Ian Patrick, FISM News
The Pentagon announced that it will be sending “condolence payments” to the families of those killed in a botched drone strike in Afghanistan earlier this year, according to corroborating reports from The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Last month, the Pentagon admitted that they had mistakenly killed a family of ten during a drone strike which was said to be targeting a suspected suicide bomber. Instead the strike killed Zemerai Ahmadi, an aid worker in Afghanistan, and his family. The death toll tragically included seven children.
The Pentagon issued two drone strikes shortly after the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport took the lives of several U.S. servicemen and injured over 90 others in August. The first strike was against two ISIS-K agents, which the Biden administration confirmed was successful. The second strike was the one that killed Ahmadi and his family.
On Thursday of last week, Colin Kahl, the U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, hosted a virtual meeting with Steven Kwon, the founder and president of Nutrition & Education International, the aid organization that employed Zemari Ahmadi. It was during this meeting that Kahl offered the payments.
The Defense Department also said that it is working with the State Department to potentially relocate the families of the victims to the United States.
Congress had also previously announced that there will be multiple probes investigating the strike to see if any extra accountability or action needs to be taken for future counterterrorism strategy.