U.S military admits it killed 10
civilians and targeted wrong vehicle in
kabul airstrike. A united states military investigation
into a deadly kabul drone strike on a
vehicle in august has found it killed 10
civilians in the driver and that the
vehicle targeted was likely not a threat
associated with ISIS-K announced general Frank Mckenzie, the top general of u.s
central command at the pentagon on
friday.
Mackenzie told reporters that the strike
which he said, "killed seven children was
a mistake and offered an apology. This strike was taken in the earnest
belief that it would prevent an imminent
threat to our forces in the evacuees at
the airport, but it was a mistake and i
offer my sincere apology," he said.
Mackenzie added that he is fully
responsible for this strike in this
tragic outcome. The pentagon's announcement will likely
fuel more criticism of the Biden
administration's chaotic evacuation of
kabul and handling of the withdrawal
from afghanistan more broadly. While mckenzie stressed friday that
future strikes will likely be held to a
higher standard. Confirmation of the
civilian death toll also provides
insight into the obstacles ahead for
military and intelligence officials
tasked with fulfilling president Joe Biden's promise to make the terror group
pay for its deadly suicide attack in
kabul.
The pentagon had maintained that at
least one ISIS-K facilitator and three
civilians were killed in what chairman
of the joint chiefs general Mark Milley
had previously called a righteous strike
on the compound on august 29th. The investigation released friday found
that all of those killed in the
residential compound were civilians. In the lead-up to the strike drone
operators surveilled the courtyard for
up to four to five minutes. In that time a male driver left the
vehicle, one child was parking the
vehicle and other children were present
in the car in the courtyard, as CNN had
been told by the Ahmadi family .
The military based the strike on a
reasonable certainty standard to launch
the strike on the vehicle. Tragically it was the wrong vehicle a
u.s military official familiar with the
investigation told CNN earlier friday, adding that reasonable certainty is not
100 certainty. "We didn't take the strike because we
thought we were wrong we took the strike
because we thought we had a good target," Mackenzie said. While he acknowledged that the strike
was a terrible mistake he said he would
not qualify the entire operation as a
failure.
Asked by a reporter to explain how the
complete and utter failure could have
occurred Mackenzie said, "while i agree
that this strike certainly did not come
up to our standards and i profoundly
regret. It i would not qualify the entire
operation in those terms". Previously u.s central command pointed
to significant secondary explosions as
evidence of a substantial amount of
explosive material in the vehicle.
On friday the u.s military source said
that after reviewing footage from
infrared sensors. They would no longer
characterize this as an explosion, instead it was more of a flare-up. The u.s official said that in the time
leading up to the strike, the u.s had at
least 60 different intelligence reports
about threat streams toward u.s forces
at Hamid Karzai International Airport.
A u.s official with direct knowledge of
the standards for a strike of this
nature told CNN earlier this month that
10 civilian deaths is an astronomically
high number and the military would have
conducted collateral damage estimates
beforehand. Meaning commanders were aware
that there was a potential for civilian
casualties. "Had we cooperation with any local
partner we would have never fired a
missile at the vehicle but tried to get
to the drivers before they got in the
car."
One former intelligence official
with knowledge of how these strikes are
carried out previously told CNN. That assumes we had intel on the car as
opposed to the people and maybe after it
was already in route which leaves far
fewer options.
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