The submarine that sank IRIS Dena has been identified by the Defense Dept. as USS Charlotte, a Los Angeles-class boat.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 05:15 pm: Edit

Dumb civvie question:

Don't Tomahawks go boom when they hit the target, even if it's the wrong one?
So why would there be anything recognizable to photograph...
*edit*

Since I haven't seen said photo - was the photograph of the Tomahawk in flight?
That would impressive, to get a photo of the ONE and ONLY missile to hit the wrong target, when so many more Tomahawks hit the correct ones.

Sounds a lot like the F-35 the Iranians shot down. they arrested the pilot and the 13 Mossad agents on board. Complete with photo. Film at 11.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 05:30 pm: Edit

Just saw the photograph of the "Tomahawk" parts.

Ever hear of a thing called a "chain of custody?"

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 06:20 pm: Edit

Energy Secretary Chris Wright briefly sent oil prices sliding when he posted — and then quickly deleted — on X that the U.S. Navy escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a press conference this afternoon that such an escort never happened.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 06:32 pm: Edit

Roger: it is not unusual for various components of a missile to survive the detonation of its conventional warhead. Indeed, this isn't the first time that parts from a Tomahawk have been recovered. Those in this latest incident do match - including serial numbers - those from Ball Aerospace Technologies, Globe Motors, and other suppliers of Tomahawk components.

As for the photograph, it's a still from a video taken very shortly after the school was hit, of another Tomahawk landing inside the perimeter of an IRGC base. That same video shows the smoke rising from the site of the school.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 07:04 pm: Edit

Iran has two near look alikes to the tomahawk.

The attack angle of the pictured missile is w a y steeper than what the tomahawk uses.

It's quite likely a Iranian cruise missile that was GPS jammed and fell out of control.

By Roger Rardain (Sky_Captain) on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 07:54 pm: Edit

Jessica,

I actually have no appropriate words to respond with other than to wish you luck in believing the words of the Iranian government.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 08:32 pm: Edit

The BBC says the Tomahawk hit a military base NEAR the school. The school was hit by the blast wave from the military base. What was somebody saying about human shields?

====ACTUAL BBC REPORT FOLLOWS=============
A US Tomahawk missile hit a military base near a primary school in southern Iran where Iranian authorities said 168 people, including around 110 children, were killed, expert video analysis shows.

A video published yesterday by Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency, which BBC Verify has confirmed as authentic, shows a missile moments before it struck an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) base next to the Shajareh Tayebeh primary school in Minab.

BBC Verify has previously established through satellite imagery, verified videos and expert analysis that the area near the school was hit by a series of strikes.

======END BBC =============

Those of you who owe apologies need to attend to that in your next post.

By Douglas Lampert (Dlampert) on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 09:01 pm: Edit

I will point out that while there are hospitals and schools on US military bases, in the cases that I'm aware of, they are several miles from the nearest military target. For example, there's a lot of open country and a golf course between Fox Army Medical Center on Redstone and the nearest reasonable target, and school age children are bussed off base to Huntsville City Schools (there is an explosives school and some FBI training facilities on base, but not, AFAIK, any schools for children).

Similarly, the base chapel and most family housing is concentrated on the northern side of the base, while the military is central and southern. (General officer's housing is scattered and far more likely than other housing to be near a target, because the generals get locations that were houses prior to there being a base).

There is, quite deliberately, lots of open space separating parts of the base (people hunt and there are cattle pastures), and more space separating the military portions of the base from the city.

Unless you are very constrained for space, putting a school next to a target is a choice. (I would not be surprised by closer spacing in Hawaii, where there is less space available for instance.)

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 10:58 pm: Edit

Ryan, take a look at the before and after satellite photos of the compound, you can search and find them. There are 6 precise center building hits on the military buildings in the southern part of the compound. There is a precise center building hit on the school at the northern edge of the compound. An Iranian missile travelling overhead at approximately the same time GPS jammed so that it just randomly fall out of the sky onto a building next to a group of valid US target isn't a likely explanation. Actually I don't know which way is north, I assume the satellite photos are arranged top North but if not my directions are wrong.

Would Iran kill their own people for propaganda purposes. I could believe that, in no way do I think the Iranian regime are good people. However, this whole sequence of events happened within the opening few hours of the strikes. I think it unlikely that the Iranian Guard troops who just got hit hard by 6 valid strikes, organized and destroyed an adjacent school within minutes (less than an hour) and kept any of the parents from getting their kids out of the school so they could get some good pictures. No orders to do this would have been coming from any central command at the time, because the US was hitting all the top command. It is unlikely to be a preplanned action because why wouldn't it have occurred anywhere else.

Did the Iranians use this as propaganda, absolutely, reading local customs, it appears that the bodies of the children should have been released to the families before nightfall to take home and bury. The Iranian authorities kept all the bodies and buried them in a single area to show the overhead drone shot of the excavators digging.

There was a report earlier today in the Telegraph that the building housing the school started off as part of the base but was carved out to be a school due to local need, the city expanding out towards and around the base, and the base didn't require the building.

Steve, the BBC verify says that they verify one (1) tomahawk hit the military base adjacent to a school from video analysis. They do not say, that was the only strike. They do not say that was the only tommahawk that hit a building. From the video they have, they confirm one strike, which means at least one strike, but possibly more. The article you quoted continues the next paragraph down to say

"Experts who have seen this latest video told us the presence of a Tomahawk missile, along with evidence the area was hit with multiple strikes, indicates this was a US operation."

I do not believe that the US military purposely targeted a school. I do find it likely that in setting a target package for a valid target, Iran Guard military base, they could have made a mistake and unknowingly included an adjacent building that 10 years ago was part of the base before being repurposed as a school. Most likely 7 tomahawks were given targets, launched and hit their targets. In what, 5000+ strikes as of yesterday, the fact that there appears to be only one major mistake causing significant civilian casualties reported at this time is actually pretty decent. It is very sad that it was a large number of children, but I don't believe it was purposeful, and I don't have any evidence to say that they teams doing target selection were purposely negligent. Although they were probably quickly reviewing lots of target packages to see what had priority.

This is a direct contrast to the Russians where we know day after day they happily slam drones or missiles into apartment buildings in Ukraine. Sure they try for power grid with many strikes but they are happy to kill civilians as well.

I think it's highly likely in the next week or two the US military investigation is going to complete and they are going to own up to this one.

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Tuesday, March 10, 2026 - 11:59 pm: Edit

Deleted by author.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 12:47 am: Edit

Well said, Dana.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 07:35 am: Edit

Roger: you asked questions, and I provided you with what facts were available at the time. Insulting me for doing so isn't helpful in that regard, but it does inform my future engagements with you.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 07:39 am: Edit

In other news, three commercial vessels near the Strait of Hormuz were hit today; one, a container ship, is on fire. There is also news that Iran managed to sow a number of sea mines in the strait; the U.S., in response, sent sixteen Iranian minelayers to the bottom.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 08:13 am: Edit

It appears that IRIS Taregh, one of Iran's three Kilo-class submarines, has been either damaged or destroyed at its pier in Bandar Abbas. No word yet on the other two (Noah and Yunes).

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 08:23 am: Edit

Steve, do you know if FYEO is putting together something on the Tomahawk supply situation? I know that RTX recently inked a deal agreeing to increase their production of Tomahawks to 1,000 per year (from their current rate of less than a hundred/year), but 400 were launched against Iran in the first 72 hours alone, which is somewhere around 10% of the entire U.S. stockpile of Tomahawks.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 10:28 am: Edit

I never have any idea if FYEO is working on anything.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 10:32 am: Edit

On the school…

Maybe a US missile hit a building next to a military target. Maybe Iran evacuated an undamaged school and then blew it iup with a truckload of dnanite.

Building a military target next to a school or a school next to a military target is either stupid or cynical. Either way, this is Iran’s fault, not a US war crime.

By Dana Madsen (Madman) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 11:15 am: Edit

To be clear, I have not said, and from what I have read do not believe that the school impact is a war crime. To me, a war crime, is a purposeful deliberate action knowingly targeting civilians or non-combatants to the exclusion of a military reason. I'm sure there is a better definition. Or, I could add in being completely indiscriminate in your targeting when you have the capability of being discriminate. Second, to me, if a party is purposely placing military equipment intermixed with civilian targets to attempt to protect the military, I have no issue, with targeting that equipment. Ie, if missile launchers are placed on the roof of a hospital, to me, that hospital becomes a valid target.

On the other hand, if it is reasonably determined that it was an Iranian false flag action, I would call that a crime (war crime?) by the Iranian regime against their own people. I don't discount that as a possibility, I just think on a balance of probabilities the most likely answer is a US strike.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 11:34 am: Edit

Dana, only one person here suggested it was a war crime, and he see a US war crime in adding a new shaved ice machine to a US base in Hawaii. No one has taken him seriously in years, but we still get outraged by his statements.

Remember that he screamed WAR CRIME when an Israeli soldier fired at someone who had just thrown a bomb and accidentally hit someone behind the bomb thrower.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 11:38 am: Edit

What are sixteen Iranian minelayers on the bottom of the ocean?

A good start. Same as 50 Iranian leaders sent to virgin summer camp.

The only crime is nobody sent four F18s with four 500 pound guided bombs each to wreck the minelayers on the first day.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 12:29 pm: Edit

Warning: the following is preliminary only. Please keep that in mind.

The 28 FEB strike on the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school building was the result of a targeting mistake by the U.S. military, which was conducting strikes on an adjacent Iranian base of which the school building was formerly a part, the preliminary investigation found. Officers at U.S. Central Command created the target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, people briefed on the investigation said.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 01:05 pm: Edit

Plausible, could have been (and has been) done by either side of the aisle, and still not a war crime.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Wednesday, March 11, 2026 - 04:22 pm: Edit

By no means whatsoever would this constitute a war crime. Terrible accident? Yes. Prosecutable negligence? Possibly. War crime? No.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Thursday, March 12, 2026 - 11:10 am: Edit

OK, based on what I've seen so far in this war, and what I know of the region (both from my days in [redacted] and after), here's my best guess on what happens when the war ends (barring something extreme, like Tehran going up in a radioactive cloud):

The Iranian clerics and the Supreme Leader will remain in de jure control, but in name only.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps will hold de facto control, in what will essentially be a brutal military dictatorship replacing the brutal religious dictatorship. The Iranian Army will accept this, because the alternative is a civil war that throws Iran into anarchy for the next decade or more, and because the late Ayatollah Khomeini issued a final fatwah before his death declaring that the state of Iran must survive even if the theocracy does not.

The Iranian legislature and presidency may still exist, but will have no real power (essentially the same as right now).

The IRGC will do anything and everything to obtain nuclear weapons, even if it comes down to promising free oil to North Korea for the next century, because they will see it as the only means to prevent another preemptive attack from Israel and/or the United States.

The IRGC may or may not tone down rhetoric regarding Israel and/or the United States, depending on if it suits their aims of state security, but is extraordinarily unlikely to either forgive or forget past actions, real or imagined. They may or may not retreat from support for the various ideological terrorist organizations currently sponsored by Iran - again, based on whether doing so promotes state security.

The people of Iran will continue to be miserable, and continue to have no practical means to change this with the IRGC and Army lined up against them.

Iran's neighbors will continue to be nervous, and Iran will continue to cast an altogether unsettling shadow over the Middle East.