The New York Times is out with a bombshell investigation that says a drone strike in the final hours of the war in Afghanistan didn’t kill an ISIS facilitator as claimed by the Pentagon but an aid worker and 9 other civilians, including children:
The final act of the U.S. war in Afghanistan was a drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 people. Our latest investigation shows how a man the military saw as an "imminent threat" and "ISIS facilitator" was actually an aid worker returning to his family: https://t.co/eUX5WSImrD
— Evan Hill (@evanhill) September 10, 2021
According to the NYT, the military didn’t even know who they were targeting:
The @nytimes Visual Investigations team obtained exclusive security camera footage and witness accounts to show how the military launched a drone strike that killed 10 people in Kabul on Aug. 29 without knowing who it was hitting. https://t.co/v4O5oVsZt0 pic.twitter.com/0GNF74pjYY
— Christiaan Triebert (@trbrtc) September 10, 2021
The NYT investigation used surveillance footage showing the man targeted by the strike, Zemar Ahmadi, in the hours before the attack along with interviews with eyewitnesses, friends and colleagues:
We obtained exclusive footage to identify the last movements of Zemari Ahmadi, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in #Kabul. Running office errands & loading canisters of water into his car, the military might have misinterpreted his actions.
https://t.co/1Snk3kUq1J— Christoph Koettl (@ckoettl) September 10, 2021
The packages that Ahmadi was observed loading into his car before the attack were reportedly for water:
Wow.@nytimes investigation finds the US drone strike in #Kabul targeted an Afghan aid worker returning from work — not an #ISIS facilitator. 10 civilians died.
Those heavy items he was loading into his car? Water barrels for those in need.
Damning.https://t.co/miD0zTzIlK pic.twitter.com/9iy0DkkqeO
— Charles Lister (@Charles_Lister) September 10, 2021
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Watch for yourself:
At 2:35pm, Ahmadi and a colleague fill several large plastic containers with water. The footage shows Ahmadi bring them to the office earlier that day. His brother told us his neighborhood suffered from a water shortage and that he routinely filled up containers at the office. pic.twitter.com/GqzL8NeXmy
— Evan Hill (@evanhill) September 10, 2021
The NYT also reports that there were no secondary explosions that the Pentagon said were caused by explosives in his car. From the transcript:
A U.S. official told us that the strike on Ahmadi’s car was conducted by an MQ-9 Reaper drone that fired a single Hellfire missile with a 20-pound warhead. We found remnants of the missile, which experts said matched a Hellfire at the scene of the attack. In the days after the attack, the Pentagon repeatedly claimed that the missile strike set off other explosions, and that these likely killed the civilians in the courtyard. “Significant secondary explosions from the targeted vehicle indicated the presence of a substantial amount of explosive material.” “Because there were secondary explosions, there’s a reasonable conclusion to be made that there was explosives in that vehicle.” But a senior military official later told us that it was only possible to probable that explosives in the car caused another blast. We gathered photos and videos of the scene taken by journalists and visited the courtyard multiple times. We shared the evidence with three weapons experts who said the damage was consistent with the impact of a Hellfire missile. They pointed to the small crater beneath Ahmadi’s car and the damage from the metal fragments of the warhead. This plastic melted as a result of a car fire triggered by the missile strike. All three experts also pointed out what was missing: any evidence of the large secondary explosions described by the Pentagon. No collapsed or blown-out walls, including next to the trunk with the alleged explosives. No sign that a second car parked in the courtyard was overturned by a large blast. No destroyed vegetation. All of this matches what eyewitnesses told us, that a single missile exploded and triggered a large fire. There is one final detail visible in the wreckage: containers identical to the ones that Ahmadi and his colleague filled with water and loaded into his trunk before heading home.
The NYT did report that a similar car to that of Ahmadi’s was used earlier in the day in a rocet attack on the airport:
Even though the military said the drone team watched the car for eight hours that day, a senior official also said they weren’t aware of any water containers. The Pentagon has not provided The Times with evidence of explosives in Ahmadi’s vehicle or shared what they say is the intelligence that linked him to the Islamic State. But the morning after the U.S. killed Ahmadi, the Islamic State did launch rockets at the airport from a residential area Ahmadi had driven through the previous day. And the vehicle they used … … was a white Toyota.
More from Christoph Koettl, on of the NYT journos who put this together:
The strike killed the 43-year-old Ahmadi, who worked for a U.S. based organization, and 9 of his family members. The military knew little about him, incl. where he worked or lived. They followed his white Toyota because they claimed he went to an ISIS safehouse that morning.
— Christoph Koettl (@ckoettl) September 10, 2021
We see that car repeatedly in security camera footage from the office where Ahmadi worked. We verified the footage and accounted for the wrong camera settings by visiting the office and matching a specific scene with a satellite image from the day of the strike. @Maxar pic.twitter.com/fF22z8MKCI
— Christoph Koettl (@ckoettl) September 10, 2021
The footage matches what his co-workers told us: that it was a regular day for Ahmadi, incl. regular trips to and from the office. Crucial: We see him fill up several canisters of water to put into the trunk of his car before heading home. pic.twitter.com/zNACfrGohX
— Christoph Koettl (@ckoettl) September 10, 2021
Co-workers who drove with him that day told us they got in the car around 4pm. They all denied putting explosives into a car they were commuting home in. Instead, they said they only put laptop bags into the car. And that the trunk was full with water canisters.
— Christoph Koettl (@ckoettl) September 10, 2021
Around the same time, the Pentagon says analysts watching a drone video observed 4 men carefully loading wrapped packages into the car. They couldn’t tell what was inside. Saying he posed an imminent threat, they fired a Hellfire missile when he returned to his home.
— Christoph Koettl (@ckoettl) September 10, 2021
The military did not know this was his home, and have not watched it during the day. was his home Ten people were killed, including 7 children, according to the family. The Pentagon has not released any specific evidence on the U.S. strike, including drone surveillance footage.
— Christoph Koettl (@ckoettl) September 10, 2021
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