US Drone Strike in Kabul Kills Nine Members of Single Family, Including 6 Kids - Reports
00:50 GMT 30.08.2021 (Updated: 09:06 GMT 10.02.2023)
© REUTERS / US MARINES
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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The death toll from a US airstrike that targeted a vehicle in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Sunday has gone up to nine, all members of the same family, a relative of those killed told CNN.
A brother of one of the dead told a journalist working with CNN on Sunday that they were "an ordinary family," not affiliated with Daesh*.
There are six children, including his four-year-old sister Armin, 3-year-old brother Benyamin, and two two-year-old sisters Ayat and Sumaya among those killed, the man said, as he reportedly cried.
Earlier, US central command spokesman Capt. Bill Urban said that a drone strike was carried out on Sunday on a vehicle in Kabul, eliminating a Daesh-K* threat to the airport.
"We are still assessing the results of this strike," Urban said, adding that "it is unclear what may have happened," and the US military is investigating further.
This is what CENTCOM said: https://t.co/9Eln79RcTr pic.twitter.com/ZjveBHUOUH
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) August 30, 2021
Afghan media reported on Sunday that at least four children were killed in the airstrike that destroyed two vehicles and part of a residential building. CBS said that the size of the secondary explosion suggests that the US strike destroyed a fully-loaded car bomb, and did not just kill a suicide bomber riding in the car.
On Saturday, US Army Maj. Gen. William Taylor said that two Daesh-K leaders were killed and another was injured in a US airstrike in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.
Washington has not disclosed the identities of the targets, however.
On Friday, the White House admitted a breakdown in the security process that allowed the Thursday suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, which reportedly killed at least 182, including 13 US troops. The attack, claimed by Daesh-K, comes amid a chaotic US evacuation from Afghanistan following the Taliban's* takeover of Kabul on August 15.
While the Biden administration has come under fire from both Democrats and Republicans over the evacuation of American forces and Afghans from Kabul, netizens have slammed US media for hypocritical reporting on the situation in Afghanistan.
Number of tweets by American journalists sharing pictures of American soldiers helping Afghan children: 472,583,593,592,480
— آرش (@thekarami) August 29, 2021
Number of tweets by American journalists sharing pictures of Afghan children killed by today’s US drone strike: 0
Those who feigned humanitarian concern for Afghan women for the last few weeks, on this website, will justify / ignore their deaths, the deaths of their husbands & their children when those deaths come from US drones & guns.
— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) August 29, 2021
More than 90 Afghan civilians were killed in Kabul yesterday, but apparently that's barely news in the West. pic.twitter.com/szDgfK5aWg
— Human Rights Watch Watcher (@queeralamode) August 27, 2021
This comes amid allegations by the media, citing locals, that Afghans killed in the attack on August 26 were shot dead by American soldiers in the panic following the explosion.
US drone operations targeting terrorists in countries have been deemed highly controversial due to reported civilian deaths, which military chiefs define as "collateral damage". Casualties among civilians became publicly known due to independent investigations and information disclosed by whistleblowers. Last month, ex-US Air Force analyst Daniel Hale was given a prison sentence after leaking classified intel on US drone strikes from his deployment to Afghanistan that reportedly killed innocent people, including children.
* Terrorist organizations banned in Russia
