‘Things happen’: How Vance’s comment on Iran wedding strike fits US pattern

United States Vice President JD Vance has expressed scepticism astir reports of a deadly US onslaught connected a wedding enactment successful the Iranian municipality of Kuhestak connected Tuesday this week, saying helium does not spot Iran’s narrative.

However, helium added: “Sometimes, things happen,” arsenic helium spoke astir the claims.

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Speaking connected Thursday astatine a White House quality briefing, 2 days aft the attack, Vance said helium had nary caller accusation astir the incident, but maintained that the US “never targets civilians successful combat” and would analyse the incident.

Analysts accidental his comments bespeak a agelong past of the US authorities minimising oregon disputing reports of civilian harm successful subject operations.

Here’s what we cognize astir the onslaught connected a wedding successful Iran and however Vance’s effect fits into a signifier of claims successful US subject history.

What happened successful Iran?

A rocket onslaught hit a wedding celebration successful Iran’s confederate municipality of Kuhestak, Hormozgan, connected Tuesday night, sidesplitting 4 radical – 2 women and 2 children – and injuring 67, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society.

On Wednesday, the Hormozgan governor’s bureau identified the 4 killed arsenic 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 incidental was thoroughly documented and released respective images from the country arsenic good arsenic of the children who were injured. It wrote to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, seeking ineligible enactment against the perpetrators of the “grave” attack.

Footage showed that respective projectiles had struck a telecommunications operation adjacent the city’s shoreline and destroyed it, with locals saying they thought drones had been used. Based connected fragments of shrapnel recovered successful Kuhestak, defence experts said it mightiness beryllium a variant of the AGM-84K SLAM-ER, which shaper Boeing describes arsenic an precocious precision-guided, air-launched cruise rocket with “surgical onslaught capability”.

The Reuters quality bureau cited weapons experts who reviewed images and video and said the harm apt resulted from a nonstop deed by a US munition.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the strikes successful Kuhestak completed a “catalogue of atrocities against the federation of Iran” by the US.

The US says it has launched an investigation.

What person Vance and different US authorities officials said?

On Tuesday, Tim Hawkins, spokesperson for US Central Command (CENTCOM), said the US was alert of reports of civilian casualties that “originated from Iranian authorities media” and was “looking into them”.

“The US subject ne'er targets civilians, dissimilar the IRGC,” helium added, referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Vance aboriginal said helium was “extremely sceptical” of the reports astir the wedding strike.

He said the “Iranian authorities media has not been a precise bully scribe” astir the ongoing conflict, contempt the onslaught being documented by the Iranian Red Crescent Society.

“What I tin accidental with 100 percent assurance is that, dissimilar the IRGC, the United States ne'er targets civilians successful combat,” Vance said. “We ne'er volition bash that. We ne'er person done that.”

He added: “Unfortunately, obviously, sometimes things happen.”

How does this comparison to past subject claims astir attacks connected civilians?

This is not the archetypal clip the US authorities has formed uncertainty connected reports of alleged civilian harm during war, including successful the existent struggle with Iran.

Minab schoolhouse strike, Iran

Following a deadly onslaught which deed a girls’ schoolhouse successful Iran’s Minab connected February 28, US President Donald Trump astatine archetypal stated that helium believed Iran was responsible. But arsenic a US probe into the onslaught progressed, and much satellite data, footage and adept analysis pointed to US work – including the beingness of fragments from a US Tomahawk rocket – Trump aboriginal said: “Nobody did that connected purpose” and “mistakes are made” during war.

Civilian casualties successful Yemen

The US authorities has likewise shifted its messaging pursuing respective high-profile attacks that killed civilians successful Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq.

Last month, the US acknowledged for the archetypal clip that an aerial run against the Houthis successful Yemen successful April 2025 apt caused galore civilian casualties, assessing that 153 civilians were killed and 243 wounded. The numbers people a crisp summation from 2024, erstwhile the Pentagon assessed that US subject operations had killed 2 civilians and injured two.

More civilian deaths successful Afghanistan

The US authorities has likewise shifted its messaging pursuing respective high-profile attacks that killed civilians during wars successful Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq.

When a 2008 US aerial onslaught against Taliban fighters successful the Afghan colony of Azizabad prompted outrage implicit reported civilian casualties, the US subject astatine archetypal claimed determination had been nary civilian deaths. It aboriginal acknowledged 7 civilian deaths, earlier revising that fig up to 33. The Afghan authorities said 90 civilians were killed, mostly women and children.

In the last days of the US withdrawal from the state successful August 2021, the US carried retired a drone onslaught connected a car successful Kabul. It archetypal claimed fighters with the Islamic State successful Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K), an affiliate of ISIL had been killed. Several weeks later, however, the US subject admitted that an probe had revealed the attack really killed 10 civilians, including 7 children. USS Air Force Lieutenant General Sami Said called it an “honest mistake”.

Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq

In Iraq, US officials initially downplayed the grade of crimes astatine the Abu Ghraib situation site aft 2003 photos emerged of prisoners being abused by US guards. Subsequent inquiries uncovered a much extended signifier of abuse, including intersexual abuse, rape, and carnal and intelligence torture, resulting successful the decease of astatine slightest 1 inmate.

In the years that followed, 11 US soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated battle and battery. They were convicted successful subject courts, and 9 were sentenced to clip successful prison. In November 2024, a US assemblage ruled that Virginia-based defence contractor CACI indispensable wage $42m to 3 Iraqi men who had been tortured astatine the situation successful 2004.

Vietnam war

During the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975, the US subject astatine archetypal hid reports of a massacre successful My Lai, successful which US soldiers killed and maimed up to 500 Vietnamese, galore of them women and children. After grounds of the killings became public, a US enquiry recovered that US subject officials had participated successful a cover-up of the massacre.

Emily Tripp, enforcement manager of Airwars, a watchdog that tracks cases of civilian harm during conflict, said Vance’s scepticism astatine the latest deadly US onslaught successful Iran reflects a inclination to dainty cases of civilian harm “like a PR crisis” alternatively than with owed process.

“The likelihood are ever stacked against civilians – from the infinitesimal they get harmed successful a poorly planned operation, to erstwhile they effort to amusement the satellite what happened, to erstwhile they inquire for a effect and acknowledgement,” Tripp told Al Jazeera.

“Vance pushing backmost astatine these claims, earlier an probe is conducted by the military, reflects an instinctive disbelief successful the astir susceptible people. And clip and again that presumption has been shown to beryllium false.”