Iran International
Newly released surveillance footage appears to show repeated strikes hitting a primary school in the southern Iranian city of Minab on the first day of the war, an attack Iranian authorities say killed more than 100 children and teachers.
The Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school, located in Minab in Hormozgan province, served boys and girls aged 7 to 12.
The school building stood in an area that once formed part of a Revolutionary Guards naval base but had reportedly been separated from the military compound by a wall for several years. Iranian officials say the school was privately run.
Research by Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab and its Iran team says US authorities could—and should—have known the building was a school and failed to take feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm.
Amnesty said the findings point at best to a serious intelligence failure by the US military and warned the strike could constitute an indiscriminate attack in violation of international humanitarian law.
Reuters has reported that two sources familiar with the matter said the strike may have resulted from outdated intelligence used during targeting, while an internal US military review found American forces were likely responsible for the attack.
The first strike occurred around 10 a.m. on February 28, when students were resting during a break. The explosion destroyed roughly half of one of the school’s buildings.
Teachers gathered surviving children in the school’s prayer hall and called parents to collect them. Shortly afterward, a second missile struck the same building, killing many of the remaining children, teachers and some parents who had rushed to the scene.
Iranian officials, including the mayor of Minab and the Ministry of Education, say the school was struck three times in total.
Images published by Iranian media in the days after the attack showed rescue workers pulling remains, severed limbs and children’s backpacks from beneath the rubble.
Iranian authorities say 168 people were killed, including about 120 children, as well as teachers and several parents who had come to retrieve their children after the first explosion. Nearly 100 others were reported injured.
The Norway-based human rights group Hengaw says it has independently identified 58 victims so far, including 48 children and 10 adults.
Behind the casualty figures are the stories of children whose lives ended in ordinary moments between lessons.
Among them were three girls—Mahdis Nazari, 7, and Sonar and Niayesh Salehi, both 9—members of their school’s skating team. Photos shared online before the attack show them at training sessions and competitions.
Iran’s skating federation later confirmed their deaths.
Another child whose story has circulated widely online is nine-year-old Mikail Mirdoraghi, a third-grade student. A photograph of him standing on the stairs of his home with a water bottle slung over his shoulder, waving goodbye, has been widely shared.
Mikail’s family had moved from Andimeshk in Khuzestan province to Minab because of his father’s job. After the attack, his 31-year-old mother, Shakiba Derikvand, identified his body among victims placed in refrigerated vehicles.
He was found lying beside his friend Alireza, still clutching his school backpack. His body was largely intact, though his face was bloodied, his mother said.
He was buried three days later in Andimeshk. A widely circulated image shows his grandfather lying beside the flower-covered grave.
“Mikail was afraid of the dark,” he reportedly said. “We always slept beside him. I don’t want him to be alone here at night.”
One of the most haunting details to emerge is a drawing Mikail reportedly made the night before the strike.
Found later in his backpack, it shows a school building with the Iranian flag above it, five children standing in the yard and three missiles descending toward them.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.