Wedding Strike in Southern Iran Likely Direct US Bomb Hit, Experts Say

An explosion that tore through a wedding celebration in the southern Iranian town of Kuhestak on Monday, killing four people and wounding at least 68, was likely caused by a direct hit from a US-made munition, according to weapons experts who reviewed verified images and video of the aftermath.

The experts, who examined the visual evidence, said the damage to the building's roof was consistent with a direct impact rather than secondary damage from a munition that had ricocheted off a nearby target. Three of the four analysts consulted said the weapon was likely American, not an errant Iranian air defense missile.

The strike occurred during a night of US military operations across southern Iran on Sept. 1, which targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps air defense sites, radar systems, and communications facilities. The barrage was in response to earlier Iranian attacks on US assets in the Gulf.

US President JD Vance said on Thursday that the strike was under investigation. "We're investigating it because obviously we care. We want to know," he said during a White House briefing. The US military also said it was looking into the reports.

Two US officials, speaking anonymously, said the military had struck a telecommunications tower in Kuhestak, located roughly 135 meters from the wedding site. The tower was hit at approximately 9:30 PM local time, according to Iranian media.

One expert, Gareth Collett, a retired British Army brigadier with a doctorate in explosives engineering, said the evidence pointed toward a US 500 lb air-dropped munition. Another analyst, Trevor Ball, a former US Army explosive ordnance disposal technician, noted that the visible blast damage could not have resulted from fragments of the nearby tower strike.

Human rights groups identified the dead as three wedding guests—Kolsoom Mollahi Najhandania, 43; Zarkhatoon Taheri, 50; and four-year-old Amir Mohammad Karimi—and a 16-year-old, Mohammad Mallahi, who was killed while riding a motorcycle near the tower.

Eyewitnesses described scenes of chaos and destruction. One local resident said in a voice message that "Kuhestak is destroyed" and that many people were under the rubble. Residents spoke on condition of anonymity, with local authorities reportedly pressuring them not to discuss the attack with foreign media.

The incident has renewed concerns about civilian casualties in the US-Iran conflict, coming months after a strike on a primary school in Minab in February killed scores of children and teachers. The Pentagon has not publicly released findings of its investigation into that earlier incident.