US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the commander of the US Central Command, General Kenneth McKenzie, apologized for the air strike that Washington mistakenly carried out last month in the Afghan capital, Kabul, which killed 10 civilians, which was the raid that was targeting members of the Islamic State.

"I offer my deepest condolences to the relatives of those who survived," the US Defense Secretary added in a statement, acknowledging that the man targeted in the US air strike was an "innocent victim, like others who were tragically killed."

The commander of the US Central Command said - in a press conference on Friday - that "the investigations indicate that the air strike that killed 10 civilians, including 7 children, in Kabul, was a big mistake, and we certainly regret that and we regret it and bear full responsibility for it."

General McKenzie added that the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) is considering paying compensation to the families of the dead civilians.

"No military makes an effort as we do to avoid civilian casualties," the US military said in a statement. "When we have reasons to believe we have killed innocent lives, we investigate and admit it if it turns out to be true."

US Defense Secretary: The man targeted by the US raid was an innocent victim like the others who were tragically killed (Getty Images)

first novel

Senior US military officers had said in the first account that the air strike, which was carried out on August 29, targeted a "jihadist" of the Islamic State inside a car bomb, and that he represented an imminent threat to Kabul Airport.

The air raid came at a time when America and its Western allies were completing the air evacuation of their forces from Afghanistan through Kabul airport, after the Taliban movement took control of the country in the middle of last month.

On September 11, the American New York Times published an investigation that contradicts the US military’s account of the recent strike it carried out in Afghanistan. The army even killed an aid worker for an NGO who was carrying water bottles.

The newspaper questioned the account of US officials about the raid, which was carried out by a drone, and targeted a house in a neighborhood in the Afghan capital.

Nine civilians, including 7 children, were killed in a US drone strike on a car believed to be driven by an ISIS terrorist to attack the Kabul airport yesterday.. It seems that the theory of gear has become practically applied by America... Nine were killed for one.

pic.twitter.com/ua2EGtQ8zG

- Dr. Ahmed Muaffaq Zidan (@Ahmadmuaffaq) August 31, 2021

aid worker

And the American newspaper - in its investigation, which it titled “imminent danger or a relief worker... Did the US drone strike in Kabul kill the wrong person?” - that the driver of the car targeted by the US raid is Zamari Ahmadi, 43, an Afghan who has been working for years. There are many members of an American relief organization, and all the evidence confirms that his transportation on the day the strike was carried out, which the US military considered suspicious, was to transport his colleagues to and from work.

The newspaper pointed out that Zamari Ahmadi was working as an engineer with the "Nutrition and Education International", an American non-profit organization.

It is noteworthy that a study by the American Brown University published last April, concluded that more than 71,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians were directly killed during the war declared by America after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the study added that the number of civilian casualties of the American war increased during the mandate Former President Donald Trump.