a military facility for the IRGC,” said Yousef Riazi, a military researcher at Factnameh, an Iranian fact-checking group out of Toronto.

“According to satellite images, the impacts shows a pattern of precision-guided munitions … there shouldn’t be any mistakes.”

He says the fact a school was struck shows it was “either the fault of a weapons system or a huge mistake CENTCOM made with intelligence gathering.”

Neither Israel’s military nor the U.S. military have claimed responsibility for the strike. An Israel Defence Forces spokesperson told CBC News that an IDF strike in the area was “not familiar” and told CBC to reach out to the U.S. Central Command. 

CBC News shared its visual analysis with CENTCOM but did not receive a response by deadline.

Read the full report by Ivan Angelovski, Eric Szeto and Britnei Bilhete here.