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All six crew members ejected from the aircraft safely were recovered and are in stable condition, Centcom said.
The death toll from the Israeli strikes that hit a girls’ school in southern Iran surged to 148, with nearly 100 others wounded, Al Jazeera reported.
While Iranian officials claimed the attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in the Minab city killed more than 100 people, neither the United States nor Israel confirmed that any such attack has taken place.
Israel’s military on Sunday said it was “not aware” of any US or Israeli strike on any school in Iran.
When asked about the strikes on school, Israel’s military spokesman Lt-Col Nadav Shoshani said, “At this point not aware of an Israeli or an American strike there… We’re operating in an extremely accurate manner.”
However, The New York Times later quoted a CENTCOM spokesperson as saying: “We are aware of reports concerning civilian harm resulting from ongoing military operations. We take these reports seriously and are looking into them.”
“The protection of civilians is of utmost importance, and we will continue to take all precautions available to minimise the risk of unintended harm.”
Video and photographs from the aftermath of the strike, which have been verified as authentic and geo-located to the site, show hundreds of people gathered around the partially collapsed, smoking building, with rubble strewn across the street and men digging through it for victims. Screams can be heard in the background. In some of the images, schoolbags and textbooks are being pulled from the debris.
Norway-based rights group Hengaw said the Shajare Tayyebeh school was holding its morning session at the time of the incident, which reportedly had about 170 students present.
The Nobel peace prize laureate and girls’ education advocate, Malala Yousafzai, said in a statement, “They were girls who went to school to learn, with hopes and dreams for their future. Today, their lives were brutally cut short.
“Justice and accountability must follow. All states and parties must uphold their obligations under international law to protect civilians and safeguard schools.”
“During active combat - that included attacks from Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles, and drones — the US Air Force fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defences,” Centcom said.
It said that Kuwait had acknowledged the incident and that an investigation was underway.
Video images showed a US warplane falling out of the sky over Kuwait early on Monday, while a person could be seen parachuting. The location was verified by Reuters as filmed in the Al Jahra area of Kuwait.
In a separate incident, smoke was seen rising from the vicinity of the US Embassy compound in Kuwait City, and fire trucks and ambulances were in the area, a witness told Reuters.
There were no responses to requests for comment on the embassy incident from the US Embassy in Kuwait or from the US State Department.
Kuwait intercepted hostile drones earlier on Monday, the third consecutive day of Iranian retaliatory strikes on neighbouring Gulf states in response to US and Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s state media earlier cited the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as saying Iranian armed forces hit a US plane that crashed in Kuwait.
Online video verified by Reuters as being taken in the Al Jahra area of Kuwait showed a military aircraft falling from the sky and a person parachuting in the same shot.
Two workers were slightly injured by falling debris at Kuwait’s Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery, Kuwait’s National Petroleum Company said.
The US Embassy in Kuwait warned US citizens that there was a continuing threat of missile and drone attacks in the country and urged citizens not to come to the embassy. It advised people to shelter in place, remain on the lowest floor of their residence away from windows and not go outside.
No injuries were reported after Kuwait air defences intercepted the majority of the drones near Rumaithiya and Salwa neighbourhoods, the state news agency cited the director-general of the civil defence as saying.
A series of loud blasts was heard on Monday morning in Dubai and the Qatari capital of Doha, according to Reuters witnesses. Loud bangs and sirens were heard earlier in Kuwait, according to Reuters witnesses.
Tehran said it would target US bases in the region after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Saturday. It has also hit a range of civilian and commercial areas across Gulf cities, widening the conflict’s impact on key regional aviation and trade hubs.