Pages

Saturday, September 18, 2021

US admits mistake on Kabul drone strike that killed children - Désolé, mon ami (you ain't Anglo-Saxon)



US admits mistake on Kabul drone strike that killed children, apologises



THE US apologised for a drone strike launched in Kabul, Afghanistan last month which killed 10 civilians, including seven children. Its military called it a “tragic mistake”.

The Pentagon had said the Aug 29 strike targeted an Islamic State suicide bomber who posed an imminent threat to US-led troops at the airport as they completed the last stages of their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Even as reports of civilian casualties emerged, the top US general had described the attack as “righteous”.

The head of US Central Command, Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, said that at the time he had been confident it averted an imminent threat to the forces at the airport.

“Our investigation now concludes that the strike was a tragic mistake,” McKenzie told reporters.

He now believes that it was unlikely that those killed were members of the local Islamic State affiliate, ISIS-Khorasan, or posed a threat to US troops. The Pentagon was considering reparations, McKenzie said.

The killing of civilians, in a strike carried out by a drone based outside Afghanistan, has raised questions about the future of US counter-terrorism strikes in the country, where intelligence gathering has been all but choked off since last month’s withdrawal.

And the confirmation of civilian deaths provides further fuel to critics of the chaotic US withdrawal and evacuation of Afghan allies, which has generated the biggest crisis yet for the Biden administration.

In a statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the drone strike had killed a Mr Ahmadi, who worked for a non-profit called Nutrition and Education International.

“We now know that there was no connection between 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,” Austin said in the statement.

“We apologise, and we will endeavour to learn from this horrible mistake.”

While it is rare for senior Pentagon officials, including the defense secretary, to apologise personally for civilians killed in military strikes, the US military does publish reports on civilians killed in operations around the world.



Heart wrenching

Reports had emerged almost immediately that the drone strike in a neighbourhood west of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport had killed civilians including children.

Video from the scene showed the wreckage of a car strewn around the courtyard of a building. A spokesman for Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers, Zabihullah Mujahid, said at the time that the attack killed seven people, and that the Taliban was investigating.

The strike came three days after an Islamic State suicide bomber killed 13 US troops and scores of Afghan civilians who had crowded outside the airport gates, desperate to secure seats on evacuation flights, after US-trained Afghan forces melted away and the Taliban swept to power in the capital.

Following the suicide bombing at the airport, the US military launched a drone strike in eastern Afghanistan that it said killed two Islamic State militants. That strike is not under review.

The second, mistaken strike came as the US military was on heightened alert, with officials warning they expected more attacks on the airport, including from rockets and vehicle-borne explosive devices, as the Pentagon wrapped up its mission.

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Mark Milley appeared to blame the fog of war, even as he acknowledged in a statement that the civilian deaths were “heart wrenching”.

“In a dynamic high threat environment, the commanders on the ground had the appropriate authority and had reasonable certainty that the target was valid,” Milley said.

The authority to carry out strikes in Afghanistan – against al Qaeda or Islamic State – will not rest any more with US commanders in the region, a US defense official told Reuters, adding Austin himself will have to authorise any future strikes.

Still, the intelligence failure exposed in America’s last military strike of its war in Afghanistan raises hard questions about the risks going forward. These include whether the US can keep track of al-Qaeda and Islamic State threats, and act quickly on any information it gets.

McKenzie played down the impact the latest civilian casualties would have on future actions in Afghanistan.

“I don’t think you should draw any conclusions about our ability to strike in Afghanistan against ISIS-K targets in the future based on this particular strike,” he said. – Sept 18, 2021


12 comments:

  1. Wakakakakaka…

    Didn't I said so, weeks ago?

    & all those Yankee doodle acolytes were chanting human life saving by Yankee drone high&low!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought it was "peaceful" in Kabul....? Telly-ban Jaga...?

      Delete
    2. Wakakakakaka…

      That was before all those Yankee doodles ran with tail between the legs!

      Delete
  2. You Ain’t Han Chinese, you’re Uighur/Tibetian, you need re-education and assimilation.

    FACT CHECK:
    Racial composition of 500 yo Bullyland:
    Non-Hispanic white = 60.3%
    Hispanic & Latino = 18.5%
    Black & African American = 13.4%
    Asian = 5.9%

    500 yo Bullyland:
    Han = 93.9%
    Minority races = 6.06% (no single race more than 1.5%)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wakakakakaka…

      FACT CHECKS with numeric acrobat!

      What r yr fart?

      Delete
  3. 500 yo Bully readily admits grave mistake over 10 innocent lives. It took them one month. When will 5000 yo Bully admit mistakes over millions of Han lives during the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution and One Child Policy? It has been many decades.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wakakakakaka…

      Regurgitated lies!

      Didn't u check yr uncle Sam's CIA investigations on those topics u were so recalcitrant to lie?

      Ooop… CIA reports, no good! Paid for by the commie!

      Delete
    2. The West, US, UK, France, Spain, Holland, Portugal, German and Japan should also admit it was their evil deed of bullying China in a group attack and plundering China hopelessly destitute that resulting those Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution and One Child Policy lose lose situations, do also die, do do also die. Really, the blood is on the hands of those 8 nations. Did they apologize and pay reparation?

      Delete
  4. White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (& Catholic) admit mistake and apologise within 1 month. Han Chinese won't admit anything after many decades. Deny Deny Deny.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wakakakakaka…

      The only DENY here is yr repeated lies!

      Delete
  5. Old Habits Die Hard....

    But Foreigners Must Not Interfere with Afghanistan Internal Politics. Let Afghans Decide For Themselves.....that's the Bully Way.

    QUOTE
    Afghanistan: Girls excluded as Afghan secondary schools reopen

    The Taliban have excluded girls from Afghan secondary schools, after they ordered only boys and male teachers to return to the classroom.

    A statement from the Islamist group saying secondary classes would resume made no mention of girls or women.

    One Afghan schoolgirl told the BBC she was devastated. "Everything looks very dark," she said.

    Despite Taliban promises it is the latest sign Afghanistan is returning to the harsh rule of the 1990s.

    In another development, on Friday the Taliban appeared to have shut down the women's affairs ministry and replaced it with a department that once enforced strict religious doctrines.

    During their rule between 1996 and 2001, the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice was responsible for deploying so-called morality police on to the streets to enforce the Taliban's strict interpretation of Islamic religious law, known as Sharia.
    UNQUOTE

    ReplyDelete