US Vice-President JD Vance has expressed “extreme scepticism” over reports that an American strike killed four people, including a child, at a wedding celebration in southern Iran this week.
Asked on Thursday whether the United States was responsible for the deaths, Vance said “sometimes things happen”, while insisting that the US does not deliberately target civilians.
The strike hit a residential home in Kuhestak, Sirik county, near the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian Red Crescent, an organisation that operates independently of Tehran and is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, reported that four people were killed and more than 50 injured.
Vance, however, questioned the reporting surrounding the incident.
“I will say that the Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what’s happened in the conflict thus far, so I’m extremely skeptical of this,” he said at a White House press briefing.
“What I can say with 100% confidence is that, unlike the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the United States never targets civilians in combat. We never will do that. We never have done that, and unfortunately, obviously, sometimes things happen,” he added.
Vance said he had no new information about the specific strike but maintained that the US was investigating the incident and would learn from its mistakes.
His comments came as the conflict between the US and Iran entered its seventh month, with at least 18 US service members reported killed.
Vance also sparked controversy by saying the conflict was not currently “a war”, prompting immediate criticism from Democrats and other opponents.
California congressman Ro Khanna described the remark as “unbelievable gaslighting”, adding: “This is war.”
Earlier on Thursday, US President Donald Trump claimed the US had “virtually unlimited” supplies of mid- to high-grade munitions and attacked journalists who had reported on dwindling Pentagon stockpiles, calling them “treasonous SCUM”.
The latest incident comes amid continued fighting between Washington and Tehran, with no lasting peace agreement in sight despite months of intermittent negotiations.
US Central Command said a broader strike package on Tuesday night targeted Iranian air defence sites, radar systems, maritime assets and communications facilities. It did not specify whether the wedding location was among the intended targets.
The Red Crescent said shrapnel from a US missile strike struck the residential property where the wedding celebration was taking place, killing four people and injuring more than 50.
The incident has also renewed scrutiny of a separate US strike on February 28 in Minab, around 23 miles away, which hit a school compound and killed at least 156 people, most of them schoolchildren.
A preliminary US military inquiry reportedly found that the earlier strike was the result of a targeting error involving outdated coordinates that identified the school as part of an adjacent Revolutionary Guard naval base. The Pentagon said it was investigating, but a full report has not been publicly released.
