issuing time:
CNN quoted three people familiar with the matter as reporting that the U.S. military bombed a car on August 29 to prevent a terrorist attack on the airport in the Afghan capital Kabul. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) urgently informed that there were children in the car. But it was too late. The time difference is only a few seconds.
According to a CNN source quoted by the Central News Agency today, the CIA had warned that the US military had targeted children, but it was a few seconds late. The U.S. military believed that this white Toyota Corolla constituted an urgent threat to the U.S. forces leading the evacuation of Kabul Airport, so they dispatched drones to drop a Hellfire missile to blow it up. However, this operation resulted in the deaths of 10 Afghan civilians, including 7 children. In the next few weeks, the US military admitted that some civilians might have died in the attack, but insisted that the action was justified because the target of the attack was confirmed to be a terrorist.
However, after several weeks of media reports questioning the attack, the US Department of Defense admitted on the 17th that no one in the bombed vehicle was originally believed to belong to the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISIS-K). The commander of the US Central Command, Kenneth McKenzie, said bluntly at the Pentagon press conference: “This is a mistake.”
Now another source revealed that after the US military fired a missile at the white Toyota car, the US military received a warning from the CIA that the location of the vehicle is likely to be civilians and there may be children in the car; but it is too late, a few seconds. The rear missile hit the target.
It is still unclear whether the U.S. military notified the intelligence unit of the military’s decision to attack the vehicle in advance. The US military calls this approach a “dynamic” strike, that is, the on-site commander has the right to launch an attack without reporting upwards according to the command system. In some cases, the US military may require intelligence units to “send missions” to monitor targets by unmanned reconnaissance aircraft or other assets, such as a car or a specific location. At this time, the intelligence units will share the collected information with the Department of Defense in real time. . But in the end it was the commander of the US ground forces that made the decision to attack.
According to the report, some sources said that because the Joe Biden administration is weighing how the U.S. military has withdrawn from Afghanistan, how it should attack local targets in the future. The above-mentioned cases of poor communication highlight what the Biden administration urgently needs to do now. A decision that the Ministry of Defense or the CIA should be responsible for future attack missions?
.