The Pentagon, which is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, has declassified and made public the video of the US drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that took place in retaliation against the 2021 airport attack carried out by the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (IS-KP), the New York Times reported.
10 civilians including seven children died in the drone attack which occurred during the final moments of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, after the Taliban emerged victorious from a 20 year long war.
The New York Times got access to the video through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the US Central Command.
Initially defending the drone attack that occurred on 29 August, the Pentagon later called it a "tragic mistake".
Talking about the attack, the the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley had stated in September last year, just under three week after the attack, that "after deeper post-strike analysis", the conclusion of the Pentagon was "that innocent civilians were killed".
"This is a horrible tragedy of war and it’s heart-wrenching and we are committed to being fully transparent about this incident," he had added, as quoted in an NYT report published on 17 September.
The investigation concerning the drone attack however, found no evidence of any wrongdoing by the Pentagon.
"It was an honest mistake," US air force inspector general, Lieutenant General Gen Sami Said (who was heading the investigation) told reporters at the Pentagon, The Guardian reported.
"But it’s not criminal conduct, random conduct, negligence."
(With inputs from The Guardian and the NYT)
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