Following an attack at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan on Aug. 26, which left 13 U.S. service members dead, President Biden vowed immediate action against ISIS-K, an offshoot branch of ISIS, which was believed to be behind the attack. The attack, consisting of two suicide bombers and gunmen attacking throngs of people surrounding a section of the airport, took advantage of the chaos created by the botched American withdrawal from the Afghan region.
As a result of the Aug. 26 attack, the President vowed swift action to strike at those directly responsible. Just days later, on Aug 29, a drone strike was undertaken allegedly hitting ISIS-K targets, specifically those involved with planning the Aug. 26 attack that resulted in dead U.S. troops.
Reports at the time explicitly indicated the Pentagon had accomplished the mission (August 29):
WASHINGTON, Aug 29 (Reuters) – American forces launched a drone strike in Kabul on Sunday that killed a suicide car bomber suspected of preparing to attack the airport, U.S. officials said, as the United States nears the end of its military presence in the Afghan capital.
Following the attack, the Biden administration went on a parade of “mission accomplished” press conferences claiming the strike was “righteous” and hit the intended target. Even at the time, however, there were reports of civilians killed during the attack, but the Pentagon stood by its decision:
General Milley on Sept 1 on the drone strike that killed 10 civilians:
“We think that the procedures were correctly followed and this was a righteous strike”
https://t.co/NDrdRPWJdg— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 17, 2021
As it turns out, in a conveniently timed Friday afternoon news dump, not only was the strike not “righteous,” it was a total and complete failure resulting in the deaths of civilians and children, and no dead terrorists.
On Friday afternoon, heading into a weekend, the Pentagon acknowledged that the Aug. 29 drone strike was a botched mission based on faulty intelligence (Sept. 17):
The Pentagon is calling an Aug. 29 drone strike that killed up to 10 civilians in Afghanistan, including seven children, a “tragic mistake.”
The strike was meant to target the masterminds of an earlier attack on the Kabul airport, which was blamed on ISIS-K. And for weeks, the Pentagon maintained that despite the inadvertent deaths of civilians, the mission had been successful.
But on Friday, officials said an internal review revealed that no Islamic State members had been killed in the attack, only civilians.
“The strike was a tragic mistake,” Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, told a Pentagon news conference.
“I am now convinced that as many as 10 civilians, including up to seven children, were tragically killed in that strike,” McKenzie added. “Moreover, we now assess that it is unlikely that the vehicle and those who died were associated with ISIS-K, or a direct threat to U.S. forces.”
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the story is how the administration has been claiming since the strike that it was a success. At some point, however, their tune changed and they knew it was failed mission that ended in only civilian deaths.
Questions are now being asked about why the Biden administration rushed into the drone strike and where the intelligence about the target originated from. We may have answers to those questions in the coming days.
Just days ago, during Senate testimony, Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted he couldn’t definitively say that any ISIS-K terrorists died in the drone strike:
Rand Paul grills Blinken on a drone strike in Afghanistan that reportedly mistakenly killed an aid worker and several civilians, including children pic.twitter.com/oqLQJmrJ6I
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 14, 2021
Some are also asking if the Biden administration was engaged in a cover-up of the aftermath, attempting to conceal the gruesome reality from the American public.
In the meantime, however, this news is another bad grade for an administration that is still failing in Afghanistan and still floundering to contain a situation that continues to spiral out of control.
There are civilian planes in the country still being denied exit which is a hostage situation being largely ignored and downplayed.
