Military probe seemingly contradicts Trump on deadly Iran school strike

The U.S. military seemingly contradicted President Donald Trump's assertion that some other country was to blame for a deadly airstrike on an Iranian elementary school.

An ongoing military investigation has determined that U.S. forces fired a Tomahawk missile on Feb. 28 that struck Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school, killing 175 people, most of them children, despite the president's suggestion that Iran fired the munition, reported the New York Times.

"President Trump’s attempts to sidestep the blame for the strike have also already complicated the inquiry, leaving officials who have reviewed the findings showing U.S. culpability expressing unease," the newspaper reported. "The people interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation and Mr. Trump’s assertion at one point that Iran, not the United States, was responsible."

The preliminary investigation found the bombing was the result of a targeting mistake by the U.S. military, which was conducting strikes on a nearby Iranian base, that was the result of outdated data provided to the U.S. Central Command by the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to sources briefed on the probe.

"The 'target coding' provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the military intelligence agency that helps develop targets, labeled the school building as a military target when it was passed to Central Command, the military headquarters overseeing the war, according to people briefed on the preliminary findings of the investigation," the Times reported. "Investigators do not yet fully understand how the outdated data was sent to Central Command or whether the Defense Intelligence Agency had updated information."

Investigators are also examining the work of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which provides and examines satellite images of potential targets, and looking into whether any artificial intelligence models, data crunching programs or other technical intelligence gathering methods were to blame for the mistake.

"While Claude, the large language model created by Anthropic, does not directly create targets, it works with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Maven Smart System and other software to identify points of interest for military intelligence officers," the Times reported. "But officials said the error was unlikely to have been the result of new technology. Instead, they said, it likely reflected a common — but sometimes devastating — human error in wartime."