According to reports, several Afghans, including children, were killed in a drone strike in Kabul on Sunday, which the US claimed killed an Islamic State suicide car bomber suspected of planning an attack on the capital city’s airport. According to CNN, nine members of one family, including six children, were killed in a strike targeting a vehicle in a Kabul residential neighbourhood, according to relatives and a local journalist. According to the brother of one of the dead, the youngest child was a two-year-old girl, according to a local CNN journalist.
“All the neighbours 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,” Ahad, who said he was a neighbour of the family, told CNN.
The Associated Press reported citing an unnamed Afghan official that three children were killed in the drone strike on Sunday.
After the CNN report, the United States said it is investigating whether civilians may have been killed in the airstrike and that it would be “deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life”. “We are aware of reports of civilian casualties following our strike on a vehicle in Kabul today. We are still assessing the results of this strike, which we know disrupted an imminent ISIS-K threat to the airport,” Captain Bill Urban, a Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson, said in a statement.
He was referring to the Islamic State’s Afghanistan branch, which carried out a suicide attack at the airport on Thursday.
“We know there were significant and powerful subsequent explosions as a result of the vehicle’s destruction,” Urban continued, “indicating a large amount of explosive material inside that may have caused additional casualties.” “It’s unclear what happened, and we’re looking into it further.”
According to officials, a US drone strike blew up a vehicle carrying “multiple suicide bombers” from Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate on Sunday before they could attack the ongoing military evacuation at Kabul’s international airport. The strike was the second carried out by US forces in Afghanistan since an Islamic State suicide bomber struck the airport on Thursday, killing 13 US troops and scores of Afghan civilians trying to flee the country.
The airstrike, according to two US military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, was successful, and the vehicle carried multiple bombers.
A military spokesperson, US navy Captain Bill Urban, said the strike was carried out in “self-defence” and that the military was investigating whether civilians were killed, but that “we have no indications at this time.”
“We are confident that we were able to hit the target. “The presence of a significant amount of explosive material indicated the presence of significant secondary explosions from the vehicle,” Urban said.
