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WaPo: Experts Say Iran Images 'Appear to Show' Landmines Scattered by US Forces

Brett T.
Brett T.  |  8:30 PM on March 28, 2026

During Israel's war with Hamas, we were presented with more than a couple of images that appeared to show six-fingered Palestinian children standing in the rubble. Now, in the war with Iran, images appear to show land mines scattered by U.S. forces. "Appear to" is close enough to publish, apparently. It looks like Iranian propaganda to us, but the "experts" have weighed in.

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Meg Kelly and Alex Horton report:

Images posted to social media Thursday show what experts said are U.S. land mines dispersed across a residential area in southern Iran, in what appears to be the first instance in more than two decades of American forces using the weapons.

The photos show American BLU-91/B anti-tank land mines, which are released from an aircraft as part of the Gator mine scattering system, according to four munitions experts who reviewed the imagery at The Washington Post’s request. The United States is the only party in the Iran war known to possess the system.

The land mines were photographed outside the city of Shiraz, around three miles from one of several nearby Iranian ballistic missile sites. Mobile launchers are often positioned near such sites to access missiles, and the land mines could have been intended to make it more difficult to do so, experts said.

“While these land mines are meant to target armored vehicles, they can still be extremely dangerous to civilians,” said Brian Castner, a weapons investigator with Amnesty International.

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We're glad they checked in with Amnesty International as a trusted source.

Images posted to social media by whom? That's kind of important.

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The Post is careful to say "appear to show," but just drop that pretense in the article itself and say, "The land mines were photographed outside the city of Shiraz." By whom? And was the photographer who uploaded them an expert too?

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