The US might have hit a girls school as collateral damage when it struck an IRGC compound in Minab, Iran, on the Minab River and 15 miles as an IRGC rocket flies from the Strait of Hormuz.
The school is located on the edge of a compound linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…. There are indications the school building had previously been used as an IRGC headquarters….
There’s this, too, from IDF Spokesperson for International Media, LTC Nadav Shoshani. Scroll to the second video, which shows the extent of Khamenei’s underground bunker, its widespread and widely separated access points—and its placement in the heart of Tehran in the middle of a densely built up civilian neighborhood.
Such placement of military and critical governing facilities in the middle of civilian areas or adjacent to high propaganda value civilian facilities like hospitals and—in the present case—schools, using them and especially their occupants as shields, is typical of terrorist entities.
While collateral damage should be minimized, especially as that damage includes deaths of civilians and their children, that risk is both the moral and legal responsibility of the terrorists who create it and must not be allowed to leave the military targets unscathed.
Discussion of this incident on X pointed out several factors –
* The physical conformation of the munition does not match a Tomahawk, but is consistent with an Iranian made version of the Russian KH155. (placement of the wings)
* The angle of attack (70 degree dive) is inconsistent with the Tomahawk attack profile. A Tomahawk would have to pop up several kilometers early in order to have the elevation necessary for such a dive angle (given its speed). The tactical exposure defeats the cruise missile tactic.
* The dive angle is consistent with an Iranian missile whose GPS has been jammed, veering off its programmed path (a plausible case – not necessarily determined from the frame capture just before impact).
* The resultant blast is too small for a Tomahawk.