US to financially support relatives of Kabul drone strike victims

The US government has offered financial compensation to the relatives of 10 people. The American military mistakenly killed those in a Kabul drone strike in August. An aid worker and nine members of his family have died during the strike.

The Pentagon said that it was also working to help those surviving members to relocate to the US.

The strike happened before the withdrawal of the US military from Afghanistan. It came up with the frenzied evacuation effort after the sudden return of the Taliban to power. A day earlier, IS-K, a local branch of the IS group, attacked the Kabul airport.

US intelligence has tracked the car of that aid worker for 8 hours on 29th august with a suspicion that it is having a link to IS -K militant.

The investigation has found that the man’s car was there in a compound associated with IS-K before the Kabul Drone strike. Its movement has also aligned with the other intelligence about the plans of the terror group for an attack on Kabul airport.

At another point, the drone found out that men were loading something in the boot of the cars. Those turned out to be the water containers. Glen McKenzie has described this strike as a traffic mistake. He further added that there is no Taliban involvement in the intelligence which has led to this strike.

However, the compensation offer came up on Thursday in a meeting between Colin Kahl, the under-secretary of defense for policy, and Steven Kwon. Mr. Kahl has noted that Mr. Ahmadi and others were innocent victims who bore no blame and were not all affiliated with ISIS-K or threats to US forces.

When the US started to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban managed to seize control of the country.

It has further sparked mass evacuation efforts from the US and its allies. The security situation also heightened after the Kabul airport attack as a suicide bomber killed 170 civilians and13 US troops.

More than 124000 foreigners and Afghans have flown out of the country. However, some people are still unable to get out in time, and evacuation efforts for them are going on.

Credits: BBC