The Terrifying Detail in Trump’s Strike on Iranian Girls’ School

Did President Donald Trump order a deadly military strike on a girls’ elementary school in Iran because the Pentagon was using an out-of-date map?

At least 175 people were killed Saturday in an attack on Shajarah Tayyebeh, a girls’ primary school in Minab, a southern town miles from Tehran. Among the dead were dozens of young girls between the ages of 7 and 12, according to the public prosecutor in Minab. It appeared to be the deadliest attack of the U.S. and Israel’s blatantly illegal bombing campaign in Iran.

It was not immediately clear why the school was targeted, but satellite images from 2013 showed that the school was previously connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, naval base. More recent satellite images from 2016 showed that the school had been separated from the naval base by a wall, according to The New York Times.

Video footage of the area appeared to show that the IRGC base was also struck as part of the attack.

Captain Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, said Saturday that the military was “looking into” reports of civilian casualties. The search for survivors trapped under the rubble ended Sunday, according to Minab’s governor.

In a statement Sunday, UNESCO condemned the attack on Shajarah Tayyebeh as a grave violation of international law, which prohibits attacks on schools. But the strike on the girls’ primary school was one of two deadly strikes that appeared to hit schools in Iran: two students were also killed at Hedayat High School in Tehran.