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Airwars Assessment
(Previous Incident Code: ISIR260228f )
At approximately 5:37 PM on Saturday, February 28, 2026, 22 people, including at least seven children and two women, were killed and up to 170 others injured in a series of three to four strikes allegedly carried out by the US military and/or Israeli military on Shahid Naimi sports hall, two residential buildings, and a school in the southern city of Lamerd, located in the southern Iranian Fars Province. According to local sources, the residential complex Shahrak Isar and the neighbourhood Talkhandagh (Talkhandeq) were hit by the strikes. Multiple media outlets including the BBC and the New York Times linked images of the munition captured in the strike to the United States, with various experts ruling out any other possible party to the conflict. This was denied by US CENTCOM.
10-year-old Helma Ahmadizadeh, 11 to 16-year-old Elham/Elahe Zaeri, 12-year-old Ilia Hatami, a teenager named Abdul Mosavar Rahmani, a footballer named Alireza Abbasi, and a sports coach named Mahmoud (Muhammad) Najafi were killed in the sports hall and adjacent football field. In nearby locations, two-year-old Avina Barzegar, 46-year-old engineer Hamid Amini, female radiologist Rubab Dehdashti, Masoumeh Monfared and her son, Abedin Gharibdoost, as well as Siavash Shahbazi, Jafar Hatami, Hossein Ebrahimi, Rahman Mansouri, Reza Mousavi, Sakineh Shabani, Zahra Asadinejad, Abuzar Amiri, Farhad Najafi, and 16-year-old Zahra Gholami, were killed. The list was initially published by Tasnim, and was later verified by the New York Times. Airwars also found additional reporting of the names among open sources.
While most of the sources, including Mr. Iravani, Iran’s representative to the U.N., reported around 100 civilians had been injured, a report for Iranian Channel 7 (Education Network) stated that 130 people had been injured. According to the head of the Lamerd Health Network who spoke on the day of attack, nearly 100 people had been injured in the attacks, of which 77 had been hospitalized in the Lamerd State Hospital as of the time of reporting.
A Telegram post from @majaraa_media reporting from the location of the attack 90 days afterwards provided an injury toll of 170 or 180 (also mentioning 160 or 170, so this has been quantified as 170 as that number was consistently mentioned). According to @Nournews_ir on Telegram, 32 of the injured people underwent surgery, and a total of about 40 surgeries were performed on the injured in this airstrike (meaning some had to undergo multiple surgeries).
Drop Site News spoke with Mir Dehdasht, an employee of Azad University who said that his 15-year-old daughter Rabab/Robab Dehdasht was training in the sports hall when the attack happened. While Rabab’s full name is nearly identical to victim Rubab listed above, their age and the details of their death are completely different. Therefore, both names have been listed separately in the civilian casualty list but have only been counted in the maximum civilian death toll to account for duplication.
Dehdasht described hearing about the strike, “I ran immediately toward the place, and when I arrived, I found burning cars and rubble scattered everywhere. The injured were bleeding heavily, some had lost consciousness on the ground, others were screaming without stopping. Their voices were deafening. Blood and dust covered everything, and the rubble blocked quick access to the building. Rescue teams were working with extreme care to bring out the injured athletes and the bodies of the victims. The screaming filled everything. Robab did not survive the force of the explosion, while others survived but with life-threatening injuries. I felt complete helplessness.”
On the day of the attack, Fars News Agency, AkharinKhabar, and other outlets reported that according to the “Governor of Lamerd, this city was attacked by four missiles…one of which hit the sports hall and two missiles hit residential areas. The total number of martyrs so far is 17 and nearly 100 people were injured, and we expect the number of martyrs to increase.”
On Telegram, Khabarfoori news agency (@akhbarefori) posted that “at the time of the attack, children were playing and exercising in this [sports] hall.” Fars News Agency (@farsna) also posted on Telegram, reporting that one missile had hit a “sports hall where female students were playing, two missiles hit residential houses and a projectile hit a school.”
According to a March 2 report by Student News Network (SNN), “this cowardly attack…resulted in the martyrdom of 21 innocent citizens, including children, teenagers, young people and the elderly. At the epicenter of this crime, the missile strike on a sports hall led to the martyrdom of two girls, two teenage boys and their coach.
In addition, 16 other innocent residents of the town were martyred, either in their private homes or while walking on the street.” It went on to explain that “the age range of the martyrs of the incident ranges from a two-year-old child to the elderly.” SNN later revised their death toll to 23 killed while reporting on a commemorative ceremony a few months later, on April 28th.
According to a reporter of Fars News who traveled to Lamerd and spoke to a local resident Ismail, the explosions of at least three missiles were recorded within 31 seconds based on CCTV timestamps: the first explosion in Shahrak Isar at 17:37:46; the second in the Talkhandagh (Talkhandeq) neighborhood at 17:37:56; and the third at 17:38:17 at the sports hall. According to Ismail, he checked the CCTV camera time to ascertain the exact time of the explosions. A report for Channel 7 stated that four missiles were used – with three hitting residential buildings, and one – the sports hall.
Mohammed Saed Khorshedy, a 29-year-old employee of the gym who witnessed the attack, told Drop Site News that “within seconds of the missile strike, the windows shattered into thousands of fragments. Sports equipment, balls, tables, barriers flew through the air. Black smoke filled the space. The smell of gunpowder made breathing almost impossible. The screaming began immediately, layered with the sound of debris collapsing and concrete falling from the ceiling.” According to Drop Site, the sports hall was described as “poorly maintained” and composed of a metal roof, a concrete frame, and a rubber floor for volleyball and other athletics. The missile reportedly hit the middle of the roof, reducing the main court, small spectator stands, changing rooms, and coach’s office to rubble.
The strikes were also described in detail by an Iranian journalist and women’s rights activist based in Tehran, Negin Bagheri. She wrote on her Twitter/X account that the girls of the local Noonhalan volleyball team were training in a sports center as the first explosion happened: “With the sound of the first explosion at a base near them, the power to the gym was cut off. Everyone, wherever they were, was trying to find the exit in the darkness. But the second missile did not give them time to evacuate. How could they get out of a 50-meter-long gym in 10 seconds?”
Bagheri went on to describe how the second explostion hit the sports hall: “While the kids were running away, the second rocket did not reach the base and exploded right above the club. Its shrapnel tore through the ceiling and came towards the Noonhalan Lamerd volleyball team in Fars Province. Then, the third rocket hit the Lamerd beltway about 200 meters ahead of the sports hall, in front of the citizens’ living quarters, killing 21 people.”
Additional details of the attack were provided by a Telegram post from @majaraa_media reporting from the location of the attack three months later. In the video, the reporter pointed out the extensive damage to the sports hall and nearby buildings and detailed the series of strikes as they unfolded: “The first missile struck here. This is a residential complex, behind the nursing school. The second missile struck over there, behind those trees, also in the middle of the houses. The third missile struck this same residential complex again. The fourth missile hit this stadium. There is a school behind the stadium. Do you see those slides? That is the school. Behind the school is a Basij building.”
Attack on the sports hall and football field
The attack on the sports hall and the adjacent football field took the lives of three teenage girls (10-year-old Helma Ahmadizadeh, 16-year-old Zahra Gholami, and 11-year-old Elham Zaeri), two teenage boys (12-year-old Ilia Hatami and Abdul Mosavar Rahmani of Afghan origin), their coach Mahmoud Najafi, and a football player named Alireza Abbasi, according to the reports by numerous media, including The New York Times, Student News Agency and Truthout.
Hours after the incident, @akhbarefori reported that “a sports teacher was martyred today…in the brutal attack by the child-killing regime of Israel and the criminal America on a gym in Lamerd” and shared a charming photo of a young man wearing an athletic shirt and sunglasses.
On March 1, @Nournews_ir reported that “Helma Ahmadizadeh, a fifth-grade female student at the elementary school “Khadija Kobra Absholi”, Elham Zaeri, a fifth-grade female student at Shahid Ameri Elementary School, and Ilia Hatami, a sixth-grade male student at the non-governmental Sama Elementary School, are among the student martyrs of this crime. Also in this cowardly attack, Mr. Mahmoud Najafi, the sports director of Hazrat Zahra Elementary School in this city was also martyred.”
The post included photos of two children and another picture of a smiling man who appears to be leading a physical education class. In its coverage from the funeral of many of the victims, ILNA published a photo of a crying woman holding Elham Zaeri’s smiling portrait, and another of a young girl holding the portrait of Helma Ahmadizadeh.
According to the sources, Helma and Elham were killed in the sports hall during a training of a female voleyball team where 26 girls were exercising, according to the report of Khabar Online. Negin Bagheri was the first to report their deaths. She interviewed Helma’s uncle, who said that Helma had survived the initial explosion and walked into the ambulance herself, without visible injuries, telling her coach, “It feels like something went into my body.” Around 7 p.m., she died in the hospital due to a piece of shrapnel that pierced her heart.
Khabar Online told the story of the second victim, Elham. According to the media outlet, Elham’s brother arrived before the ambulance, found Elham among the girls, and put her in the car with bloody hands and feet, and the doctors had later said that she had died right there before the hospital. Elham’s father said that his daughter “had many dreams of becoming a volleyball player. With her height and build, she could answer the serves of her older brothers and amaze them.” He also described Elham to BBC as “an avid volleyball player, who would always turn up to the sports hall 20 to 25 minutes early.” According to a local citizen Ismail who spoke to Fars News, Elham was also a ta’ziyeh reciter. For two years, together with her father, she reportedly had been reciting the ta’ziyeh of Sakine.
Drop Site News spoke with 50-year-old Hossein Gholami, an elementary school teacher and father of Zahra Gholami, who said he was coming back from work when he heard the blast and “noticed a strange gathering of people at the corner of the street leading to the sports hall. The screaming was rising from a distance. A colleague ran toward me, waving his arm, and said in a shaken voice: ‘Zahra, the hall, there has been an explosion.’ I felt as though the ground had split beneath my feet. Everything around me became hazy. I ran immediately, and with every step the columns of black smoke rose higher, while the smell of fire and flames entered my nose with force.'”
Mr. Gholami also described the horror he witnessed at the site of the attack, saying “The continuous screaming of the injured mixed with the sounds of secondary explosions. The ground was covered in debris and shattered glass. It was difficult to move with all the rubble. Ambulances arrived after about twenty minutes, but most of the injured were in critical condition. The smell of blood and burns covered everything…the survivors were injured with fractures and burns from the shrapnel.” Mr. Gholami further expressed the pain of losing his daughter, expressing “Every time I close my eyes I see her face, her smile, and I hear the sound of the explosion.”
Local sources reported that Elham Zaeri ( الهام زائری) was among those killed, recording her age as 11 years old. However, an article from Drop Site news includes an interview with Farhad Za’eri, a retired Ministry of Health Employee, who spoke about his 16-year-old daughter Elahe Zaeri who was killed. Airwars has documented these reports as referring to one person, recording the killing of 16-year-old Elham Zaeri, with the assumption that the transliterated name used in the English-language Drop Site article was reasonably different than that transliterated by Airwars from Persian-language sources. This will be updated should additional information become available.
Za’eri told Drop Site News that when he received a call telling him about the strike, “I left immediately with some neighbors. The roads were unusually congested and there was a sense of anxiety throughout the neighborhood. When we arrived, the rescue teams were already there and they had begun bringing out the bodies one by one. I did not know what I would see but when I got close to the place where they were bringing out the victims, I felt a heaviness in my chest. Every body that was lifted carried the mark of pain, and the rescue effort was trying to distinguish between those who could still be saved and those whose lives had ended. There were voices from every direction, everyone was trying to understand what had happened. In that moment, everything inside me was silent, and I was waiting for them to tell me about my daughter Elahe.”
Za’eri eventually found out that his daughter was among the victims. Describing finally finding his daughter’s body, Za’eri said: “My daughter’s body was completely destroyed. It appears she was directly hit by the strike. The lower part of her body was completely destroyed. How can a father describe what he feels when he sees his child like this? All my memories of her, her laugh, her training, her dreams, collapsed before my eyes in a single moment.”
Mina Ghorbani posted on X/Twitter a message they received from Elham’s mother, who said that: “My daughter was an energetic girl full of hope for the future. Active in the field of art and sports. Painter. Designer. She used to write poetry….She was a great reader of the Shahnameh. She was very fond of books and reading. She was a professional skater. She was a professional volleyball player. She was a lively girl with strong public relations. What was this child’s sin? In the gym where she always went to exercise with love.” In images, she can be seen posing in different locations with fashionable outfits smiling.
Fars News also quoted that Ms. Shahabi, a volleyball teacher at the girls’ sports hall, who told the media: “When I heard the first explosion, I gathered everyone in the east door of the hall. Elham Zaeri and Helma Ahmadizadeh were going to the other door of the hall to pick up their belongings, and at that moment the door on that side slammed shut, and these two girls were martyred.” According to the report by Khabar Online, the coach and her assistant were also injured: “The head and back of the coach’s hand were shattered, and the skin on the throat and side of the assistant coach’s neck was torn.”
According to the same report, the two girls, Helma and Elham were supposed to have their birthdays soon: “Helma Sadat Ahmadizadeh, a fourth-grader, was supposed to blow out the candles on her cake in ten days. Elham Zaeri, a fifth-grader, was due to have her birthday a month later.”
On the adjacent football field, sports coach Mahmoud Najafi, 12-year-old Ilia (Ilya) Hatami, an Afghan teenage boy named Abdul Mosavar Rahmani, and another young man described as a footballer were killed. The name of this young man was Alireza Abbasi, according to Moj News Agency.
Ilia’s father spoke to IRNA about his deceased son: “Ilia was my best friend and I loved him very much; he was my constant companion in football, travel, and recreation; I took him with me to my workplace at the Asaluyeh Refinery several times, and my colleagues had become so close to him in that short time that they had become friends with Ilya before they were friends with me.” He added: “I realized that Ilia wanted to surprise me with the help of these same colleagues for March 10, which is my birthday.” Ilia’s father also told the media outlet that a missile first hit the surrounding houses, causing children and teenagers who were playing on the volleyball and football fields of the sports complex to run towards the exit in panic; but two consecutive missiles fired at the complex “did not give these children any time, leaving four bloody marks on the stadium field.”
In an image attached to the report, Ilia, wearing a school uniform, is holding up a yellow sign with Persian text saying “Happy World Children’s Day.” According to Ilia’s father, the teenager had a 10-year-old sister, who was suffering a lot because of his death.
According to reports, between 13 and 15 people were injured there and transferred to hospital. Negin Bagheri, in particular, reported on her Twitter/X account @neginbagheri91 that 10 girls who were training in the hall underwent surgery that night. One of them had a finger amputated. Three were sent to Shiraz by emergency services.
Among the injured was a 12-year-old boy named Salar, a champion soccer player, as reported by Tim Anderson (@timand2037) on Twitter/X. Salar’s right leg was reportedly shattered. An image of Salar, lying on a hospital bed, was added to the post. A post from Mina Ghorbani on Twitter/X provided the full name Mir Salar Khosravi of one of the children injured and showed a video of him trying to walk during his recovery.
A reporter with @majaraa_media spoke with a boy who survived the attack on the field but was injured, and who said that “We came to the soccer field. My friend and I ran toward the shade canopy…When our coach reached us, he quickly motioned for us to come outside. He said it was dangerous there. We came out. When I got here, the blast wave struck my hand, and I was moving farther back. Then a fragment struck me in the throat. I quickly went behind the water cooler. When the explosions stopped, I went over there to Abdolmasour. He was lying here. He had been struck in the lower back. Then he kept telling me, “Help me, help me . . .” Ilia was lying here. A fragment had entered through his forehead and exited through the back of his head.”
Attack on residential area
In addition, at least 16 other innocent residents of the town were killed, either in their homes or while walking on the streets, as reported by the Student News Agency, Negin Bagheri and other sources.
The youngest victim of the deadly attack, a two-year-old girl, Avina Barzegar, was killed in the yard of her home while playing. Videos shared on social media showed her being treated in a hospital, but she later succumbed to her injuries. According to @majaraa_media, Avina was treated by Dr. Mousavi, the city’s representative in parliament, who is also a surgeon and operated on her for three or four hours but couldn’t save her from the fragment which struck her in the side and the other which struck her in the chest. An emotional video shared by Fars News showed a funeral procession for Avina, with a teddy bear placed on a coffin with her small body, wrapped in an Iranian flag. The video showed also a grieving mother of Avina and other relatives.
Among the victims was Rabab Dehdashti, a radiology expert at Haj Mahmoud Haj Haidar Hospital in Lamerd County. On March 4, @nournews_ir announced her death as a result of “the missile attacks of the United States and the [Israeli] regime.” Rubab Dehdashti was reportedly killed in the yard of her home in Talkhandeq, while her daughter (surname Qasemi, from her father’s side, a child) was injured. According to a local resident Ismail who spoke to Fars News, Rubab was reading the Quran with her little daughter when a splinter hit her and she was killed. This happened before Iftar in the month of Ramadan.
A report for Iranian channel 7 claimed that Rabab’s husband, Mr. Mehdi Qasemi, also worked in the radiology department. He reportedly saw his wife’s body in the hospital emergency ward. Their daughter was also injured, lying on a stretcher beside her. According to the report, “Mr. Qasemi did not cry out or lament; he stood until morning in the radiology department—his workplace—serving the wounded.”
The death of Rabab was mourned by Dr. Seyed Basir Hashemi, President of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and Health Services, who wrote: “The respected radiology expert at Haj Mahmoud Haj Heydar Hospital, whose continued blessed path of services in the field of health in Iran, found eternal meaning with the grace of martyrdom and left a lasting name in the history of health in the province.” He added an image of a woman in a white medical uniform and a black hijab, standing in front of a computer.
A housewife Masoumeh Monfared was killed while smoking a hookah in front of her house, alongside her son, Abedin Gharibdoost, in Shahrak Isar (an image of the site of their killing, where a condolence banner has been hanged in their memory, was shared by the local sources). According to Ismail who spoke to Fars News, “The people of Lamerd usually sit at the door of their houses near sunset. Abedin also came to see his mother – Martyr Manfared – who was martyred here.”
Negin Bagheri, writing about Masoumeh, also lamented: “Of the housewife who, according to southern customs, was sitting at home with her hookah at that moment, now one name remains on the list of Lamerd martyrs.” A reporter for @majaraa_media went to their home, pointing out that the building alone had been stuck by 200 to 300 fragments.
A young woman, Zahra Asadinejad, was also reportedly sitting in front of her house in the same neighborhood when she was killed.
Ismail told further Fars News that a young man Reza Mousavi was killed when he was standing in front of the Lamerd blood transfusion center, waiting for his mother; his father works there as a guard. The transfusion center was reportedly located very close to the sports hall.
A 46-year-old engineer holding PhD in naval engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Hamid Amini, was lost his life in the attack on February 28. He lived in Norway and had come to Lamerd to visit his family. According to the report by Fars News, his family had urged him to go back to Norway when a war was about to break out. He replied, “I am like ninety million Iranians—my blood is no more precious than theirs.’” Hamid was reportedly killed in the street while out shopping, and, according to Narin Bagheri, he was shopping at a pharmacy.
Since 2011, Hamid used to work for a Norwegian compnay DNV (Det Norske Veritas) – a global authority that verifies that systems, companies, and technologies meet safety and quality standards, as a principal engineer in Maritime Business Area. His death was mourned by Knut Ørbeck Nilssen, DNV’s Acting Group President and CEO, who wrote a touching tribute to his employee: “Hamid Amini was a highly valued and respected colleague at DNV for many years. His death under such tragic circumstances is deeply distressing. My thoughts and deepest sympathies go especially to his family, friends, and closest colleagues.” An image of Hamid in a white shirt was shared by the sources.
@minamonteguide posted on X/Twitter a message she had received from the wife of victim Hossein Ebrahimi who wrote “Hello, I’m from Lamard. My husband was martyred. He wasn’t military, he didn’t have any weapons. He was on his way to work when he got hit by a missile.” Mina Ghorbani further added that Ebrahimi had been a passenger in a black Dena Pus car when shrapnel hit the car which was on the street near his home, killing him. A video posted reportedly shows Ebrahimi’s car burning after catching fire. Ebrahimi’s wife @henna.lamerd posted a memorial on Instagram to her husband, expressing “I wish I had a way to heaven so I could see you again” along with an image of him infront of palm leaves and on a beach.
Abdulhossein Amiri mourned multiple victims on X/Twitter, including their dear cousin Haj Abuzar Amiri, their son’s schoolmate Ilia, their friend’s son/son’s schoolmate Mir Salar, and radiology staff member Rubab.
Journalist Nerin Bagheri reported additional details of the victims of the strike, but Airwars did not identify all their names at the times of writing, except for Hamid Amini. Should additional information become available, the assessment will be updated accordingly:
“The third missile that hit the Lamerd belt area that day also killed three workers, two of whom were working: one from the same city, the other from Mamasani, and the third from Afghanistan. A grocery seller, a pedestrian living in Norway who was shopping at a pharmacy, the deputy customs officer of the Lamerd Special Zone, and several students also lost their lives in the explosion. The director of the MRI department of Lamerd Hospital also threw himself on his daughter upon hearing the sound. The daughter was saved, but the mother was not. The sibling of one of the dead is a student who had his spinal cord severed and was unaware of his sibling’s death until the time of writing this report. The student’s daughter was also blinded. Another citizen said that the shrapnel from the explosion entered her body like a blade and, like Helma, broke her leg bone, even though it was not visible.” In this description, only Hamid Amini can be identified as a “pedestrian living in Norway.”
On March 2, @ISNAMEDIA posted photos on Twitter/X depicting the funeral of many of those killed in the Lamerd attack. In one picture, a woman holds a picture of a toddler while clutching a teddy bear, apparently the little girl Avina. Other photos in the series show a massive crowd gathering around coffins draped in the Iranian flag. Another features two mourners holding portraits honoring a young woman named Zahra Asadinejad who was killed in the attack. Photographs from the funeral posted to Twitter/X by @Tasnimnews_Fa show the coffins neatly stacked in a pyramid as part of a larger display on the platform of a semi-truck. The procession features prominent portraits of Ayatollahs Ruhollah Khomeini and Ali Khamenei.
In its coverage of the funeral, SNN reported that “according to Colonel Ali Goladarian, commander of the Basij Resistance District of the Lamerd Corps, 17 of the martyrs are from Lamerd County. Three other martyrs are from Mehr and Firuzabad counties, and the rest are from Allamroodasht, Khairgo and Ashkanan districts, for which separate funeral ceremonies will be held. It should be noted that the identity of one of the minor martyrs, a citizen of Afghanistan, has been confirmed.” The news outlet provided the names of those honored in the Lamerd funeral ceremony, writing that “the people of Lamerd today, with their magnificent farewell, sent these martyrs to heaven: Zahra Gholami, Elham Zaeri, Rabab Dehdashti, Siavash Shahbazi, Ilia Khatami, Jafar Hatami, Abedin Gharibdoost, Hossein Ebrahimi, Mahmoud Najafi, Rahman Mansouri, Seyyed Reza Mousavi, Sakineh Shabani, Zahra Asadinejad, Alireza Abbasi, Seyyed Helma Ahmadizadeh, Masoumeh Monfared, Abuzar Amiri, Farhad Najafi, Hamid Amini, Avina Barzegar, and Abdul Masour Rahmani.”
A banner showing the pictures and names of 18 victims of the strike was shared by Fars News. @AbolhoseiniH on Twitter/X shared the image of all 21 victims of the incident.
Aftermath of the strikes and inftastructure damage
Various sources posted photos and videos pertaining to the attack. On Telegram, @farsna shared seven photos from the aftermath of the strikes, with one showing a badly burned building of the sports center and the others showing injured victims being treated in a hospital. The casualties include six children and one man, with many of the victims wearing athletic clothing. On Twitter/X, Tasnim News Agency (@Tasnimnews_Fa) shared photos from the “[Israeli]-American attack on a gym in Lamerd, Fars,” showing the same image of a charred building, a burning car, two injured people in a hospital, and a crushed vehicle next to a wall that seems to have incurred significant blast damage. A video posted to Twitter/X by @Pooyan_Fakhraei shows “footage of the sports hall hit and in flames.” This is the same building shown in photos by other sources.
On March 11, @Nournews_ir posted a clip of “the first moments of the [Israeli]-American regime’s attack on residential areas in Lamerd.” The video is a compilation of CCTV footage from multiple locations in the town showing the missile strike(s), some of which are presented in slow motion to highlight the suspected projectile.
In addition to the sports hall, a school, various residential buildings, shops, a theater, and a cultural center for children and teenagers were also damaged.
A video posted by a local Iranian media outlet showed the damaged interior of the adjacent school after the strike. Another video filmed by @LamerdMohr and shared on Fast News showed damage to shops and featured interviews with their owners.
Based on field reports, the building of the Lamerd center of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (CIDCA), located near the site of impact, was damaged by shrapnel from the explosions. Dozens of pellet and fragment impacts are visible on the walls and windows of the center, indicating the wide dispersal of shrapnel across the area.
The city’s amphitheater which used to host rehearsals and performances by theater groups was reportedly damaged in the attack and closed. According to local theater activists in Lamerd, the hall was one of the most important artistic spaces in the county, serving as a venue for stage performances, artistic gatherings, and educational programs.
Attribution of the strike and munitions
Multiple international news outlets and investigation teams have concluded that the strike was likely carried out by the U.S. military. On March 28, the BBC reported that “US missiles were likely used in a deadly strike on a residential area of Iran last month, according to an analysis of footage by weapons experts. The analysts said a projectile visible in footage of the strike on residential buildings in the southern town of Lamerd was likely a Precision Strike Missile (PrSM). The munition is a new long-range weapon operated by the US military.”
Similarly, on March 29, The New York Times reported that “on the first day of the war with Iran, a weapon bearing the hallmarks of a newly developed U.S.-made ballistic missile was used in an attack that struck a sports hall and adjacent elementary school near a military facility in southern Iran, according to weapons experts and a visual analysis by The New York Times.” The analysis went on to state that “The Times verified videos of two strikes in Lamerd, as well as aftermath footage from the attacks,” and “Times reporters and munitions experts found that the weapon features, explosions and damage are consistent with a short-range ballistic missile called the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM (pronounced like “prism”), which is designed to detonate just above its target and blast small tungsten pellets outward.” Further, it reports that “a U.S. official who spoke to The Times confirmed that the missile used in the Lamerd strike was the PrSM.” According to the NYT, The PrSM was designed to replace the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, in the Army and Marine Corps arsenal. Developed by Lockheed Martin in Camden, Ark., it’s capable of hitting targets at a range of approximately 400 miles.
A reporter for Iranian Channel 7 claimed that “the residential homes—walls near the site of the explosion, and even the asphalt ground beside the sports hall in Lamerd—were riddled with holes.” @Christiaan Triebert on Twitter/X shared an image of an “apparent tungsten pellet” from the U.S. strikes on Lamerd, explaning that “PrSM is designed to detonate above target and disperse thousands of these pellets outward.”
However, on March 31, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) released a statement claiming that “U.S. forces did not launch any strikes at any time into the city of Lamerd or anywhere within 30 miles during the opening day of Operation Epic Fury. Furthermore, video footage circulated by media outlets alleging U.S. involvement does not show a Precision Strike Missile (PrSM). A PrSM is 13 feet in length. The munition depicted in the video appears to be twice as long, consistent with the dimensions and silhouette of an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile.”
In response, the BBC published an article on April 3 that defended its earlier reporting and disputed the US CENTCOM’s claims, writing that “six experts – who examined footage of the strike and all commented independently – contested the US suggestion that it was an Iranian missile, citing the missile’s visual features, the way it exploded, its trajectory and the number of strikes in the area as the basis for their analysis.” According to the BBC, “multiple weapons experts have disputed Centcom’s claims, noting the Hoveyzeh has a number of distinctive features which they say are not visible in the Lamerd strike footage.” The article also quoted a Mckenzie Intelligence analyst, saying that “while it is feasible that an Iranian cruise missile could malfunction, it is a bit beyond credulity to have a number of them fail above the same location at the same time” and noted that “experts also say the munition in the verified CCTV footage does not appear to be damaged, malfunctioning or intercepted.”
The BBC’s April 3 article calls CENTCOM’s statement further into question for its claims that “US forces did not launch any strikes at any time into the city of Lamerd or anywhere within 30 miles during the opening day of Operation Epic Fury, but the US Department of Defense has previously posted an illustrative map captioned “First 100 hours” of the US-Israeli war with Iran, marking the locations of US-Israeli strikes and Iranian air defences along Iran’s southern coast, including the area around Lamerd.”
Shedding light on a possible target of the attack, The New York Times noted in its March 29 article that “there is an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or I.R.G.C., compound directly next to the sports hall… but according to archival satellite imagery, [the school and sport hall] have been walled off from the compound for at least 15 years.”
Documentary filmmaker Seyyed Mohsen Hashemi, in collaboration with the Avini Institute, made a documentary about the incident, titled “The Final Whistle.” He said in the comments to Khabar Online: “We visited the hospital and various parts of the city. It gradually became clear that the subject was a precision missile attack; an attack that unfortunately had the nature of causing mass casualties. The type of ammunition was also special; something that had never been seen before in the region and was being used for the first time. Its effects also showed that we were dealing with an unusual weapon.” He also added that “it became clear that the type of missile was not destructive at all; that is, it did not destroy the building, but its wave and thermal effect had caused widespread damage over a large radius. Even the windows of houses that were a kilometer away had collapsed; cars were burned and there were many injured.”
Where sources identified the belligerent, most sources attributed the strikes to US and Israeli forces. Investigations by the BBC and The New York Times determined that the strikes were likely carried out by the US military; however, US CENTCOM has denied any responsibility in the attack and instead placed blame on the Iranian military. However, this allegation was not supported by any local sources.
Victims
Family members (2)
Family members (2)
Individuals
Geolocation Notes
Reports of the incident mention strikes at multiple locations. This incident was independently geolocated by BBC Verify. Analysing audio-visual material from sources, we have narrowed down the following locations to these exact coordinates: Shahid Naimi Sports Hall (سالن ورزشی شهید نعیمی), Lamerd (لامرد) at 27.329324, 53.182483; and residential complex Shahrak Isar (شهرک ایثار) at 27.326983, 53.183528. The generic coordinates for the other location are: vicinity of IRGC Lamerd Base at 27.330084, 53.183979. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.

Shahid Naimi Sports Hall (سالن ورزشی شهید نعیمی)
Imagery: Farsna

Residential complex Shahrak Isar
Imagery: Merlyn Thomas

View of explosion over residential complex Shahrak Isar
Imagery: NourNews_ir