Exclusive: US commanders bypassed warnings about outdated intelligence ahead of strike that hit school in Iran, sources say

2026-07-07T18:25:25.601Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/politics/us-commanders-intelligence-iran-school

Senior US military commanders bypassed warnings in critical databases that intelligence about potential targets in Iran was severely out of date and approved some strikes — including one that hit a school, killing nearly 200 hundred children and adults, according to three sources familiar with the decision-making process.

Messages indicating the intelligence was based on years-old intelligence that needed to be re-vetted were embedded in a system used for developing targets and required a senior officer to approve adding a site to the strike list, according to the sources.

The decision by senior commanders to ignore the warnings was made for “expediency,” two of the sources said, in a rush to provide targets at the start of the war. But it also directly contributed to the accidental strike on the school, the sources added.

The strike killed at least 168 children and 14 teachers, according to Iranian state media. Those numbers would make the strike one of the worst civilian casualty incidents in recent US military history. The US military launched an investigation in the days after the strike.

US military officials “knew within days (of the strike on the school) how the mistake happened,” one of the sources said. “It was obviously old info.”

Months later, the Pentagon has not released its investigation into the incident.

A White House official told CNN that “this investigation is ongoing.”

“As we have said, the United States does not target civilians,” the official added.

Details about why the old information was ultimately used, which have not been previously reported, shed new light on how the prewar push for targets contributed to the accidental strike on a school.

The Pentagon directed questions about the targeting process to US Central Command. CENTCOM declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

While US strikes against targets in Iran have largely abated as American and Iranian officials discuss a potential deal, President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to return to a large-scale bombing campaign.

The February 28 strike on the Shajareh Tayyiba school in Minab occurred while the US military was attacking a neighboring Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facility, CNN has reported an initial military investigation found.

Satellite imagery from 2013 showed that the school and the IRGC base were once part of the same compound. But images from 2016 show that a fence had been erected to separate the school from the rest of the base, and that a separate entrance to the school had been built. In December 2025, imagery showed dozens of people apparently playing in the school’s courtyard.

The strike occurred on the first day of US operations against Iran, as US military officials and intelligence analysts scrambled to update targeting information for thousands of sites after Trump decided to launch combat operations. Analysts did not refresh all of the relevant records in the Pentagon’s databases before strikes began, the sources said.

As a result, the intelligence for many targets added to the strike list was over 10 years old, including the information about the IRGC facility next to the elementary school.

Given the expedited timeline, military officials and intelligence analysts rushed to first update records for what were considered “upper-tier” targets — the ones most likely to be hit first, two sources told CNN.

“Upper-tier” targets largely consisted of mobile targets and sites that were believed to pose the highest threat to US forces, the sources explained, noting military officials were able to largely update those records before the first bombs were dropped.

“It was how (military officials) were re-validating targets rapidly by prioritizing what we thought was the most dangerous to US forces and the mission — like missile sites and aircraft,” the first source said.

Fixed sites — like the target that ended up being a school — were generally considered to be lower tier because they don’t move, the second source explained, noting analysts were unable to update many of those records before the war’s start.

The targeting databases — known as the Modernized Integrated Database, or MIDB, and the Machine-Assisted Analytic Rapid-Repository System, or MARS — clearly indicated that the information related to Iranian targets needed to be updated before use, two of the sources said.

MIDB is the Pentagon’s older targeting system, built in the 1980s. It largely relies on manual input from analysts.

MARS is the department’s newer, artificial intelligence-powered digital platform that was put into operational use earlier this year and is intended to replace MIDB.

Both systems are being used, but the effort to shift entirely to MARS is years behind schedule, and authoritative targeting data still relies on MIDB, according to a source familiar with recently revised Pentagon guidance.

An analyst had previously noted changes at the site in a separate digital intelligence tool, but that tool was not linked to the official intelligence database used to develop strike targets, the first source told CNN. And that information was never conveyed to military commanders.

The analyst’s warning and how existing gaps within the Pentagon’s intelligence database may have contributed to the accidental strike on a school are among the issues that have been examined as part of the ongoing investigation, the same source added.

Major questions loom four months after deadly strike on Iran elementary school

4:41 • Source: CNN

Major questions loom four months after deadly strike on Iran elementary school

4:41

In the immediate aftermath of the strike, Trump suggested that Iran might be to blame for the strike, and subsequently said that responsibility may never be determined. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said the strike will be “thoroughly” investigated, adding the US has “attempted in every way possible to avoid civilian casualties.”

Multiple sources told CNN that senior Pentagon leaders were pressing military officials to rapidly provide targets in the immediate lead-up to the war and that demand persisted throughout the weekslong conflict — putting a strain on CENTCOM and intelligence analysts tasked with identifying viable sites to strike.

“The Pentagon is pressing everyone to move faster,” one of the sources told CNN about the decision to override warnings about the old intelligence. “A lot of former hedge-fund people and made-for-TV personalities in the mix. But leadership at CENTCOM did not push back either.”

Another factor that increased the risk of a mistake, according to two sources familiar with the decision-making process, was that Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response teams at CENTCOM and other combatant commands were already short-staffed due to Hegseth’s decision to cut the program earlier in his tenure.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense did not respond to a request for comment about Hegseth’s changes to civilian casualty mitigation.

Hegesth has repeatedly described his desire to allow commanders in the field to move faster by removing constraints, something he’s summarized as “maximum lethality, not tepid legality.”

Before the Iran war, Hegseth made deep cuts to the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response programs and slashed CHMR staff at military commands by more than 90%. That included removing civilian harm specialists from target development strike teams and reducing the team of 10 at Central Command to only one full-time staffer, sources told CNN.

“I know the CHMR team at CENTCOM was still trying to do the best possible work, they were just not staffed and resourced like they needed to be because of Hegseth,” one of the sources said.