---
type: source
title: "When Intelligence Fails: A Legal Targeting Analysis of the Minab School Strike"
author: "Just Security"
url: https://www.justsecurity.org/134350/legal-analysis-minab-school-strike/
date: 2026-03-01
domain: grand-strategy
secondary_domains: [ai-alignment]
format: article
status: unprocessed
priority: high
tags: [minab-school-strike, ihl, targeting-law, precautionary-measures, article-57, proportionality]
---

## Content

Legal analysis applying IHL targeting principles to the Minab school strike. Examines three layers: (1) foundational IHL principles; (2) specific procedural obligations; (3) standard for individual criminal responsibility.

Core IHL principles applied:
1. Military necessity: IRGC naval base = lawful target; school building = NOT lawful target once physically separated and converted to civilian use
2. Distinction: the school lost military objective status when converted; US failed to apply distinction correctly
3. Proportionality: if school had been correctly identified as civilian, the strike would have required reassessment
4. Precautionary measures (Article 57 Additional Protocol I): requires "do everything feasible to verify" objectives are not civilian; requires "reasonably current" data

Key finding on targeting data currency: "The law requires, at minimum, that target data be reasonably current. Satellite imagery shows the school conversion occurred by 2016. The strike was in 2026. A ten-year-old database entry is not 'reasonably current' under any plausible reading of Article 57."

On individual criminal responsibility: the standard is "knew or should have known." In a system where commanders rely on DIA database entries and analysts review thousands of targets, attribution of individual knowledge is extremely difficult. The article suggests that while the targeting violated IHL, individual prosecution is unlikely.

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** This is the most precise legal analysis connecting the specific IHL failure (data currency, Article 57) to the accountability gap (individual prosecution is structurally unlikely). The "knew or should have known" standard was designed for individual actors making individual decisions — not for distributed systems processing thousands of targets per hour.

**What surprised me:** That Just Security's analysis essentially agrees with Milanovic (EJIL) despite different approaches: both reach the same conclusion — IHL violation is clear; prosecution is structurally improbable. This is strong convergent evidence for the accountability vacuum claim.

**What I expected but didn't find:** Discussion of how to reform the "reasonably current" data standard to account for AI-enabled targeting tempo. The analysis diagnoses the failure but doesn't propose the fix.

**KB connections:** Directly pairs with the EJIL:Talk analysis. Together they establish both the legal framework and the accountability gap. Connects to the HITL meaningfulness claim (if data isn't current, HITL doesn't help — humans reviewing 1,000 targets/hour using the same bad data).

**Extraction hints:** The specific claim: "Article 57 Additional Protocol I's 'reasonably current' data requirement is structurally violated by AI-enabled targeting operations using legacy intelligence databases — the legal standard was designed for slower decision cycles where verification was feasible."

**Context:** Just Security is the leading US national security law journal edited by former government lawyers. Analysis published in early March 2026 in response to the February 28 strike.

## Curator Notes (structured handoff for extractor)

PRIMARY CONNECTION: IHL accountability gaps + governance laundering structural mechanism

WHY ARCHIVED: Provides the specific IHL provision (Article 57, precautionary measures, "reasonably current" data) that the Minab strike violated — grounds the accountability gap in concrete law, not vague principle

EXTRACTION HINT: The "reasonably current" data standard is the specific legal hook. The claim should argue that AI-enabled tempo makes Article 57 compliance structurally impossible without mandatory data currency requirements — which do not currently exist
