The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has expressed doubt that American forces were responsible for the fatal strike on a girls’ school in Iran.
A Pentagon investigation into the incident that killed more than 175 children and teachers is still ongoing, but Mr Trump told reporters at the Oval Office on Wednesday that he doesn’t think the investigation will point to the US.
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Mr Trump said he had seen no evidence linking the United States to the attack and suggested that the school may have been hit amid the barrage of missiles exchanged during the Iran war.
“I have to wait for it (the investigation) to be complete. I don’t know that they’re ever going to solve that problem,” he said.
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“I don’t think it’s gonna be us…Somebody said it was our missile. Well, maybe it wasn’t our missile. I’ve seen nothing to lead me to believe that it was. There were plenty of missiles being flown by other people.”
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who appeared alongside the president, said the Pentagon was treating the investigation seriously and would release its findings at the appropriate time.
“We’ve taken the investigation very seriously, and when the appropriate time is right, whatever that outcome is,” Mr Hegseth said.
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The latest remarks mark a shift from Mr Trump’s earlier comments last week, that nobody had intentionally targeted the school and pledged to respect the outcome of the investigation.
The strike occurred on 28 February in Minab, southern Iran, on the first day of the US/Israeli-Iran war. The attack destroyed a girls’ school and killed more than 175 pupils and teachers, making it one of the deadliest civilian incidents of the conflict.
In March, Reuters reported that preliminary findings from a US military investigation suggested American forces were likely responsible for the strike, although investigators had not reached a final conclusion.
