appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Reuters

A UN fact-finding mission on Iran said on Thursday it had reasonable grounds to believe the United States was behind two military strikes on a school and sports facility in Iran in February, and that these constituted war crimes.
It also found that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during their deadly crackdown on anti-government protests.
The findings in a new report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, examined US conduct during the Iran war ‌that began in February and the Iranian government’s response to nationwide unrest that began in late December.
The Pentagon declined to comment on a report conducted by an outside organisation.
“Our investigation remains ongoing, and we have nothing to announce at the moment,” it said in a statement. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in response to the report that the UN Human Rights Council had “accomplished nothing for human rights”, adding that Iran was the only party in the current conflict that had committed war crimes.
The Iranian permanent mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

US officials have previously said military operations are conducted in accordance with the law of armed conflict, while Iran has consistently rejected allegations of systematic rights violations.
UN Fact-Finding missions are investigative, ⁠not judicial bodies, and therefore do not initiate any criminal cases. Their findings, however, can be used in criminal investigations by national courts or international tribunals such as the International Criminal Court. States will discuss the ‌findings of the report when it is presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday.
The UN experts said they found reasonable grounds to believe US forces were responsible for an attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in the city of Minab, where more than 150 people were killed, including ‌around 120 schoolchildren, according to Iranian officials.
The attack constituted an indiscriminate attack causing civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure, amounting to a war crime under international law, the ⁠mission concluded.
According to the report, the US ⁠failure to update information in relation to the school, which was adjacent to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval complex, in its targeting databases and to confirm the building was a military objective amounted to more than mere negligence.
“Rather, the US directed the strikes ‌at the building of the school while being aware of a substantial risk of striking a civilian object and acting recklessly as regards the possibility that this would happen.”
In June, US President Donald Trump said that “nobody” purposefully attacked a girls’ school in Iran in February, citing ‌an investigation ‌into the incident. Reuters first reported that an initial internal US military investigation showed US forces were likely responsible for the fatal strike in Minab in southern Iran.
The Pentagon has since elevated the ‌probe but it has not published any preliminary findings.

UN experts said the school was a clearly identifiable civilian object and found no evidence that it was being used for military purposes.
The experts reached a similar conclusion ⁠over a strike on a sports centre in Lamerd. The report said the attack damaged nearby residential buildings and a school and killed and injured 22 civilians. It concluded that the strike was indiscriminate and ⁠therefore constituted a war crime.
US Central Command said in a statement in March that US forces did not launch any strikes into the city of Lamerd on that day.
The UN mission probe found that the Iranian authorities carried out a widespread and systematic attack against civilians during protests that erupted in late December last year, involving unlawful killings, torture, ‌arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and severe restrictions on freedom of expression.
Rights ‌groups say bystanders were among those killed during the biggest crackdown since Shiite Muslim clerics took power in the 1979 revolution. Tehran blamed “terrorists and rioters” backed by exiled opponents and foreign foes the US and Israel.
The probe said it could not independently verify the death toll, but that it believed the number of dead and injured was likely far higher than official figures which say 3,038 people were killed, and 25,000 people injured.
The government’s response to the protests – including violence and killings, cutting off the internet and use of the death penalty – marked a significant escalation from previous patterns of suppressing dissent, the report said.


South Korea steps up to plug Europe’s jet fuel deficit

Chinese firms keen on investing in Oman’s International Financial Centre: official

Houthis claim attacks on Saudi capital, after flames seen near Riyadh airport

Somali piracy rise tests China’s long-running Gulf of Aden mission

US-Israel war on Iran

UN investigators cite US over Iran strikes that constituted war crimes

The Minab school in Iran, which was damaged in US strikes on February 28. Photo: WANA via Reuters

The US guided-missile destroyer fires a Tomahawk missile from an undisclosed location on February 28. Photo: US Navy via Reuters

Shrapnel marks on the wall of a building in Lamerd, Iran, from a strike on February 28. Photo: West Asia News Agency via Reuters

‘Children were in pieces’: memories still raw 6 months after Iran school strike

Rubble and portraits of children line the site of the destroyed Shajareh Tayebeh school in Minab, Iran. Photo: AFP

Inside the destroyed Shajareh Tayyebeh school. Photo: AFP

Iranians clear rubble in the aftermath of the strike. Photo: West Asia News Agency via Reuters

The USS Spruance firing a Tomahawk missile in the opening phase of the war.  Photo: US Navy via Reuters

The graves of the many young victims. Photo: AFP

Iran to turn bombed girls’ school into museum commemorating US ‘crimes’

Rescuers search through the rubble after a girls’ school in Minab, Iran, is hit by a missile on February 28. Photo: AP

A screengrab shows what experts say is a US Tomahawk missile close to the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Minab on February 28. Photo: Mehr News/Reuters

News

World

Middle East

United States & Canada

UN-backed experts also accuse the Iranian government of carrying out crimes against humanity during a domestic crackdown


UN-backed experts also accuse the Iranian government of carrying out crimes against humanity during a domestic crackdown.


UN investigators cite US over Iran strikes that constituted war crimes

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}UN-backed experts also accuse the Iranian government of carrying out crimes against humanity during a domestic crackdown

UN-backed experts also accuse the Iranian government of carrying out crimes against humanity during a domestic crackdown