Outdated intel likely led US to carry out deadly strike on Iranian elementary school, AP sources say

WASHINGTON (AP) — Outdated intelligence likely led to the United States carrying out a deadly missile strike on an elementary school in Iran that killed over 165 people, many of them children, in the opening hours of the conflict, according to a U.S. official and a second person briefed on findings of a preliminary U.S military investigation into the incident.

The bombing of the school and its casualties involving children has become a focal point of the war, and if ultimately confirmed to be at the hands of the U.S., would also stand among the highest civilian casualty events caused by the American military operations in the last two decades.

President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the attack, later said he wasn’t certain who was to blame, and then said he would accept the results of the Pentagon’s investigation. The issue took on added urgency on Wednesday after the New York Times first reported that a preliminary investigation found that the U.S. was responsible.

U.S. Central Command relied on target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the person familiar with the preliminary finding.

The agency did not respond to a request for comment.

The preliminary finding prompted immediate calls for more information from the Pentagon. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “the investigation is still ongoing.”

Both the U.S. official and the person familiar with the matter spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Dozens of Democratic senators demanded answers from the Trump administration on Wednesday as a growing body of evidence suggested that the U.S. was likely responsible for the strike.

The letter from more than 45 senators pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on whether the U.S. was culpable for the strike and what previous analysis of the building had been done. The senators also raised concerns about the Pentagon hollowing-out a congressionally mandated office set up specifically to reduce civilian casualties.

“Under this administration, budgetary and personnel cuts at the Department have robbed military commands of crucial resources to prevent and respond to civilian casualties,” the senators wrote. Those include cuts at U.S. Central Command, whose forces are leading the military campaign against Iran, and the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which was signed into law in 2022 as part of a Pentagon ambition to reduce death tolls from strikes.

The revelation could threaten to erode public support in the U.S. effort against Iran at a time when Trump, who as a candidate railed against American involvement in “stupid” overseas wars, faces persistent questions about the purpose and of the conflict and what would bring it to an end.

One former Pentagon official said the Feb. 28 strike that hit Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School, which is located near a neighboring base for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, came as a natural result of changes made by the Trump administration to reduce staff to mitigate civilian harm and Hegseth’s emphasis on lethality over legality.

There are several indications that the strike on the school may have been avoidable.

It happened Saturday morning, the start of the Iranian school week, when the building was full of young children. Satellite analysis by the AP shows that the school, as well as other targets struck the same day, had characteristics visible from the air that could have identified them as civilian sites before they were struck.

The AP reported last week that satellite images, expert analysis, a U.S. official and public information released by the U.S. military all suggested it was likely a U.S. strike. That evidence grew stronger on Monday, as new footage emerged showing what experts identified as a U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missile slamming into the military compound as smoke was already rising from the area where the school was located.

Publicly available satellite imagery shows the school building was part of the military compound until about 2017, when a new wall was added to separate the two. A watchtower on the property was also removed. Around the same time, the imagery shows the walls surrounding the building were painted with murals in vibrant colors, primarily blue and pink, so bright they're visible from space

The school was clearly labeled as such in online maps and has an easily-accessible website full of information about students, teachers and administrators.

International law governing warfare bars strikes on structures, vehicles and people that are not military objectives and combatants. Civilian homes, schools, medical facilities and cultural sites are generally off limits for military strikes. The proximity of a school to a valid military target does not change its status as a civilian site, said Elise Baker, a senior staff lawyer at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based nonprofit think tank.

If the U.S. is found responsible, said Sen. Tim Kaine during a briefing with journalists on Wednesday: “It’s either we’ve changed our traditional targeting rules or we made a mistake.”

“If we’ve changed our traditional targeting rules and we no longer provide the same level of protection for civilians, that would be tragic,” Kaine said.

Some Republicans, too, are sounding alarms.

Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told reporters that an investigation needs to “get to the bottom of it,” and then “admit if you know whose fault it is.”

If the U.S. was behind it, Cramer said, the military must “do everything you can to eliminate those mistakes going forward.”

He added: “But you also can’t undo it.”

Congress directed the Pentagon to create the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence in late 2022 as part of the wide-ranging annual defense authorization bill, which passed both chambers with broad bipartisan support. The bill said the center was to “institutionalize and advance knowledge, practices, and tools for preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian harm.”

The measure put into law an initiative that had already been started by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier that year. The 36-step action plan was “ambitious and necessary,” Austin said at the time.

In April 2023, that office had a full-time director hired by the Army and an initial core staff of 30 civilians, according to a 2024 Pentagon report that said that the workforce was expected to grow.

Wes Bryant began working there in 2024 as the Branch Chief of Civil Harm Assessments. One of the things the office was discussing was updating the “no-strike lists,” lists of protected sites in other countries, such as hospitals, schools, churches and mosques, that the Pentagon keeps. When he was working at the Pentagon, it was well known that the list was out-of-date, he said. But under Hegseth, the office's size was slashed and the work on updating the no-strike lists stopped, he said.

“They have no budget. They're just sitting there trying to maintain any semblance of the mission,” he said.

Capt. Tim Hawkins, the spokesman for U.S. Central Command, denied reports that the military command only had a single person assigned to the mission but would not offer any further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

This story was first published on March 11, 2026. It was published again on March 12, 2026, to make clear that no-strike lists are lists of protected sites in other countries, such as hospitals, schools, churches and mosques, that the Pentagon keeps.

Frankel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Konstantin Toropin and Joey Cappelletti in Washington contributed to this report.

The arm of a deceased person is seen protruding from the rubble as rescue workers and residents search in the aftermath a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)

Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)

Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)

Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)

Rescue workers and residents search through the rubble in the aftermath of a strike on a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Residents of Vilnius were told to take shelter and Lithuania's president and prime minister were taken to safe locations Wednesday because of an alarm over drone activity near the border with Belarus, underlining jitters on NATO's eastern flank over incursions related to Russia's war with Ukraine.

An emergency announcement from the military told people in the Vilnius region to “immediately head to a shelter or a safe place.”

The alert, which lasted for about an hour, also led to the closure of the airspace over Vilnius Airport. President Gitanas Nauseda and Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene were taken to shelters, and there was also an evacuation order at Lithuania's parliament, the Seimas, the BNS news agency reported.

It was the first major alert that sent residents and political leaders in a European Union and NATO capital rushing to shelters since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Based on the parameters we saw, it’s most likely either a combat drone or a drone designed to deceive systems and lure targets,” Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Center, said in a news briefing. “The electronic countermeasures here can’t tell us whether an explosive device detonated or not. It’s very, very difficult."

Based on the altitude and speed, it was probably a drone, he said, "though we can’t say at this stage exactly what kind of drone it was or where it was launched from.”

Lithuania borders Russia-allied Belarus to the east and Russia's Kaliningrad exclave to the west. Wednesday's alert came after the military said it detected drone activity in Belarus, but no drones were sighted over Lithuania.

On Wednesday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte commended the alliance’s reaction to several drone incidents in recent days, saying that they had been met with “a calm, decisive and proportionate response.” Rutte said: “This is exactly what we planned and prepared for,” and he blamed Russia’s war on Ukraine for the problem.

In recent months, Ukrainian drones aimed at Russia have crossed or come down in NATO territory on numerous occasions. Western officials have blamed what they say is likely Russian electronic jamming of the drones. Russia, meanwhile, has renewed threats that it would retaliate if Ukrainian drones are launched from Baltic countries or if those countries are complicit in their use against Russia.

On Tuesday evening, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys wrote on social media that “Russia is deliberately redirecting Ukrainian drones into Baltic airspace while waging smear campaigns” against Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. “It’s a transparent act of desperation — an attempt to sow chaos and distract from a simple reality: (Ukraine) is hitting Russian military machine hard.”

Budrys' comment came hours after a NATO jet shot down a Ukrainian drone over southern Estonia. Ukraine apologized for that “unintended incident,” without specifying what had happened.

Last week, Latvia’s government collapsed following an argument over the handling of multiple incidents involving stray drones suspected to be from Ukraine. The defense minister was forced to quit after his party withdrew its support for him, and the prime minister then resigned. The governing coalition had been under strain for months over several other issues.

In a recent escalation of aerial attacks, Russia and Ukraine have sometimes fired hundreds of drones a day at each other.

Ukraine’s air force said Wednesday that it shot down 131 out of 154 drones that Russia launched overnight. The ones that got past air defenses killed three civilians and wounded 18 others, including two children, officials said.

Ukraine, meanwhile, continued its aerial campaign against Russia’s vital oil industry, with the General Staff reporting its drones struck a major Russian oil refinery and a pipeline pumping station overnight.

Russian media reports also indicated that a chemical plant in the southern Stavropol region was hit and caught fire, although local officials didn’t confirm any direct hit.

The U.K. government, a strong supporter of Ukraine's war effort, has loosened strict sanctions on Russian oil refined into diesel and jet fuel in third countries as prices rise due to the Iran war.

The waiver begins Wednesday and reflects growing supply concerns over certain fuels due to the effective blockade of the key Strait of Hormuz waterway.

That step comes two days after U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that Washington was granting a 30-day extension for countries to import Russian oil that is already in tankers at sea, a move that is meant to reduce the oil supply shortages.

The announcement marked a continued policy reversal by the Trump administration, which had previously said the sanctions on Russian oil would resume. Originally announced in early March, the temporary waiver on the sanctions was first renewed in April.

Geir Moulson in Berlin, Lorne Cook in Brussels, Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal contributed to this report.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte speaks during a media conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

People take shelter in an underground car park during an air raid alert in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (Vygintas Skaraitis/Lrytas via AP)

People take shelter in an underground car park during an air raid alert in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (Vygintas Skaraitis/Lrytas via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, rescue workers put out a fire of a residential building damaged after a Russian strike on Konotop, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

The phone shows the received message "The Lithuanian military reports: "AIR DANGER. Hurry to cover or a safe place without delay, take care of your loved ones, wait for further recommendations. We will inform you about the end of the danger in a separate message", in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)

The phone shows the received message "The Lithuanian military reports: "AIR DANGER. Hurry to cover or a safe place without delay, take care of your loved ones, wait for further recommendations. We will inform you about the end of the danger in a separate message", in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday, May 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Mindaugas Kulbis)