The family of the man the United States targeted in a drone strike remains in Afghanistan more than six months later despite concerns for their safety.
The Pentagon has sought to facilitate the evacuation of Zemari Ahmadi’s family following the botched Aug. 29 drone strike that killed him and several other family members, though the department has not yet made it happen, spokesman John Kirby told reporters during Tuesday’s briefing.
“They are still there, but we’re working this very, very hard. It’s a complex process,” Kirby explained, adding that they’re “still working very closely with the family’s representatives” and Ahmadi’s former employer, a U.S.-based aid organization. “We want to make sure that we do this in the appropriate way,” he added.
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The botched strike occurred hours before the U.S. withdrew all of its forces from Afghanistan following a 20-year war in the country. Days earlier, an ISIS-K suicide bomber killed himself, 13 U.S. service members, and approximately 170 civilians at the Kabul airport where the U.S. and other Western countries were evacuating third-country nationals or Afghan allies who would be at risk under the newly installed Taliban regime.
The American Civil Liberties Union is also representing Nutrition and Education International, the aid organization that employed Ahmadi before his death, and a representative told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that there’s “nothing imminent, unfortunately,” adding that “it looked like there would be progress on evacuation a couple of weeks ago, but then the government reported snags.”
Defense Department leaders initially declared the strike successful and pointed to a secondary explosion as evidence to support their claim that there were explosives in the white Toyota Corolla that they tracked for eight hours before firing the fateful missile. They later acknowledged that the claim was incorrect, and an investigation found that in the U.S.’s footage, children were visible in the vicinity.
U.S. Air Force Inspector General Lt. Gen. Sami Said investigated the “righteous strike,” which is how Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, characterized it in the days after, and concluded that there were no illegalities. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed off on his conclusions. Kirby announced Dec. 13 that no military personnel would be punished for the botched strike.
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Said’s recommendations were more procedural in nature than about consequences.
The IG ultimately recommended they should implement procedures to “mitigate the risks of confirmation bias,” enhance “sharing of overall situational awareness during execution,” and review “pre-strike procedures” as they relate to the presence of civilians, all of which Kirby said Austin has endorsed.
In January, Austin ordered new changes to do more to prevent civilian deaths, calling for the immediate establishment of a civilian protection center, the development of more standardized operational reporting for possible civilian harm, a review of how the military responds to civilian harm, and the incorporation of guidance for how civilian harm can occur from a full spectrum of armed conflict.
