Washington: The US military is still assessing the results of a drone strike conducted against an alleged Islamic State-Khorasan terrorist (banned in Russia) target last month in Kabul which Washington believes prevented an imminent attack, Defense Department spokesperson John Kirby told Sputnik.
Earlier in the day, The New York Times published video evidence showing Zemari Ahmadi, who worked for a US aid group, may have been mistaken for an IS-K terrorist by American forces before a drone strike killed 10 civilians including seven children in Afghanistan on August 29.
“US Central Command continues to assess the results of the airstrike in Kabul on August 29. We won’t get ahead of that assessment,” Kirby said when asked about the new evidence. “The strike was based on good intelligence, and we still believe that it prevented an imminent threat to the airport and to our men and women that were still serving at the airport.”
The New York Times investigation found that Ahmadi, who worked as an electrical engineer for the US non-governmental organization (NGO) Nutrition and Education International, left his home in the morning on August 29 to pick up a colleague and his boss’s laptop, which is when the US military suspected a white sedan had left an Islamic State safe house and intercepted communications asking the driver to make several stops.
What the US military saw as suspicious activity was Ahmadi’s daily activities, the report said citing his colleagues.
The US military may have mistakenly thought Ahmadi’s white Toyota Corolla contained explosives that would be used against American troops at the Kabul international airport after he was seen running work-related errands and loading water containers for his home, the report said.
The United States was on high alert after 13 US service members were killed in a IS-K suicide bombing attack at the Kabul airport on August 26. In response, US President Joe Biden gave US military commanders full authority to conduct operations against IS-K.
