Trump: "I don't rule out that the Meenab massacre is an artificial intelligence"
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday (July 15th) questioned the Minab massacre, which was committed by US aircraft in Iran, the first day of the war at the end of last February.
Trump told Fox News that no definitive conclusion could be reached about the strike on a school in the Iranian city of Minab, which killed dozens of civilians, most of them children, claiming that the images of the massacre circulating may have been "generated by artificial intelligence tools."
Trump's Shifting Path to Statements on Minab Massacre
The timelines of Trump's remarks on the Minab massacre show a volatile trajectory in dealing with the issue. On March 7, he said that "Iran mistakenly hit the school as a result of a military miscalculation," claiming to have the name of the person responsible for firing the projectile, but evaded providing any proof.
Just two days later, on March 9, U.S. Central Command and Defense Secretary Pete Higgseth refused to endorse this narrative, calling Trump's remarks "inappropriate" and preempting the investigation's findings.
On March 12, military sources revealed that preliminary investigations within the U.S. military suggested that U.S. forces were responsible for the strike, as a result of the use of old coordinates that targeted a nearby IRGC position.
Trump then returned on June 24 to blow up his first narrative, saying, "We may never know who was responsible for the strike," adding that "missiles were flying in every direction on the first day of the war."
Congress Pushes to Expose MENAP Investigations
U.S. lawmakers are leading intensified legislative and legal moves to force the Defense Department to immediately disclose the classified report on the bombing of a girls' school in Minab, Iran, in one of the toughest parliamentary pressure campaigns in years, the sources said.
The moves began with a unified letter led by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reid, along with more than 24 senators, in which they demanded that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the commander of Central Command provide a complete, unedited version of the investigation by July 20, with a non-classified version released to the public to ensure transparency and prevent the administration from keeping the dossier under "absolute secrecy."
The sources revealed that the pressure on the Pentagon has shifted to the use of legislative funding tools, as the Senate Armed Services Committee passed an exceptional clause in the draft Defense Authorization Act of 2027 that stipulates the freeze of 75% of the Secretary of Defense's travel budget, provided that the freeze is lifted only after the delivery of all the investigative documents related to the Minab massacre, while the House of Representatives adopts a similar clause prohibiting 25% of the travel budget for the same reason.
U.S. lawmakers reject U.S. military's justifications
A number of lawmakers, including Chris Van Hollen and Sarah Jacobs, stressed that the military's initial justification that the incident was the result of "outdated intelligence" does not amount to legal accountability, demanding a preventative remediation plan that outlines clear steps to prevent the recurrence of such disasters, obliging military commanders to provide a closed-door briefing next week on the details of the launch order and who is responsible for it, as well as answering questions related to the role of AI software in determining the coordinates that led to the targeting School.
These moves come amid great concern within Congress, especially after reports indicate that the Minab incident, which resulted in the death of 175 children and teachers, is the largest civilian loss caused by the US military since the bombing of the Al-Amiriya shelter in 1991, increasing political and media pressure on the US administration to uncover the full truth.
From Minab School to Al Amriya Shelter
The massacre of the "Tayyiba Tree" school in the Iranian city of Minab took place on February 28, 2026, during the first day of direct air operations between the United States and Iran, when a Tomahawk missile launched from the Arabian Sea targeted the building of the girls' primary school, killing 175 children and teachers inside their classrooms, turning the incident into the largest civilian loss caused by the US military in three decades, and provoking a wave of international condemnation and political pressure within Congress against the Trump administration.
The tragedy of the Amiriya shelter in Baghdad occurred on February 13, 1991, during the Second Gulf War, when two American F-117 fighter jets bombed shelter No. 25 in the Amiriya neighborhood, using guided bombs that penetrated the concrete roof and exploded in the basements, killing 408 civilians, including women and children, in one of the most horrific air disasters in modern history.
Washington justified the attack by claiming to have detected military broadcast signals from inside the building, before it was later revealed that the shelter was a civilian facility dedicated to protecting residents, leading to widespread global outrage and forcing the United States to adjust its methodology for selecting its air targets in Iraq.