US Denies April Air Strike Deaths in Afghanistan

US commander Gen. Joseph Dunford has officially denied that the April 6 air strikes against the Kunar Province, which killed a number of civilians, including at least 11 children, were the US’ fault.

Rather, Gen. Dunford claims that all of the civilians slain must’ve been killed by the Taliban since “no US, no coalition forces were involved in the deaths.” It is a bizarre claim since the Afghan government has repeatedly confirmed the deaths were caused by air strikes.

Afghan forces on the ground are even confirmed to have rushed all the civilians into a single building just before the air strikes, which they called in, accidentally hit the house and killed those within.

The explanation has fueled Afghan conspiracy theories in the surrounding area, with some claiming the US had dropped some sort of top secret “acoustic munitions” on them which were designed to cause panic, and that the Taliban had then secretly killed everyone and made it look like the result of the mysterious air strikes.

Though there have been claims of the US working on acoustic weaponry off and on for decades (some with seemingly supernatural properties), there is no indication that any are in active use in Afghanistan, nor is there any conceivable reason that they would attack a random village with them, just happen to inadvertently get framed for killing a bunch of people, and then deny it over a month later. The more reasonable explanation is that the US is once again in denial about killings facing growing Afghan unrest in the face of evidence of their indiscriminate use of force in populated areas.