US troops were targeting an area near the Iranian school that was bombed, the sources said
Among the buildings hit appears to be a clinic, which was opened by the IRGC Navy in January 2025, according to the Iranian semiofficial news agency ISNA.
Clinical symptoms can be seen in a video edited by NBC News. Pour also told NBC News on Wednesday that at least one strike had hit a clinic and that people were injured.
Pour, Monazah, and an official from the education department in Minab who spoke to NBC News said the school is in former IRGC territory. All three said the base was closed 15 years ago, and that all the soldiers have been evacuated. Pour, the former principal, said the school was opened in 2015.
It is not uncommon for the IRGC to develop public infrastructure, such as schools, sports facilities and clinics, especially in deprived areas. Recently, Pour said that in the premises “there was a clinic, a school, a supermarket, a cultural hall and a car wash.”
A satellite image captured in 2016 showed that the school appeared to be isolated from the rest of the world and was given its own entrance. The observation towers that existed until then seem to have been removed from the outer wall surrounding the school.
Precision strike analysis
Some weapons and conflict experts told NBC News that the satellite image appeared to show a targeted attack, while others noted that without knowing the targets of the strikes, it was difficult to say whether the damage indicated “direct” hits.
It is not clear whether the person involved knew that the building housed a school.
Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control and open-source intelligence expert who specializes in satellite imagery, said he believed every building in the area was “individually targeted,” most likely by aerial bombs.
“The purpose of this site is incredibly precise,” Lewis said. “The blast damage is incredibly accurate, and it doesn’t look like anything is really missed, so that can be countered by precision weapons delivered by aircraft.”
And Rich Weir, senior adviser for the Crisis, Conflict and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement sent to NBC News on Friday that “the number of civilian strikes across the region and the accuracy with which they seem to have hit buildings across the board, indicated in part by the small round holes that were entry points in the roof of the multi-layered building. Very accurate and guided weapons.”
Corey Scher, a postdoctoral researcher in Conflict Ecology at Oregon State University, said the fact that “most of the bombs that fell on this company hit the building” seems to say “something about targeting.”
However, in a video interview on Friday, he cautioned that without knowing whether the strikes were targeted, it is difficult to say whether the strikes can be considered “overwhelming.”
His colleague, Oregon State professor Jamon Van Den Hoek, who is in charge of Conflict Ecology at the university, noted the number of impact sites in the compound, saying the lack of “evidence” of a similar pattern of strikes around the site shows that “there is often something in this compound that seems to be targeted.”
‘Sad’
Witnesses who spoke to NBC News described the horrific scenes after the strikes.
Monazah, whose son, Soheil, was killed in the attack two days before his eighth birthday, said the school “fell on top of the children” when he arrived in the area.
“People were pulling out arms and legs of children. People were pulling out severed heads,” he told NBC News on Monday.
Qasemi, a first responder, shared a similar account, telling NBC News “there were severed heads, severed hands, and dismembered bodies” as he described the “vast” rubble, with children “trapped under it.”
Amin Khodadadi reported from Tehran, Courtney Kube and Julie Tsirkin reported from Washington and Chantal Da Silva, Molly Hunter and Matthew Mulligan reported from London.
