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However what the gossip and the op-eds didn’t point out was that the actual shock wasn’t Haqqani’s public appearances—it was that he was showing in any respect: A number of occasions over the past twenty years, the US navy thought they’d killed him in drone strikes. Clearly Haqqani is alive and nicely. However that raises a obtrusive query: if Khalil ur-Rahman Haqqani wasn’t killed in these US drone strikes, who was? The standard bland response is “terrorists,” a solution now institutionalized by the very best ranges of the US safety state. However the closing days of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan confirmed that isn’t essentially true. A day after an assault on troops at Kabul’s teeming airport, for instance, the US responded with a “focused” drone strike within the capital. Afterward it emerged that the assault had killed 10 members of 1 household, all of whom have been civilians. One of many victims had served as an interpreter for the US in Afghanistan and had a Particular Immigrant Visa prepared. Seven victims have been kids. This didn’t match the generic success story the Biden administration initially instructed. One thing completely different occurred with this strike, nevertheless. For years, a lot of the aerial operations the US has carried out passed off in distant, rural areas the place few info may very well be verified and never many individuals might go to the scene. However this strike passed off in the midst of the nation’s capital. Journalists and investigators might go to the location, which meant they may simply fact-check every thing america was claiming—and what had really occurred quickly turned clear. First, native Afghan tv channels, like Tolo Information, confirmed the relations of the victims. With a lot consideration being paid to the withdrawal from Afghanistan, worldwide media shops began to reach, too. An in depth report by the New York Instances compelled Washington to retract its earlier claims. “It was a tragic mistake,” the Pentagon mentioned throughout a press convention, because it was compelled to confess that the strike had killed harmless civilians with no hyperlinks to ISIS. In truth, American’s final drone strike in Afghanistan was eerily much like its first one. In truth, America’s final drone strike in Afghanistan—its final high-profile act of violence—was eerily much like its very first one. On October 7, 2001, america and its allies invaded Afghanistan with a view to topple the Taliban regime. That day the primary drone operation in historical past passed off. An armed Predator drone flew over the southern province of Kandahar, often called the Taliban’s capital, which was the house of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the group’s supreme chief. Operators pushed the button to kill Omar, firing two Hellfire missiles at a gaggle of bearded Afghans in unfastened robes and turbans. However afterward, he was not discovered amongst them. In truth, he evaded the allegedly exact drones for greater than a decade, ultimately dying of pure causes in a hideout mere miles from a sprawling US base. As an alternative, America left an extended path of Afghan blood in its makes an attempt to kill him and his associates.
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