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Saturday, Sep 19, 2026
1 story1 Pentagon Probe Blames AI Overreliance for Strike That Killed 123 Children in Iran AI Sep 19, 2:14 AM EDT 31/25
A February 28 missile attack on an Iranian elementary school in Minab resulted from a cascade of failures including the use of obsolete target data and flawed imagery. Pentagon investigators found that personnel overrelied on Palantir's Maven AI system, which they incorrectly believed would flag stale intelligence before the strike killed 123 children and approximately 150 people total. The system fused more than 150 data inputs to accelerate targeting from hours to minutes, while the target database continued to classify the site as a military facility.
A United Nations expert report found reasonable grounds to believe the attack constituted a war crime because the site had operated as a school for nearly a decade. Internal pressures contributed to the failure, including an administration demand for over 1,000 strikes within 24 hours and a 90% reduction in civilian-harm-mitigation teams. The Pentagon probe was finished months ago but remains unreleased, and US officials have not publicly accepted responsibility for the strike.