The Office of Inspector General at the Department of Defense will also investigate the botched drone strike that killed 10 Afghan civilians last month.
The inspector general announced on Friday that it will be investigating “the pre-strike targeting process, the damage assessment and civilian casualty review and reporting process; and the post-strike reporting of information,” though its statement left open the possibility of expanding that scope.
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This investigation is separate from the one being run by Lt. Gen. Sam Said, who was tasked earlier this week with “investigat[ing] the facts and circumstances relating to the civilian casualty event.”
“Part of that review will be to examine the investigation itself, the thoroughness of the investigation, to study the degree to which any policies, procedures, or targeting mechanisms may need to be altered going forward, if any, and of course to then take a look at what levels of accountability might be appropriate, and if so, at what level,” spokesman John Kirby said during Monday’s Pentagon briefing about Said’s investigation.
The United States launched the strike on Aug. 29, acting on intelligence that the target, Zemari Ahmadi, was an ISIS-K member working to attack Hamid Karzai International Airport, where U.S. and coalition forces were evacuating third-country nationals and Afghan nationals who could be at risk under the Taliban.
Instead, Ahmadi was an aide worker, and the strike killed him and nine other civilians, none of whom had any ties to the terror group.
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Days earlier, an ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated a device outside the gates of the airport where thousands of people were trying to enter the airport for the evacuation flights, killing 13 U.S. service members and more than 170 civilians.
In response, the military launched a drone strike on Aug. 27 targeting and killing Kabir Aidi, who U.S. Central Command said “was an ISIS-K high-profile attack lethal aid facilitator involved in attack planning and magnetic IED production.”
