Afghan family seeks justice in US drone attack

Zemari Ahmadi was an employee of Nutrition and Education International, an American aid group that was working to counter malnutrition in Afghanistan. Ahmadi along with his family members, including children, were killed when a missile from a U.S. drone slammed into his car. The U.S. military said that Ahmadi was an IS operator about to drive a bomb to Kabul airport.

Kabul: A Kabul resident, who lost 10 members of his extended family in a drone strike last month, was on Monday repeating his call for the US to accept their mistake and investigate the matter.

Emal Ahmadi reiterated that his family were innocent, and wrongly targeted in the August 29 US drone attack to take out a purported Islamic State group suicide operation in a Kabul neighbourhood.

He said his family was not linked to the group, and were in fact employees of American organisations who were planning to travel to the U.S. on various immigration programmes.

On Monday, members of the Ahmadi family were praying at the graves of their loved ones who were killed when a missile from a U.S. drone slammed into the car of Zemari Ahmadi, who the U.S. military says was an IS operator about to drive a bomb to Kabul airport.

Zemari Ahmadi was an employee of Nutrition and Education International, an American aid group that was working to counter malnutrition in Afghanistan.

He had applied to be resettled in the United States, as had his brother, Romal, also briefly a NEI employee and who also died in the drone strike.

Colleagues of Zemari Ahmadi at NEI described him as a talented worker who over the course of 15 years worked his way up from a handyman to a skilled engineer and an essential employee.

Emal, Zemari's brother, who survived, was a DynCorp employee, was also planning to go to America on a special immigration visa for Afghans who may be vulnerable for their work with the U.S. military.

Speaking to The Associated Press, Emal, 37, maintained that they had nothing to do with IS.

He said he wants U.S. officials to meet with the family and apologise for killing 10 members of his family, including seven children.

Emal's three-year-old daughter, Malika, was one of the seven children killed in the strike.

Frustrated by Washington's silence, Emal now fears the country's new Taliban rulers may now be suspicious of him.

Gesturing at his now-abandoned family home, he says none of his brothers have jobs and see no future in their homeland.

He says for his safety he now must go to America with all his family. Emal is now responsible for the families of the dead. In all, he says, he is responsible for 17 people.

The AP sifted through documents Emal provided of their applications, letters of recommendations and even a medal his 30-year-old nephew Naser had received for his service with a special U.S. trained elite special force.

Naser also died in the attack.

Washington claimed the drone strike destroyed a vehicle packed with explosives, weakened the Islamic State and prevented an "imminent attack" on Kabul airport.

At the Ahmadi home, the vehicle, in which the family says three children were among the passengers incinerated in the attack, still stands, a gutted hunk of charred twisted metal.

There is no crater, nor signs of the secondary explosions the Pentagon said may have caused the civilian casualties.

The adjacent house where the four brothers and their families lived is undamaged but for broken glass. The brick wall adjacent to the car stands intact.

The Pentagon spokesman said Monday that an on-the-ground investigation was unlikely.

AP