U.S Offers To Pay Families Of Afghans Killed In Drone Attack

United States Government has offered to compensate the family of 10 civilians it “mistakenly” killed during the drone strike launched by its troops in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan.

Gatekeepers News reports that the US Department of Defense said it made a commitment that included offering “ex-gratia condolence payments”, in addition to working with the US Department of State in support of the family members who were interested in relocation to the United States.

Pentagon press secretary, John Kirby said late on Friday that US under-secretary of defense for policy, Colin Kahl, had a virtual meeting on Thursday with Steven Kwon, the founder and president of Nutrition & Education International, the aid organisation that employed Zamarai Ahmadi, the driver of the car targeted in the strike.

Gatekeepers News reports that in August, the U.S had retaliated the Kabul airport attack, and launched a drone strike on a vehicle that it said was conveying the Islamic State in Khorasan Province, ISKP (ISIS-K) fighter and who it believed was planning future attacks and another associate.

However in September, the U.S military admitted that the vehicle targeted was likely not a threat associated with ISIS-K.

Top General of United States Central Command, at the Pentagon, Gen. Frank McKenzie also admitted that the strike killed 10 civilians including seven children.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has also apologised for the strike, saying: “We now know that there was no connection between Mr. Ahmadi and ISIS-Khorasan, that his activities on that day were completely harmless and not at all related to the imminent threat we believed we faced, and that Mr. Ahmadi was just as innocent a victim as were the others tragically killed.”

The decision to compensate the families comes after Ahmadi’s 22-year-old nephew Farshad Haidari said that the U.S apology was not enough.

“They must come here and apologise to us face-to-face,” he told the AFP news agency in a bombed-out, modest house in Kwaja Burga, a densely populated neighbourhood in Kabul.

Haidari, whose brother Naser and young cousins also died in the blast, said on September 18 that the US had made no direct contact with the family.