How a New U.S. Weapon Killed 21 Civilians in Iran

So this is a satellite image of a part of Lamerd, which is a city in southern Iran. If we zoom way, way into this building here, which is a kids’ recreational center, the only damage that I can spot is this very small hole in the corner of a building. But for the rest, I don’t really see a lot of damage. There are no craters. There are no collapsed buildings. And that’s very curious because despite Pentagon denials, we found that this is the site of a deadly U.S. missile strike. At this recreational center alone, at least four kids were killed as they practiced volleyball and soccer. Overall, U.S. strikes killed at least 21 civilians in Lamerd. My name is Christiaan Triebert and I work on the Times’ Visual Investigations team. We often look at satellite imagery to look for clues about what’s happening on the ground. We’ve looked at a lot of places where bombs or missiles have struck, and usually we see these kind of craters, we see these kind of collapsed buildings. And right now, we don’t see any of that — just a hole in the roof. The reason why it’s just a hole is because the strike on Lamerd was made with a new type of U.S. weapon. It’s called the precision strike missile or PrSM. The military has touted it as a next-generation long-range precision weapon. These PrSMs don’t even make direct contact with the thing they’re targeting. They don’t always cause major structural damage, but their blasts still easily tear through streets, homes and people. The day we’re looking at is Feb. 28 — the first day of this latest war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran. That morning, a school in the city of Minab was struck in a U.S. attack, killing at least 120 children. Six hours later came the strikes on Lamerd. Here are three videos filmed as the missiles struck. Each shows a different explosion. Let me show you this one, frame by frame. We can see how the blast occurs in mid-air, and how the missile itself doesn’t physically hit its target. Look at this one. You can actually see the missile itself. And the same thing is happening. It explodes mid-air. The Department of Defense denied attacking Lamerd that day, and suggested instead that what we are seeing are Iranian weapons striking the city. We found this wasn’t true. And throughout this day in Lamerd, we see the specific hallmarks of PrSM missiles in use. This is promo footage from the manufacturer, and what we can see in this animation is a PrSM missile coming in. And when we go through it here, you can see, again, that it’s exploding mid-air right there. It’s basically sending a blast of 180,000 pellets in every direction. So what makes the weapon so lethal is not so much the impact of the missile itself or the detonation, although that’s certainly deadly. It’s the blast of pellets that comes next. This matches with what we saw happen in Lamerd. What the U.S. military intended to hit using this weapon in this location, we don’t know. But the PrSM strikes we identified happened approximately here and here in residential areas, and here at the recreational center. This center is right next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps compound and other buildings used by security forces. So these buildings may have been an intended target, but we weren’t able to determine whether they were damaged. And we found no evidence of military casualties. The effects on the surrounding community were unmistakable, though. Most of the images I’m going to show you are from Iranian state media. We analyzed each one of them to verify their authenticity. In one photo alone, for example, I counted at least 2,000 impact points on a single stretch of road perforating these civilian cars, this oil truck nearby. And here’s a photo showing a whole block of businesses that were hit. It’s a beauty salon, real estate agency, a travel agency. And here’s a row of homes. I counted at least 700 impact points, hitting them just in the parts you can see in this photo. There’s likely way more impacts. We can see the same pattern near this strike. Several more homes were clearly hit. We weren’t able to travel to the city, but we spoke to Negin Bagheri, an Iranian journalist. She was able to interview families of the victims and using what she found, along with reports from social media, a picture emerged of the casualties. The youngest person killed by the attacks that day was struck by shrapnel while playing in front of her house: two-year-old Avina Barzegar. And then there’s the recreational center. A girls volleyball team was practicing there when one of the missiles hit. At least two of them were killed and more were injured. The same missile sprayed pellets over this field during a kids’ soccer practice. Two children and their coach were killed. Pellets also reached across the street to this blood transfusion center. The building security guard’s son was waiting out front when he was struck and killed by shrapnel. We verified a total of 21 deaths. Local health officials also said another 110 people were injured. The use of PrSM missiles in combat is so new, and our access to what’s happening in Iran is so restricted, that there’s still a lot we don’t know about how this weapon is being used, what kind of targeted striking and whether they may have caused more civilian casualties. But it appears the U.S. military firmly believes in the weapon’s usefulness. The army is looking to quadruple its budget for the PrSM missile next year. To read more of our reporting on these strikes and how we determined that prism missiles were being used despite the U.S. military’s denial, visit nytimes.com/ visualinvestigations. Thank you for watching.