Kabul: The drone attack that took place on Sunday left a devastating impact claiming the lives of 10 members ranging from two to 40 years old.
The Ahmadi and Nejrabi families had packed all their belongings, waiting for word to be escorted to Kabul airport and eventually moved to the United States, but the message Washington sent instead was a rocket into their homes in a Kabul neighbourhood.
In an instant, 10 people were killed, including no fewer than seven children, Ahmadi’s brother Emal said Monday. Among the dead were Ahmadi, 40, who the family said worked for a Southern California-based charity; a 25-year-old nephew who was about to be married; and five kids who were 5 years old or younger.
Several of the children quickly packed into the car, wanting to take the short ride from the street to the garden of the family home.
Neighbours speaking to Al Jazeera said the house, where little boys and girls had been playing a few minutes prior, turned into a “horror scene”. They described human flesh stuck to the walls. Bones fallen into the bushes. Walls stained red with blood. Shattered glass everywhere.
U.S. forces, which are due to complete their pullout from Afghanistan on Tuesday, say they launched a drone strike on Sunday that destroyed a car loaded with explosives and suicide bombers heading for Kabul’s airport, where a terrorist attack killed more than 180 people Thursday, including 13 U.S. service personnel.
It remained unclear Monday whether the drone strike was linked to the blast that hit Ahmadi’s car. In an initial statement after the strike, U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the U.S. military’s Central Command, said the strike had hit its intended target and that there were no indications of civilian casualties.
Ahmadi had applied for a special U.S. immigration designation that would allow him to leave Afghanistan and go to the U.S., his brother Emal said. Thousands of Afghans who worked with Western organizations have fled since the Taliban took over Afghanistan earlier this month, but thousands more are in danger of being left behind as the U.S. wraps up its airlift at Kabul airport Tuesday.