On September 1, 2026, from 8:30 to 9:30 PM on Tuesday night, the South was under fire: from Chabahar to Bandar-e-Lengeh and Khuzestan. On that night, the U.S. military dropped its bombs on the South Coast, and by 9:30 PM, it was a residential neighborhood’s turn in Kuhestak, Sirik county, to occupy the first page of famous media outlets, narrating the story of turning a wedding ceremony to a mourning.
Media such as AP and Reuters reported that, based on confirmed footages and videos and analysis of military experts, guided American munitions were used in this attack. The explosion was caused neither by an error on the part of Iran's interceptors nor by the impact of shrapnel or deflected American munitions; rather, it resulted from a direct hit by United States weaponry.
Trevor Ball a former U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician and current weapons technical analyst for Armament Research Services, examined photos and video and told Reuters that damage appears to have been caused by munitions that exploded upon impact with the roof or immediately above it. He believes that this evidence is consistent with a direct hit and cannot be attributed to shrapnel from an attack on the adjacent telecommunications tower. Less than a week later, The Telegraph also reported that the Kohestak wedding ceremony had been struck by a U.S.-made, precision-guided 500-kilogram bomb, creating a crater 1.5 meters wide in the middle of the Mallahi family's reception room.
What Happened in Kuhestak That Day?
A few days before Tuesday, September 1, the invitation card for Maryam and Ziaeddin’s wedding ceremony had reached everyone, and the multi-day ceremony had been planned as follows: the marriage ceremony on September 1, the henna night on September 2, and the wedding on September 3. That night, as bombs were falling on the city, Maryam, who was from Kuhestak, a port town 35 kilometers from Sirik and Minab with a population of around 3,000, was supposed to marry a young man from Bandar-e-Laft, Qeshm, and the women’s ceremony was to be held at the home of Maryam’s father, Ali Mallahi. A few hours after the celebration had begun, he was standing in front of what remained of his home and was telling everyone that two drones had turned his daughter’s wedding ceremony into a scene of bloodshed.
From the attacks that night on various cities, including Konarak, Chabahar, cities in Khuzestan, the coastal pier of Kuhmobarak and Jiroft, two of the strikes hit civilian areas in Kuhestak: the first attack targeted a telecommunications tower belonging to Hamrah-e Aval, Iran’s largest mobile operator, and the second targeted the home of Ali Mallahi, where his daughter’s wedding ceremony was being held.
During the first attack, the telecommunications tower collapsed, and the area’s 20-kilovolt network and low-voltage network were damaged. The city lost power, telephone lines were cut off, and the Mallahi family’s wedding turned into a mourning ceremony. That night, electricity in Kuhestak was restored after a few hours, but telephone lines remained weak and the internet remained cut off for several hours, including in the village of Mishi in Sirik county, where five 20-kilovolt medium-voltage poles were damaged by shrapnel and the blast wave.
According to residents and first responders, at around 9:30 PM, after several explosions were heard, two drones, followed by bombs, struck the roof of Ali Mallahi’s house with a deafening blast, tearing through it and claiming the lives of five people.: Kolsoom Mallahi Nezhandnia, 43; Zarkhatoun Taheri, 50; Mohammad Mallahi, 16; Amirali Karimi, 4; and Asieh Molaeinejad, who died in hospital several days later.
The body of four-year-old Amirali was found farther away from Ali Mallahi’s house. Fardin’s brother, who found the lifeless body of a child near the telecommunications tower that night, took him to the hospital, but he died before he could reach the hospital, as did 16-year-old Mohammad Mallahi. Fardin, who had groomed Ziaeddin for the ceremony, was in his small barbershop that night, while his brother was there when he heard the explosion: “They were just striking. The sound was like a drone. I took my son in my arms and wanted to hide somewhere when suddenly the power went out. We were shocked.”
The blast wave was very powerful and damaged part of the Fardin’s barbershop. He also recalls that night, saying that the drone hit directly in the middle of the house where the wedding ceremony was being held, while the celebration was still underway, and that nearby houses were also damaged. That same night, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed the strikes and claimed that it had targeted sites linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Iran. At the same time, U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that the recent U.S. strikes on Iran were carried out in response to Iran’s unsuccessful attempt to lay naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Several days later, on Friday, September 3, Axios, citing U.S. officials, reported that CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper had ordered an investigation into the strike. As of the time this report was prepared, the U.S. had still not accepted responsibility for the attack on the wedding ceremony.
After the attack, Fardin’s brother was on his way to his sister’s house when, near the fallen telecommunications tower, he saw the shrapnel-hit body of a child: “He took him to the clinic, but he had already died.” Fardin confirms that the body belonged to four-year-old Amirali Karimi.
The body of Mohammad Mallahi, another guest at the ceremony, was also found near the telecommunications tower. Local media reported that he died after being hit by shrapnel from the attack. Mohammad Mallahi’s funeral was held at 10 AM the following day from the Kuhestak Grand Mosque, while the funerals of Zarkhatoun and Kolsoom Mallahi Nezhandnia were held on Thursday evening from the Grand Mosque of the village of Gahardoo.
That night, those injured in the attack were taken to Hazrat Abolfazl Hospital in Minab, and residents issued calls on social media for blood donations for the wounded. Until around the evening of the following day, Minab Hospital was still treating injured people, with people continuing to move in and out. Among the reports published after the attack was a statement, citing the Deputy Governor for Political, Security and Social Affairs of Hormozgan Province and the Deputy for International Affairs and Humanitarian Law of the Iranian Red Crescent, that the number of martyrs in the attack had risen to five. But residents of the area said the number of martyrs remained at four, and that the condition of several of the wounded was still critical, including Mr. Raeisi, a resident of Kuhestak, who had made his own way to Minab Hospital. The martyrdom of the fifth victim was eventually confirmed several days later.
Mr. Raeisi, a resident of Kuhestak, told Ham-Mihan one day after the attack on the city that the removal of rubble was still underway, all the bodies had been recovered, and no one was missing: “The number has not increased yet, but one or two of the wounded are in critical condition.” Residents of the city, like Raeisi, said that nothing had happened to the bride and groom that night, but not all the approximately 400 people who were in the house were able to get out safely; the attack left 68 people wounded.
Residents of the city do not need to check a map to estimate the distance from the telecommunications tower, which U.S. officials said was the target of the attack, to the Mallahi home; they say the house was approximately 200 meters away from the tower. At the same day, CNN reported that the distance between the telecommunications tower and the wedding venue in Kuhestak was 136 meters, or 445 feet. Among the witnesses to the incident, Raeisi knows two sisters, the Fooladi sisters, one of whom was injured, while the other can recall how the attack tore through the roof of Ali Mallahi’s house on the night of his daughter’s wedding ceremony, a night that was “very terrifying; it hit the house directly. No one thought it would hit the house. First, it hit the tower, then the pier, then the police station, and then it started hitting the house. It actually reached inside the house, into the room. All the small children were outside. Shrapnel was raining down like rain.”
The Women and Their Gold Jewelry Were Under the Rubble
Masoud Mohammadi, a Red Crescent volunteer, was outside the city of Kuhestak when he heard the news. Before news of the explosion at the Mallahi home spread through the city, he and his friends had heard explosions along the coast, from Bandar-e-Lengeh to Chabahar. It was around 10:30 PM when Masoud’s friends told him that a wedding ceremony in the city of Kuhestak, Sirik County, had been attacked. The reports were contradictory. It was not yet midnight when Masoud arrived in Kuhestak: “The first thing we saw was the fallen telecommunications tower. It had blocked the street. The missile that hit the tower had struck exactly at its base, without the slightest error. One missile had hit its structure, and another had hit the tower itself, destroying it.”
After that, Masoud arrived at the Mallahi home, and the initial assessment was that a drone had hit the building; the people who were there were saying the same thing. “When we arrived, the injured and the martyrs had already been taken away. There was no electricity or internet, the mobile phones were not working, and only local people were around the house”.
Masoud says that the telecommunications tower belonged to Hamrah-e Aval. It had been there along the city’s coastal strip for years, with a wide street separating the tower from the neighborhood where the Mallahi home is located. “They hit the middle of the neighborhood.” When Masoud and his friends arrived at the site to help, the initial removal of the rubble had already been completed. But because the women’s ceremony had been held there, gold jewelry and clothing were still under the rubble, and there was not much possibility of moving in and out of the house. They saw that neighboring houses had also been damaged up to 30 to 40 meters away; those closer to the house had damaged walls, while the windows of houses farther away had been blown out. Masoud says: “At the same time, in the city of Jask, a missile struck a location where soldiers from a barrack were gathered. The missile did not explode; that is why we concluded that these attacks were intended to cause casualties and that the wedding ceremony had been deliberately targeted, because the drone circles in the sky and monitors movement. It is impossible that it did not recognize that this was a local event, not a military one.”
In the U.S. attacks on southern cities since July, in addition to this house in Kuhestak, residential areas in Tappeh Allah Akbar and Do-Hezar, a residential building in Bandar Abbas, and another civilian area in Qeshm Island were hit. Residents of Sirik say that the type of attack on Kuhestak was similar to those in these residential areas, but the bomb used in Qeshm Island was heavier.
Elnaz Mohammadi is an Iranian journalist and editor at the Society Team of Ham-Mihan Online. She has written extensively on social issues, women’s and children’s rights, and social affairs in Iran.
Sara Sabzi is an Iranian journalist and reporter at the Society Team of Ham-Mihan Online, covering social issues and developments in Iran.