The transcript of the drone operators’ remarks is brief and blunt, but it captures with grim clarity the moment they realised their deadly mistake.
“Two children” someone called out in the control room, as hundreds of miles away in Mosul, under a warm late autumn sun, the missile they had fired detonated beside a woman and her young family.
Enam Younis, 31 at the time, was thrown to the ground by the blast and has never walked again. Her older daughter, Taiba, six, inquisitive and desperate to start school, was killed instantly. Zahra, just three, was hurled over a fence. She survived but was peppered with shrapnel that tore into her stomach and is still lodged deep in her skull. Doctors have said that if it moves, it could cause devastating brain injury.
