Merve Aydogan
08 July 2026•Update: 08 July 2026
Top US military officers disregarded warnings in critical databases that intelligence on Iranian targets had not been updated in years, greenlighting strikes that included one on a school that left nearly 200 dead, CNN reported Tuesday.
Quoting three people familiar with the matter, the report said that alerts flagging the need to re-verify targeting information were built into the Pentagon's target-development platform but were set aside by commanders seeking to move quickly as the conflict began.
The Feb. 28 strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in the city of Minab killed 168 children and 14 teachers, Iranian state media said, hitting during a US operation against an adjacent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) site.
CNN reported that much of the intelligence guiding the war's opening targets, including data on the IRGC facility beside the school, dated back more than 10 years, as analysts had not managed to update every record before strikes were launched. Mobile and higher-threat sites were reportedly refreshed first, leaving fixed locations like the school lower in priority and largely unverified.
"It was obviously old info," one source told CNN.
A source also mentioned in the report noted that a separate surveillance tool had picked up on changes to the compound but that the finding never reached the main targeting database or was passed up to decision-makers.
The report also linked the incident to reductions in Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response staffing ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, noting the unit at Central Command had shrunk from 10 members to a single person.
A White House official told CNN that the probe into the strike continues and reiterated that "the United States does not target civilians."
Hegseth has pledged a "thorough" review, while CENTCOM referred questions to the ongoing inquiry and declined further comment.
Months after the attack, the Pentagon has not made its findings public, CNN said, even as President Donald Trump continues to threaten renewed large-scale strikes on Iran amid parallel diplomatic negotiations.
