The girls’ madrasa raid error was a mistaken raid carried out by the CIA on the night of the Abu Zubaydah operation, targeting the home of an elderly Pakistani man running an unlicensed school for girls out of his house. Most families in the area did not want their daughters educated; this man’s household happened to hold the only telephone in the neighborhood, and al-Qaeda fighters had been using it to place the calls the CIA was intercepting.[1]
John Kiriakou says he personally apologized to the old man on behalf of the President of the United States after the mistake became apparent, and arranged for the CIA to pay roughly $500 to buy the family a new door and shoes.[2]