The United States is investigating whether civilians may have been killed in an air strike it launched to destroy a car laden with explosives in the Afghan capital Kabul, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said on Sunday.
The statement came after CNN reported that nine members of a family, including six children, were killed in Sunday’s air strike in the crowded capital, where thousands of Afghans are still trying to flee the Taliban.
AFP has not been able to confirm the report. Local media also reported that civilians were killed in the strike.
“We are aware of reports of civilian casualties following our strike on a vehicle in Kabul today,” Captain Bill Urban, a CENTCOM spokesman, said in a statement.
“We are still assessing the results of this strike, which we know disrupted an imminent ISIS-K threat to the airport,” he continued, using an acronym for the Afghan branch of the Islamic State group, which carried out a suicide attack at the airport on Thursday.
“We know that there were substantial and powerful subsequent explosions resulting from the destruction of the vehicle, indicating a large amount of explosive material inside that may have caused additional casualties,” Capt. Urban continued. “It is unclear what may have happened, and we are investigating further.
“We would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life,” he said.
The U.S. air strike came after a suicide bomber from the Islamic State group on Thursday targeted U.S. troops stopping huge crowds of people from entering the airport as they try to flee the new Taliban regime.
Scores of people died in the attack, including 13 U.S. service personnel.
The car that was destroyed by the U.S. strike had been headed for Kabul’s airport, a Taliban spokesman had said earlier Sunday.
About 1,14,000 people have been evacuated since August 15, when the Taliban swept back into power. The American withdrawal from Afghanistan is due to be completed by Tuesday.
Unlawful action: Taliban
Meanwhile, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the U.S. drone strike resulted in civilian casualties, and condemned the United States for failing to inform the Taliban before ordering the strike.
Mujahid told China’s state television CGTN on Monday that seven people were killed in the drone attack, describing the U.S. action on foreign soil as unlawful.
“If there was any potential threat in Afghanistan, it should have been reported to us, not an arbitrary attack that has resulted in civilian casualties,” Mujahid said in a written response to CGTN.
Mujahid had issued a similar condemnation of a U.S. drone strike on Saturday that killed two Islamic State militants in the eastern province of Nangarhar. He said two women and a child were wounded in that attack.
Pentagon officials said the suicide car bomber had been preparing to attack the airport in Kabul, where U.S. troops were in the final stages of a withdrawal from Afghanistan, on behalf of ISIS-K, a local affiliate of Islamic State that is an enemy of both the West and the Taliban.
