U.S. forces mistakenly struck an elementary school in Iran on February 28, Bloomberg writes. According to the outlet, U.S. investigators examining the circumstances of the attack concluded that the strike was the result of a failure in the transfer of data between intelligence analysts and the target database.
The site had originally been designated an “IRGC naval base”. But as early as 2019, an intelligence analyst corrected that information and indicated that the location was in fact an elementary school.
That note, Bloomberg writes, was never entered into the database from which the U.S. military selects targets for strikes.
“The attack killed about 120 children and nearly 200 people in total, making it the most serious case of harm to civilians caused by U.S. operations in decades. Details revealed in the investigation underscore long-standing shortcomings in the U.S. military’s targeting system, which was supposed to have been improved many years ago,” Bloomberg writes.