UN mission finds grounds to believe US committed war crimes in Iran

GENEVA: The UN's Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran concludes in a new report that the US is responsible for two military strikes in Iran in February, which it says amount to war crimes. The mission also finds that Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity during their crackdown on anti-government protests.

The strikes targeted a school and a sports facility, killing over 150 people, including a significant number of schoolchildren. The US relied on intelligence suggesting a senior Iranian military commander was at the school but failed to properly verify this information before launching the attack. The UN experts found the school to be a clearly identifiable civilian object and concluded that the US acted recklessly by directing the strikes despite the substantial risk of striking a civilian object.

The Iranian government's response to the protests involved widespread violence, including unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, and severe restrictions on freedom of expression, marking a significant escalation from previous patterns of suppression.