The US military on Friday said it intends to compensate the family members of the 10 civilians — including seven kids — killed in a botched airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan in August.
Pentagon representative John Kirby said in an explanation that the Department of Defense is additionally working with the State Department to relocate the families to the US.
The matter of condolence payments came up in a meeting Thursday between Dr. Colin Kahl, under secretary of defense for policy, and Dr. Steven Kwon, founder and president of the charity group Nutrition & Education International, employer of aid worker Zemerai Ahmadi, who was among those killed in the drone strike.
“Dr. Kahl repeated Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s obligation to the families, including offering ex gratia sympathy installments,” Kirby said.
He didn’t say how much cash would be advertised.
On Aug. 29, one day before the last turbulent US clearing departures from Kabul, a Hellfire missile struck a van driven by Ahmadi after it had maneuvered into the family’s compound, killing the guide laborer and nine others.
The Pentagon at first said the strike was a fruitful, “righteous” mission that had killed psychological oppressors from ISIS-K, the neighborhood Afghani subsidiary of the terror group, forestalling one more self destruction besieging at the air terminal, for example, the impact that killed 169 Afghan civilians and 13 US service members days sooner on Aug. 26.
Almost three weeks after the fact, Marine Corps Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., commandant of US Central Command, conceded the “shocking error,” giving his sympathies to the groups of those killed in the errant strike.
The Pentagon portrayed Ahmadi’s inadvertent killing as a result of the frenzied evacuation effort after the Taliban cleared into Kabul before President Biden’s Aug. 31 cutoff time to pull US forces from the country.
Ahmadi had spent 14 years as a technical engineer in Afghanistan for the Pasadena, Calif.-based charity group, which feeds hungry Afghans.
In Thursday’s meeting, Kwon said Ahmadi had worked “giving consideration and lifesaving help to people confronting high death rates in Afghanistan,” as per Kirby.
Lamenting family members have campaigned the US government for remuneration and help to leave the country.
“Regardless of whether in America or another country, we need harmony and solace for our leftover years,” Samim Ahmadi — the 24-year-old stepson of Zemerai—told the media last month.