Military Can’t Find ISIS Safe House That Prompted Kabul Drone Strike

WASHINGTON — The U.S. subject has not located a suspected Islamic State harmless location successful Kabul, Afghanistan, that officials initially said led to an American drone onslaught connected Aug. 29 that mistakenly killed 10 civilians, including 7 children, according to 2 elder subject officials.

Two days earlier the drone strike, subject officials said they had determined done physics intercepts, aerial surveillance and informants that ISIS planners were utilizing a compound astir 3 miles northwest of the Kabul airdrome to facilitate aboriginal attacks involving rockets, termination explosive vests and car bombs.

But an enquiry into the drone onslaught by the Air Force’s inspector general, Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said, said that was wrong. “We person not recovered immoderate peculiar harmless house,” helium said successful a telephone interrogation aft making his findings nationalist past week.

General Said would not sermon the underlying accusation that led subject analysts to absorption connected the harmless location — and adjacent dispatch six Reaper drones to show it — different than to say, “It was not faulty intelligence; it was conscionable not specific.” A 2nd U.S. subject authoritative confirmed that the disposable quality connected the determination was not precise enough.

Nearly everything elder defence officials asserted successful the hours, past days and weeks, aft the drone onslaught has turned retired to beryllium false. The explosives the subject claimed were loaded successful the trunk of a achromatic Toyota sedan struck by the drone’s Hellfire rocket were astir apt h2o bottles, and a secondary detonation successful the courtyard successful a densely populated Kabul vicinity wherever the onslaught took spot was astir apt a propane oregon state tank, officials said.

Senior Defense Department leaders person conceded that the operator of the car, Zemari Ahmadi, a longtime idiosyncratic for a U.S. assistance group, had thing to bash with the Islamic State, contrary to what subject officials had antecedently asserted. Mr. Ahmadi’s lone transportation to the violent radical appeared to beryllium a fleeting and innocuous enactment with radical successful what the subject believed was an ISIS harmless location successful Kabul.

But present Pentagon officials accidental that judgement was besides mistaken, aft an investigation by The New York Times that the harmless house’s determination was really the residence of Mr. Ahmadi’s boss, who American subject officials besides accidental has nary ties to ISIS.

General Said recovered nary violations of instrumentality and did not urge immoderate disciplinary action. He said a bid of assumptions, made implicit the people of 8 hours arsenic U.S. officials tracked the achromatic Toyota Corolla done Kabul, caused what helium called “confirmation bias,” starring to the drone strike.

General Said’s probe made respective recommendations for fixing the process done which strikes are ordered, including caller measures to chopped down the hazard of confirmation bias and a reappraisal of the procedures utilized to find whether civilians are present.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has approved General Said’s findings and recommendations, the main Pentagon spokesman, John F. Kirby, said past week, and has near it up to the four-star generals starring the military’s Central and Special Operations commands to decide, astir apt successful the adjacent fewer weeks, whether anyone should beryllium disciplined oregon rebuked for the strike.

In describing his investigation, General Said said past week that surveillance videos showed astatine slightest 1 kid successful the country immoderate 2 minutes earlier the subject launched the drone strike. But the wide besides said that footage would person been casual to miss successful existent time.

In the consequent interview, General Said provided further details, saying that 9 seconds earlier subject operators fired the missile, surveillance video showed the beingness of 4 adults and 2 children — the largest fig of radical captured connected video earlier the strike. According to General Said, that radical of radical — successful summation to Mr. Ahmadi and his cousin, whom analysts intelligibly saw earlier launching the onslaught — would person besides been casual to miss.

Separately, 3 U.S. officials said connected Monday that the C.I.A. had alerted the subject to the beingness of a kid astatine the onslaught tract connected Aug. 29 but that subject officials said the informing came excessively precocious — aft the rocket was launched.

Understand the Taliban Takeover successful Afghanistan

General Said and different apical subject officials, including Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the caput of the Central Command, person sought to enactment the drone onslaught into the discourse of the moment, with American officials astatine a heightened authorities of alert aft a termination bombing astatine the Kabul airdrome 3 days earlier killed astir 170 civilians and 13 U.S. troops.

The military’s archetypal mistake was incorrectly identifying a household location arsenic an Islamic State harmless house. “In the 48 hours anterior to the strike, delicate quality indicated that the compound astatine constituent No. 1 connected the representation was being utilized by ISIS-K planners, utilized to facilitate aboriginal attacks,” General McKenzie told reporters astatine his Sept. 17 briefing, referring to an Islamic State affiliate.

Another recurring facet of the intelligence, General McKenzie said, was that ISIS would usage a achromatic Toyota Corolla arsenic a cardinal constituent successful the adjacent onslaught against American troops astatine the airport.

At 8:52 a.m. connected Aug. 29, a achromatic Toyota Corolla — Mr. Ahmadi’s sedan — arrived astatine what the subject believed was an ISIS harmless house.

But witnesser grounds and ocular grounds gathered by The Times bespeak that this compound was astir apt the location of Mr. Ahmadi’s boss, the state manager of Nutrition and Education International, a California-based assistance group. The manager had asked Mr. Ahmadi to halt by his location to prime up his laptop connected the mode to enactment that morning.

According to General Said, subject analysts suspected connected Aug. 29 that the termination bomber had astatine immoderate constituent 3 days earlier carried explosives successful a achromatic container akin to a laptop bag. Seeing a achromatic container being exchanged astatine a suspected ISIS harmless location the greeting of the onslaught was yet different information constituent that generated confirmation bias, the wide said.

Adam Goldman and Julian E. Barnes contributed reporting.