On the same day as an American Tomahawk cruise missile, another “weapon with the characteristics of a newly developed American ballistic missile was used in an attack on a sports center and primary school” in another Iranian city, Lamerd, .
He Times has been able verify two videos of two attacks in Lamerdas well as subsequent images, and both its reporters and munitions experts found that the weapon’s characteristics, explosions and damage caused match “those of a short-range ballistic missile called Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, designed to detonate just above its target and launch small particles of tungsten outward.” While one of the videos shows the weapon in flight over a residential area, another identifies the impact on the sports center and the adjacent school.
Although right next to the sports center there is a compound of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), which is unknown if it was hit by the missile, the newspaper reveals that, according to archival satellite images, the buildings have been “separated from the complex by a wall for at least 15 years”.
According to statements by Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s representative to the United Nations, the sports center was being used by a women’s volleyball team during the attacks. Likewise, photographs and videos of the school published on social networks show that this “era commonly used by children“.
Although the PrSM missile is “designed to eliminate enemy troops and destroy unarmored vehicles,” the weapon hit two buildings that, according to the analysis of the Times, “have been publicly listed as a facility for civil use for years.” on easily accessible digital mapping platforms, such as Google Maps or Apple Maps.
Local officials cited by Iranian media have stated that this and other attacks on Lamerd caused the death of at least 21 people. He Times He has also been able to verify that there are “blood stains” inside the school.
