In February, two Tomahawk missiles struck Shajarah Tayyebeh Elementary School in Minab, Iran, killing more than 150 people, including at least 123 children. According to a Bloomberg investigation citing officials involved in an unreleased internal Pentagon review, the strike resulted from a cascade of preventable failures.
Among the primary causes was overreliance on Maven Smart System, an AI-powered data integration platform developed by Palantir. According to the officials, some U.S. Central Command personnel leaned too heavily on Maven to identify targets, expecting it to flag stale records or contradictions in intelligence—though it is unclear why they believed the system would perform this function. The Minab site, cataloged as an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps facility due to outdated data, was fed into Maven and emerged as a recommended day-one target. The process that once took hours was compressed into minutes.
A Palantir spokesperson told Bloomberg the company “is not responsible for the underlying data nor identifying intelligence deficiencies” and said there is no evidence its software was at fault. After the strike, Palantir added features to re-review underlying intelligence and flag inconsistencies.
The Pentagon review identified two additional failures. First, outdated satellite imagery: U.S. databases had listed the compound as a military site for years, but commercial satellite images showed the school’s construction by 2017. A 2018 image displayed brightly painted walls, a soccer pitch, and playground markings. One analyst spotted changes as early as 2019 but logged remarks in a system disconnected from the primary military intelligence database used for targeting.
Second, severely reduced civilian harm mitigation staffing. According to Bloomberg’s sources, staffing on these teams across the Defense Department had fallen roughly 90% in recent years, shrinking to fewer than 20 people overall. Centcom’s group shrank from 10 people to one. No member of these teams reviewed the Minab site before the strike.
The UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed a war crime, finding the U.S. “failed in its obligation to do everything feasible to verify” the school was a military objective. The report stated the failure “went beyond mere negligence.”
The Pentagon has not publicly answered questions about the role of Maven and other AI tools. More than 120 House Democrats wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in March requesting clarification. A Pentagon spokesperson said the incident remains under investigation and declined further comment.
Key facts
- Pentagon investigators found overreliance on Palantir’s Maven AI system contributed to the February strike on an Iranian elementary school that killed at least 123 children
- The school was misidentified as a military facility based on outdated intelligence and satellite imagery, though commercial images showed it was a school by 2017
- Civilian harm mitigation staffing at the Pentagon had fallen roughly 90% in recent years, with Centcom’s team reduced from 10 people to one
- The UN’s fact-finding mission concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe the United States committed a war crime
- Palantir added features after the strike to flag intelligence inconsistencies, though the company stated its software was not at fault