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WASHINGTON: None of the military personnel involved in a botched drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed 10 civilians will face any kind of punishment, the Pentagon said Monday.
The Pentagon acknowledged in September that the last US drone strike before US troops withdrew from Afghanistan the month before was a tragic mistake that killed the civilians, including seven children, after initially saying it had been necessary to prevent an Islamic State group attack on troops.
A subsequent high-level investigation into the episode found no violations of law but stopped short of fully exonerating those involved, saying such decisions should be left up to commanders.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who had left the final word on any administrative action, such as reprimands or demotions, to two senior commanders, approved their recommendation not to punish anyone. The two officers, Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., head of the military’s Central Command, and Gen. Richard D. Clarke, head of the Special Operations Command, found no grounds for penalizing any of the military personnel involved in the strike, said John F. Kirby, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson.
“What we saw here was a breakdown in process and execution in procedural events, not the result of negligence, not the result of misconduct, not the result of poor leadership,” Kirby told reporters.
In two decades of war against shadowy enemies like al-Qaida and the Islamic State, the US military has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians by accident in war zones like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia. And while the military from time to time accepts responsibility for an errant airstrike or a ground raid that harms civilians, rarely does it hold specific people accountable.
The most prominent recent exception to this trend was in 2016, when the Pentagon disciplined at least a dozen military personnel for their roles in an airstrike in October 2015 on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that killed 42 people. But none faced criminal charges.
“This decision is shocking,” said Steven Kwon, founder and president of Nutrition & Education International, the California-based aid organization that employed Zemari Ahmadi, the driver of a white Toyota sedan that was struck by the US drone. “How can our military wrongly take the lives of 10 precious Afghan people and hold no one accountable in any way?”
The Pentagon acknowledged in September that the last US drone strike before US troops withdrew from Afghanistan the month before was a tragic mistake that killed the civilians, including seven children, after initially saying it had been necessary to prevent an Islamic State group attack on troops.
A subsequent high-level investigation into the episode found no violations of law but stopped short of fully exonerating those involved, saying such decisions should be left up to commanders.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who had left the final word on any administrative action, such as reprimands or demotions, to two senior commanders, approved their recommendation not to punish anyone. The two officers, Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., head of the military’s Central Command, and Gen. Richard D. Clarke, head of the Special Operations Command, found no grounds for penalizing any of the military personnel involved in the strike, said John F. Kirby, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson.
“What we saw here was a breakdown in process and execution in procedural events, not the result of negligence, not the result of misconduct, not the result of poor leadership,” Kirby told reporters.
In two decades of war against shadowy enemies like al-Qaida and the Islamic State, the US military has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians by accident in war zones like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia. And while the military from time to time accepts responsibility for an errant airstrike or a ground raid that harms civilians, rarely does it hold specific people accountable.
The most prominent recent exception to this trend was in 2016, when the Pentagon disciplined at least a dozen military personnel for their roles in an airstrike in October 2015 on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that killed 42 people. But none faced criminal charges.
“This decision is shocking,” said Steven Kwon, founder and president of Nutrition & Education International, the California-based aid organization that employed Zemari Ahmadi, the driver of a white Toyota sedan that was struck by the US drone. “How can our military wrongly take the lives of 10 precious Afghan people and hold no one accountable in any way?”
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