In drone strike, evidence suggests no ISIS bomb
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN >> It was the last known missile fired by the United States in its 20-year war in Afghanistan, and the military called it a “righteous strike,” a drone attack after hours of surveillance Aug. 29 against a vehicle that U.S. officials thought contained an Islamic State bomb and posed an imminent threat to troops at Kabul’s airport.
But a New York Times investigation of video evidence, along with interviews with more than a dozen of the driver’s coworkers and family members in Kabul, raises doubts about the U.S. version of events, including whether explosives were present in the vehicle, whether the driver had a connection to the Islamic State group and whether there was a second explosion after the missile struck the car.
Military officials said they did not know the identity of the car’s driver when the drone fired but deemed him suspicious because of how they interpreted his activities that day, saying that he possibly visited an Islamic State group safe house and, at one point, loaded what they thought could be explosives into the car.
Times reporting has identified the driver as Zemari Ahmadi, a longtime worker for a U.S. aid group. The evidence, including extensive interviews with family members, co-workers and witnesses, suggests that his travels that day actually involved transporting colleagues to and from work. And an analysis of video feeds showed that what the military may have seen was Ahmadi and a colleague loading canisters of water into his trunk to bring home to his family.
While the U.S. military said the drone strike might have killed three civilians, Times reporting shows that it killed 10, including seven children, in a dense residential block.
Ahmadi, 43, had worked since 2006 as an electrical engineer for Nutrition and Education International, a California-based aid and lobbying group. The day of the strike, Ahmadi’s boss called from the office around 8:45 a.m. and asked him to pick up his laptop.
“I asked him if he was still at home, and he said yes,” the country director said in an interview at NEI’s office in Kabul. Like the rest of Ahmadi’s colleagues, he spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his association with an American company in Afghanistan.
According to his relatives, Ahmadi left for work around 9 a.m. in a white 1996 Toyota Corolla that belonged to NEI, departing from his house, where he lived with his three brothers and their families, a few miles west of the airport.
U.S. officials told The Times that it was around this time that their target, a white sedan, first came under surveillance, after it was spotted leaving a compound identified as an alleged Islamic State group safe house about 3 miles northwest of the airport.
It is unclear if officials were referring to one of the three stops that Ahmadi made to pick up two passengers and the laptop on his way to work: The latter location, the home of NEI’s country director, was close to where a rocket attack claimed by the Islamic State group would be launched against the airport the following morning, from an improvised launcher concealed inside the trunk of a Toyota Corolla, a model similar to Ahmadi’s vehicle.
A Times reporter visited the director at his home, and met with members of his family, who said they had been living there for 40 years. “We have nothing to do with terrorism or ISIS,” said the director, who also has a U.S. resettlement case.
Throughout the day, an MQ-9 Reaper drone continued to track Ahmadi’s vehicle as it drove around Kabul, and U.S. officials said they intercepted communications between the sedan and the alleged Islamic State group safe house, instructing it to make several stops.
But the people who rode with Ahmadi that day said that what the military interpreted as a series of suspicious moves was simply a normal day at work.