By Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - A U.S. military investigation into a strike at a girls' school in Iran has been "complex" given that it was located on an active Iranian cruise missile base but the probe is approaching its conclusion, a U.S. military commander said on Tuesday.

Reuters first reported that an initial, internal U.S. military investigation showed U.S. forces were likely responsible for the fatal strike in Minab. The Pentagon has since elevated the probe but it has not acknowledged any preliminary findings.

SEOUL, May 20 (Reuters) - South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday said Israel had arrested South Korean nationals in international waters, calling the action “way out of line”.

In a cabinet meeting, Lee said the South Korean citizens had been detained for reasons not valid under international law, questioning whether such actions could be allowed to pass without protest.

Youssef Shtayyeh came home from school on an April afternoon, dropped his bag in the hallway and headed straight back out to join his friends.

Minutes later, he was dead -- shot by an Israeli soldier, just 100 metres (yards) from his home.

He was 15. His is not an isolated case.

Since Israel launched a major military operation against armed Palestinian groups in the northern West Bank in January 2025, one Palestinian minor has been killed every week on average across the territory, up from one every three weeks in 2021, according to UNICEF.

The Iranian football federation vice-president said Tuesday he was "very confident" in FIFA's protocols as the team prepare to play at the World Cup in the United States.

Iran's national team arrived in Turkey for a pre-tournament training camp on Monday.

The players are to stay several weeks before heading to the World Cup that is being co-hosted by the US, which began bombing Iran on February 28 alongside Israel, sparking a wider war in the Middle East.

European aviation giant Airbus has asked its teams to cut "non-essential expenses" by 10 percent due to turbulence following the Middle East war, according to a document seen by AFP.

"We are asking for your support in adopting several cost containment measures to help our company navigate this unstable situation," it said.

"Our specific focus is on significantly pausing all activities and costs that are not strictly essential to our industrial activities and operations ... We aim to reduce these costs by -10% compared to the 2025 baseline."

US Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that Iran talks are making good progress but Washington was "locked and loaded" to restart military operations if there is no deal.

Vance's comments came hours after President Donald Trump said he had come within an hour of ordering fresh strikes and gave Tehran "two or three days" to reach an agreement.

"A lot of good progress is being made, but we're just going to keep on working at it, and eventually we'll either hit a deal or we won't," Vance told a briefing at the White House.

A top commander of US forces in the Middle East avoided taking responsibility Tuesday for an attack on a school in Iran that left 155 people dead on day one of the war, insisting a "complex" probe continues.

Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), told a congressional oversight panel that "the school itself is located on an active IRGC cruise missile base," making the investigation "more complex than the average strike." IRGC stands for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

A drone strike on a crowded market in southern Sudan killed 28 people and injured 23 more on Tuesday, a medical source and witnesses told AFP, in one of the deadliest recent attacks on civilians in the country's three-year war.

The strike hit the town of Ghubaysh in West Kordofan, an area controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) whose conflict with the Sudanese military has devastated much of the country since April 2023.

The wounded and the dead were taken to the town's hospital, the medical source said.

Iraqi forces swept the country's desert areas after being placed on high alert following reports that Israeli troops had operated inside the country during the Middle East war.

Early in the war, which was ignited by joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28, foreign troops were detected in the Najaf desert in the country's southwest.

Security officials and witnesses told AFP that a shepherd, who was the first to spot the troops, was killed when a helicopter struck his pickup.

Israel's far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said Tuesday that the International Criminal Court prosecutor has requested an arrest warrant against him, accusing the Palestinian Authority of pushing for the move.

Smotrich said he would retaliate by ordering the evacuation of the Palestinian Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar in the occupied West Bank.