Investigations of two of America's largest newspapers — The New York Times and The Washington Post — using video footage from satellites and local surveillance cameras, refute the official Pentagon data, according to which a missile strike from a drone in the capital of Afghanistan was carried out on August 29 on a terrorist who was carrying explosives in his car to carry out explosions at the Kabul airport.
Not a «stab in the back» to the military, but the usual work of journalists
While GOP supporters accuse the media of supporting President Biden and the Democratic Party, The New York Times and The Washington Post conducted their independent investigations to provide further compelling evidence of the general chaos that accompanied the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Department of Defense first announced that the Hellfire missile was fired from the Reaper drone absolutely legitimately, and then — after newspaper articles and the publication of video documents — opened its own investigation. So far, the Pentagon has not admitted mistakes.
Visual investigations are a relatively new word in journalism. As noted by Evan Hill, one of the authors of the publication in The New York Times, thanks to access to open information on the Internet — video from surveillance cameras, photographs, satellite images, various databases —
now it is possible to piece together what none of the investigators could have put together ten years ago.
In an interview with CNN, Hill notes: «Americans in the past tended to trust the government too much, but now we are collecting all the visual data that you can see for yourself, piecing it together in the most transparent way, use it to create your own story that defies the version of government.» … The head of the Washington Post's video investigations department, Nadine Ajaka, calls this work «visual examination», which helps to improve public understanding of the essence of events, as well as identify cases of government abuse. The visual re-creation and revision of events are absolutely transparent, — said the journalist, — it allows readers to understand exactly what we know and what we do not know. «
Hence the conclusion: behind attempts to restrict, censor or close Internet resources is nothing more than an attempt to hide the truth about the actions of the government. In the United States, this question is not posed, therefore, such investigations appear.
Still from NYT video investigation. Zemari Ahmadi at his white Toyota
What Happened: Press Investigation
Zemari Ahmadi, 43, was an electrical engineer by training. For 14 years, he worked in the Kabul office of Nutrition and Education International (NEI), a California-based American nongovernmental organization that aims to fight hunger around the world. NEI has opened 11 soybean processing plants in Afghanistan. Almost every day, Ahmadi got behind the wheel of a 1996 white Toyota Corolla owned by the company, took his colleagues to and from work, and, on behalf of NGOs, distributed food to Afghans who had lost their homes and jobs as a result of the war. In the three days before Ahmadi's death, attacks near Kabul airport killed 13 American troops and more than 170 Afghans. The Americans expected new attacks. The military has given lower-level commanders the authority to issue independent orders for airstrikes.
chronicle of events
According to The New York Times, which has recreated the minute-by-minute chronicle of the August 29 events,
- Ahmadi left his home at about 9 am .
- Then he took a colleague into the car and, at the request of the boss, took his laptop.
- Around this time, the US military said it saw a white sedan leaving an alleged IS * hideout about 5 kilometers northwest of the airport. This is why the Pentagon was convinced that they were tracking Ahmadi's white Toyota that day.
- The military also intercepted messages from the house, which was being followed, in which the driver of the car was ordered to make several stops along the way. But NGO colleagues who traveled with Ahmadi that day said that what the military interpreted as a series of suspicious steps was the most ordinary day in his life.
- After Ahmadi picked up a second colleague, all three stopped to have a quick breakfast.
- and at 9.35 am arrived at the office of the NGO.
- Later that morning, Ahmadi drove some of the officers to the Taliban-occupied ** police station to obtain permission from the new authorities to distribute food in the camp for displaced persons.
- At about 2 pm, Ahmadi and his colleagues returned to the office.
- CCTV footage, the investigators write, is critical to understanding what happened next. The time stamp on the camera was disabled, but reporters found out the time from interviews with office staff and matched it with a satellite image with a time stamp.
- At 2:35 pm, Ahmadi pulls out a hose, and then he and a colleague fill empty containers with water. Earlier this morning, he brought empty plastic containers to the office. According to the family, there was not enough water in the area, so he regularly brought water from the office.
- At about 3.38 pm, a colleague and an office security guard park Ahmadi's car in the driveway.
- A senior US administration official told the newspaper that around the same time, the military saw Ahmadi's car drive into an «unknown compound» 8-12 kilometers southwest of the airport. This coincides with the location of the NPO office.
- At the end of the working day , the generator was turned off in the office, and the transmission from the security camera stopped.
- The journalists do not have a video recording of the moments that followed. But it was at this time that the military said that their drone broadcast showed four men carefully loading the wrapped bags into the car. Officials said they could not tell what was inside.
The military decided it was explosives.
- According to Ahmadi's colleagues, they carried the laptop in a plastic shopping bag, and the only cargo in the trunk were containers of water.
- Ahmadi dropped each of them and then drove home to a densely populated area near the airport. According to his brother, children surrounded the car. A US spokesman said the military feared the car would again drive to an even more crowded street or airport.
- The drone operators, who were not watching Ahmadi's home that day, quickly surveyed the courtyard and said they saw only one adult male talking to the driver and no children. They decided that the moment had come.
- A US spokesman said the attack on Ahmadi's car ( at 4:50 pm ) was carried out by an MQ-9 Reaper drone, which fired one Hellfire missile with a 20-pound warhead.
Days after the attack, the Pentagon said the missile strike led to other explosions that likely killed civilians in the courtyard.
“Significant secondary explosions of the vehicle indicated the presence of a significant amount of explosive material. Since there were secondary explosions, a reasonable conclusion can be made that there was explosives in this car, ”the Defense Ministry said in a press release.
American journalists repeatedly visited the courtyard and provided video and photographic footage to independent weapons experts, who said the damage was consistent with a Hellfire missile strike. They pointed to a small crater under Ahmadi's car and damage from metal fragments of the warhead.
Experts pointed out that there is no evidence of large secondary explosions described by the Pentagon. No walls collapsed or blown up.