The United States may have mistakenly targeted an aid worker rather than the fighters of the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) in its final strike in Afghanistan on August 29, a video analysis by the New York Times has shown.

The US conducted airstrikes in Afghanistan after a suicide bomb attack, claimed by the ISKP, killed over 170 Afghans and 10 US servicemen near the Kabul airport on August 26. The Pentagon had said it conducted a Reaper drone strike on August 29 to prevent a new attack planned by the Islamic State extremist group.

However, the US strike allegedly killed at least 10 civilians, including young children, according to AFP. Kabul resident Aimal Ahmadi told AFP that his young daughter, nephews, nieces and his brother Ezmarai Ahmadi, who was driving the car that was targeted in the strikes.

Analysing the security camera footage, the New York Times claimed the US military may have been seeing Ahmadi and a colleague loading canisters of water, which was in short supply after the collapse of the Ashraf Ghani government, and picking up a laptop for his boss.

The report also noted that a rocket attack the following morning, claimed by the ISKP, was carried out from a Toyota Corolla similar to Ahmadi’s.

According to AFP, Ezmarai Ahmadi was an electrical engineer for the California-based aid and lobbying group Nutrition and Education International. He was among thousands of Afghans who had applied for resettlement in the US.

US officials say that a larger blast took place after the drone strike, showing that there were explosives in the vehicle. But the New York Times investigation said there was no evidence of a second explosion, with only one dent on a nearby gate and no clear signs of an additional blast such as blown-out walls.

Commenting on the NYT report, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said that US Central Command “continues to assess” the strike but asserted that “no other military works harder” to prevent civilian casualties.

“As Chairman (Mark) Milley said, the strike was based on good intelligence, and we still believe that it prevented an imminent threat to the airport and to our men and women that were still serving at the airport,” Kirby said, referring to the top US general.

(With inputs from AFP)

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