23rd March 2026
The facts of the incident point to a breach of international law
*
Hello and welcome to The Empty City blog, the new name of which is explained here.
*
Let us assume the following facts:
1. that there was a guided missile;
2. that this guided missile had a pre-selected target; and
3. that this guided missile struck that pre-selected target as it was intended to do so.
If the missile was not a guided missile, or that it struck a target that was not the pre-selected target, then one or more of the facts posited above would not be true. But let us assume those facts are the case.
Let now assume the following additional facts:
4. that a school was the pre-selected target;
5. that the guided missile struck that pre-selected target as it was intended to do so; and
6. that over one hundred schoolchildren were killed in that strike.
If these facts are also true then there is a question about fact (4): was the school a deliberate target? Was the building selected for the strike by someone (or something) knowing it was a school?
If so, then there would be a war crime, as schools are protected from such attacks under international law – on this see the able article by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown here.
But what if the school was selected by someone (or something) without realising it was a school?
Then the question becomes whether that someone (or something) should have known it was a school.
And if they did not do everything feasible to verify the status of a targeted object then the targeter is also culpable and in breach of international law.
*
Over at Prospect – click here – I have done a post on whether the attack by the United States on a school in Minab is a breach of international law.
It would appear that from 2016 onwards, public domain and open source information would have shown that the school was no longer part of an adjacent compound of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
This means that anybody (or anything) that bothered to check what they were actually doing with this $3.5 million piece of hardware, of which the United States only has a limited number, would have realised that the school was not a military target.
On costs grounds alone one would have thought they would check whether a missile would be ‘wasted’ – let alone humanitarian grounds.
But, as this New York Times report reveals, it seems that the United States did not bother to check up-to-date information. Instead the United States relied on out-of-date information, and so over one hundred schoolchildren were killed.
And Reuters now reports that United States military now realise they have a problem over this strike and have elevated the status of their internal inquiry.
At least the incident is being investigated.
Of course, few will feel confident that such an inquiry will lead to any open admission of culpability or any sanction against any individual.
You will probably have the Jean Charles de Menezes sort-of-situation where there was an overall, system failure – a lethal failure – but no particular person will take any blame.
But as the Prospect article concludes: in the current context of Artificial Intelligence, it would seem the application of human intelligence to public domain, open source information would mean over one hundred schoolchildren would probably still be alive today.
**
This post is also cross posted at The Empty City substack, which is run in parallel with this blog.
***
Comments Policy
This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.
Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.
More on the comments policy is here.
Not the first time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade
For which the US government paid compensation (without admitting liability). I doubt the US will pay compensation here.
Excellent analysis. One additional point. NYT has shown there were 4 missiles. The first 2 struck the -disused – base and failed to set off explosions. The third hit the school and the US could see a rush o people to save the children and shelter them in a building nearby. The Fourth missile was loitering and reporting. The US ordered that missile to convert its fuel into a bomb (a bit like napalm) to cause maximum casualties. It was then directed at the building, causing a fireball that killed most of the children and adults.
Would that double tap on defenceless people also be a war crime?
The sources I have used for my to posts have not mentioned the double-tap, though I have seen it widely claimed, so I stuck to my sources. They may be wrong, of course!
Dear David,
Thank you for clarifying the law so beautifully. I’ve been thinking about this since the attack. ‘Deliberate targeting’ takes different forms. I think it is also important to distinguish between them.
Intentionally targeting civilian objects is a war crime of attacking civilian objects;
Knowingly causing excessive incidental death etc is a war crime of excessive incidental death etc;
Targeting children by means of war crimes because they are young (i.e., their child status) is age persecution which is a crime against humanity when conducted as part of widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population.
Everyday and sometimes official condemnations of the US’s attack on the school sometimes suggest (through their tone and the use of ambiguous language) that those responsible in the US administration/military are engaged in child targeting. While the US is assisting Israel in age persecution of Palestinian children in the occupied territories (for the dual purpose of instituting apartheid and perpetrating a widely recognised genocide in Gaza); and seems to be persecuting migrant children at home also in part on the ground of their young age (for the purpose of instilling fear in every migrant family and controlling immigration), this is not that (yet).
Nor, so far, does the available evidence as you and many others have collected suggest those responsible intended to target a civilian object (school) or knowingly cause incidental death (of children). Rather it seems to suggest a mistake of fact, which under article 32 (1) of the International Criminsl Court (ICC) Statute may negate the requisite mental element (intent/knowledge) for the above war crimes.
However, i think it may also be a war crime under customary humanitarian law on the basis that those responsible breached international humanitarian law (IHL) wilfully: not intentionally but recklessness. Rule 156 of the ICRC customary international law study for example states:
‘International case-law has indicated that war crimes are violations that are committed wilfully, i.e., either intentionally (dolus directus) or recklessly (dolus eventualis)’.
Whatever about the specifics of the targeting conduct which I/we don’t know, the context (the US administration’s open hostility to IHL as expressed in public statements as well as cutting of IHL expertise, use of AI (without safeguards)) certainly suggests a war crime of either attacking civilian objects or excessive incidental death on the basis of recklessness (wilful disregard for human life).
And it is still, as you point out, a particularly serious breach of IHL.
The UN Fact-Finding Mission for Iran has started an investigation: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k14/k14kpf3ahw