According to two U.S. officials, the U.S. relied in part on aerial surveillance footage to target ISIS-K combat suspects.
The images showed alleged ISIS-K fighters loading explosives into the trunk of a car, officials told CNN. Intelligence assets tracked the vehicle for an extended period of time and saw it stop at several suspicious ISIS-K locations, according to a third official, and at the time of the strike, the Pentagon had accumulated enough other evidence to believe the vehicle was headed to Hamid Karzai International Airport to launch an attack.
But the cost was high. The strike took place in a narrow residential alley and appears to have killed at least ten civilians, including children, according to their families, who spoke to CNN later and have disputed that any of the killings were affiliated with ISIS-K. The Pentagon has defended the strike, but said it is now investigating.
The detailed intelligence image that officials say the military was able to build in the last hours before the strike offers a window into how the U.S. military has conducted counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan for years. . But current and former officials say that without American troops on the ground, gathering information is about to be infinitely more difficult.
The chairman of the cabinet chiefs, General Mark Milley, and other officials who spoke privately with CNN called the strike “fair,” a justified military language. Milley said “at least one” of the killings was a facilitator of ISIS-K and several sources told CNN that the strike was necessary to avert an “imminent” threat to U.S. troops helping to evacuate thousands of American and Afghan refugees from Kabul amid the Taliban. dam of the country.
And two officials who had seen surveillance images of the United States after the strike confirmed official statements that there were large secondary explosions, indicating the presence of explosives in the trunk of the vehicle, which those officials suggested could have caused the death of nearby civilians.
But some former intelligence officials who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity have questioned the high number of civilian deaths. For these former officials, the strike is proof of a new harsh reality in which establishing the most accurate shot is much more difficult than when U.S. surveillance and field presence were more robust.
“Astronomically high” civilian death toll
Ten civilian deaths are an “astronomically high” number, according to a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the standards for a strike of this nature, who added that the military had previously carried out collateral damage estimates.
“If we had cooperated with a local partner, we would never have fired a missile at the vehicle, but we would have tried to reach the drivers before they got into the car,” said a former intelligence official with knowledge of how they are carried out. term these strikes. “That means we had information about the car instead of the people, and maybe after it was already on the road, which leaves a lot less options.”
“There is an expectation that our technology will enable this overseas reach for understanding and disruption, which is not how it will develop,” the former official added. “We need to keep our eyes on the ground, either by representation or by means of [forces] and then a local partner to take action, apart from requiring us to send missiles or commandos. ”
But with the Afghan government affiliated with the exile and the Taliban now at the helm across the country, maintaining the visibility of terrorist groups like ISIS-K will be more difficult, current and former officials say.
While the United States may continue to fly surveillance drones over Afghanistan as they will be launched from the Gulf countries, the drones will spend up to 60 percent of their flight time only arriving in and from Afghanistan. , limiting the amount of coverage they can provide within the country.
This creates blind spots, said multiple current and former officials. And without a network of human sources that the United States built for twenty years, intelligence and military officials would not know where to “commission” the search drones.
“You may look more sophisticated, but if you don’t have the information, it doesn’t matter,” a former intelligence official said. “You need to know that there is a threat, then you need to know who is involved and identify them and say‘ where will they be and when? “”
As a result, the Biden administration faces the need for some form of “vague” diplomatic and anti-terrorist relationship with the Taliban.
Difficult options
Now, the administration is actively discussing, internally and with international allies, whether and how to open diplomatic relations with the Taliban, according to two other U.S. officials. This decision will in turn affect the future of U.S. counterterrorism operations in the country.
Over the past few days and weeks, officials have been thinking about tough policy issues, such as whether they would release funds to the Taliban and who could serve as the main interlocutor of a group that was a sworn enemy of the United States. The amount of intelligence to share with the Taliban in an attempt to thwart terrorist attacks has been the subject of ongoing debate since the evacuation operation began, and it continues to plan on political discussions, officials said. .
Added to the challenge is the fact that the administration believed it would have much more time to make these decisions.
For months, the Biden administration has been reviewing its policy to carry out drone attacks on terrorists in countries that are not active war zones. According to sources familiar with the process, the review of the drone strike was nearing completion, but the unexpected and rapid rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan has complicated matters.
Although the Taliban agreed to coordinate the safe passage of Americans and some Afghans to Kabul airport during the evacuation, the administration is not committed to the militant group becoming a reliable anti-terrorist partner.
“It’s possible,” Milley said Wednesday when asked if the United States will try to coordinate strikes on ISIS-K with the Taliban in the future. But both he and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressed deep skepticism, and Austin told reporters that limited coordination during the evacuation should not be considered a model for the future.
“I wouldn’t make leaps of logic to broader issues,” he said.
Even during the evacuation mission, the U.S. kept the Taliban at bay. Although the United States shared some intelligence with militants to help thwart possible terrorist attacks at the airport, it was extremely limited in scope and was only offered to ensure the safety of northern troops. Americans, according to a U.S. official.
The U.S. also received no useful intelligence from the Taliban, the person said, as the Pentagon and intelligence agencies conducted ground-based counterterrorism operations in Kabul to try to thwart possible ISIS attacks. -K.
“A commission from the fool”
Theoretically, both the US and the Taliban have an incentive to work together in certain cases to prevent terrorists from regrouping in Afghanistan. But current and former officials say the situation is much more complex and fluid in practice.
“We know that Al Qaeda forces are already fundamentally integrated with the Taliban and were in exile for twenty years,” former President Donald Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton told CNN. . “There will be a lot of foreign fighters returning to Afghanistan, whether they call themselves al-Qaeda, ISIS or the Taliban. It’s not like these people have membership cards.”
“People are slipping between different organizations,” Bolton added. “Therefore, trusting the Taliban with sensitive information that is not only interesting when given to them, but shows sources and methods and potentially shows that the doctrine exposes us to more danger later. I think it’s a commission to think that one can work with the Taliban against ISIS-K “.
A U.S. official has denied that there is more distinction between the Taliban and ISIS-K than some critics have suggested. But independently, the official acknowledged that ISIS-K is in a much stronger position now than before the US withdrawal.
“It’s much better to be an insurgent group against the Taliban than to be an insurgent group against NATO or an Afghan government backed by a NATO coalition,” the official told CNN. “So if you can also do that with the release of 1500 of your closest friends, ISIS-K is unconditionally in a better position, in steps and turns, than you could have imagined even a year ago.