President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States may never determine who was responsible for a missile strike on a girls’ elementary school in Minab, Iran, a civilian-casualty case that has become one of the most sensitive unresolved questions from the Iran war.
The comments, reported in a CBS News live update, came as Trump spoke alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the Oval Office. Asked about the investigation into the strike, Trump said he had not seen a completed report and suggested the answer may remain unclear.
“I don’t know that they’re ever going to solve that problem,” Trump said, according to CBS News. Hegseth said the Pentagon had taken the investigation seriously but did not provide a timeline for releasing findings.
Why this matters now
The Minab strike is not a new incident, but the president’s latest remarks give the story a new political edge. The war is now moving into a tense diplomatic phase, with Washington and Tehran publicly disagreeing over the meaning of a U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding, nuclear inspections, sanctions relief, and regional ceasefire terms.
Accountability for civilian harm could become another pressure point. CBS News previously reported that a preliminary U.S. assessment found the United States was “likely” responsible for the strike, while also saying the school was not intentionally targeted. That earlier report said dated intelligence may have wrongly identified the area as still part of an Iranian military site.
The school, identified by Iranian media as Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school, was in Minab in southern Iran’s Hormozgan province. CBS News said Iranian state media reported at least 168 people killed, many of them children. The outlet also reported that Israel’s military was not operating in the area, citing sources.
Investigation still unresolved
The Guardian reported this week that nearly four months after the bombing, critics fear the Pentagon may never fully release its findings. The Guardian account said the attack involved a Tomahawk cruise missile and described the case as one of the deadliest civilian bombing incidents involving the U.S. military in decades.
The Guardian also reported that U.S. Central Command had given no new update on the investigation, while former Pentagon and national security officials questioned whether the current Defense Department would publicly account for the incident.
Trump, meanwhile, repeated Wednesday that he had seen nothing proving U.S. responsibility. “I don’t think it was us,” he said, according to CBS News.
A fragile diplomatic backdrop
The remarks landed the same day Trump described the wider Iran track in optimistic terms, saying Tehran was making major concessions. But the diplomacy remains fragile. Iran has pushed back on U.S. claims about inspections of damaged nuclear sites, while Israel’s continued presence in southern Lebanon has complicated efforts to turn the ceasefire framework into a final settlement.
That makes the Minab investigation more than a question about one strike. If the Pentagon never provides a clear public account, it could deepen mistrust at the exact moment U.S. officials are asking allies, lawmakers, and Iran itself to accept a still-unfinished deal.