Women gathered in a small Iranian town for a wedding. Then a deadly US strike hit

KUHESTAK, Iran (AP) — Women with their children were gathered in the house and yard, waiting for the bride and groom to arrive to kick off a wedding celebration in this small town in southern Iran. Then an explosion turned the scene to carnage.

The town of Kuhestak is still reeling from a barrage of U.S. strikes Tuesday evening that killed five people. Lampposts at the entrance to the town displayed large posters of four of the dead — a 4-year-old boy, a 16-year-old and two women. Another woman, one of more than 60 people wounded in the blasts, died Thursday at a hospital.

On Friday, an Associated Press team made a rare visit to the town on the coast overlooking the Strait of Hormuz. Within a densely built neighborhood of houses and unpaved alleys stood the compound of the Mallahi family, which was struck as relatives celebrated their daughter’s wedding.

Ali Mallahi, a cousin of the bride, pointed to a gaping hole in the roof of a room that took a direct hit in one of the compound's four houses. Big cracks ran through walls decorated with floral designs. Windows were shattered, and twisted sections of roofing and metal framework lay across the courtyard, among carpets and household appliances that the family had pulled out of other damaged rooms.

Video of the immediate aftermath aired in Iranian media showed colorful decorations and palm fronds strewn across the ground.

Weddings in the area are traditionally segregated by gender, and on Tuesday evening, roughly 150 women were gathered in the house, while the men held a separate celebration in another building about 50 meters (yards) away, Mallahi said.

The strike hit the room where the women were due to be served dinner, but at the time, celebrations were only just getting started, Mallahi said. The bride and groom had not yet arrived.

“Thank God, the casualties were not higher,” he said. The father of the bride, his uncle, is also named Ali Mallahi.

Sasan Zarei, a neighbor, said she rushed to the Mallahis’ home and helped people out of the rubble. “Most of the injured were kids. The scenes were very heartbreaking.”

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that he was briefed on the wedding attack. “We’re investigating it very fully,” he said. He said the U.S. never targets civilians in combat but added, “Sometimes things happen.”

Residents described to the AP how a series of heavy explosions shook Kuhestak, lighting up the night sky. The blasts came amid the latest round of American bombardment in southern Iran that the U.S. military said targeted air defenses, radar systems and maritime assets.

Also hit was a communications tower by Kuhestak’s port, just over 100 meters (yards) from the Mallahi’s home. AP footage showed the tower toppled and heavy damage to the neighboring building that houses the town’s telecommunications department.

Hassan Sayadi, a technician with the department, said the tower had provided telephone and internet connections across the area. The Hormozgan provincial telecommunications department said Wednesday that U.S. attacks had disrupted landlines and mobile phone service in multiple locations, including Kuhestak, and that it was working to restore services. On Friday, mobile phones and data services were operating.

Kuhestak is about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the town of Minab, where more than 100 children were killed in an American missile strike that hit a primary school on Feb. 28, the opening day of the war launched by the U.S. and Israel.

Following Tuesday's strikes, residents and Iranian media showed fragments of munitions found at the scene, including a thermal battery unit, a segment of a control fin and part of the exterior body of the munition.

Weapons experts told the AP that they believe imagery of fragments found at the site points to an American guided munition. Trevor Ball, a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician and an analyst at Armament Research Services, said the imagery shows remnants of both a JSOW and GBU-39, which are types of guided, air-delivered glide bombs.

The images were “being evaluated to determine if one of these munitions, or another model, was responsible,” he said.

Videos released by U.S. Central Command of its operations that night in Iran show aircraft heading on missions, including an F/A-18E loaded with a JSOW.

The AP could not immediately determine where the remnants were collected or whether they all came from the wedding venue or also from the communication tower.

Associated Press reporter Mohsen Ganji in Kuhestak, Iran, contributed to this report.