Outdated intelligence likely led to a deadly missile strike on an elementary school in Iran, according to a U.S. official and three sources familiar with the preliminary findings.
The investigation found that an American munition was probably responsible for the strike, NBC News reported Friday, citing an American official and a person familiar with the preliminary findings, though the military is yet to formally conclude the United States is responsible.
More than 170 people, mostly children, were killed in the Feb. 28 strikes on the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab on the first day of the U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran, part of a barrage of attacks that also killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The ongoing investigation has so far found that the munition did not go off target, but rather hit the school because old intelligence showed it to be a military target, the four sources said.
Witnesses and an Iranian Education Ministry official said previously that the school was located on a compound that was a base for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps until about 15 years ago.
The two sources said the Defense Intelligence Agency was one of the agencies responsible for providing targeting information that could have led to the school strike, though other sources likely contributed to verifying the target, including intelligence from U.S. allies.
The U.S. official said Israel was involved in the process to select the targets that led to a likely U.S. strike on the school. The Defense Intelligence Agency gathered the intelligence and at the time found the targets to be valid, the official said.
The U.S. typically goes through a validation process that includes multiple intelligence organizations before a strike is approved. The U.S. official said it is not clear where in the target selection process a breakdown occurred that may have caused the likely U.S. hit on the school.
NBC News has reached out to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., which had no immediate comment.
President Donald Trump has previously denied that the U.S. was behind the strike, and suggested without evidence that Iran or “other countries” could be responsible.
“In my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” he told reporters onboard Air Force One on Sunday.
Missile fragments purported by Iranian state media to have struck the school bear the markings of an American Tomahawk missile, according to experts who reviewed the imagery, obtained by NBC News and others. The U.S. is the only country currently involved in the conflict that uses Tomahawk missiles.
"Whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that report,” Trump said Monday when pressed on the strike.
A group of United Nations experts warned last week that an "attack on a functioning school during class hours raises the most serious concerns under international law," noting that "intentional attacks on educational buildings" are considered war crimes.
