US drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 was ‘tragic error’
THE PENTAGON has apologised for a drone strike in Kabul which killed 10 civilians, including seven children, calling it a “tragic error”.
Gen Frank Mckenzie, head of US Central Command, said reparation payments to the families were under consideration. He said: “It was a mistake and I offer my sincere apology. I do feel responsible for it.”
The strike happened on Aug 29, three days after 13 US troops and over 160 Afghans were killed in an Islamic State suicide attack at Kabul airport.
For days after the drone strike, Pentagon officials asserted that it had been “righteous”. They said it was conducted correctly against a Toyota Corolla being driven by a terrorist and carrying explosives that were going to be used to attack the airport.
But news organisations on the ground said the driver had been Zemerai Ahmadi, a long-time employee at a US humanitarian organisation. As he pulled into his drive, children came out to see his 11-year-old son park the car, and were hit by a Hellfire missile.
An internal Pentagon review of the strike has now concluded that only civilians were killed in the attack.
Gen Mckenzie said there had been “reasonable certainty” at the time that the car represented a danger. He added: “It is unlikely that the vehicle and those who died were associated with Isis-k, or a direct threat to US forces. I am here to set the record straight.”
Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, said: “I offer my deepest condolences to the surviving family members of those who were killed.”
The apology came yesterday on the day the Taliban appeared to shut Afghanistan’s ministry for women’s affairs and replace it with a department staffed by the ruling group’s notorious moral police.
Workers in Kabul put up signs reading “ministries of prayer and guidance and the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice” at the building that previously housed the women’s ministry.