After drone attack in Kabul: Pentagon admits killing of civilians

The US Department of Defense has admitted that it accidentally killed innocents in an air strike in the Afghan capital in late August. The US had previously stated that they were IS fighters. There were doubts about that.

The US armed forces have admitted that they killed several innocents in a drone attack in the Afghan capital Kabul in late August. “I am now convinced that up to ten civilians, including up to seven children, were tragically killed in this attack,” said US General Kenneth McKenzie, who heads US Central Command Centcom. He described the attack as a “tragic mistake”.

IS connection “unlikely”

It is believed that it is unlikely that the vehicle and the people killed represented a direct threat to the US armed forces or were connected to Isis-K, an offshoot of the terrorist militia “Islamic State” (IS). “This blow was carried out in the serious belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our armed forces from evacuees at the airport, but that was a mistake,” McKenzie said. It was not a “hasty attack”. The vehicle had previously been observed for eight hours.

Immediately after the attack, the Pentagon had emphasized that suicide bombers were sitting in the vehicle that had been hit and were planning another attack after at least 13 US soldiers and 169 Afghans had been killed in an attack the week before. However, other sources have already reported dead civilians, whereupon the US military announced an investigation.