US strike wiped out my family, rues Kabul man
KABUL: When Ezmarai Ahmadi returned home from work on Sunday evening in Kabul, the usual gaggle of squealing children were waiting to greet him his sons and daughters, and a slew of nieces and nephews.
His brother, Aimal Ahmadi, said Ezmarai pulled his white sedan into the driveway of a modest house in Kwaja Burga, a densely populated neighbourhood in the northwest of the Afghan capital, and handed the keys to his eldest son to park.
Youngsters piled into the vehicle - pretending the parking routine was an adventure - while Ezmarai watched from the side, his brother told AFP.
Then, according to Aimal, a missile came screeching down striking the car with a terrible force and obliterating the lives of 10 people in an instant.
The US said on Sunday it had destroyed an explosive-laden vehicle in an airstrike, thwarting a bid by the Islamic State to detonate a car bomb at Kabul airport. On Monday, Aimal said he lost 10 members of his family in the strike, including his own daughter and five other children.
“The rocket came and hit the car full of kids inside our house,” he said. “It killed all of them.”
AFP was unable to independently verify Aimal’s account. The US government said it was investigating media reports of civilian casualties as a result of that airstrike.
Aimal said he cannot believe his brother could be mistaken for an IS group sympathiser, let alone an operative planning a deadly car bomb attack. Ezmarai, his brother said, was an engineer working with a nongovernmental organisation.
Rashid Noori, who told AFP he was Aimal’s neighbour, said he too had rushed to the scene of the strike. “Do they all think our children are terrorists?”