--- title: "It Turns Out the US Military Really Did Use AI to Blow Up a School Full of Iranian Children" description: "New reporting reveals that US Central Command did use AI to conduct the deadly double-tap strike that killed 123 children in Iran." date: "2026-09-21" modified: "2026-09-21" authors: - name: "Joe Wilkins" job_title: "Correspondent" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jwilkins.md" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/us-military-pentagon-ai-iranian-children-school-war-crimes" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Ethics" - "Military" - "Science & Energy" --- # It Turns Out the US Military Really Did Use AI to Blow Up a School Full of Iranian Children ![Coffins are assembled as funerals are held for Iranian students and staff from a girls' school.]() *IRGC via Getty Images* Now over half a year into the United States' war on Iran, it's becoming abundantly clear that AI has been instrumental to the American campaign. On the home front, AI and its infrastructure is quietly shaping the ideological battlefield: President Donald Trump is spewing out [wartime propaganda]() slopped together by generative AI, as US-owned [data centers]() and [tech company offices]() become [widely accepted]() as military targets. AI is also proving instrumental for helping US Central Command choose targets for obliteration via drone strikes or missiles — so much so that an AI system played a pivotal role in perpetuating an American war crime. According to new reporting [by *Bloomberg*](), the Pentagon's investigation into the February 28th air strikes on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' school — a double-tap strike which killed over 150 people, including at least 123 children — concluded that the attack was the result of outdated intelligence and over-reliance on an AI targeting system. Interviewed by *Bloomberg*, anonymous military investigators involved in the probe characterized the horrifying attack as the result of a series of small "errors," rather than one ill-fated mistake. Those errors, stemming from dusty intel, seem to have been compounded by the involvement of an as-yet unidentified [AI targeting system](), likely similar to the one used by American military officers to [fast-track air strikes]() on over 2,000 Iranian targets within a four-day window in the early days of the conflict. The latest info directly refutes president Donald Trump's own narrative around the deadly incident. In July, Trump downplayed the United States' responsibility for the attack, even suggesting that images and footage of the massacre could have been [generated by AI](). Yet as a UN fact-finding commission [wrote in its report]() last week, there are "reasonable grounds" to conclude the US attacks amount to "war crimes" — the girls' school attack being just one prominent example. Whether the full Pentagon investigation will ever be made available to the public is unclear. What is certain is that killer AI is already here — and it [doesn't need to be sentient]() to help humans claim hundreds of innocent lives. **More on military AI:** *[These Robot Soldiers Are Getting Downright Terrifying]()* ## Author At Futurism, I focus on the intersection of technology and power — examining the economics, history, and politics behind today’s dystopian headlines. As a writer, I’m interested in topics ranging from AI’s impact on labor to startups nobody asked for. My prior work includes bylines in Jacobin, Verso, and Blue Labyrinths. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Forbes, The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Time, The Nation, Mother Jones, The Verge, and Wired. I grew up in Michigan, attending Central Michigan University as well as Ball State University, where I earned a master of music. I now live in Brooklyn with my girlfriend and our cat Ziti. On weekends, you can find me hunched over a cold pint arguing geopolitics with the other transplants. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()