US Ambassador to UN calls Iranian elementary school attack "tragic mistake"

Moscow — The United States Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Mike Waltz, characterised a deadly bombing of a girls’ school in southern Iran as a tragic mistake that can occur during military operations, without directly assigning blame to any particular party.

“The United States does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties. However, sometimes, of course, tragic mistakes can happen,” he told ABC News in an interview broadcast on Sunday, 8 March.

When pressed further regarding an investigation conducted by The New York Times that stated the US was responsible for the attack, Waltz said he would leave that determination to investigators.

An elementary girls’ school in Minab, southern Iran, came under attack on the first day of the combined US-Israel assault on Iran on 28 February.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that 171 schoolgirls died in the bombing, which Tehran alleges was carried out by the US and Israel.

However, US President Donald Trump on Saturday, 7 March, said that based on what he had witnessed, he referred to “it being done by Iran”.