New US missile, untested in combat, hit Iranian sports hall and school: Report

The Times verified videos of two strikes in Lamerd, as well as aftermath footage from the attacks. Times reporters and munitions experts found that the weapon features, explosions and damage are consistent with a short-range ballistic missile called the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM (pronounced like “prism”), which is designed to detonate just above its target and blast small tungsten pellets outward.

Videos that capture one strike, in a residential area about 900 feet from the sports hall and school, show the weapon in flight, with a distinctive silhouette that matches the PrSM. The missile erupts in a large fireball midair.

Another video, filmed from a security camera directly across from the sports hall, shows the strike on the hall and adjacent school. While the video does not capture an incoming missile, it clearly shows an explosion just above the structure.

Photos of the aftermath show both sites were pockmarked with holes, apparently from the tungsten pellets.

There is an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or I.R.G.C., compound directly next to the sports hall. It’s not known if it was struck in the attack.

The PrSM completed prototype testing only last year, according to an Army press release. On March 1, U.S. Central Command posted a video of a PrSM launch from the first 24 hours of the war. Days later, Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads Central Command, said the PrSM had been used in combat for the first time. The military has been touting its debut.

Since the weapon is so new, it’s more difficult to assess whether the PrSM strikes in Lamerd were intentional, stemmed from a design flaw or manufacturing defect, or were the result of improper target selection.

It’s unclear if or how the school or sports hall might be affiliated with the I.R.G.C. compound, but according to archival satellite imagery, they have been walled off from the compound for at least 15 years.

The sports hall, at the time of the strikes, was being used by a female volleyball team, according to Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s representative to the United Nations. Photos and videos posted to a social media account linked to the school show the premises were regularly used by children. The sports hall has also for years been publicly identified as a civilian-use facility on readily available digital mapping platforms, including Google Maps, Apple Maps and Wikimapia, according to a review by The Times.

Ground-level and satellite images of the aftermath show the sports hall with scorch marks and a partly collapsed roof. Footage from inside the school shows blown-out windows, fire damage and splotches of blood.