U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the United States was investigating a deadly strike on an Iranian wedding earlier this week that a Reuters analysis found likely involved a direct hit by a U.S. munition.
An explosion tore through a wedding celebration in southern Iran on Tuesday, likely caused by a U.S. munition striking the site directly rather than ricocheting off another target, according to weapons experts who reviewed images and video verified by Reuters.
The United States has not acknowledged responsibility for the strike. President Donald Trump’s administration is facing mounting domestic pressure to end the war, which is weighing on his approval ratings ahead of crucial November midterm elections.
Iranian state television reported Thursday that a 22-year-old woman had died in a hospital from injuries sustained in the strike, which hit a home during the wedding. The death brought the reported toll to five. Iranian officials said nearly 70 people were wounded.
Funeral-goers assembled late Thursday afternoon outside the village of Kuhestak in Sirik County, along a stretch of the Strait of Hormuz coast that was hit by heavy U.S. airstrikes late Tuesday, to mourn their loved ones.
Vance told reporters Thursday that the United States was looking into the incident.
“We’re investigating it because obviously we care. We want to know,” he said.
“If we do make mistakes, again, this is a big difference between us and Iran: When our military makes mistakes, they learn from them to try to get better from them,” Vance added.
The U.S. military said it was aware of the Iranian reports but that it “never targets civilians.”
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the government was examining various scenarios related to the casualties at the wedding, including whether they were caused by a U.S. strike, a ricochet from an Iranian air defense missile or an errant interceptor.
Reuters shared video and images of the incident with four military weapons experts, who said the damage was consistent with a direct hit rather than secondary damage from a munition ricocheting off a different target.
Three of the experts said the munition was likely a U.S. weapon rather than an errant Iranian air defense missile. One expert said the weapon may have simply missed its objective.
The incident came about six months after a missile destroyed a primary school in an attack that Iranian officials said killed more than 175 children and teachers.
Reuters previously reported that an initial internal U.S. military investigation found U.S. forces were likely responsible for that strike. The Pentagon has not publicly released the findings of its probe.
At Thursday’s funeral for four victims of the wedding, video released by Iran’s Mehr news agency showed a pickup truck carrying a flag-draped coffin beneath a canopy of palm fronds.
A reporter in front of the truck said, “This is the body of Martyr Amir-Mohammad Karimi, a 4-year-old child who was martyred in an attack on the country’s south by the criminal American regime.”
In other footage of the funeral, mourners threw petals into the air as mournful music played from a loudspeaker. A casket was carried past a row of soldiers standing at attention with rifles.
“If it was a military location, it wouldn’t be so painful. This was a wedding ceremony, but they turned people’s joy into mourning,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted a local man as saying.
Washington launched the airstrikes Tuesday, hitting what it said were military targets along the coast in retaliation for Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The sudden escalation in the Iran war has sent oil prices soaring to levels not seen since July. Prices rose for a fourth straight day Thursday, pushing Brent crude futures above $96 a barrel.
Iran reported 18 deaths in the latest U.S. assault.
Iran responded Wednesday to the U.S. strikes with attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain. It carried out further attacks early Thursday, saying it was targeting another U.S. base in Kuwait.
Kuwait’s military said its air defenses had intercepted missiles and drones.
But the war’s biggest flare-up since July appeared to subside afterward, with no further major attacks by either side reported Thursday.
