UN finds 'reasonable grounds' for US war crime in Iran

A UN human rights mission says there are reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed a war crime by launching a fatal missile attack on a school in southern Iran earlier this year.

A Human Rights Council fact-finding mission on Iran released a report on Thursday.

The mission investigated a strike on an elementary school in Minab, Hormozgan province, in February that left at least 160 people dead, including children. The New York Times had reported that the US military mistakenly set its target based on outdated data.

The UN investigative team noted that the elementary school had been operating in converted structures of Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

It said the US "failed in its obligation to do everything feasible to verify that it was a military objective" and launched the airstrike "while being aware of a substantial risk of striking a civilian object."

The mission said it found reasonable grounds to believe that the US committed the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in the loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects.

The report also covered attacks on a gymnasium and an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Lamerd in February. At least 20 people were killed.

It said the US military fired a missile that scattered small metal pellets in residential areas. It said that strike too could amount to a war crime.

A US State Department official commented on the report.

The official said the Trump administration formally withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council as it pushes anti-American rhetoric and antisemitism. The official added that the US does not give credibility to the findings of the UN report, and that the protection of civilians is of the utmost importance to the US.