A United Nations fact-finding mission has found reasonable grounds to believe that the United States committed war crimes during two military strikes in Iran, while Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during a crackdown on anti-government protesters.
The findings were contained in a report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, which examined US military operations during the war in February and Iran’s response to nationwide protests that began in late December.
The mission found reasonable grounds to believe that US forces were responsible for a strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, southern Iran, where more than 150 people were killed, including about 120 schoolchildren, according to Iranian officials.
The mission said the attack was an indiscriminate strike that caused civilian deaths and damaged civilian infrastructure, constituting a war crime under international law.
It said the US had relied on intelligence indicating that a senior Iranian military commander was at the site but failed to adequately verify the information before the strike.
The investigators said they found no evidence that the school was being used for military purposes.
The mission also found reasonable grounds to believe that a separate US strike on a sports facility in Lamerd was indiscriminate and amounted to a war crime.
The attack damaged nearby residential buildings and a school and killed and injured 22 civilians, according to the report.
However, US Central Command said in March that US forces did not launch any strikes into Lamerd on the day in question.
The UN mission also found that Iranian authorities carried out a widespread and systematic attack against civilians during protests that began in late December.
It documented unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and severe restrictions on freedom of expression, concluding that the abuses amounted to crimes against humanity.
The mission said it could not independently verify Iran’s official death toll of 3,038 people killed and 25,000 injured during the unrest, but believed the actual number of deaths and injuries was likely significantly higher.
The US and Iranian governments had not immediately responded to requests for comment on the findings.
US officials have previously maintained that American military operations comply with the law of armed conflict, while Iran has rejected allegations of systematic human rights violations.