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  • This is Mohammad Ilyas.

  • He lived in eastern Afghanistan.

  • He was eight years old when an airstrike killed him

  • inside his home last fall.

  • His six brothers and sisters were killed, too.

  • So was their mother, Amina, and four young cousins.

  • Twelve dead in total, an entire immediate family gone,

  • except for one person

  • the husband and father, 39-year-old Masih Mubarez.

  • It’s a familiar story for civilians caught up

  • in the 18-year war.

  • Mubarez has searched in vain for answers

  • about his family’s deaths.

  • He went public with his plight.

  • A U.N. statement pointed toward

  • American responsibility, but the answers never came.

  • Along with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism,

  • we investigated the airstrike.

  • We wanted to find out who was behind the attack

  • and how complicated it would be to get answers.

  • Our own analysis of the airstrike’s aftermath

  • led us to the U.S. military.

  • The U.S. denied the strike, later admitted it.

  • But even today, it still hasn’t acknowledged

  • civilians were killed.

  • Mubarez's story shows just how hard

  • it can be to find the truth when your family is

  • killed in Afghanistan.

  • Here’s how it unfolded.

  • The airstrike on the family home

  • happened here, in a remote area southwest of Kabul.

  • Mubarez survived because he was 1,000 miles away in Iran,

  • working illegally.

  • It was the only way he could earn money.

  • Mubarez's wife Amina called him on the morning

  • of the airstrike, seven hours before she would be killed.

  • Already, something was wrong.

  • Their home was in an area mostly controlled

  • by the Taliban.

  • The Afghan military, backed by the U.S.,

  • is fighting to get it back.

  • One Afghan army raid there a few months earlier

  • was captured on camera.

  • Amina told her husband that a raid similar to this

  • had just taken place in their village.

  • She said foreign soldiers were there, too, speaking English.

  • That phone call was the last time

  • Mubarez and Amina ever spoke.

  • The raid was part of an operation

  • to free Afghan army soldiers from a Taliban prison.

  • The prison was just 200 yards from Mubarez's house.

  • This is the home before it was destroyed.

  • Here are the living quarters.

  • The family was in there when the bomb struck the morning

  • after the raid.

  • Photos we obtained show fragments

  • of the weapon that was used.

  • The twisted metal holds several clues,

  • including a square pattern of four bolts on a tailfin.

  • Weapons experts said this construction is only

  • used in one type of aerial weapon

  • a JDAM.

  • JDAMs are devices with fins that

  • fit onto the backs of bombs to steer them and make

  • them more accurate.

  • We then traced an ID number on another piece of debris

  • to a U.S.-based company that manufactures

  • parts for guided weapons.

  • So we knew the weapon, but we still

  • needed to figure out who launched it.

  • There are just two forces conducting

  • airstrikes in Afghanistan

  • the Afghan government and the United States.

  • But only U.S. warplanes are capable of carrying JDAMs.

  • Two weeks after the airstrike, the U.S. military

  • said it could find no connection

  • between an American operation and the deaths of Mubarez's

  • family.

  • Five months after the airstrike,

  • the U.S. denied that any strike ever

  • took place in the area of Mubarez's home.

  • But that’s not the story Mubarez tells.

  • When we recently gave the U.S. military

  • the precise coordinates of the Mubarez home,

  • their story changed.

  • They now admit to striking it.

  • They say it was done in self-defense

  • because of sniper fire coming from the house.

  • Taliban fighters often use civilians

  • as shields against American airstrikes.

  • But the U.S. military denies that any civilians

  • were killed in the airstrike.

  • We spoke to a medical analyst who

  • concluded that the family’s corpses show

  • injuries consistent with the effects

  • of an explosive blast.

  • That leaves Mubarez still with lots of questions,

  • but with no one to take responsibility

  • for killing his family.

This is Mohammad Ilyas.

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