Drones Can’t Keep Us Safe

So much for President Biden’s “over-the-horizon” counterterrorism in Afghanistan: The head of CENTCOM has now admitted that a US drone attack aimed at ISIS terrorists actually killed an innocent aid worker and nine members of his family.

The Aug. 29 strike came after a US Reaper tracked Zemari Ahmadi in his white Corolla making stops, loading canisters into his vehicle and heading home.

US military officials initially claimed that “secondary” explosions confirmed that the car carried explosives for a terror attack, yet other experts said there were no signs of such explosions. And security footage showed Ahmadi, who has worked for a US-based charity for the last 14 years, earlier filling the containers with . . . water.

CENTCOM chief Gen. Kenneth McKenzie on Friday admitted the strike actually killed 10 innocents, including up to seven children.

“We’ve developed counterterrorism overthe-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct threats,” Biden promised, assuring Americans that the Afghan pullout wouldn’t heighten terror threats. Oops.

That “over-the-horizon” capability plainly needs some work, Joe. As this horrible fiasco shows, getting good, actionable intel is hard, even with boots on the ground and an intheater network of agents. Leaving Afghanistan completely makes it that much harder.

Even with good intel, airstrikes can do only so much: After al Qaeda bombed US embassies in Africa in 1998, President Bill Clinton launched cruise missiles at two sites believed linked to the group: One leveled an innocent pharmaceutical factory; the other hit al Qaeda camps but did limited damage, missing Osama bin Laden and boosting his image, three years before 9/11.

It’s “absolutely unrealistic” to think an “over-the-horizon” approach can offer more than such “pinprick strikes,” warns Center for Strategic and International Studies counterterror expert Seth Jones.

Twenty years after 9/11, we’re back to 1998.