The move by U.S. officials comes after the slain man’s family and others who knew him claimed that the father of 10, a former bricklayer, had no ties to terrorism and was tending to his sheep when he was hit by a Hellfire missile in Syria.
U.S. officials claimed shortly after the strike that the Predator drone had taken out a “senior Al Qaeda leader” — even though they did not provide proof or name the suspect.
…
The incident is reminiscent of a drone strike the Biden administration made in August 2021 during President Joe Biden’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan where the administration claimed to have “conducted a self-defense unmanned over-the-horizon airstrike today on a vehicle in Kabul, eliminating an imminent ISIS-K threat to Hamad Karzai International airport.”
However, the administration admitted a couple of weeks later that the drone strike was a tragic mistake that killed 10 civilians, including seven children.