Military investigation reveals how the U.S. botched a drone strike in Kabul.
WASHINGTON — In the chaotic final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, U.S. military analysts observed a white Toyota Corolla stop at what they believed was an Islamic State compound.
The documents also provide detailed examples of how assumptions and biases led to the deadly blunder. Responding to a description of the document released to the Times, Hina Shamsi, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing families of victims, said the investigation “makes clear that military personnel saw what they wanted to see and not reality, which was an Afghan aid worker going about his daily life.”On Aug. 29, 2021, an American MQ-9 Reaper drone shot a Hellfire missile at a white Toyota Corolla in a neighborhood near the Kabul airport.
Later that day, Central Command said in a statement that officials were “assessing the possibilities of civilian casualties” but had “no indications at this time.” On Sept. 10, a Times investigation based on video evidence and interviews with more than a dozen of Ahmadi’s co-workers and family members in Kabul found no evidence that explosives were present in the vehicle.
The documents obtained by the Times offer specific examples of how confirmation bias led to errors, including the military’s conclusion that the car it was looking for was the one Ahmadi was driving. The investigation notes the car’s other movements that day, including that it entered a mall parking garage, that “bags” and “jugs” were unloaded from the trunk, and that it stopped at a Taliban checkpoint.
At this point, new intelligence indicated the airport attack would be delayed until the following day, according to one of the investigation’s interviewees, but military personnel were concerned that they could lose the target. The investigation refers to an additional surveillance drone not under military control that was also tracking the vehicle but does not specify what it observed. The Times confirmed that the drone was operated by the CIA and observed children, possibly in the car, moments before impact, as CNN had reported.
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