Aid worker Zemari Ahmadi, 43, was driving the 1996 Toyota Corolla that was destroyed in the August 29 drone strike
The drone strike that the Pentagon claimed killed an ISIS-K suicide bomber in Kabul actually targeted an aid worker who had filled his car with water jugs, rather than explosives, according to a shocking new report.
Zemari Ahmadi, 43, was driving the 1996 Toyota Corolla that was destroyed in the August 29 drone strike, killing him and nine family members, including seven children, according to a New York Times investigation.
Ahmadi worked for US-based aid group Nutrition and Education International, and spent the day running routine errands for the group, loading nothing into the car other than jugs full of water to bring home to his family, the Times reported, citing witnesses and surveillance video footage.
'All of them were innocent,' Ahmadi's brother Emal told the newspaper, noting that Ahmadi had sought refugee status with the US based on his international aid work. 'You say he was ISIS, but he worked for the Americans.'
Emal Ahmadi, another relative of the strike's victims, told the BBC that his two-year-old daughter who was killed in the strike while the family were waiting for a phone call from US personnel instructing them to go to the airport for evacuation
12-year-old Farzad Ahmadi was among the oldest of the children killed according to Ramin Yousufi, a member of the family who vilified the US strike as a 'brutal attack which happened based on wrong information'
Faisal Ahmadi, 16, was among the seven children that witnesses say were killed in the strike
The Pentagon has insisted that Ahmadi's movements linked him to an ISIS-K safehouse, and that there were explosives in his vehicle intended to be used in a suicide attack on US troops in the final hours of the Kabul evacuation.
'This was a righteous strike,' said Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark A. Milley last week, claiming that Ahmadi was an 'ISIS facilitator'.
In a statement to DailyMail.com on Friday, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby stood by the intelligence assessment that led to the strike, but did not deny there were civilian casualties.
'U.S. Central Command continues to assess the results of the airstrike in Kabul on August 29. We won't get ahead of that assessment,' said Kirby.
'However, as we have said, no other military works harder than we do to prevent civilian casualties,' he added.
'Additionally, as Chairman Milley said, the strike was based on good intelligence, and we still believe that it prevented an imminent threat to the airport and to our men and women that were still serving at the airport,' the spokesman said.
The drone strike occurred at the home where Ahmadi lived with three of his brothers and their families.
'This was a righteous strike,' said Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark A. Milley last week, claiming that Ahmadi was an 'ISIS facilitator'
A damaged vehicle is at the site of the U.S. airstrike in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan
The drone strike occurred at the home where Ahmadi lived with three of his brothers and their families
Expert analysis of photos of the scene show no evidence of a second blast, as the Pentagon claims
The broken gate of the house is seen after U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan. The US claimed the drone strike destroyed a vehicle carrying 'multiple suicide bombers'
According to the Times, killed in the drone strike were Ahmadi and three of his children, Zamir, 20, Faisal, 16, and Farzad, 10; Ahmadi's cousin Naser, 30; three of Ahmadi's nephews, Arwin, seven, Benyamin, six, and Hayat, two; and two three-year-old girls, Malika and Somaya.
The drone strike in Kabul came as US forces were on high alert following an ISIS-K suicide blast on August 26 that killed 13 US troops and scores of Afghans on August 26.
A separate US drone strike in remote Nangarhar
