UN-backed experts cite possible US war crimes in Iran strikes
[September 18, 2026]
By JAMEY KEATEN
GENEVA (AP) — Experts commissioned by the U.N.’s top human rights body
say they have found “reasonable grounds” to believe the United States
committed war crimes in two strikes in Iran, including on a school in
the southern city of Minab. They also accuse Iran’s theocratic
government of carrying out crimes against humanity against its own
people, in a report published Thursday.
The report, while not binding, adds to international evidence gathered
about crimes in the war in Iran, and could eventually be used in efforts
to reach justice in international courts.
The fact-finding mission on Iran, chaired by jurist Sara Hossain of
Bangladesh, is made up of independent experts and was created in 2022 by
the Human Rights Council, the U.N.’s top human rights body, which is
based in Geneva.
The experts were expected to present their findings on Monday to the
council, which is made up of 47 U.N. member countries.
The White House issued a scathing statement in response, with
spokesperson Anna Kelly saying the human rights body has “accomplished
nothing for human rights while spouting unserious nonsense for decades.”
“The only party in this conflict that has committed war crimes is the
Iranian regime, which has murdered thousands of its own people, killed
Americans overseas, executed acts of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz,
and launched indiscriminate attacks against its neighbors in the
region,” Kelly said Thursday.
The team says the US launched ‘indiscriminate’ attacks
The international fact-finding mission says its findings on U.S. war
crimes center on a pair of U.S. airstrikes that killed at least 178
civilians, including women and children.
At the start of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran in February, at least
one U.S. missile hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab, according to
an Associated Press investigation. There has been no final accounting of
what happened.
Iranian state media have said 168 people were killed in the strike, most
of them children.
"The mission found reasonable grounds to believe the United States
committed the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in
the loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects,”
a U.N. statement about the team's findings said about the Feb. 28
attacks by the U.S. and Israel.
The State Department offered an assessment similar to that of the White
House in response to the report, noting that the Trump administration
had withdrawn from the Human Rights Council for consistently pushing
anti-American rhetoric and antisemitism" while appeasing repressive
governments.
“As such, we do not give credibility to findings in this report,” the
department said.
In their report, the experts concluded that “the building of the school
was the intended point of impact” and the resulting damage wasn’t the
result of an errant strike or collateral damage from an attack on a
compound of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard next to the school.
The Trump administration has yet to directly accept responsibility or
release the findings of a Pentagon investigation into the school
bombing.
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The U.N.-backed team based its allegations on two strikes — one
involving Tomahawk missiles that hit the “clearly identifiable”
school, and another in which Precision Strike Missiles dispersed
tungsten pellets over a “clearly identifiable sports complex and
residential area” in the southern city of Lamerd, also on Feb. 28.
The U.N.-backed team said 22 civilian men and women were killed.
U.S. Central Command has denied responsibility for the strike on
Lamerd.
Experts cite ‘crimes against humanity’ by Iran's government
The team found that killings by state security forces in Iran have
occurred on a “staggering scale,” and civilians faced “gross human
rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by their own
government.”
Iranian security forces carried out “violent repression” over the
last two years by firing assault rifles into crowds, beating
protesters and arresting healthcare workers, among other things, the
team said. Detainees faced torture, and were deprived of legal
counsel, leaving their families “in the dark” about their
whereabouts, the experts said.
The Tehran government intensified the use of the death penalty, and
said more than 70 people – including five women and three boys –
remain at “imminent risk of execution,” they added.
“The report concluded that many of these gross violations amount to
crimes against humanity — including murder, imprisonment, torture,
and other inhumane acts committed as part of a widespread and
systematic attack on civilians,” the statement said.
Both the US and Iran should provide reparations, they say
The experts said the United States and Iran should halt all rights
violations and crimes, and provide “full reparations to victims.”
The report, built on a “victims-centered approach,” was based on
interviews with 73 people both inside and outside Iran, along with
documentation, satellite imagery, photographic and video material
and information from “credible” organizations and experts, the
experts wrote.
The ongoing conflict that has driven people from their homes in Iran
as well as an internet shutdown and a lack of full cooperation from
the two governments partially impeded the team's efforts to get
information.
Nearly three dozen requests from the experts for information from
Iran's government went unanswered, they said, as have requests in
June to the U.S. government for information and meetings with
officials.
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Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Matthew Lee contributed
to this report from Washington.
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