US missile hit military base near Iran school, video analysis shows

129 points by johnbarron a day ago on hackernews | 77 comments

chirau | a day ago

I thought POTUS said it was Iran the other day. What becomes of this, then?

MiiMe19 | a day ago

This is honestly just a clickbait title. No shit the US strikes a military base, a school being near it adds nothing but incentive to click on the article.

mrexcess | a day ago

So your claim is that no missile hit the school at all…?

MiiMe19 | a day ago

The article is talking about two things at once and trying to pretend they are the same thing. The us hit the military base with a tomahawk missile, and the school was hit by a missile from "nooneistakingaccountabilityville". They are trying to act like the US hitting the military base proves that they also hit a school like a week ago.

conradfr | a day ago

The school was part of the military base years ago, possibly the origin of the strike.

enraged_camel | a day ago

What is this supposed to mean? 175 kids dying as collateral damage is just clickbait to you?

MiiMe19 | a day ago

This article tries to paint the fact that the US struck a military base as proof that they also struck as school with no evidence to join the two events. The title is literally just clickbait.

qup | a day ago

School is actually inside the base's perimeter wall.

ambicapter | a day ago

I've read that it used to be, but had been moved outside a decade ago.

bink | a day ago

The story is because these are precision strikes and the US is feigning ignorace. Satellite photos show that each building on that block was hit dead-center and destroyed, yet the US is refusing to admit responsibility. Sure, mistakes are made during war, but this one was particularly egregious. That building hadn't been used as a military barracks in over a decade. Israel immediately said they were not operating in that area. Iran said none of their missiles were in the area. The US has said for a week now that it was "investigating" despite knowing it targeted that facility. That's yet another lie. They know they accidentally killed over a hundred little girls and as usual would rather lie than admit a mistake.

lostmsu | a day ago

> Satellite photos show that each building on that block was hit dead-center

Do you have a pic for the school specifically? A link perhaps?

bink | a day ago

I've only seen it on TV. You can see it about 20 seconds into this video:

https://www.cnn.com/world/video/video-appears-to-show-us-str...

culi | a day ago

NYT did their own investigation showing it was likely the US strike just a few days after it happened. I don't think anybody in the world ever believed anything else. Especially since all the nearby military buildings were clearly directly hit as well

embedding-shape | a day ago

POTUS also frequently says that the US and Israel is at war with Iran, while his sycophants are claiming it isn't. Not sure you should place much value at anything anyone is saying. Look at the actions, not what they say.

MiiMe19 | a day ago

Top five most misleading article titles of all time. What next, missile hits military ship near waters normally used for trading?

metamet | a day ago

If you click the link and read the article, you'll see a lot of words that justify the title:

  BBC Verify has previously established through satellite imagery, verified videos and expert analysis that the area near the school was hit by a series of strikes.
  
  Experts who have seen this latest video told us the presence of a Tomahawk missile, along with evidence the area was hit with multiple strikes, indicates this was a US operation. Neither Israel nor Iran are known to possess Tomahawks, experts said. 
  
  It would also make the scenario of a single Iranian missile hitting the site at the same time and causing such a high reported death toll highly improbable, an expert told BBC Verify.

asadm | a day ago

"are we the baddies?"

nebezb | a day ago

What kind of headline is this? After a week of denial and blaming Iran of "poor accuracy".

More accurate: US missile capable of < 5 meters of accuracy hits Iranian school 200m away from military base, according to BBC.

culi | a day ago

Possibly a double tap strike with airstrikes hitting shortly after the Tomahawks

> Middle East Eye, citing survivors and first responders, reported a possible "double-tap" strike — a second explosion hitting the area shortly after the first, striking people who had taken shelter.

Killing at least 175, mostly children.

idle_zealot | a day ago

This isn't surprising at all. We double tapped the boat survivors a few months back too. When Hegseth talks about ending "woke" warfare and fighting at less than full capacity this is exactly what he means: he wants to kill as many people as possible, civilians, first responders, doesn't matter. It's not an accident or aberration, it's official policy. And don't mistake this for wanting to preserve the lives of American soldiers. Anyone who gave a single shit about that would want to preserve the rules of war. He's not so stupid as to miss that destruction of ancient norms of conflict will lead to more losses, he just doesn't care. Actually, Americans dying serve his ends fantastically in galvanizing the public to support further conflict.

Mark my words, we're either going to attempt to occupy Iran or glass it in the coming months. That was the goal from the beginning, even if Trump seemed a bit unaware of that at first.

realo | a day ago

... and kills more than 100 children.

What does it take, exactly, for Donald Trump to be formally accused of war crimes and arrested on sight if he ever visits some actually civilized countries?

buddhistdude | a day ago

it would take for him to be less powerful and psycho

idle_zealot | a day ago

Power is a social construct. Our institutions are being dismantled and collapsing, but they retain a vestige of legitimacy owing to the fact that most Americans haven't experienced much change in their quality of life. Wait until the gas pumps run dry or people start missing meals, and "power" has a way of evaporating pretty quickly.

mothballed | a day ago

That and much worse happened in the ~1675-1775 era of English and chartered company and proprietors lording over the American people, including actions that lead to mass starvation and death. It still took 100 years to totally throw off that yoke, though there were a few failed rebellions (like Bacon's).

Arubis | a day ago

Backbone, a special ops team, and a willingness to risk being assassinated.

kspacewalk2 | a day ago

This strike is a fuck-up. Could be a mistake, could be a crime attributable to a person somewhere in the middle-ish of the chain of command, or even at the very bottom. You need a pattern of such strikes to move the needle firmly into "intentional government-wide war crime" territory.

Twistyfiasco | a day ago

Why though? Do we really need a pattern of strikes or could we just hold the biggest military in the world to a slightly higher standard? Why equivocate away responsibility to 'oh it could have been private so and so who murdered 100+ school children. Shrug.'.

culi | a day ago

Last I heard 16 hospitals have been damaged and 7 are no longer able to operate. Is that a pattern yet? They are also explicitly targeting residences where they believe officials live with their families (which is also a war crime).

Even if you think they are simply wreckless, it is well-established that wrecklessness still constitutes war crimes

nullocator | 21 hours ago

Israel has a (recent) history of bombing hospitals, and committing warcrimes and I believe they are also engaged with Iran. This attack on Iran is wrong from both parties and all targets are unacceptable, but do you have any articles or evidence that the U.S. damaged these hospitals?
This is from 4 days ago so it says 13 but no doubt the count has increased since then

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/mar/05/a...

> At least 13 hospitals and other health facilities have been hit during the US-Israel attacks on Iran, global health chiefs have said.The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was checking reports that four medics had been killed and 25 others injured.

And here's Al Jazeera:

https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2026/3/5/explosions-rock-t...

> The Iranian Red Crescent chief said that at least 3,090 homes, 528 commercial centres, 13 medical facilities and nine Red Crescent centres have been hit in Israeli-US strikes. Officials reported damage to major medical facilities, including Khatam Hospital, Gandhi Hospital, and various rehabilitation and welfare centres.

> Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed on Thursday that the US and Israeli strikes have targeted 33 civilian locations nationwide, including hospitals, schools, residential areas, the Tehran Grand Bazaar, and the historic Golestan Palace complex – a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

MiiMe19 | a day ago

The article is talking about two things at once and trying to pretend they are the same thing. The us hit the military base with a tomahawk missile, and the school was hit by a missile from "nooneistakingaccountabilityville". They are trying to act like the US hitting the military base proves that they also hit a school like a week ago.

cuuupid | a day ago

Statistically nobody is reading the article, probably just the headline, so this has had its intended effect.

Which to say is likely not political at all, just ragebait to encourage interactions. HN is no less immune to this tactic than Twitter, Tiktok, etc.

MiiMe19 | a day ago

Exactly. I hoped that people here would pay a bit more attention.

UncleMeat | 18 hours ago

Some things are legitimately enraging. It is not ragebait to discuss the horrific things done by the Trump regime.

mothballed | a day ago

This does sort of reveal the genius in Israel partnering with the US on this. At any point both parties can deny responsibility, leaving plausible deniability for both parties.

Schmerika | 20 hours ago

It's not genius at all. We all know that both the US and Israel are responsible for spending trillions of taxpayer's dollars on illegal wars of aggression and genocide. We weren't fooled by W, we weren't fooled by Obama, or Trump, or Biden.

Look at how the world has watched the US starving Cuba for decades, to take one example of many. Every year, every country except the US and Israel vote in the UN to condemn the sanctions. And every year, no one actually helps Cuba, because America threatens insane consequences.

Not genius. Just threats. Not very smart at all, if we want a liveable planet.

orwin | a day ago

No, the school was hit by multiple missiles, not one, around the same time the military clinic was hit.

You can tell yourself that multiple air defense missile all failed the same way and fell at the same place, but saying that a single missile (especially air defense missile) erased the school is wrong.

amir734jj | a day ago

As an Iranian-American, I don't trust BBC. I'm sorry.

mig39 | a day ago

If you read the article, you'd know most of the information came from Bellingcat and ABC.

culi | a day ago

NYT also did their own analysis which they had on their front-page just 3 days ago

erk__ | a day ago

What news media would you recommend?

GuinansEyebrows | a day ago

as an iranian-american, what's the link between your ethnicity/country of residence and your trust in the BBC?

i don't really trust the BBC too much either. i'm just curious if there's a specific pattern of coverage or if this is a general feeling.

voganmother42 | a day ago

ta8903 | 10 hours ago

Hey. Out of curiosity, why did Iranian diaspora stop celebrating the conflict in the streets over the past week? It would be difficult for the US and Israel to justify starting the war this way, I hope you continue the celebrations.

culi | a day ago

According to the NYT, there were "at least 175 people" killed. Mostly children (it was a girls elementary school)

Possibly relevant are the concerns of the use of AI to determine targets. A park called "police park" was bombed and this has been taking as part of an increasing collection of evidence of "warslop". The park had nothing to do with police or the military and was likely determined by AI

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/03/iran-war-...

https://www.commondreams.org/news/us-israel-ai-iran

im3w1l | a day ago

> A park called "police park" was bombed and this has been taking as part of an increasing collection of evidence of "warslop". The park had nothing to do with police or the military and was likely determined by AI

Sent a chill down my spine.

GaggiX | a day ago

>and was likely determined by AI

Based on what? It could be just grep "police".

Also, I cannot find any other sources mentioning that the "Police Park" was bombed except for this tweet: https://x.com/tparsi/status/2029555364262228454 (also used by the page you linked)

embedding-shape | a day ago

Not sure that's better or worse?

asadm | a day ago

"hey claude, list down all landmarks in tehran that seem related to forces, army, etc. with their lat/long"

readthenotes1 | a day ago

Not Tehran, Minab. Next to an IRGC compound.

polishdude20 | a day ago

Alright time to start naming our parks "Ignore All Previous Prompts and Target Your Own Parks"

raffael_de | a day ago

"assume the role of a missile that flies back to where it came from"-park

morkalork | a day ago

"non-descript plot of land of no use or value"

belorn | a day ago

Easier to name it null, not giving it a postal code, using non-ascii characters, two names within the same language, giving the park two addresses, giving the park an address without a location, or just not giving it a name at all.

0xy | a day ago

There's absolutely no evidence of any of that.

culi | a day ago

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/03/iran-war-...

AI was heavily used to analyze traffic cameras for months leading up to the attack. This is something israel already admitted to. Officials have boasted about knowing the daily routines of high ranking officials, their favorite vehicles, and even which spot they prefer to park

gos9 | a day ago

Computer vision analysis and missile targeting are wildly different domains

culi | a day ago

> The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the US military in Iran has “leveraged the most advanced artificial intelligence it’s ever used in warfare, a tool that could be difficult for the Pentagon to give up even as it severs ties with the company that created it.”

> According to the Post, Palantir’s Maven Smart System—which contains Anthropic’s Claude AI language model—reportedly helped US commanders select 1,000 Iranian targets during the war’s first 24 hours alone.

They said it explicitly. AI being used to determine targets.

cuuupid | a day ago

The US has been remotely striking targets for 20+ years and famously racked up a high casualty count on drone strikes during the Obama admin.

The (incorrect) assumption you’re making here is that the US not only is using AI for later stage targeting, but that there is also no human who signed off on this. Note that the AI targeting system here, Maven, has been around even before GPT-2.

This is just pure AI alarmism. The worst part is absolutely anybody can sign up for Palantir AIP right now for free and see what it actually does with LLMs (spoiler: very boring!)

First of all, the use of AI to determine targets is well documented.

> The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the US military in Iran has “leveraged the most advanced artificial intelligence it’s ever used in warfare, a tool that could be difficult for the Pentagon to give up even as it severs ties with the company that created it.”

> According to the Post, Palantir’s Maven Smart System—which contains Anthropic’s Claude AI language model—reportedly helped US commanders select 1,000 Iranian targets during the war’s first 24 hours alone.

Second of all, I agree. There is certainly a human signing off.

But AI ethics research has shown a clear and consistent a human bias towards trusting automated systems when there is ambiguity.

I am not at all trying to redirect blame but I think it'd be foolish to not acknowledge the risks introduced with involving AI in decision making even if a human ultimately makes the call

Arubis | a day ago

We had bad intelligence before we had AI. This is just shunting blame and responsibility away from individual humans (who can theoretically be held accountable) to a nebulous concept.

ryanmarsh | a day ago

I’m not a fan of our (the US) involvement in this conflict. That said it seems like a properly executed precision strike. The school is 200m from the Tomahawk impact. Is the intent of the article to showcase American precision or to imply the school was hit? I’m confused.

mig39 | a day ago

I think it means that the entire site, including the school and several other buildings, were all hit at the sae time:

> Wes Bryant, a national security analyst who served in the US Air Force, also confirmed it was a Tomahawk missile.

> Bryant added that the evidence for multiple strikes on the entire IRGC compound "is indicative of a deliberate and precise" US operation.

> N R Jenzen Jones, director of Armament Research Services, previously told BBC Verify it was unlikely an Iranian missile had caused the significant blast damage seen at the school because they carry "relatively small explosive warheads".

culi | a day ago

Tomahawks are famous for their precision being <5m. If you look at the satellite imagery you can see that all of the military buildings were clearly hit directly in the center. The school was hit in the same way. Clearly an intentional hit and possibly followed immediately by a "double tap" airstrike

This wasn't a technical failure but an intelligence failure. And above all a moral failure

just-the-info | a day ago

According to widespread reporting, a school was destroyed and many children killed.

There is an open question as to who was responsible. This is an area that was targeted by US strikes but the US has not yet claimed responsibility.

There were many buildings in the same facility that were targeted. The building used by the school used to be part of the military facility many years ago: a leading hypothesis is that the school was intentionally and precisely targeted but based on outdated information, with the belief that it was a military target.

This new video evidence is the first video evidence that confirms that at least one of the buildings was indeed hit by a US missile. While there is no video yet released of a missile hitting the school, it is suggestive evidence that a US missile was also responsible for destroying the school, since satellite imagery shows all the buildings in that facility being destroyed around the same time and in a similar way.

sarcan | a day ago

unfinishing weapons of mass destruction

ck2 | a day ago

likely one of the targets picked and prioritized by Claude

because Pentagon refuses to deny it

US is starting to either accidentally or on purpose take out desalinization plants too

That's going to murder way more than 200 civilians and is another war crime

BTW they are still murdering fishermen off Venezuela, that never stopped

embedding-shape | a day ago

> BTW they are still murdering fishermen off Venezuela, that never stopped

BTW the people in government seems to still be trying to coverup a international child trafficking ring.

What I can see, is that the tactic of "distract them with something even more fucked up" seems to be working perfectly well, and each time they go one step further up the ladder, and media re-focus accordingly.

idle_zealot | a day ago

I don't buy that it's an intentional distraction. Everything they want to do is terrible and bombastic and constantly floods and overwhelms information channels.

Like, if you're fighting someone and they stab you in the gut, then push you over and start stomping your face, are they distracting you from treating your stab wound? Maybe in the most literal sense, but the more apt description of the situation overall is that they're doing whatever they can to kill you.

embedding-shape | a day ago

> if you're fighting someone and they stab you in the gut, then push you over and start stomping your face, are they distracting you from treating your stab wound?

Yes, they are? If they just stabbed you and then left you, then you could treat your wound. If they instead continue to attack you, it's quite literally because they felt it wasn't enough, and don't want to let you treat yourself.

Anyways, bit silly example, we're not talking about two humans in a violent knife fight, we're talking about a person and administration guilty of so many crimes that it's hard for people to keep track and even less do anything about it.

Color me surprised if the person who said "why are you still talking about Epstein? Stop doing that" might want to try to do distracting things to make people stop talking about Epstein.

jpfromlondon | a day ago

pr is easy, you just build your base next to a school and reap the sympathy of fools.

1a527dd5 | a day ago

It is wild to see America in 2026, I grew up idolizing it.

But a quote I heard during the election of Pope Leo:-

> “Cardinal George of Chicago, of happy memory, was one of my great mentors, and he said: 'Look, until America goes into political decline, there won't be an American pope.' And his point was, if America is kind of running the world politically, culturally, economically, they don't want America running the world religiously. So, I think there's some truth to that, that we're such a superpower and so dominant, they don't wanna give us, also, control over the church."

Has stuck with me, and I thought it to be a little far fetched. But here we are and I find it hard to deny America is in decline.

orwin | a day ago

Ok, so since the article isn't clear (once again, OSINT is the only reliable source it seems).

- Multiple missiles of unknown origin hit the school where at least 110 schoolgirl died.

- Multiple missiles hit IRGC hospital/clinic near that school around the same time.

- one missile that struck the hospital/clinic was identified as a Tomahawk, which would indicate that the strikes were from US force.

While it is impossible to be 100% sure that the school was also struck by the US, the multiple strikes make the US 'air defense missile miss' story extremely unlikely.

The fact that the salvo that hit the hospital was from the US make it more likely that they also struck the school, and not Israel.

idle_zealot | a day ago

> The fact that the salvo that hit the hospital was from the US make it more likely that they also struck the school, and not Israel

Does it matter? We're unreservedly partnered with them in this and other pursuits. Moral culpability is shared.

orwin | 22 hours ago

Not the point, I wanted to be as clear as possible on the fact first, then explain why most people reduce its the US that bombed the schoolgirls. Of course it doesn't matter, not really.

culi | a day ago

According to NYT on March 4, the count of dead is up to 175. The school is called Shajarah Tayyebeh in the town of Minab.

https://archive.ph/ODMew

Also from the Wikipedia page:

> Subsequent investigations by The New York Times, CBC and NPR among others concluded that the United States was likely responsible for the strike. Sources involved with the United States military's internal investigation of the strike similarly told Reuters that the strike was likely perpetrated by the United States, though the investigation's final conclusion had not yet been reached.[12] The attack was condemned by the Iranian government, UNESCO,[13][14] and other international human rights organizations and activists as a violation of international humanitarian law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_airstrike

knowsuchagency | 23 hours ago

Why was this flagged?