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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 insisted the strike was “fair” and that at least one ISIS-K facilitator was killed.
Emal Ahmadi told CNN that while the recognition by the United States that his older brother was a victim and not a terrorist brought some solace to the family, they still struggle to understand what happened.
Her daughter Malika was killed in the attack alongside her uncle, seven cousins and another child. She was only two years old.
“They are all innocent, like my pretty daughter… she was so adorable,” Emal Ahmadi said.
He spoke to CNN inside the damaged family home, a two-story house in a tidy neighborhood of Kabul that Zamarai Ahmadi shared with his three brothers, their wives and children. The green metal door, pierced with shrapnel three weeks ago, is now guarded by the Taliban. In the streets outside, children are playing.
No one cleaned up the site or removed the debris still scattered around the enclosure. The burnt skeleton of a white Toyota Corolla, the target of the drone attack, is still in the middle of the yard, its roof ripped off. Several of the children were in the car when the missile hit, the family said. Their little sandals, charred and deformed by the heat of the explosion, lay on the debris.
On the upstairs kitchen counter, two potatoes, a knife, and some leftover bright red spices prepared next to the pot. A reminder of a family dinner that never took place.
Emal Ahmadi said no U.S. official contacted the family directly.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III offered his condolences in a statement released Friday, calling Ahmadi an “innocent victim” whose activities were “completely harmless.” “We apologize and will do our best to learn from this horrible mistake,” he said.
General Frank McKenzie, commander of the US Central Command, said the Pentagon was considering paying reparations to the family and said that while it was “very difficult” to reach people “on the ground in Afghanistan”, they would try to do it. so.
When asked what they expect from the United States, Emal Ahmadi and his brother Romal, whose three children – Aayat, 2, Binyamen, 6, and Armin, 7 – were also killed in the strike. , replied “justice”.
In a dusty Kabul cemetery where his children, brother and other family members were laid to rest just a few weeks ago, Romal Ahmadi told CNN he wanted the drone operators to stand trial for the murders in court.
The family had to borrow money to pay for the funeral, there was so much at one time that they couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket.
When asked if he could ever forgive the United States for what had happened, Emal Ahmadi replied “maybe”.
“But how should I do [that] (…) I lost my family (…) no one is able to give them back, “he said.
CNN’s Anna Coren, Sandi Sindu and Julia Hollingsworth contributed to this article.
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