Report Says New U.S. Missile Likely Killed Iranian Civilians Far From Blast Site
WASHINGTON — Lockheed Martin has touted its Precision Strike Missile as a ballistic missile for the future: lethal, long-range and precise. The U.S. military has invested billions to put the weapon into service, and it is believed to have made its combat debut on the opening day of the Iran war. A review by Airwars, the London-based conflict monitor, indicates that the missile’s first known use killed civilians well beyond its immediate blast site in the southern Iranian city of Lamerd.
Three missiles struck Lamerd on Feb. 28. Airwars said they detonated above a sports complex and two residential neighborhoods, killing at least 21 civilians, including seven children, according to Iranian officials. The group’s analysis put the lethal radius at roughly 50 meters (164 feet), with visible damage reaching more than three times that distance.
The PrSM is designed to explode in midair and release tens of thousands of dense tungsten pellets at high speed in all directions. Photos, videos and satellite images reviewed by Airwars and verified by the Associated Press show heavily pockmarked streets, buildings and vehicles in a pattern that weapons experts say is consistent with the missile’s warhead.
Six weapons experts, including two former military officials, told AP they believe PrSMs were used in Lamerd. They said it was unlikely that Israeli or Iranian weapons were involved, and all said the missile should not be fired near civilian areas.
“You would be hard-pressed to find a reason to use the PrSM in a densely populated area,” said Michael Meier, a former U.S. Army adviser on the laws of war.
U.S. Central Command has confirmed that PrSMs were fired into Iran during the operation, but denied that Lamerd was hit. A spokesperson suggested that footage from one of the strikes showed an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile. Weapons experts said the missile visible in security-camera video did not match that model. The Israeli military said it did not strike anywhere near Lamerd that day, and experts said Israel has no known missile that detonates in midair.
Airwars and AP found no indication that military personnel or infrastructure were targeted in Lamerd. An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps compound is nearby, but satellite imagery showed no damage there.
Airwars, founded more than a decade ago to track civilian deaths from U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, mapped the strikes using open-source material, including geolocated videos, satellite imagery and Iranian media reports. The group said its review was the first to map the damage radius and estimate the lethal range. AP checked the calculations by measuring the distance between the missiles’ midair detonations and the locations where victims were reported killed.
Among those killed were three teenage girls playing volleyball and a woman smoking a hookah outside her home, according to Iranian state media. Airwars said a missile that detonated over the Shahid Naimi Sports Hall killed seven civilians, mostly children, about 170 meters (557 feet) away. Another blast in the Tal-e Khandagh neighborhood killed two-year-old Avina Barzegar as she played in her yard; Airwars estimated the pellet that struck her traveled about 50 meters from the blast site.
The PrSM is meant to replace the Army Tactical Missile System. Lockheed Martin says it can hit targets more than 499 kilometers (310 miles) away, extending the older system’s reach by roughly 200 kilometers. Unlike ATACMS, which scatters steel fragments or small bomblets, the PrSM releases tens of thousands of tungsten pellets in all directions. Because tungsten is dense and heat-resistant, the pellets keep their shape and can pierce soft armor, according to defense journals. Lockheed Martin did not respond to a request for comment and has not specified the weapon’s blast radius.
The concern comes as the Pentagon moves to expand its stockpile. After the Lamerd strikes, the U.S. military signed a contract worth more than $4 billion with Lockheed Martin to quadruple PrSM production. Britain set aside £130 million ($177 million) in June to buy the weapon, and Australia purchased missiles in 2025 before announcing billions in additional investments in April.
Wes Bryant, a former Pentagon adviser on precision warfare and civilian harm mitigation, said the PrSM offers valuable new capability but should be reserved for targets like large concentrations of enemy forces. Trevor Ball, a former U.S. Army explosives expert, said the weapon could be especially dangerous in populated areas. “It will kill people outside their homes who aren’t protected by walls,” he said.
When asked about Airwars’ and AP’s findings, U.S. Central Command stood by its denial. Its commander, Adm. Brad Cooper, told Congress in May that the only U.S. strike being investigated for civilian deaths in the Iran operation was an attack on a school in Minab.
The Airwars review offers one of the first independent assessments of the PrSM in actual combat. It also underscores a recurring problem for modern militaries: even precision weapons with high-tech guidance can have a wider lethal footprint than advertised when used near homes, schools and crowds.
Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed.