![]() We were so close that my wife and I considered him our Afghan son. ![]() For over a decade, he and I spent countless hours traveling together, eating meals together, and talking about our families, our work, the world, and life. He loved to tell jokes, and we laughed so much together. I could still hear Zemari’s laugh so distinctly. None of this would have been possible without Zemari.Īfter I got off the phone, I couldn’t stop thinking about how a good person, working to make his country a better place, could die like this, at the hands of my own government. By 2019, we had successfully built a national infrastructure for sustainable soy value-chain development in Afghanistan. NEI’s concept was simple: If we could go to poor villages in Afghanistan with high mortality rates among women and children, and teach farmers how to cultivate protein-rich soybeans and consume them at home, they could help save their malnourished families. He never attended school for formal training, but was extraordinarily smart, a gifted electrical engineer, and he became a key leader in our small organization. He grew up poor, like many Afghans, and started with us in 2006 as a handyman. Zemari was one of the first six people NEI ever hired. “Zemari has died with his children due to a drone strike.” In my immediate shock, this news hardly made any sense at all. Kwon, Zemari is no longer with us,” he told me. It was the country director of Nutrition & Education International, the non-profit food aid organization I founded 18 years ago and lead as president. In a separate incident, at least 20 people died in a suicide truck bomb attack on Thursday carried out by the Taliban in the southern province of Zabul.One year ago, my phone rang in California at what I knew was 2:00 a.m. There has been no let-up in assaults by Taliban and IS as Afghanistan prepares for a presidential election this month. military estimates there are about 2,000. The exact number of IS fighters is difficult to calculate because they frequently switch allegiances, but the U.S. ![]() Jihadist IS fighters first appeared in Afghanistan in 2014 and have since made inroads in the east and north where they are battling the government, U.S. Scores of local men joined a protest against the attack on Thursday morning as they helped carry the victims' bodies to Jalalabad city and then to the burial site.Īttaullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor said the aerial attack was meant to target IS militants who often use farmlands for training and recruitment purposes, but had hit innocent civilians. American forces must realise (they) will never win the war by killing innocent civilians," said Javed Mansur, a resident of Jalalabad city. "Some of us managed to escape, some were injured but many were killed," said Juma Gul, a resident of northeastern Kunar province who had travelled along with labourers to harvest and shell pine nuts this week.Īngered by the attack, some residents of Nangarhar province demanded an apology and monetary compensation from the U.S. Haidar Khan, who owns the pine nut fields, said about 150 workers were there for harvesting, with some still missing as well as the confirmed dead and injured.Ī survivor of the drone strike said about 200 labourers were sleeping in five tents pitched near the farm when the attack happened. troops are in Afghanistan, training and advising Afghan security forces and conducting counter-insurgency operations against IS and the Taliban movement. "We are aware of allegations of the death of non-combatants and are working with local officials to determine the facts."Ībout 14,000 U.S. forces conducted a drone strike against Da'esh (IS) terrorists in Nangarhar," said Colonel Sonny Leggett, a spokesman for U.S. Afghanistan's Defence Ministry and a senior U.S official in Kabul confirmed the drone strike, but did not share details of civilian casualties.
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