UN experts have found “reasonable grounds” to believe that a US strike on an Iranian school amounts to a war crime, according to a video report published by Military.com on Sept. 22, 2026. The report, which cites the UN finding, did not provide a specific date for the strike, the number of casualties, or the exact location of the school.
The finding was reported in a video segment on Military.com’s website.
In a separate development, Defense News reported on Sept. 22, 2026, that South Korea is facing a dilemma over whether to contribute forces to US operations in the Strait of Hormuz amid the ongoing war with Iran. The report cited experts who said Seoul faces a “military capacity dilemma” as it weighs requests from Washington against escalating threats from North Korea.
According to Defense News, the South Korean Army reported that North Korea had fired two ballistic missiles on Sunday and earlier this month launched a 5,000-ton guided missile destroyer in the Pacific. President Lee Jae Myeong has said there would be “no deployment to a war,” but the government may instead extend the activities of the Cheonghae Unit, a naval task force group stationed in the Sea of Aden for counter-piracy operations.
The Cheonghae Unit includes a KDX-II destroyer, a maritime helicopter, Marines, naval special forces and support personnel. Esmaeil Baqaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, warned on Sept. 7 that any foreign military involvement in the strait could face serious consequences. Iranian academic Mohammad Marandi said Tehran could regard South Korea as an enemy and target Korean economic and military assets across the Persian Gulf if Seoul joined a US-led effort to secure the Strait of Hormuz.
South Korea has committed a $20 billion investment in an energy project in Texas, which Ju Hyung Kim, president of Security Management Institute, said may help appease Washington for now. However, Kim said the larger challenge is the precedent it might create, as President Donald Trump might expect additional contributions as the conflict continues.
Kim said force allocation will become a graver concern if alliance commitments take South Korean assets far from the peninsula for a prolonged period. “A P-8A deployed to the Gulf, for example, cannot simultaneously perform maritime-surveillance or anti-submarine missions around the Korean Peninsula,” he said. “So the key question is not simply whether the Cheonghae Unit is sufficient now, but whether it becomes the beginning of recurring U.S. expectations for South Korean deployments beyond Northeast Asia.”
Sources: Defense News · Military.com