The US used a new missile in a strike on the first day of the US-Israeli war against Iran that hit a sports hall and an adjacent elementary school in the Iranian city of Lamerd, killing at least 21 people in the area, The New York Times has reported.
The report, which cited weapons experts and analysis of footage of the strikes, said the sports hall, school, and nearby areas were likely hit by a short-range ballistic missile called the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM (pronounced “prism”), which had not been tested in combat before the February 28 strikes.
The PrSM missiles are designed to detonate just above their target and blast small pellets outward, which is consistent with the footage and pictures reviewed by the Times. The missiles completed prototype testing last year, and Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, has said that the PrSM was used for the first time in combat in US strikes on Iran.
Drop Site News published a report on the strike on the sports hall on March 1. The report said that dozens of teenage girls were attending regular training sessions in volleyball, basketball, and gymnastics at the time of the strike.
“Within seconds of the missile strike, the windows shattered into thousands of fragments. Sports equipment, balls, tables, barriers flew through the air. Black smoke filled the space. The smell of gunpowder made breathing almost impossible. The screaming began immediately, layered with the sound of debris collapsing and concrete falling from the ceiling,” Mohammed Saed Khorshedy, a worker at the sports hall who witnessed the attack, told Drop Site.
According to Iranian media, at least 21 civilians were killed by strikes on the sports hall, the school, and nearby residential areas. The sports hall and the school are next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound, but according to an analysis from the BBC, the IRGC base appeared to be undamaged after the strikes.
Negin Bagheri, a journalist based in Iran, said that two young girls, Helma Ahmadizadeh, a fourth-grader, and Elham Zaeri, a fifth-grader, were killed in the US attack, which struck as they were practicing volleyball. A boy in sixth grade who was playing soccer outside was also killed, along with his coach.
The massacre of civilians in Lamerd was overshadowed by the US Tomahawk missile strikes on an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, which occurred earlier in the day, killing more than 100 school girls and boys.
