“The vehicle caught fire and the dead bodies are badly mutilated,” he added. “At least eight militant have been killed in the second strike,” he said, describing them all as “foreigners.”Īnother security official in Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan, put the death toll at 12, saying they were all Uzbek Islamist fighters. “The death toll may rise,” a Pakistani security official warned AFP after the second strike targeted militants travelling in a double cabin pick-up. NPR Pentagon reporter Tom Bowman contributed to this report.Five militants were killed in the first attack that destroyed a compound in Spalga town near Miranshah and at least eight died in the second attack on a vehicle near the town of Mir Ali, about 25 kilometres to the east. "Why would we have explosives to kill people?"
"We're trying to help people," he told the Post. Kwon denied that NEI has any association with ISIS-K. After Ahmadi met at the NEI compound to discuss an emergency food aid program for displaced people, he spent the rest of the day running errands, Kwon said. Steven Kwon, president of California-based Nutrition and Education International, told the Post that the white sedan belonged to the organization. "My theory is: The explosives themselves ruptured the gas tank, released the vapor, and because of the fire that happened a short time afterward, it detonated and caused something that may have been explosion-like," said Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. If there was a secondary explosion, two experts said, it was likely caused by ignited fuel vapors. "It seriously questions the credibility of the intelligence or technology utilized to determine this was a legitimate target," security consultant Chris Cobb-Smith told the Times.Įxplosives experts told the Post that the damage was mostly caused by the Hellfire missile fired by the drone. Experts pointed to the lack of collapsed walls or destroyed vegetation. Times reporters could find no evidence of a second explosion at the scene. The Times and Post analyses also called into question military assertions of "secondary explosions" in the courtyard. "I filled the containers myself, and helped him load them into the trunk," a guard told the Times.
Us drone strike afghanistan farmers driver#
Military officials had said the driver seemed to have loaded explosives into the car that day, but security camera footage obtained by the Times shows the alleged explosives were likely containers used to carry water home to his family.
The Centcom group that gathered the intelligence is reviewing all the information it had, although it's uncertain when or if any results will be made public. What is uncertain, the source said, is whether the driver was part of the supposed terrorist effort or was forced into it. official tells NPR that Central Command continues to believe it was a legitimate target. Bill Urban declined to comment on the allegations, citing an ongoing investigation.
Ahmadi's relatives told the Times that 10 members of their family were killed, including seven children. Family members told the Times that Ahmadi had applied for refugee resettlement in the United States.Īhmadi was not the only person killed by the drone strike. aid group Nutrition and Education International, which aims to eliminate malnutrition in Afghanistan. But the Times and Post investigations were unable to find evidence of any explosives in the car, which they say was driven by 43-year-old Zemari Ahmadi, an engineer working for the U.S.
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