EVIDENCE continued to grow yesterday that the US military was responsible for killing 165 schoolgirls sheltering in an Iranian primary school at the start of the illegal and unprovoked US-Israeli war on Iran.

Meanwhile, Iran announced a new supreme leader and oil prices soared as the war continued to rage.

New footage shows what an expert investigative group says is probably a US Tomahawk missile hitting a compound yards from the school in Minab, in the southern province of Hormozgan, on February 28. 

Experts, citing satellite image analysis, say the school was probably struck as a quick succession of bombs were dropped onto the compound.

A US source familiar with internal deliberations on the matter said the strike was likely to be the work of the United States. 

The new footage, first analysed by investigative group Bellingcat, was taken the day the school was struck but circulated on Sunday by Iran’s Mehr news agency. It shows a missile hitting a building, sending a dark plume of smoke into the air.

Bellingcat researcher Trevor Ball identified the munition as a Tomahawk cruise missile, which only the US is known to possess in this war.

Bellingcat said the footage “appears to contradict” US President Donald Trump’s claim that Iran was responsible for the deadly school blast. 

Neither the US military’s Central Command nor the Israeli military immediately replied to a request for comment.

More Iranian attacks targeted Israel and Persian Gulf countries yesterday, hours after Iranian state TV said Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei had been named supreme leader to replace his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in US-Israeli air strike at the start of the current war.

Russia was one of the first countries to congratulate the new supreme leader.

In a telegram to him published on the Kremlin’s website President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed Moscow’s “unwavering support for Tehran” and said that “Russia has been and will remain a reliable partner of the Islamic Republic.”

As the war continues to rock the global economy, members of the Group of Seven (G7) nations could be forced to use their strategic oil reserves as energy prices soar, according to French President Emmanuel Macron.

However, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he had written to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling for a suspension “of all sanctions on Russian energy across Europe.” The United States has already lifted sanctions on Russian oil for 30 days to try to limit price rises.

G7 finance ministers were due to meet by video conference last night to discuss the war’s repercussions.