The US Department of Defense has decided not to punish American servicemen for the deaths of 10 civilians, including seven children, due to an air strike on Kabul. The department called the incident a tragic mistake. This was reported by The New York Times on Monday, December 13.
According to the publication, the Pentagon leadership during the investigation did not find violations of the law during the bombing of the Afghan capital.
It is noted that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin instructed the head of the Central Command of the US Armed Forces (AF), General Kenneth Mackenzie, and the head of the Special Operations Command of the Armed Forces (SOCOM), General Richard Clark, to make a decision on punishing someone for civilian casualties. Punishments such as reprimand or demotion of the guilty were considered. However, the generals did not reveal any misconduct in the actions of military personnel in Afghanistan.
The official representative of the US military department, John Kirby, said that what happened in Kabul "was a failure in the process and the implementation of procedural actions, and not the result of negligence, the result of misconduct or poor leadership."
Earlier, on August 29, in Kabul, American drones struck because of the threat from the IG (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation). The strike hit a car that was supposed to pose a danger to the airport of the Afghan capital. Then the Pentagon announced the absence of civilian casualties. However, later it turned out that the rocket hit a residential building in the Hajj Bagra area, and there are children among the dead.
The situation in Afghanistan escalated in May 2021 after the start of the withdrawal of American troops who had been in the country since 2001. Militants of the radical Taliban movement (an organization that is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities) launched an offensive against major cities of the country and entered Kabul on August 15, announcing the end of the war. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani left the country on the same day.
On August 31, the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan and completed both the operation to evacuate civilians from Kabul and its entire military mission in that country, which began after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
