After Minab School Massacre, U.S. Bombs Wedding in Kouhestak
TEHRAN – The United States has once again demonstrated its criminal nature by targeting a wedding ceremony in southern Iran, martyring at least five people including a child and wounding 68 others, Iranian officials said, adding to a long catalogue of American attacks on non-military targets across the Islamic Republic.
The attack on the wedding reception in Kouhestak, Sirik County in Hormozgan Province, came as part of a wider wave of U.S. strikes that also targeted a fishing pier, a port authority tower, and a fishmeal factory on Qeshm Island – all civilian infrastructure with no military value, Iranian authorities said.
“Minab school: children massacred. Lamerd sports hall: kids slaughtered. Kouhestak wedding: children killed with families,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Muhammad Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X. “If a power acts like Satan, picks targets like Satan, and kills like Satan, it’s Satan.”
The bombing of the wedding ceremony follows a long pattern of U.S. attacks on civilian targets since the beginning of the American-Israeli aggression against Iran on February 28. Iranian officials have documented numerous instances of U.S. forces striking schools, hospitals, residential areas and civilian infrastructure across southern provinces.
On February 28, the first day of the U.S.-Israeli aggression, American Tomahawk missiles struck Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Hormozgan Province, killing more than 160 schoolchildren. The attack shocked the nation and drew widespread condemnation from Iranian officials and international observers.
The IRGC cited the Minab school massacre in a statement following the Kouhestak attack, noting that the United States has revived “poignant memories of the brutality that was staged against civilian targets during the last round of American-Israeli aggression.”
In Fars Province, another southern Iranian province, U.S. Precision
St rike Missiles (PrSM) struck a sports complex in the city of Lamerd, where children and young athletes had gathered. The attack killed hundreds of innocent civilians, according to Iranian authorities.
U.S. attacks have also targeted Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as Chabahar and Konarak counties in Sistan and Baluchestan Province. In Khuzestan Province, separate attacks near Ahvaz and Aghajari left seven people martyred and eight wounded.
Iranian officials have documented U.S. strikes on water desalination plants, bridges, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure across southern Iran. In Khuzestan and Hormozgan provinces – which contain key industrial, economic and energy infrastructure – U.S. attacks have repeatedly hit civilian facilities, Iranian authorities said.
The targeting of civilian infrastructure has compounded the suffering of Iranian civilians already enduring the effects of U.S. economic warfare and naval blockade.
In a separate incident, Iranian officials reported that three airspace personnel were martyred in a U.S. attack in Kermanshah province, western Iran. The personnel were serving at an air defense installation when it came under American attack, Iranian military sources said.
In stark contrast to the U.S. pattern of targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, Iran’s Armed Forces have limited their retaliation to hardcore military targets across the region.
Iran’s missile and drone strikes have targeted U.S. bases, command centesr, barracks, drone hangars, radar installations and troop gathering points in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates.
The U.S. military has a documented history of targeting civilians and civilian gatherings in its wars across the region.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei cited documented U.S. attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq that killed women and children, including Kakarak in 2002, Mukaradeeb in 2004, and Deh Bala and Wech Baghtu in 2008.
“The reality is so horrifying that even American propaganda has never dared make the claim that the U.S. does not target civilians,” Baghaei wrote on X, responding to a CENTCOM spokesman’s denial of the wedding attack.
Baghaei also referenced the American television series “Homeland,” which portrayed in its fourth season a U.S. drone strike on a wedding in Pakistan that killed around 40 civilians.
“The truth about America’s illegal war against Iran was laid bare last night in Sirik, where a wedding ceremony was bombed as part of the United States’ desperate attempt to conceal its defeat,” Baghaei said.
Iran’s Red Crescent Society has sent a letter to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, requesting an investigation into the Kouhestak wedding attack.
“The occurrence of such an incident, particularly given the presence of civilians and the death of a child, makes an immediate, independent and effective investigation all the more necessary,” said Razieh Alishvandi, deputy for international affairs and humanitarian law at the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
The organization said the attack could entail individual criminal responsibility under international criminal law if the relevant elements established under the Rome Statute were met.
“Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that it will cause incidental loss of civilian life or injury to civilians that is clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated may give rise to individual criminal responsibility,” the IRCS said.
Lieutenant-Colonel Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesman for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said Iran will continue its retaliatory operations until the United States regrets its aggression.
“These offensive operations against the Americans will continue as a lesson for them until they come to regret their acts of aggression,” Zolfaqari said.