WASHINGTON : The U.S. military said Friday that it mistakenly killed at least 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children—but not an Islamic State terrorist, as intended—when it launched a drone strike on a car in Kabul last month.

       It was a reversal of the Pentagon’s position on the Aug. 29 strike from just days ago, when military officials said they believed that the strike was justified. Military officials said then that civilians may have been mistakenly killed, but that Islamic State militants had been stopped. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley had gone so far as to say earlier this month that the strike was “righteous."

       But after a detailed analysis over recent days, the military’s Central Command concluded that it had struck civilians, not militants, even though there was an “imminent and active threat" in the area. Central Command’s top officer, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, acknowledged the car that was hit, a white Toyota Corolla, which are common in Kabul, didn’t contain the militants they believed they were targeting.

       “This strike did not come up to our standards, and I sincerely regret it," Gen. McKenzie said in a briefing with reporters. “Clearly the intelligence was wrong on this vehicle."

       Gen. McKenzie said the U.S. tracked the car for eight hours before the strike and saw a driver loading large jugs and other materials from a building that held an aid office. Because of the number of threats, the military couldn’t follow the vehicle for a sustained period to learn more about the target.

       “Time was not available to us, because this was an imminent threat to our forces," Gen. McKenzie said. “We struck under the theory of reasonable certainty."

       The acknowledgment by Gen. McKenzie further clouded the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was carried out amid a collapse of the U.S.-backed government and army that triggered a frantic U.S. airlift to evacuate Americans, other foreign citizens and Afghan partners. Thirteen U.S. troops and more than 200 Afghans were killed when Islamic State militants detonated a bomb in the midst of the evacuation.

       It also underscored the limitations of future U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the country. Military officials have insisted that they would be able to monitor, detect and interrupt militant activity despite having no presence on the ground in Afghanistan. Instead, they have said they would use an “over the horizon" approach to launch airstrikes from distant bases. Counterterrorism and intelligence officials have said that information would be less reliable without human intelligence from the ground.

       In a meeting with a few foreign journalists in Kabul on Thursday, Anas Haqqani, a senior leader of the Taliban whose brother heads the terrorist-designated Haqqani network, said the Taliban also had information showing the drone killed “many innocent people."

       He denied that the Taliban, enemies of Islamic State, had helped the U.S. with intelligence leading up to the drone strike, adding that the Taliban were capable of fighting the extremist group on their own.

       “It is not possible that we helped the Americans with this," Mr. Haqqani said, pointing out that the Taliban fought against the U.S.-backed Afghan government, so wouldn’t consider assisting U.S. forces.

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       Gen. McKenzie also said the U.S. didn’t use any intelligence from the Taliban leading up to the strike.

       He also said that the military planned to pay condolence payments but that it would be difficult to do without personnel on the ground.

       In the Aug. 29 incident, the U.S. initially said a drone targeting a suspected militant struck a vehicle packed with explosives in a residential area of Kabul, preventing an imminent attack on the city’s airport, where U.S. troops were rushing to evacuate civilians.

       U.S. officials also said that there was a large secondary explosion after the strike, suggesting explosives inside the vehicle. The military now believes that explosion was caused by a propane tank near the stopped vehicle, Gen. McKenzie said.

       But within hours of the strike, residents said that an Afghan aid worker—not a suspected militant—and as many as seven children had been killed

       Emal Ahmady, who said he worked as a translator for an American company from 2011 to 2014, said in an interview after the attack that five children in his extended family were killed.

       A neighbor said that Mr. Ahmady’s brother had just pulled his car into the yard of the family home when children crowded around the vehicle to greet him. Some adults were also standing nearby, Mr. Ahmady said. Then there was a deafening explosion, the neighbor said.

       “All children are in love with riding in a car or being around them," Mr. Ahmady said.

       A brother-in-law of Mr. Ahmady, Zaki Hanifi, who attended a funeral for family members, said most of the dead were severely burned or mutilated. “We could only recognize four of them," he said.

       The strike took place three days after the suicide-bombing attack outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, and came amid warnings by military and State Department officials of likely additional attacks.

       The U.S. said it believed the suspected car bomb could be headed for the airport, where troops were evacuating Afghans trying to flee the country. A car bomb, loaded with more explosives than a suicide bomber’s vest, likely could inflict far greater damage and casualties.

       No airport attack took place that day. The last U.S. service members left Afghanistan and ended a 20-year involvement there the following day.

       During a Sept. 1 Pentagon press briefing, Gen. Milley acknowledged that civilians had been killed, but defended the operation.

       “So were there others killed? Yes, there are others killed. Who they are, we don’t know. We’ll try to sort through all of that," he said then. “But at this point, we think that the procedures were correctly followed and it was a righteous strike."

       On Friday, Gen. Milley said commanders on the ground had reasonable certainty that they struck the proper target. “But after deeper, post-strike analysis, our conclusion is that innocent civilians were killed," he said.

       “This is a horrible tragedy of war and it’s heart wrenching and we are committed to being fully transparent about this incident," Gen. Milley said in his statement.

       Following the strike, the Pentagon initially said there were no early signs of civilian casualties.

       Days later, defense officials said there were concerns that children had run up to the car before the Hellfire missile struck the vehicle, but still believed they had struck their intended target, citing the secondary explosions that they at first said indicated the presence of explosive material in the car.

       Defense officials haven’t provided any additional details about the identity of the militant who was being targeted.

       Immediately after the strike, the U.S. military said it launched an internal investigation.

       Gen. McKenzie couldn’t say whether there would be any disciplinary action as a result of the investigation. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asked for a review of the investigation, the Pentagon said, in part, to determine whether anyone should be held accountable.

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