Reuters Analysis Confirms US Strike Hit Wedding in Iran

A US airstrike on a wedding ceremony in Kuhestak, Sirik County, Hormozgan Province, southern Iran, has killed five civilians and wounded nearly 70, according to Iranian officials. The attack occurred on Tuesday night, and a fifth victim, a 22-year-old woman, later died in hospital. Among the dead were four-year-old Amir-Mohammad Karimi and 16-year-old Mohammad Malahi.

Reuters analysis of verified footage concluded that the damage pattern was consistent with a direct strike by a US precision-guided munition. This finding comes as US Vice President JD Vance admitted that Washington is investigating the incident. Vance told reporters that the US investigates "mistakes" because "when our military makes mistakes, they learn from them." The United States has claimed it "never targets civilians."

Iranian officials have condemned the attack as a war crime. 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.

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." 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."

The assault was part of a wave of US attacks on Iran's southern coast near the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has responded with retaliatory operations against American military bases across the region that have been used to launch aggression against Iranian territory. The Sirik massacre follows a pattern of US forces bombing wedding parties in Afghanistan, killing dozens of civilians, and a US strike six months earlier that destroyed a primary school in Minab, martyring more than 160 schoolgirls and teachers. An internal US investigation 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. 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. According to Mehr News Agency, the report was based on Reuters analysis and statements from Iranian officials.