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How a Deadly Strike Hit an Elementary School in Iran

March 12, 2026·31 min·2 clips

American officials conceded the U.S. military destroyed an Iranian elementary school, killing 175 people, mostly children.

The Daily reports on one of the most devastating military errors in decades: a U.S. airstrike that destroyed a functioning elementary school in Minab, a small town in southern Iran, at the outset of a U.S.-Israeli war against the Iranian regime. Host Michael Barbaro is joined by visual investigations reporter Malachy Browne, based in Ireland, and national security reporter Julian Barnes. The school was in session on a Saturday morning when it was struck; the teachers union reported more than 260 students were inside, most aged 7 to 12, and local health officials confirmed the majority were killed alongside teachers. Browne and his team used commercially available satellite imagery, geolocated video evidence, and historic imagery to establish that the building had originally been part of an IRGC naval base but was visibly converted to a school by 2016, with painted walls, playground markings, a sports field, and children's backpacks visible in the rubble. A critical video from a nearby construction site captured the incoming weapon's silhouette; Bellingcat's Trevor Ball and Times weapons expert John Ismay both identified it as a Tomahawk cruise missile, a weapon only the U.S. possesses in this conflict. General Dan Caine's Pentagon briefing placed U.S. strikes in the south of Iran, consistent with Minab's location, while Israel confirmed it was operating in the north and west. Barnes explains that preliminary investigation findings confirmed U.S. responsibility: the Defense Intelligence Agency had retained the building in its target database based on pre-2016 military use, and no one updated or verified the data. The safeguards meant to catch this error, cross-checking with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, AI-assisted analysis, and multiple human sign-offs, all failed in a chain that investigators are still tracing. Barnes connects the environment of failure to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's public campaign against what he called a woke and over-cautious military, though direct reporting linking his specific policy changes to this strike is not yet established. President Trump initially suggested Iran might have fired its own Tomahawks at its own school, then said he would accept the investigation's findings, then appeared to distance himself when confronted with the preliminary results. Barnes draws comparisons to My Lai in Vietnam and Abu Ghraib in Iraq, arguing the killing of over 175 schoolchildren will define how this war is remembered regardless of strategic outcomes. An aerial photograph of 100 freshly dug children's graves in a cemetery five miles from the school stands as the episode's most haunting piece of evidence. The reporting is meticulous and methodical, walking listeners through a forensic investigation in real time with the emotional restraint of people who know the facts are devastating enough. Essential for anyone following the Iran conflict, military targeting ethics, or the Trump administration's approach to accountability; too graphic in detail for listeners wanting to avoid accounts of mass civilian casualties.

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