From the perspective of international humanitarian law (The Hague and Geneva Conventions), it is clear that drones are indiscriminate weapons and therefore illegal because they contravene the two core rules of IHL – the distinction between military and civilian targets and the principle of proportionality. Public outrage depends on the attention that the mainstream media will pay to drone killings. “The drone program is opaque, with extremely limited accountability for anyone involved.”īearing in mind that most of the US drone strikes in Afghanistan have taken place in rural areas, and the fact that there is a direct correlation between the intensity of strikes and decries in the investigation of civilian deaths in their result, there is little hope for meaningful justice for the victims, apart from this isolated case. In fact, “the military has repeatedly suppressed information on civilian casualties,” as Nick McDonell, author of a 2018 book titled The Bodies in Person: An Account of Civilian Casualties in American Wars, argues. Another one killed in the strike was a 36-year-old former Afghan serviceman and employee of the US charity organization Nutrition & Education International, identified as Zamaray Ahmadi.Īlthough because of the public pressure the Pentagon was later forced to admit that the assassination of these civilians was a “tragic mistake,” and “ex gratia condolence payments” to the Ahmadi family have been raised during a recent online meeting between Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl and the founder and president of Nutrition & Education International, Dr Steven Kwon, the accountability for similar actions remains the great unknown.Īs of September 18, the US had made no direct contact with the family of the victims, according to Emal Ahmadi’s 22-year-old nephew Farshad Haidari, who told the Agence France-Presse news agency, “They must come here and apologize to us face-to-face.”įurthermore, despite Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s assertions last month that the Pentagon “will endeavor to learn from this horrible mistake,” there is little hope that this is the case – bearing in mind that the similar incidents concerning killing large numbers of civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria had already taken place in the past, according to numerous reports by The New York Times and Reuters, among others. The casualties were not terrorist savages but 10 innocent members of the Ahmadi family, including seven children.Īfter photos showing victims right before their deaths had emerged and actual footage of their horror began circulating on social media, it became clear that the youngest victims were just two years old. The celebratory mood did not last long, as witness reports that emerged shortly after the incident in Kabul’s Khwaja Burgha neighborhood debunked the Pentagon’s narrative by exposing the ugly truth. According to the initial reporting from the US officials, the August 29 drone strike aimed at annihilating members of the militant group Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K) was described as a successful operation that destroyed a car filled with “multiple suicide bombers” posing an imminent threat to US-led troops leaving Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover.

Us drone strike