A US strike in southern Iran’s Sirik County has reportedly hit a building where a wedding ceremony was taking place, killing four people and injuring more than 60 others, according to Iranian authorities and local sources.
The incident occurred in Kuhestak, a city in Hormozgan province near the Strait of Hormuz, during a series of overnight attacks by the US military.
The Hormozgan governor’s office on Wednesday identified four people who were killed in the incident as four-year-old Amir Ali Karimi, 16-year-old Mohammad Malahi, 43-year-old Kolsoum Malahi and 43-year-old Zarkhatoun Taheri.
More than 60 people were reportedly wounded, with some requiring serious medical attention.
Iranian authorities said the casualties occurred after several projectiles struck areas around Kuhestak, including a building where a wedding was being held.
Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for US Central Command, CENTCOM, said the US military was aware of reports of civilian casualties originating from Iranian state media.
However, Hawkins rejected the suggestion that US forces deliberately targeted civilians. “The US military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC,” he said, referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The operational details surrounding the attack remain disputed, and independent verification of the circumstances and intended target was not immediately available.
Videos and photographs circulated from the area showed damage to several locations in Kuhestak, including a telecommunications tower close to the shoreline.
Local residents said they believed drones may have been among the weapons used during the attacks. Defence experts who examined fragments reportedly recovered from the area suggested they could be associated with a variant of the AGM-84K SLAM-ER, a precision-guided, air-launched cruise missile manufactured by Boeing.
Other footage showed significant damage to the building where the wedding was reportedly taking place, as well as damage to nearby residential structures.
Iranian state television reported that three US strikes were involved in the attack, although the claim has not been independently verified.
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Ali Malahi, identified as the owner of the building where the wedding was taking place, told Iranian state television that those inside the property were civilians attending the ceremony.
Witnesses also described hearing aircraft overhead before explosions occurred in the area.
A woman who said she was at the scene told state-linked media that the building was not close to a military installation and appeared to have been directly hit.
Footage from a local hospital showed injured people, including children, receiving medical treatment following the attack.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society said it had documented the incident and released photographs from the scene and of people receiving treatment.
The organization also contacted the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, seeking legal action against those responsible for what it described as a serious attack.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned the strikes, describing them as part of what it called a broader pattern of attacks against the country.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the incident could not be separated from previous attacks in Minab, Lamerd, Qeshm and other locations.
The Kuhestak incident has drawn comparisons with other attacks in southern Iran during the conflict. In Minab, also in Hormozgan province, an attack on February 28 heavily damaged an elementary school and, according to Iranian authorities, killed about 156 people, most of them children.
The US military has previously acknowledged that Tomahawk missiles were used in the broader operation but has disputed claims about the intended target. CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper said the school was located on what he described as an active IRGC cruise missile base.
Another disputed incident occurred in Lamerd in Fars province, where a sports facility being used by a women’s volleyball team was struck during the opening day of the conflict. Iranian authorities said 21 people, including four children, were killed.
CENTCOM denied responsibility for that incident, while investigations by international media organizations and independent analysts attributed the destruction to a US Precision Strike Missile.
The latest incident comes amid a wider conflict that has seen strikes on military installations and critical infrastructure across Iran.
Oil and gas facilities, fuel depots, industrial sites, airports, ports, bridges and power infrastructure have all reportedly been affected during the fighting.
Iranian authorities say more than 3,500 people have been killed since the beginning of the war, including more than 50 during a 60-day truce before renewed fighting in July.
The circumstances surrounding the Kuhestak strike remain contested, with Iranian authorities accusing the United States of striking a civilian gathering while Washington maintains that its military does not deliberately target civilians.
Al Jazeera
