![]() They were being processed at the time of the strike.Įmal said 30-year-old Nasir, who was to have been married just days after the strike, had dreamed of going to America. government-allied firms and had applied for special immigrant visas granted to Afghans with such ties to the U.S. Their oldest brother, Zamarai, and a nephew Nasir Haideri - both of whom were killed in the strike - had worked for U.S. “If you have proof I say ‘go ahead kill me’ but show me the proof,” said Emal, whose 3-year old daughter Malika was among the dead. The roads that weave through the middle-class neighborhood pass homes hidden behind high walls and gates.įor the Ahmadis, the accusation that their family was involved with the Islamic State group is a devastating one. The compound in Kabul’s Khoja Boghra neighborhood was home to four Ahmadi brothers and their families - 25 people in all. had been watching the car for several hours and saw people loading explosives into the trunk. “How could the wall still be standing if this car had been full of explosives?”īut American officials, including some who watched the strike in real-time on video feeds, said the U.S. He also pointed to a shoddily constructed brick wall nearby the gutted car. “If the car was filled with explosives like the Americans say, why didn’t these cylinders explode,” asked Emal. He pointed to two undamaged gas cylinders tucked away in a corner of the courtyard. He contended that if there had been a bomb in the vehicle there would be far more damage to the courtyard and house. He said some family members, including children, were in the car when it was hit. Inside the courtyard of the family home, Emal, another Ahmadi brother, recently picked through the twisted ruins of the devastated hulk of the Toyota Corolla. ![]() no longer has on-the-ground intelligence. Is our blood so worthless, we don’t even get an explanation?” Ahmadi asked.Īnalysts warned that the risk of civilian casualties during drone strikes will only grow, now that the U.S. Previously, American officials have noted that subsequent explosions resulted from the destruction of the vehicle and may have caused additional casualties.īut an enraged Ahmadi family is demanding proof - and disputes that the car was carrying explosives. White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged the reports of civilian casualties on Thursday and said they were being investigated. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that at least one of those killed in the drone strike was an Islamic State “facilitator.” service members and 169 Afghans.Īrmy Gen. Three days before the drone strike, an IS suicide bomber had attacked a crowded gate at Kabul airport, killing 13 U.S. withdrawal and evacuation of thousands of people from Afghanistan. military officials said the drone strike hit an Islamic State target and weakened the extremist group’s ability to further disrupt the final phase of the U.S. drone strike killed 10 members of his family, six of them children, Ahmadi said. He says his mind “is not right” since that day. The last thing Ahmadi remembers was the sound of his brother’s car horn announcing his arrival and the squealing of the children. drone slammed into his family’s courtyard where just moments before there had been a noisy celebration to greet the family’s oldest brother. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said after the strike that officials had "very good intelligence" on the target, and "at least one of those people that were killed was an ISIS facilitator.KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - It felt like hell itself had opened up, said Ramal Ahmadi, who was watching cartoons with his nephew when a U.S. "We need to know what went wrong in the hours and minutes leading up to the strike to prevent similar tragedies in the future," Schiff said in a statement. Adam Schiff, D-Calif, suggested there would be a hearing on what he called "a mistake with horrific consequences." "We apologize, and we will endeavor to learn from this horrible mistake," he said. Ahmadi was just as innocent a victim as were the others tragically killed." Ahmadi and ISIS-Khorasan, that his activities on that day were completely harmless and not at all related to the imminent threat we believed we faced, and that Mr. ![]() The strike cell deliberately followed and observed this vehicle and its occupants for eight hours, while cross checking what they were seeing with all available intelligence to develop a reasonable certainty of the imminent threat that this vehicle posed to our forces," McKenzie said.ĭefense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement, "We now know that there was no connection between Mr.
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