In final hours of exit, US drone kills 10 civilians

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 30

The US is ending its stay in Afghanistan the same way it had started in 2001 with a misdirected airstrike that killed 10 civilians, including seven children, on Sunday evening even as the Taliban blamed it for being the catalyst for the Kabul airport attack on August 26.

US fends off 5 attacks targeting airport

• A day before Aug 31 withdrawal deadline, the US fended off a spate of rocket attacks aimed at the Kabul airport
• Anti-missile defences intercepted five rockets: White House

There is no obstacle for Hindus and Sikhs. They can go to Kabul airport and travel to India to attend religious ceremonies. — Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban Spokesperson

No security under US

They (US) are incapable of guaranteeing the security of Afghans. — Zabiullah Mujahid, Taliban Spokesperson

Though the US had claimed its “self-defence unmanned over-the-horizon air strike” had taken out a car-borne suicide bomber, local media reported that those killed were two families waiting for word to leave for a flight to the US. Two cars and several houses in the city were also destroyed in the attack.

The US had claimed its first drone strike in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, had killed Taliban supremo Mullah Omar, who in reality died of TB in 2013. In that case, it was not known who was actually killed instead. The US initially said it had no indication of civilian casualties but faced with mounting photo evidence, it ordered a probe.

The controversy has also raised doubts about claims of the United States to have killed the mastermind of the Kabul attacks a day later in an airstrike in a remote province.

With its claims of providing security in Kabul under question after the bloodbath at the airport, the Taliban blamed American soldiers for bringing thousands of people to the airport. “They are incapable of guaranteeing the security of Afghans,” said its spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid.

The local media was itself under pressure as images appeared of a TV anchor flanked by two armed Taliban gunmen, as he was reading the news, while 150 Afghan journalists wrote an open letter to the UN to protect them against threats. Tolo News journalist Behesta Arghand, the first woman scribe to interview a Taliban leader, has disclosed that she has already fled the country out of “fear of Taliban”.

The United States’ military spent a busy day, evacuating 1,200 in 26 flights and fended off a spate of rocket attacks aimed at the airport, a day before it wraps up its presence in Afghanistan. Anti-missile defences intercepted as many as five rockets, said the White House.