WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has publicly and publicly released video footage of a US drone strike in Kabul that killed 10 civilians in the final hours of the chaotic US withdrawal that ended a 20-year war in Afghanistan.
The New York Times obtained the footage through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the US Central Command, which then posted the imagery to its website. It marked the first public release of video footage of the August 29 strike, which the Pentagon initially defended but later called a tragic mistake.
The video includes about 25 minutes of footage from two MQ-9 Reaper drones, as reported by the Times, showing the scene of the strike before, during and after the missile struck a civilian car in a courtyard on a residential street. . Ambiguous images show individuals walking in or near an area of attack.
The military has said it struck an extremist, along with an Afghanistan ally of the Daesh group, who may have detonated a bomb near Kabul airport, where a quick evacuation was still underway.
Three days earlier, a suicide bombing at the airport killed 13 American soldiers and more than 160 Afghans. When it later admitted its mistake in the August 29 drone strike, Central Command said it had determined that the driver of the car had nothing to do with the Daesh group.
The man was Jemari Ahmadi, who worked for Nutrition and Education International, a US-based aid organization.
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