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‘A mistake’: US admits Kabul drone strike killed 10 civilians,
incl. 7 children, and NO ISIS-K terrorists; no one will be punished
17 Sep, 2021 19:01 / Updated 13 minutes ago
which killed ten civilians in total. © RT
After weeks of insisting the August 29 drone strike in Kabul killed an ISIS-K terrorist, US Central Command has admitted that the victims were all civilians, including children, but reportedly won’t discipline anyone involved.
Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, head of CENTCOM, on Friday announced that the Hellfire missile fired at a home in Kabul just before the US airlift ended did not in fact kill a facilitator of Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) terrorist group.
The drone strike in Kabul “was a mistake,” McKenzie said, acknowledging that “ten civilians, including up to seven children were tragically killed.”
The strike was ordered in “earnest belief that it would prevent an imminent threat to our forces,” but “it was a mistake and I offer my sincere apology,” he added, offering “profound condolences” to the relatives of those killed.
McKenzie walked the reporters through the US decision to launch the strike, citing “over 60 pieces of intelligence” about an imminent attack by Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the August 26 suicide bombing at Kabul airport, killing 13 US troops and 170 Afghan civilians. Half a dozen US drones monitored Kabul, and multiple intelligence reports spoke of a white Toyota Corolla being used as a car bomb.
General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on September 1 that all the proper procedures had been followed, calling it a “righteous strike” and repeating the original CENTCOM claim that “secondary explosions” proved the targeted vehicle was loaded with explosives.
A New York Times investigation published on September 10, however, found no traces of secondary explosions in the courtyard of the targeted home. The white Toyota belonged to Zemari Ahmadi, who was not an ISIS-K terrorist but an employee of Nutrition & Education International, a US-funded charity. He had just applied for a visa to emigrate to the US with his family.
Ahmadi driving colleagues to and from work and bringing jugs filled with water to his home from the NEI office were flagged by the US as suspicious behavior. So when he pulled into the alley of his home and was greeted by half a dozen children that normally helped him park the car, a MQ-9 Reaper drone fired a Hellfire missile, killing them all.
Did they not see the children? Did they see the children and fired anyway? Is that what you call 'righteous'?
The US airlift ended just before midnight on August 30, leaving the airport and Afghanistan to the Taliban. Ahmadi’s younger brother Emal, who spoke to RT a week after the attack, called the US “utter liars” for saying that the strike was aimed at ISIS-K.
“Without any proof, without any investigation, they attacked us and killed our children, and we will never forgive them,” said his cousin Jamshid Yousoufi, whose 2-year-old daughter Sumaya was visiting the family and died in the attack.
There was a lot of pressure, I believe, on the US to show some strength at that time, rather than being at the complete mercy of the Taliban. It seems to me that they had to choose a target and strike quickly in order to appear that they were doing something. They did! They made another generation of enemies. 20 years of working with Afghans was utterly destroyed in one drone strike.
Court case filed against French customs after officials
refuse to disclose records of arms exports
23 Sep, 2021 10:43
FILE PHOTO. SANAA, YEMEN. © AFP / MOHAMMED HUWAIS
Amnesty International France and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights have jointly filed a case in a Paris court to force French customs to release records of exports of weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The two non-governmental organizations (NGOs) released a statement on Thursday confirming that the case had been launched in the Administrative Court of Paris over “documents relating to arms sales in connection with the conflict in Yemen.”
“Given the considerable risk that French weapons are used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law against civilians in Yemen, the refusal to disclose this customs information constitutes a disproportionate interference with the fundamental right of the public to receive information,” Amnesty International stated.
This lack of transparency is a major obstacle to both parliamentary, judicial, and democratic control over French arms exports.
The two organizations have argued that France has continued to “deliver war materials and provide maintenance and training” despite there being “overwhelming evidence of attacks committed by the Saudi Arabian-UAE military coalition” within Yemen “against civilian populations and infrastructure.”
A Saudi-led coalition has been involved in the conflict in Yemen since 2015, supporting the government against the Iran-backed Houthis, with the fighting dragging on for more than six years in what’s seen as a proxy war between Riyadh and Tehran.
In 2020, a UN report warned that military equipment provided by Western nations was fueling the conflict, after investigators from the international agency declared that airstrikes that had been launched against Yemen could amount to war crimes.
French customs has not so far responded to the statement from the NGOs.
Report: Britain paid compensation for nearly 300
Afghan civilian deaths
By Daniel Uria
Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Britain paid out nearly $1 million in compensation for almost 300 civilian deaths during the conflict in Afghanistan, according to an analysis of government documents released Thursday.
Throughout Britain's presence in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2013, forces paid $944,348.80 in compensation for the deaths of at least 86 children and 203 adult civilians, according to Ministry of Defense compensation logs obtained by London-based charity Action on Armed Violence, or AOAV.
The British government paid out an average of $3,266 per life lost, although AOAV noted some of the payments were combined with injuries and property damage so the average is "somewhat inflated."
In one of the most substantial payments the government paid $5,811.23 to a family after their four children were mistakenly shot and killed in December 2009.
During the same month, a 3-year-old child was killed by shock from a controlled explosion, marking the youngest recorded casualty.
AOAV noted that compensation payments were "highly inconsistent" as one family received $804.79 for the death of their 10-year-old son in December 2009 and another family was given $142.96 for a confirmed fatality and property damage in Helmand province.
In some instances, the government paid out more to Afghans for damage to property and animals than the loss of human life.
AOAV noted that there were 106 instances involving property in the 2009-10 fiscal year that exceeded the amount paid to the 10-year-old or the unnamed 2008 casualty including $908 paid as compensation for the death of six donkeys "when they wandered on to the rifle range."
So, of course, instead of shooing them off the rifle range, which obviously wasn't fenced, they decided to use them for target practice.
Most of the deaths that led to compensation occurred in the Helmand province and payments stating that Afghan or U.S. military were responsible for the deaths were not included in the figures provided by the charity.
At least 20,930 civilians were killed or injured by international and Afghan forces, including roughly one-third caused by the Taliban and other anti-government forces, from 2007 to 2020, according to AOAV analysis of reports by the United Nations. Additionally, AOAV reported that 457 British soldiers were killed from 2001 to 2020.
The release of the report also comes after the United States last week announced that an Aug. 29 drone strike killed 10 Afghan civilians, including several children and not an Islamic State-Khorasan Province militant as originally reported.
Who do you pay compensation to when an entire family is wiped out?
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