Bellingcat Analysis: New Videos Reveal Two Separate Missile Waves in Minab Strike, School Hit First

Newly released videos, verified and geolocated by Bellingcat, reveal a critical detail in the late-February strikes on Minab, Iran: the attack unfolded in at least two distinct waves. The footage, released by Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shows multiple missiles hitting a complex containing an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound and an adjacent girls' school. Visual and solar analysis indicates a clear time gap between the recordings, pointing to separate strike sequences rather than a single, simultaneous bombardment.

One video captures the moment the area around the school is struck, while another shows a nearby IRGC clinic and two buildings within the IRGC facility being hit by what appears to be Tomahawk missiles. Crucially, applying the same solar analysis techniques to earlier social media footage of the damaged school suggests it was impacted during the initial wave of the attack. This sequencing raises significant questions about the operational timeline and targeting parameters of the strikes, which previous investigations by Bellingcat and others had linked to US Tomahawk missiles.

The findings intensify scrutiny on the precision and collateral effects of the operation. The confirmed multi-wave nature of the attack, with the school struck first, adds a layer of complexity to understanding the event's dynamics and the immediate risks to civilian infrastructure located near military sites. This granular timeline, extracted from open-source video, provides a more detailed forensic account for ongoing assessments of the incident's conduct and consequences.