The Bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh Girls School in Minab, Iran

[John J.]

Reports from New Lines Magazine and Al Jazeera English determined that the girls' school was next to an IRGC base on Resalat Boulevard in Minab. An Al Jazeera report said the school had been "clearly separate" from the adjacent military site for at least 10 years and its targeting was "deliberate."

Merlyn Thomas of BBC Verify, speaking on PM, BBC Radio 4, 05 March 2026, from about 18 mins 25 secs into the programme (any transcription errors are mine, she spoke pretty fast)

...we've got new satellite imagery, and it- it's crucial to our understanding of what happened because it shows that the surrounding area of the school itself, and the IRGC base itself, show multiple strikes hit that area. Now the school is located right next to an IRGC base, and we can see that in these satellite images that the IRGC base itself was hit multiple times, the school building itself is partially collapsed, and a building in the IRGC base was completely flattened.
Now, when you combine that image with the verified videos we have on the ground, experts have said that this suggests that there were multiple simultaneous or near-simultaneous strikes in the area. It's worth saying as well that, some people have claimed that the IRGC base is next to the school, how separate is it, what we can say is a wall is visible from Google Earth imagery, is visible from 2016 that, that is separating the school from the IRGC base itself.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002s3g5

 

[Giddierone]

BBC Verify also says there was more than one impact site.

At least three columns of black smoke are visible in the footage: two closer to the entrance of the base, and a third further away behind the medical clinic.

The location of smoke plumes in verified videos correspond to where the damage is visible in satellite images.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yqqyly9n0o

 

[Ann K]

It would appear that the data they had on the school was outdated, and that old information identified it as a military location. I do not know if their mistake was related to the lack of experts, but Patel laid off a number of experts on Iran just before the attack began.

FBI Director Kash Patel fired at least a dozen counterintelligence staffers at the FBI mere days before the U.S. strikes on Iran, despite their relevant expertise, because they had also previously worked on the investigation into the classified documents at President Donald Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago, according to a report by the New York Sun.

The ousted staffers included agents and personnel from a counterintelligence unit called CI-12 in the FBI's Washington Field Office, and the firings were ordered directly by Patel, reported the Sun's Daniel Edward Rosen, citing "four former officials familiar with the dismissals." Their work focused on "media leaks, global espionage, and threats that included those involving the Iranian regime."

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/t...n-mar-a-lago-probe-had-iran-expertise-report/

This, combined with the much-publicized layoffs a year ago this week, means that the USA has lost the expertise of some of the best experts on the region.

Employees at the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were sent deferred resignation offer letters this week, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

POLITICS

'Not a buyout': Attorneys and unions urge federal workers not to resign

These are the first examples of the national security and intelligence workforce being included in broader efforts to downsize the federal government by the Trump administration. The move is causing panic within the broader national security community that years of experience, talent and secrets could soon be heading out the door from the CIA and ODNI headquarters in McLean, Va., and the NSA's in Fort Meade, Md.

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/05/nx-s...n-cia-nsa-odni-national-security-intelligence

AI, suspected to have been used in this bombing event, is only as smart as the work it reads from the human experts in the field. If they're not up to date, then AI is not up to date.