New footage, first analyzed by open-source investigative group Bellingcat, shows what researchers say is likely an American Tomahawk cruise missile striking a compound in Minab, Iran, meters from a school where at least 165 people died on Feb. 28, the Associated Press reported Monday. A U.S. official familiar with internal deliberations told the AP the strike was likely American, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. The unclaimed blast hit a school adjacent to a Revolutionary Guard base in Iran’s southern Hormozgan Province.

The footage adds to mounting evidence of U.S. culpability for one of the deadliest single strikes of the ongoing Mideast war. President Donald Trump has claimed without evidence that Iran possesses Tomahawk cruise missiles — a position contradicted by available weapons-export records and not echoed by any other member of his administration.

What the Footage Shows

The video, taken the day of the Feb. 28 strike but first circulated Sunday by Iran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency, shows a missile hitting a building and sending a dark plume of smoke into the air. Bellingcat researcher Trevor Ball identified the munition as a Tomahawk cruise missile — a weapon only the U.S. is known to possess in the current conflict.

The AP said it geolocated the video and determined it was shot from a site adjacent to the school, while smoke was already rising from the school vicinity. Satellite imagery of the compound, the AP reported, is consistent with visual identifiers in the footage, including a flat-roofed building, power lines, and vehicles.

U.S. Central Command has acknowledged using Tomahawk missiles in the war. It released a photo of the USS Spruance — part of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group, which was within range of the school — firing a Tomahawk missile on Feb. 28.

Bellingcat said the footage “appears to contradict” Trump’s claim over the weekend that Iran was responsible for the blast.

Trump’s Claims and Response

Asked at a press conference Monday why he was the only person in his administration making the claim that Iran was responsible, Trump said, “Because I just don’t know enough about it.” He added that “whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that report.”

Trump argued that the Tomahawk is “sold and used by other countries” and that Iran “also has some Tomahawks,” saying “Whether it’s Iran or somebody else … a Tomahawk is very generic.” Raytheon, the weapon’s American manufacturer, sells the Tomahawk to allied countries including Japan and Australia; there is no evidence Iran has acquired it.

On Saturday, Trump had told reporters, without providing evidence, “No, in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” adding that Iran is “very inaccurate” with its munitions. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth quickly said the U.S. was investigating.

Neither U.S. Central Command nor the Israeli military responded to AP requests for comment Monday.

Other Factors Pointing to U.S. Involvement

The U.S. military has launched a formal assessment of the incident. Under Pentagon instructions on mitigating civilian harm, such an assessment is initiated only after investigators make an initial determination that U.S. forces may bear culpability.

The school’s location is also consistent with U.S. targeting patterns. It sits next to a Revolutionary Guard base and near barracks for a naval unit; the U.S. has focused on naval targets and has acknowledged strikes in Hormozgan Province, including one near the school. Israel denied conducting the strike and has not reported any operations south of Isfahan, approximately 800 kilometers from Minab.

No independent agency has reached the site during the war to investigate; no images of bomb fragments from the blast have been produced.

Janina Dill, an international law expert at Oxford University, wrote that even if the strike was a misidentification — with the attacker believing the school was part of the adjacent base — it would still be “a very serious violation of international law.” She wrote: “Attackers are under an obligation to do everything feasible to verify the status of targeted object.”

At a press conference on March 2, Hegseth had offered a different framing of the U.S. campaign’s conduct: “America, regardless of what so-called international institutions say, is unleashing the most lethal and precise air power campaign in history.” He continued: “No stupid rules of engagement. No politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives.”