US used new ballistic missile in strike that killed teens in Iran sports hall: Report
A US-made ballistic missile previously untested in combat struck a sports hall and an elementary school in southern Iran on the opening day of the US-Israeli war, according to a report by The New York Times.
The school and sports hall in Lamerd, Iran, featured damage consistent with a short-range ballistic missile called the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, which is designed to detonate just above its target and blast small tungsten pellets outward, the NYT reported on Monday.
Videos of two strikes verified by the NYT were also consistent with PrSM explosions, the report said, citing military experts.
At least 21 people were killed in the strikes on 28 February, according to Iran’s state news agency, Irna.
Iran’s representative to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, said the sports hall was being used by a girls' volleyball team when it was struck.
Dropsite News reported earlier “chaos” at the hall, where young girls were attending sports training sessions as the missile slammed into the venue.
The report did not conclude whether the strike was intentional, the result of improper targeting, or a design flaw attributable to the weapons' first appearance on the battlefield.
The NYT also reported that the venue is easily identifiable as a civilian structure on Google Maps and Apple Maps.
The US was also responsible for killing at least 165 people - mainly children aged between seven and 12 - in a strike on a girls' school in Minab on the same day as the strike on the sports hall.
A Pentagon investigation found that the US military was responsible for the strike, which was carried out with a Tomahawk missile. US President Donald Trump sought to deflect responsibility for the strike, falsely claiming that Iran also uses Tomahawks.
The PrSM is another advanced weapon. It is a short-range ballistic missile designed to replace the Army Tactical Missile System, a ground-launched system.
Experts told the NYT that photographs taken at the scene of the strike show the sports hall’s playground peppered and pockmarked, a pattern of damage that is consistent with the PrSM warhead exploding into fragments.
More than 1,900 people have been killed and at least 20,000 injured in Iran since the start of US and Israeli attacks, said Maria Martinez of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Friday, citing figures provided by the Iranian Red Crescent.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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