CNN has revealed, citing three informed sources, that senior US military leaders ignored warnings within military databases that intelligence on targets inside Iran was outdated and needed re-verification before approving airstrikes, including one that hit a school in the city of Minab, killing about 200 people, including 168 children and 14 teachers, according to official Iranian media.

The sources said that the targeting system included alerts confirming that the information used was years old and required updating before being approved. However, senior leaders bypassed those warnings, driven by the need to expedite the preparation of the target list as military operations began, which, according to the sources, contributed to the mistaken strike.

The network quoted one source as saying that US military officials knew within days how the error occurred, adding that the information used was clearly outdated. Despite months having passed since the incident, the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) has not published the results of the investigation.

A White House official confirmed to the network that the investigation is still ongoing, stressing that the United States does not target civilians.

According to the network, the strike occurred on February 28 during US forces targeting a nearby facility of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Satellite images showed that the school was part of the military complex until 2013, before being separated by a fence and independent entrance since 2016, changes that were not reflected in the military database used for targeting.

The sources explained that the decision by US President Donald Trump to launch military operations came before the completion of updating data on thousands of targets inside Iran, leading to the use of information some of which was more than 10 years old. Priority was given to updating data on targets considered the most threatening, such as missile and aircraft sites, while data on static sites, including the one that was bombed, remained unupdated.

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CNN also revealed that an intelligence analyst had identified changes in the site through a separate digital system, but this information was not integrated into the official target database, and thus did not reach military leaders.

The network added that senior Pentagon officials pressured US Central Command to provide targets quickly before and during the war, increasing pressure on intelligence analysts. It also indicated that reducing the civilian harm mitigation teams by more than 90% by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have contributed to increasing the risk of such errors.

Hegseth said the strike would be subject to a thorough investigation, stressing that the United States did everything it could to avoid civilian casualties.