Trump Used Untested Weapon to Bomb Another School in Iran

The Trump administration used untested weapons in a strike in Iran that hit a school and sports hall on February 28.

The New York Times reports that the United States launched a newly designed ballistic missile at a school in the city of Lamerd on the first day of the war—the same day that the U.S. bombed a girls’ school in Minab, hundreds of miles away. The strike and others nearby in Lamerd killed 21 people, according to the Times, which cited Iranian media.

Times analysts concluded the strike involved a Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, a short-range ballistic missile that detonates just above its target and blasts tungsten pellets outward. A local video from Lamerd showed one strike about 900 feet away from the sports hall with the weapon exploding in a midair fireball.

Another video captured from a security camera across from the school and sports hall shows the structure being hit, with an explosion directly above it. Photos from both sites after the strikes show dozens of tiny holes apparently made by the tungsten pellets. At the school and sports hall, footage shows scorch marks, a partially collapsed roof, blown-out windows, fire damage, and blood spatters.

The PrSM only completed prototype testing last year, an Army press release from July states, but had been untested in combat until the strikes. U.S. Central Command posted a video on March 1 capturing a PrSM strike from the first day of the war. The leader of CENTCOM, Admiral Brad Cooper, said days later that the PrSM was used in combat for the first time during the war, and another post from CENTCOM on March 4 touted the system.

It’s not clear whether the strike was deliberate. The school and sports hall are close to an IRGC military compound but have been walled off from the compound for at least 15 years. The sports hall is identified as a facility for civilians on public map platforms including Apple Maps, Wikimapia, and Google Maps. An Instagram account linked to the school shows children regularly using the site, and Iran’s representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani said the sports hall was being used by a women’s volleyball team at the time of the strike.

The strike occurred on the same day as a U.S. attack on a girls’ school in Minab, which killed 175 people, an apparent war crime. Using an untested weapon on an elementary school and sports hall, without clear knowledge of its effects, would seem to fit the bill of a war crime, as well. Does that matter to the Trump administration?