US strike on Iranian school stemmed from stale intelligence, AI overreliance: Report

Pentagon investigators found that faulty intelligence, dated imagery and heavy dependence on artificial intelligence contributed to a US strike that killed 123 children in the Iranian town of Minab, according to a report Friday.

Citing officials involved in the internal investigation, Bloomberg reported that two Tomahawk missiles hit the Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School on Feb. 28, killing more than 150 people. Some Pentagon personnel reportedly knew within hours that the US was responsible.

The report said officials indicated the administration's order for an overwhelming air assault, with more than 1,000 targets struck in the first 24 hours, shortened the time available to finalize targets. They also cited cuts in civilian-protection personnel and gaps in information about the site, which had once been part of a military compound but was later separated by walls and operated openly as a school.

Officials said some US Central Command personnel relied too heavily on Palantir's Maven Smart System, expecting it to flag stale or inconsistent intelligence.

Palantir said it "is not responsible for the underlying data nor identifying intelligence deficiencies," and that there is no evidence its software was at fault, the report noted.

After the strike, the company built new tools to "re-review underlying intelligence to identify factors that would disqualify a target and flag inconsistencies and inaccuracies that human review may have missed," according to one person familiar with the matter.

A UN-backed fact-finding mission said Thursday that there were reasonable grounds to believe the US committed war crimes in two February airstrikes in Iran, one of which hit the school in Minab and killed at least 178 civilians, among them women and children.