{"id":753980,"date":"2021-09-15T05:05:37","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T09:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=753980"},"modified":"2021-09-15T08:26:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T12:26:36","slug":"blinken-says-us-doesnt-know-who-was-killed-in-kabul-drone-strike-review-forthcoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/blinken-says-us-doesnt-know-who-was-killed-in-kabul-drone-strike-review-forthcoming\/","title":{"rendered":"Blinken Says US Doesn\u2019t Know Who Was Killed in Kabul Drone Strike, Review Forthcoming"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fblinken-says-us-doesnt-know-who-was-killed-in-kabul-drone-strike-review-forthcoming%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=753980&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Secretary of State <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-antony-blinken\">Antony Blinken<\/a> said on Tuesday that he doesn\u2019t know at this stage whether a U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-drone\">drone<\/a> strike in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-kabul\">Kabul<\/a>, Afghanistan, last month killed a suspected member of the ISIS-K terrorist group or an Afghan aid worker and his family.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe guy the Biden administration droned, was he an aid worker or an ISIS-K operative?\u201d Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) asked Blinken during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>The Kentucky senator was referring to a report by The New York Times that the drone mistakenly struck Zemari Ahmadi, a 43-year-old worker for Nutrition and Education International, a California-based aid group.<\/p>\n<p>Blinken replied: \u201cThe administration is, of course, reviewing that strike. I\u2019m sure that a full assessment will be forthcoming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo you don\u2019t know if it was an aid worker or an ISIS-K operative?\u201d Paul asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know because we\u2019re reviewing it,\u201d Blinken responded.<\/p>\n<p>It comes after Capt. Bill Urban, a Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson, confirmed on Aug. 29, a day after the strike, that the United States is investigating reports of civilian casualties.<\/p>\n<p>Urban said at the time that while the U.S.-led counter-terrorism drone attack disrupted an imminent ISIS-K threat to Kabul\u2019s international airport, \u201cWe would be deeply saddened by any potential loss of innocent life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon earlier said in a statement that the drone strike killed two \u201chigh-profile\u201d ISIS-K terrorist group members and wounded another.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement on Tuesday, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said that department works \u201cvery hard\u201d to avoid civilian casualties, adding, \u201cWe would be deeply saddened by any loss of innocent life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019d think you\u2019d kind of know before you off somebody with a predator drone, whether he\u2019s an aid worker or he\u2019s an ISIS-K operative,\u201d Paul added on Tuesday, probing Blinken further on the issue.<\/p>\n<p>The Aug. 28 drone strike came shortly after an attack on Kabul\u2019s international airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and over 100 Afghans. ISIS-K, an ISIS affiliate, claimed responsibility for the Aug. 26 attack, bragging about a suicide bomber \u201cmanaging to penetrate all the security fortifications\u201d put into place by U.S. troops and the Taliban terrorist group.<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 2015, ISIS-K is a sworn enemy of the Taliban and the United States. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said that the terrorist group was probing the attacks.<\/p>\n<p>Taliban involvement in the attack on Kabul airport also hasn\u2019t been ruled out by the United States. Kirby said on Aug. 27 that U.S. officials were\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/pentagon-thousands-of-isis-terrorists-released-from-afghanistan-prisons_3968262.html\">unsure if the Taliban was involved<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/WEB_IsabelVanBrugen.jpg\" alt=\"Isabel van Brugen\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"names\">\n<p>Isabel van Brugen<\/p>\n<p>Reporter<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Isabel van Brugen is an award-winning journalist and currently a news reporter at The Epoch Times. She holds a master&#8217;s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that he doesn\u2019t know at this stage whether a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, last month killed a suspected member of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-753980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}