“We want justice,” say relatives of the 10 civilians killed in a US airstrike in Afghanistan. The Pentagon acknowledges that it was “a mistake”

(CNN) – Emal Ahmadi knew that his brother Zamarai was not the ISIS-K collaborator that US officials presented as such in the days after his death. Now, finally, everyone knows it too.

Zamarai Ahmadi and nine other civilians, including seven children, were killed in a US airstrike in Kabul on August 29. For nearly three weeks, US officials continued to insist that the attack was “fair” and that at least one ISIS-K collaborator had been killed.

On Friday, the Pentagon admitted it was a tragic mistake. Zamarai Ahmadi, a 43-year-old technical engineer from “Nutrition and Education International”, a US non-profit organization, had no ties to ISIS-K.

Emal Ahmadi told CNN that while the United States’ acknowledgment that his older brother was a victim and not a terrorist brought some comfort to the family, they are still struggling to understand what happened.

“The United States knew that in this area, inside the car, there were children, Why did they attack innocents in this area? “He asked.

His daughter Malika was killed in the attack along with her uncle, her seven cousins ​​and another child. He was only two years old.
“They are all innocent, like my cute daughter … she was so adorable,” he said.

Emal Ahmadi spoke to CNN inside the damaged family home, a two-story building in a tidy Kabul neighborhood that Zamarai Ahmadi shared with his three brothers and their wives and children. The green metal gate, pierced by shrapnel three weeks ago, is now guarded by the Taliban. In the streets, the children play.

No one has cleaned up the place or removed the debris that is still scattered around the compound. The burned skeleton of a white Toyota Corolla, the target of the drone attack, remains in the middle of the courtyard, its roof blown off. Several of the children were in the car when the missile hit, the family said.

His little sandals, charred and deformed by the heat of the explosion, lie on the rubble.

In the upstairs kitchen, two potatoes, a knife, and a bright red spice rest prepared next to the pot. A memory of a family dinner that never took place.

Emal Ahmadi said that no US official has contacted the family directly.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III offered his condolences in a statement issued Friday, calling Ahmadi an “innocent victim” whose activities were “completely harmless.” “We apologize and will endeavor to learn from this horrible mistake,” he said.

General Frank McKenzie, commander of the US Central Command, said the Pentagon was considering paying severance payments to the family and said that while it was “very difficult” to reach people “on the ground in Afghanistan,” they will try.

When asked what they wanted from the United States, Emal Ahmadi and his brother Romal, whose three children – Aayat, 2; Binyamen, 6, and Armin, 7 – also died in the attack, they said “justice.”

In a dusty Kabul cemetery where his children, brother and other relatives were buried a few weeks ago, Romal Ahmadi told CNN that he wants the drone operators to face trial for the killings in court.

The family had to borrow money to pay for the funerals, there were so many that they could not pay out of their own pocket.

Asked if he could ever forgive the United States for what happened, Emal Ahmadi said “maybe.”

“But how am I going to do [eso]… I have lost my whole family … no one can give it back to me, “he said.

With input from Anna Coren, Sandi Sindu, and Julia Hollingsworth.