A U.S. military airstrike reportedly killed 10 civilians, including several small children, all of whom were part of a single extended family.
The U.S. military conducted an over-the-horizon strike on Sunday, and Central Command spokesman Capt. Bill Urban said they “successfully hit the target,” which was a vehicle with explosives in it that posed an “imminent threat.”
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He noted that “significant secondary explosions from the vehicle” indicate the “presence of a substantial amount of explosive material,” and in a follow-up statement, he said the military was “aware of reports of civilian casualties” and is “investigating further.”
Despite the Pentagon’s initial comments that it was unaware of any civilian deaths, family members and neighbors told various outlets that young children were among those who were killed in the strike.
“All the neighbors tried to help and brought water to put out the fire, and I saw that there were five or six people dead. The father of the family and another young boy, and there were two children. They were dead. They were in pieces. There were [also] two wounded,” a neighbor told CNN, while another neighbor said, “Not much is left of their house, and nothing can be recognized, they are in pieces.”
“We’re investigating this,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters during Monday’s briefing. “I’m not going to get ahead of it. But if we have significant — verifiable information that we did take innocent life here, then we will be transparent about that, too. Nobody wants to see that happen.”
In addition to this thwarted possible attack, ISIS-K, the branch of the terrorist organization located in Afghanistan, successfully detonated a bomb at Hamid Karzai International Airport, killing nearly 200 people, including 13 U.S. military members, on Thursday.
There were also five rockets fired at the airport on Monday, which the U.S. successfully thwarted.
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Kirby noted on Monday that there is “still an active threat” for U.S. troops at the airport, and President Joe Biden warned over the weekend that another strike was “highly likely.”
The U.S. military is less than 48 hours away from withdrawing from Afghanistan, marking the end to the two-decadeslong war.
Following the Taliban’s swift military defeat of the U.S.-backed and trained Afghan forces, the U.S. and other coalition allies began evacuating more than a hundred thousand foreign nationals and Afghans who would be at-risk under the Taliban regime.
