Reuters analysis confirms US munition directly hit wedding party in Sirik: Probe exposes American war crime

An independent analysis of video and images from the scene of a US airstrike on a family wedding in southern Iran has concluded the explosion was likely caused by a direct hit from an American munition, not a ricochet or an Iranian interceptor, according to a report published by Reuters.

The finding comes as US Vice President JD Vance admitted Washington is investigating the Tuesday night massacre in Kuhestak, Sirik County, Hormozgan Province, that Iranian officials have condemned as a blatant war crime.

A fifth victim, a 22-year-old woman, died in hospital, bringing the death toll to five, with nearly 70 civilians wounded, the majority of them women and children.

The martyrs included four-year-old Amir-Mohammad Karimi and 16-year-old Mohammad Malahi.

On Thursday, mourners in Kuhestak tossed petals over flag-draped coffins as a reporter identified one as “Martyr Amir-Mohammad Karimi, a 4-year-old child who was martyred in an attack on the country’s south by the criminal American regime.”

A local resident told Tasnim: “If it was a military location, it wouldn’t be so painful. This was a wedding ceremony, but they turned people’s joy into mourning.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei described the strike as the “true face of the war crime,” stating that a wedding ceremony was “brutally bombed as part of America’s desperate struggle to conceal its failure.”

He contrasted the attack with the Islamic Republic’s adherence to moral and humanitarian principles even under the most distressing circumstances of unprovoked aggression.

The United States has claimed it “never targets civilians.” Vance told reporters the US investigates “mistakes” because “when our military makes mistakes, they learn from them.”

Weapons experts who reviewed Reuters-verified footage said the damage pattern was consistent with a direct strike by a US precision-guided munition.

The assault formed part of a wave of US attacks on Iran’s southern coast near the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has responded with firm retaliatory operations against American military bases across the region that have been used to launch aggression against Iranian territory.

The Sirik massacre follows a well-documented American pattern of turning celebrations into funerals.

US forces had previously bombed wedding parties in Afghanistan, killing dozens of civilians including brides, children and entire families, with no accountability.

Six months earlier, a US strike destroyed a primary school in Minab, martyring more than 160 schoolgirls and teachers. An internal US investigation also pointed to American responsibility in that case, though the Pentagon never released its findings.

The Iranian Red Crescent Society has referred the Sirik attack to the International Criminal Court, citing the civilian character of the location and the presence of families at a wedding.

Iranian officials have promised that such crimes will not go unanswered and that the United States will be held accountable for its systematic targeting of civilians.

Ex-Pentagon official: US ‘intentionally targeting Iranian civilians’

A former senior Pentagon official has said that the United States is deliberately killing civilians in Iran after a US missile strike hit a wedding ceremony in Hormozgan Province.

IRGC Commander Ahmad Vahidi, in a message to the victims’ families on Thursday, said the blood of those killed in Kouhestak “will never go unanswered” and would “catch up with those who ordered and carried out this heinous crime.”

He said the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps and Iran’s armed forces would continue to guard the sanctity of the martyrs of the second and third US-Zionist-imposed wars, particularly the Battle of Hormuz.

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