WASHINGTON — The Pentagon acknowledged connected Friday that a U.S. drone onslaught successful Afghanistan connected Aug. 29 that officials said was indispensable to forestall an onslaught connected American troops was a tragic mistake that killed 10 civilians, including 7 children.
The explosives the subject claimed were loaded successful the trunk of a achromatic Toyota sedan struck by the drone’s Hellfire rocket were astir apt h2o bottles, and a secondary detonation successful the courtyard successful a densely populated Kabul vicinity wherever that onslaught took spot was astir apt a propane oregon state tank, the authoritative said. In short, the car posed nary menace astatine all, investigators concluded.
An authoritative acquainted with the probe acknowledged that the operator of the car, Zemari Ahmadi, a longtime idiosyncratic for a U.S. assistance group, had thing to bash with the Islamic State, arsenic subject officials had antecedently asserted. Mr. Ahmadi’s lone transportation to the violent radical appeared to beryllium a fleeting and innocuous enactment with radical successful what the subject believed was an ISIS safehouse successful Kabul, an archetypal nexus that led subject analysts to marque 1 mistaken judgement aft different portion tracking Mr. Ahmadi’s movements successful a sedan for the adjacent 8 hours.
“I connection my profound condolences to the household and friends of those who were killed,” Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., commandant of United States Central Command, told reporters astatine a Pentagon quality league Friday. He said the U.S. was “exploring the anticipation of ex gratia payments” to compensate the families of the victims.
The wide said the strike was taken “in the profound belief” that ISIS was astir to attack Kabul’s airport, as the enactment had done 3 days before, killing much than 140 people, including 13 American service members.
The wide acknowledged that a New York Times probe of video evidence helped investigators to find that they had struck a incorrect target. “As we successful information worked connected our investigation, we utilized each avail information,” General McKenzie told reporters. “Certainly that included immoderate of the worldly The New York Times did.”
The Times enquiry raised doubts astir the U.S. mentation of events, including whether explosives were contiguous successful the vehicle, whether the operator had a transportation to ISIS, and whether determination was a 2nd detonation aft the rocket struck the car.
Military officials cited the probe by The Times and different media organizations arsenic providing invaluable ocular and different grounds that forced the subject to reassess the judgments that led it to believe, falsely, that the sedan posed a threat.
As precocious arsenic Monday, the Pentagon was inactive asserting that the past U.S. drone onslaught successful the 20-year American warfare successful Afghanistan was indispensable to forestall an onslaught connected American troops.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the president of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said that the rocket was launched due to the fact that the subject had quality suggesting a credible, imminent menace to Hamid Karzai International Airport successful Kabul, wherever U.S. and allied troops were frantically trying to evacuate people. General Milley aboriginal called the onslaught “righteous.”
On Friday, General Milley, sent a tacit acknowledgment that helium spoke excessively soon.
“In a dynamic precocious menace environment, the commanders connected the crushed had due authorization and had tenable certainty that the people was valid, but aft deeper post-strike analysis, our decision is that guiltless civilians were killed,” General Milley said successful a statement. “This is simply a horrible calamity of warfare and it’s heart-wrenching and we are committed to being afloat transparent astir this incident.”
General McKenzie said that the conditions connected the crushed contributed to the errant strike. “We did not person the luxury to make signifier of life” earlier the strike, helium said.
Military officials said they did not cognize the individuality of the car’s operator erstwhile the drone fired, but they had deemed him suspicious due to the fact that of his activities that day: He had perchance visited an Islamic State harmless house, they said, and astatine 1 constituent helium loaded into the conveyance what they thought could beryllium explosives.
Military officials defended their appraisal that the harmless location was a hub of ISIS planning, based connected a operation of intercepted communications, accusation from informants and aerial imagery.
But aft reviewing further aerial video and photographs, subject investigators concluded that their archetypal judgement astir the operator was wrong, an mistake that colored their views of each consequent halt helium made that time portion driving astir Kabul.
Times reporting had identified the operator arsenic Mr. Ahmadi. The grounds suggests that his travels that time really progressive transporting colleagues to and from work. And an investigation of video feeds showed that what the subject whitethorn person seen was Mr. Ahmadi and a workfellow loading canisters of h2o into his trunk to bring location to his family.
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The subject authoritative said connected Friday that a consequent reappraisal concluded, arsenic did the Times investigation, that the suspicious packages were thing much than water, and perchance a bundle the size of a laptop computer.
Mr. Ahmadi, 43, worked arsenic an electrical technologist for Nutrition and Education International, a California-based assistance group. The greeting of the strike, his brag called from the bureau astir 8:45 a.m. and asked him to prime up his laptop.
Since the strike, U.S. subject officials justified their actions by citing an adjacent larger blast that took spot afterward successful the courtyard wherever Mr. Ahmadi made his last stop.
“Because determination were secondary explosions, determination is simply a tenable decision to beryllium made that determination was explosives successful that vehicle,” General Milley said earlier this month.
But an introspection of the country of the strike, conducted by the Times ocular investigations squad and a Times newsman the greeting afterward, and followed up with a 2nd sojourn 4 days later, recovered nary grounds of a second, much almighty explosion.
Experts who examined photos and videos pointed retired that, though determination was wide grounds of a rocket onslaught and consequent conveyance fire, determination were nary collapsed oregon blown-out walls, nary destroyed vegetation, and lone 1 dent successful the entranceway gate, indicating a azygous daze wave.
The subject authoritative acknowledged each this connected Friday, and said that investigators present believed the 2nd detonation was from a propane vessel successful the courtyard, oregon perchance the state vessel of a 2nd conveyance successful the courtyard.
While the U.S. subject initially said the drone onslaught mightiness person killed 3 civilians, Times reporting showed that it killed 10, including 7 children, successful a dense residential block. The subject has present besides travel to that conclusion, aft watching aerial imagery that shows 3 children coming retired to greet the sedan, 1 of them taking the instrumentality of the car aft Mr. Ahmadi got out.