Pentagon Plans to Withhold Report on US Massacre of Iranian Kids Until After Midterms
One policy analyst wrote sardonically that the administration doesn’t “want to remind voters before the midterms of the mass killing of schoolchildren on the first day of Trump’s glorious war.”
A view of a school destroyed in an attack by the United States is seen in Minab, Iran on September 11, 2026.
(Photo by Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Jake Johnson
Oct 15, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
The Pentagon is reportedly planning to withhold until after the midterm elections the completed findings of its investigation into a devastating US strike on an elementary school in southern Iran, which killed more than 150 people—including 120 children—on the first day of President Donald Trump’s illegal and deeply unpopular war.
Bloomberg reported on Thursday that “top Pentagon officials have expressed their intention to hold off on releasing an internal report into the attack” on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab until after next month’s midterms “at the earliest.” The internal assessment is believed to have been effectively complete for months, and preliminary findings reported in early March determined that American forces hit the school with a Tomahawk missile due to “outdated” targeting information.
According to Bloomberg, Pentagon investigators “discovered that flawed intelligence, outdated imagery, and an overreliance on AI contributed to the attack,” which is regarded as one of the US military’s worst atrocities against civilians in decades. Trump brushed off the massacre in remarks to reporters in June, saying: “Mistakes are made. War is nasty.”
Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), said in a statement that “the refusal to come clean about the attack on Minab is not just a shameful exercise to dodge accountability for a horrific war crime; it is actively risking these errors being repeated again.”
“As the administration has dodged accountability on Minab and [a deadly strike on a sports hall hours later], it has engaged in further attacks that may be war crimes, including the bombing of a civilian home on Qeshm Island that killed a family and the bombing of a wedding party in Kuhestak that killed five, including two children,” said Costello. “Ensuring these tragedies don’t repeat starts with accountability on Minab.”
International policy analyst Brian Finucane wrote sardonically that the Pentagon doesn’t “want to remind voters before the midterms of the mass killing of schoolchildren on the first day of Trump’s glorious war.”
Bloomberg’s reporting came as CNN published a story detailing internal US “strike plans” that include possibly dropping the so-called “mother of all bombs” on Iranian energy infrastructure.
The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb (MOAB) is the largest nonnuclear bomb in the US arsenal. In 2017, Trump became the first US president to deploy the weapon, authorizing the military to drop it on Afghanistan.
Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, warned that using the bomb against Iran would risk “triggering another major escalatory spiral, potentially including Iranian attacks on critical regional energy infrastructure, with consequences for global markets and the US economy.”
“This only reinforces the fundamental problem: Trump has no viable military solution to the Iran conflict,” Toossi wrote. “Is he looking for one spectacular strike to project strength and declare victory? Or is he prepared to plunge the US into an even deeper, potentially endless war that could devastate the rest of his presidency, legacy, and the economy?”
Costello of NIAC said that “the Trump administration’s threats to commit war crimes in Iran cannot be normalized.”
“President Trump acts on many of his threats, necessitating more urgent action to bring this illegal war of choice to a definitive end,” he added.
70+ House Democrats Demand Pentagon Answer for Iran Wedding Massacre
The September 1 strike, which killed five women and children and wounded more than 70 other Iranians, is but one of several civilian massacres
Mourners gather around the coffin of one of the victims of a likely US airstrike on a wedding party, on September 3, 2026 in the village of Kuhestak, Iran.
(Photo by Morteza Akhondi/Getty Images)
The September 1 strike, which killed five women and children and wounded more than 70 other Iranians, is but one of several civilian massacres
Mourners gather around the coffin of one of the victims of a likely US airstrike on a wedding party, on September 3, 2026 in the village of Kuhestak, Iran.
(Photo by Morteza Akhondi/Getty Images)
assacres during Trump’s illegal war of choice.
Brett Wilkins
Oct 14, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
More than 70 House Democrats on Tuesday sought answers and accountability from the Pentagon regarding a likely US strike on a September wedding gathering in southern Iran that killed five civilians—all women and children—and wounded over 70 others.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Reps. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), and Jason Crow (D-Colo.) led 74 lawmakers in demanding an explanation for the September 1 bombing in Kuhestak and details of what the Trump administration is doing to protect Iranian civilians.
“We demand urgent answers regarding the United States’ role in this strike, why the strike proceeded given the clear risk of significant civilian harm, and what steps the [US Department of Defense] is taking to prevent further civilian casualties in Iran,” the lawmakers wrote.
The strike occurred at approximately 9:30 pm local time while preparations were underway for the wedding of the daughter of a local fisher.
According to witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press, around 150 women and children were gathered at the Mallahi family compound. The celebration was following a regional tradition in which women and men gather separately. The bride and groom had not yet arrived, and the main celebration had not begun. A bomb struck the room where dinner would have been served.
Four initial fatalities—two women and two children—were identified by Iranian authorities and human rights groups: 50-year-old Zarkhatoun Taheri, 43-year-old Kolsoum Malahi Najandnia, 16-year-old Mohammad Mallahi, and 4-year-old Amir Mohammad Karimi. A fifth victim, 22-year-old woman Asiyeh Molainejad, died in a hospital on September 3.
Weapons experts concluded the blast was likely caused by a direct hit from a US munition. The Pentagon has not publicly accepted responsibility for the strike, which remains under investigation.
“This incident is regrettably among the latest in a string of civilian casualty incidents arising from the US-led war in Iran,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter. “This includes a strike at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the war that killed a reported 175 civilians, including 120 children.”
The United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that the Minab school strike constituted a war crime.
“While it has been reported that a preliminary investigation by the department found that the US military was responsible for the strike, over six months later the department has still not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the strike nor released the findings of its investigation,” the lawmakers’ letter notes.
“Similarly, reporting and independent analysis indicate that US forces were responsible for a strike at a youth sports hall in Lamerd, Iran, that killed 21 civilians, including 7 children, on February 28. While the department has denied responsibility, analysis by weapons experts found that the damage pattern is consistent with that of an American Precision Strike Missile,” the lawmakers continued, referring to Lockheed Martin’s next-generation surface-to-surface ballistic missile.
Hegseth, who advocates “maximum lethality” for US forces, has expressed disdain for what he called “stupid rules of engagement” designed to minimize civilian harm. He has overseen the dismantling of efforts meant to mitigate wartime harm to civilians—hundreds of thousands of whom have been killed in US-led wars during this century, according to experts.
“Maximum lethality,” combined with AI-powered systems allowing for exponentially faster and more numerous target selection, has raised concerns that have been underscored by actions including US-backed Israeli massacres in Gaza and Lebanon, and US airstrikes in Iran, where tens of thousands of people have been killed or wounded during more than seven months of President Donald Trump’s illegal war of choice, according to Iranian government figures.
The Washington, DC-based National Iranian American Council (NIAC) welcomed the lawmakers’ intervention, arguing that Iranian civilians must not be treated as expendable casualties of war.
“The lives of Iranian civilians cannot be treated as an acceptable cost of war,” NIAC president Jamal Abdi said in a statement. “These are families, children, and entire communities whose lives have been irreversibly altered by a military campaign that Congress never authorized.”
“Credible allegations of unlawful attacks on civilians demand independent investigations, full public disclosure of the findings, and accountability for any violations of international humanitarian law,” Abdi added. “The Trump administration cannot be permitted to wage an unauthorized war in defiance of US and international law while evading responsibility for its devastating human consequences.”
Brett Wilkins
Oct 14, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
More than 70 House Democrats on Tuesday sought answers and accountability from the Pentagon regarding a likely US strike on a September wedding gathering in southern Iran that killed five civilians—all women and children—and wounded over 70 others.
In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Reps. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), and Jason Crow (D-Colo.) led 74 lawmakers in demanding an explanation for the September 1 bombing in Kuhestak and details of what the Trump administration is doing to protect Iranian civilians.
“We demand urgent answers regarding the United States’ role in this strike, why the strike proceeded given the clear risk of significant civilian harm, and what steps the [US Department of Defense] is taking to prevent further civilian casualties in Iran,” the lawmakers wrote.
The strike occurred at approximately 9:30 pm local time while preparations were underway for the wedding of the daughter of a local fisher.
According to witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press, around 150 women and children were gathered at the Mallahi family compound. The celebration was following a regional tradition in which women and men gather separately. The bride and groom had not yet arrived, and the main celebration had not begun. A bomb struck the room where dinner would have been served.
Four initial fatalities—two women and two children—were identified by Iranian authorities and human rights groups: 50-year-old Zarkhatoun Taheri, 43-year-old Kolsoum Malahi Najandnia, 16-year-old Mohammad Mallahi, and 4-year-old Amir Mohammad Karimi. A fifth victim, 22-year-old woman Asiyeh Molainejad, died in a hospital on September 3.
Weapons experts concluded the blast was likely caused by a direct hit from a US munition. The Pentagon has not publicly accepted responsibility for the strike, which remains under investigation.
“This incident is regrettably among the latest in a string of civilian casualty incidents arising from the US-led war in Iran,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter. “This includes a strike at the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the war that killed a reported 175 civilians, including 120 children.”
The United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said it found “reasonable grounds” to believe that the Minab school strike constituted a war crime.
“While it has been reported that a preliminary investigation by the department found that the US military was responsible for the strike, over six months later the department has still not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the strike nor released the findings of its investigation,” the lawmakers’ letter notes.
“Similarly, reporting and independent analysis indicate that US forces were responsible for a strike at a youth sports hall in Lamerd, Iran, that killed 21 civilians, including 7 children, on February 28. While the department has denied responsibility, analysis by weapons experts found that the damage pattern is consistent with that of an American Precision Strike Missile,” the lawmakers continued, referring to Lockheed Martin’s next-generation surface-to-surface ballistic missile.
Hegseth, who advocates “maximum lethality” for US forces, has expressed disdain for what he called “stupid rules of engagement” designed to minimize civilian harm. He has overseen the dismantling of efforts meant to mitigate wartime harm to civilians—hundreds of thousands of whom have been killed in US-led wars during this century, according to experts.
“Maximum lethality,” combined with AI-powered systems allowing for exponentially faster and more numerous target selection, has raised concerns that have been underscored by actions including US-backed Israeli massacres in Gaza and Lebanon, and US airstrikes in Iran, where tens of thousands of people have been killed or wounded during more than seven months of President Donald Trump’s illegal war of choice, according to Iranian government figures.
The Washington, DC-based National Iranian American Council (NIAC) welcomed the lawmakers’ intervention, arguing that Iranian civilians must not be treated as expendable casualties of war.
“The lives of Iranian civilians cannot be treated as an acceptable cost of war,” NIAC president Jamal Abdi said in a statement. “These are families, children, and entire communities whose lives have been irreversibly altered by a military campaign that Congress never authorized.”
“Credible allegations of unlawful attacks on civilians demand independent investigations, full public disclosure of the findings, and accountability for any violations of international humanitarian law,” Abdi added. “The Trump administration cannot be permitted to wage an unauthorized war in defiance of US and international law while evading responsibility for its devastating human consequences.”
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