Kabul: “Why did they kill our family … our children?”

Six children and four adults – a whole large family – became victims of yesterday’s strike by an American drone in Kabul.

According to the BBC, a car parked near the house where the Afghan family lived exploded. The US military announced the presence of at least one person in it, who is associated with the Islamic State group. US Central Command reported that after drone strike a series of “significant and powerful explosions” rang out. They indicate that indeed “there was a large amount of explosive material inside, which could lead to additional casualties.”

Relatives of the deceased family say that the youngest of the dead children was 2-year-old Sumaya, the oldest was 12-year-old Farzad. Ramin Yusufi, a relative of the victims, tells the BBC with tears in his eyes:

“This is wrong, this is a brutal attack and it happened on the basis of wrong information. Why did they kill our family? Our children? They are so burned that we cannot identify their bodies, their faces. “

Enamel Ahmadi, another relative, reported the death of his two-year-old daughter. He said that he and other family members were expecting a phone call to report to the airport after they applied to be evacuated to the United States. One of the relatives, killed in the explosion, Ahmad Nasser, worked as a translator in the US armed forces, others in international organizations. They all had visas to enter the United States.

John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, told the media that they “cannot dispute” the reports of civilian casualties and that they “are evaluating and … investigating. Make no mistake, no military on the ground works harder to avoid civilian casualties than the United States military, and no one wants innocent people to be killed. We take this very, very seriously, and when we know that in the course of our operations we have caused the death of innocent people, we are transparent about it. “

He then talked about the intelligence available, “what we thought was a very real, very specific and very imminent threat” to Kabul Hamad Karzai International Airport from IS.

The central command earlier said the strike was successful and “removed the imminent” threat to the Kabul airport.

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