US Navy missile strike misses target, hits Iranian wedding event killing five

A US Navy airstrike targeting a communications complex in southern Iran on September 1 went tragically wrong when one of six missiles missed its intended target and struck a nearby wedding celebration, killing five people and injuring at least 68 others. The strike hit the coastal town of Kuhestak in Hormozgan province, roughly 135 to 150 meters from the communications tower that was the intended target. Among the dead were two children, ages 4 and 16, with a 22-year-old woman later succumbing to her injuries. What happened in Kuhestak Navy jets launched six precision-guided munitions at what US Central Command described as a military communications complex. Five of the six hit their mark, destroying the communications tower. The sixth did not. Weapons analysts who reviewed verified images and fragments recovered from the wedding site concluded the damage was consistent with a direct hit from a US air-launched precision-guided munition, likely a Boeing SLAM-ER or a similar variant. That determination matters because it rules out the less damning explanation that the wedding was damaged by falling debris or ricocheting fragments from the primary strike. CENTCOM maintained that all d...