Stephen Quillen
Al-Jazeera / September 4, 2026
From My Lai to civilian killings in Afghanistan, Iraq, the US has often denied role before later quietly acknowledging.
United States Vice President JD Vance has expressed scepticism about reports of a deadly US attack on a wedding party in the Iranian town of Kuhestak on Tuesday this week, saying he does not trust Iran’s narrative.
However, he added: “Sometimes, things happen,” as he spoke about the claims.
Speaking on Thursday at a White House news briefing, two days after the attack, Vance said he had no new information about the incident, but maintained that the US “never targets civilians in combat” and would investigate the incident.
Analysts say his comments reflect a long history of the US government minimising or disputing reports of civilian harm in military operations.
Here’s what we know about the strike on a wedding in Iran and how Vance’s response fits into a pattern of claims in US military history.
What happened in Iran ?
A missile attack hit a wedding celebration in Iran’s southern town of Kuhestak, Hormozgan, on Tuesday night, killing four people – two women and two children – and injuring 67, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
On Wednesday, the Hormozgan governor’s office identified the four killed as four-year-old Amir Ali Karimi, 16-year-old Mohammad Malahi, 43-year-old Kolsoum Malahi and 43-year-old Zarkhatoun Taheri.
The Iranian Red Crescent said the incident was thoroughly documented and released several images from the scene as well as of the children who were injured. It wrote to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, seeking legal action against the perpetrators of the “grave” attack.
Footage showed that several projectiles had struck a telecommunications tower near the city’s shoreline and destroyed it, with locals saying they thought drones had been used. Based on fragments of shrapnel found in Kuhestak, defence experts said it might be a variant of the AGM-84K SLAM-ER, which manufacturer Boeing describes as an advanced precision-guided, air-launched cruise missile with “surgical strike capability”.
The Reuters news agency cited weapons experts who reviewed images and video and said the damage likely resulted from a direct hit by a US munition.
Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the strikes in Kuhestak completed a “catalogue of atrocities against the nation of Iran” by the US.
The US says it has launched an investigation.
What have Vance and other US government officials said ?
On Tuesday, Tim Hawkins, spokesperson for US Central Command (CENTCOM), said the US was aware of reports of civilian casualties that “originated from Iranian state media” and was “looking into them”.
“The US military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC,” he added, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Vance later said he was “extremely sceptical” of the reports about the wedding strike.
He said the “Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe” about the ongoing conflict, despite the attack being documented by the Iranian Red Crescent Society.
“What I can say with 100 percent confidence is that, unlike the IRGC, the United States never targets civilians in combat,” Vance said. “We never will do that. We never have done that.”
He added: “Unfortunately, obviously, sometimes things happen.”
How does this compare to past military claims about attacks on civilians ?
This is not the first time the US government has cast doubt on reports of alleged civilian harm during war, including in the current conflict with Iran.
Minab school strike, Iran
Following a deadly strike which hit a girls’ school in Iran’s Minab on February 28, US President Donald Trump at first stated that he believed Iran was responsible. But as a US probe into the attack progressed, and more satellite data, footage and expert analysis pointed to US responsibility – including the presence of fragments from a US Tomahawk missile – Trump later said: “Nobody did that on purpose” and “mistakes are made” during war.
Civilian casualties in Yemen
The US government has similarly shifted its messaging following several high-profile attacks that killed civilians in Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq.
Last month, the US acknowledged for the first time that an air campaign against the Houthis in Yemen in April 2025 likely caused numerous civilian casualties, assessing that 153 civilians were killed and 243 wounded. The numbers mark a sharp increase from 2024, when the Pentagon assessed that US military operations had killed two civilians and injured two.
More civilian deaths in Afghanistan
When a 2008 US air attack against Taliban fighters in the Afghan village of Azizabad prompted outrage over reported civilian casualties, the US military at first claimed there had been no civilian deaths. It later acknowledged seven civilian deaths, before revising that figure up to 33. The Afghan government said 90 civilians were killed, mostly women and children.
Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq
In Iraq, US officials initially downplayed the extent of crimes at the Abu Ghraib prison site after 2003 photos emerged of prisoners being abused by US guards. Subsequent inquiries uncovered a more extensive pattern of abuse, including sexual abuse, rape, and physical and psychological torture, resulting in the death of at least one inmate.
In the years that followed, 11 US soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. They were convicted in military courts, and nine were sentenced to time in prison. In November 2024, a US jury ruled that Virginia-based defence contractor CACI must pay $42m to three Iraqi men who had been tortured at the prison in 2004.
Vietnam war
During the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975, the US military at first hid reports of a massacre in My Lai, in which US soldiers killed and maimed up to 500 Vietnamese, many of them women and children. After evidence of the killings became public, a US inquiry found that US military officials had participated in a cover-up of the massacre.
What does Vance’s remark about the Iran wedding strike tell us?
Emily Tripp, executive director of Airwars, a watchdog that tracks cases of civilian harm during conflict, said Vance’s scepticism at the latest deadly US attack in Iran reflects a tendency to treat cases of civilian harm “like a PR crisis” rather than with due process.
“The odds are always stacked against civilians – from the moment they get harmed in a poorly planned operation, to when they try to show the world what happened, to when they ask for a response and acknowledgement,” Tripp told Al-Jazeera.
“Vance pushing back at these claims, before an investigation is conducted by the military, reflects an instinctive disbelief in the most vulnerable people. And time and again that position has been shown to be false.”
Stephen Quillen is a Tunis-based journalist
