© Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesRelatives and neighbors survey the damage to vehicles in the courtyard of the home of Mr. Ahmadi.
It was the last known missile fired by the United States in its 20-year war in
Afghanistan, and
the military called it a "righteous strike" — a drone attack after hours of surveillance on Aug. 29 against a vehicle that American officials thought contained an ISIS bomb and posed an imminent threat to troops at Kabul's airport.
But
a New York Times investigation of video evidence, along with
interviews with more than a dozen of the driver's co-workers and family members in Kabul, raises doubts about the U.S. version of events,
including whether explosives were present in the vehicle, whether the driver had a connection to ISIS, and whether there was a second explosion after the missile struck the car.
Military officials said
they did not know the identity of the car's driver when the drone fired, but deemed him
suspicious because of how they interpreted his activities that day, saying that he
possibly visited an ISIS safe house and, at one point, loaded what they thought
could be explosives into the car.
Times reporting has identified the driver as Zemari Ahmadi,
a longtime worker for a U.S. aid group. The evidence suggests that his travels that day actually involved transporting colleagues to and from work. And an analysis of video feeds showed that what the military may have seen was Mr. Ahmadi and a colleague
loading canisters of water into his trunk to bring home to his family.
While the U.S. military said the drone strike might have killed three civilians,
Times reporting shows that
it killed 10, including seven children, in a dense residential block.
Comment: A fittingly psychopathic end to a pointless, evil war. No one will be held accountable.