{"id":16409,"date":"2021-09-17T19:29:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T19:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/09\/17\/pentagon-reverses-itself-calls-deadly-kabul-strike-an-error\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T05:39:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T05:39:47","slug":"pentagon-reverses-itself-calls-deadly-kabul-strike-an-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/flashpoints\/2021\/09\/17\/pentagon-reverses-itself-calls-deadly-kabul-strike-an-error\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It was a mistake.\u2019 CENTCOM admits Aug. 29 drone strike killed civilians, not ISIS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When officials signed off Aug. 29 on a Hellfire strike <\/a>to obliterate a white Toyota they had been monitoring for eight hours, the belief was that it contained ISIS fighters carrying a bomb intended for U.S. troops outside the Kabul airport<\/a>. The head of U.S. Central Command announced Friday that they were very wrong<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie concurred with previous media reports that the strike had killed as many as 10 people, including seven children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis strike was taken in the earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our forces and the evacuees at the airport, but it was a mistake,\u201d he said, confirming that no ISIS fighters are believed to have been killed in the attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For days after the strike, Pentagon officials asserted that it had been conducted correctly, despite numerous civilians being killed, including children. The New York Times later raised doubts about that version of events, reporting that the driver of the targeted vehicle was a longtime employee at an American humanitarian organization and citing an absence of evidence to support the Pentagon\u2019s assertion that the vehicle contained explosives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A U.S. Central Command graphic maps the movement of a white Toyota Corolla believed to be carrying ISIS bombers on Aug. 29 in Kabul. A Hellfire missile strike hit the vehicle, carrying a non-government organization worker, killing him and up to nine other civilians in the area. (CENTCOM)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters two days after the attack that it appeared to have been a \u201crighteous\u201d strike and that at least one of the people killed was a \u201cfacilitator\u201d for the Islamic State group\u2019s Afghanistan affiliate, which had killed 169 Afghan civilians and 13 American service members <\/a>in a suicide bombing on Aug. 26 at the Kabul airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After McKenzie\u2019s remarks, Milley expressed regret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a horrible tragedy of war and it\u2019s heart wrenching,\u201d Milley told reporters traveling with him in Europe. \u201cWe are committed to being fully transparent about this incident.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn a dynamic high-threat environment, the commanders on the ground had appropriate authority and had reasonable certainty that the target was valid, but after deeper post-strike analysis our conclusion is that innocent civilians were killed,\u201d Milley added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accounts from the family, documents from colleagues seen by The Associated Press, and the scene at the family home \u2014 where Zemerai Ahmadi\u2019s car was struck by a Hellfire missile just as he pulled into the driveway \u2014 all painted a picture of a family that had worked for Americans and were trying to gain visas to the United States, fearing for their lives under the Taliban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family said that when the 37-year-old Zemerai, alone in his car, pulled up to the house, he honked his horn. His 11-year-old son ran out and Zemerai let the boy get in and drive the car into the driveway. The other kids ran out to watch, and the missile incinerated the car, killing seven children and an adult son and nephew of Zemerai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to officials tracking the Corolla, Zemerai and his vehicle matched intelligence reports of an imminent, ISIS-generated attack against troops at the Kabul airport. At the time, McKenzie said, they were tracking roughly 60 reports of threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those, specifically, had been a white Toyota. When they saw the vehicle stop outside of a known ISIS compound in the city, then make several more stops, picking up and dropping off several adult men, loading and unloading supplies, they thought they had their target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe tracked a lot of other people. We didn\u2019t track anybody … as closely as we did this, because of limitations on our resources,\u201d McKenzie said. \u201cAnd frankly, you know, we thought this was a good lead. We were wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those stops was to the office of Nutrition and Education International \u2015 a non-governmental aid organization Zemerai had worked for over the previous 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just before 5 p.m., McKenzie said, the vehicle pulled up to a compound approximately 3 km from the airport, prompting concern that if they had the right car, it could be at the airport gate within minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo the cumulative force of … the intelligence that we gathered throughout the day, the position of the vehicle, its nearness to the airport, the imminence of the threat, and the other signals that we were getting throughout the day, all led us to the moment of deciding to take the strike,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reports in Kabul quickly accused the U.S. of having killed nearly a dozen people, most of them children, but Pentagon leadership held to their original narrative in the following days, despite admitting there was a possibility of civilian collateral casualties.<\/p>\n\n\n\t