Warren Weinstein, Adam Gadahn Killed in U.S. Drone Strikes, American aid worker and al Qaeda captive Warren Weinstein was accidentally killed in a CIA drone strike, along with an Italian hostage and a terror leader who was a U.S. citizen, officials said Thursday.
A separate strike killed Adam Gadahn, an American who became a prominent propagandist for al Qaeda, was close to Osama bin Laden and had a $1 million bounty on his head for treason, officials said.
The deaths bring to seven the number of Americans killed in drone strikes, six of them inadvertently.
The White House said it was unaware that the Americans and the Italian, Giovanni Lo Porto, were present at the compounds, which were hit on Jan. 14 and Jan. 19 near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. President Barack Obama apologized to the hostages' families and said he took full responsibility as commander in chief.
"As a husband and as a father, I cannot begin to imagine the anguish the Weinstein and Lo Porto families are enduring today," Obama said. "I know there is nothing I can ever say or do to ease their heartache."
Weinstein, 73, was taken hostage in 2011, four days before his seven-year stint with the U.S. Agency for International Development was due to end. Lo Porto was abducted in 2012, soon after arriving in Pakistan to do humanitarian work.
The American, a grandfather from Maryland, had made several video appeals asking Obama to negotiate his release as his health deteriorated.
Weinstein's widow, Elaine, said the family is "devastated" and wished the U.S. and Pakistani governments "with the power to take action and secure his release would have done everything possible to do so."
"There are no words to do justice to the disappointment and heartbreak we are going through," she said, adding that the family is anxious for the results of the U.S. investigation into the operation.
The hostages were "hidden" at an al Qaeda compound unbeknownst to CIA officials who ordered the drone strike after surveillance, Obama said. The intelligence community recently determined that both men had been killed, along with Ahmed Farouq, an American described as a deputy al Qaeda commander.
The second strike killed Gadahn, who was also known as Adam Pearlman and by the nom de guerre Azzam al-Amriki.
Gadahn was born in California and later became an al Qaeda translator. The 36-year-old's profile rose after the death of bin Laden, when it was discovered he regularly corresponded with the terror boss. The State Department had offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture.
Gadahn was seen by some al Qaeda followers to lack religious credibility and battlefield experience. ISIS said in its December edition of Dabiq, its online propaganda magazine, that al Qaeda was never the same after Ayman al-Zawahri and Gadahn took over.
The details of the strikes were declassified at Obama's direction, the White House said. Senior U.S. officials told NBC News that "cellphone chatter and human intelligence" developed shortly after the airstrikes suggested the hostages may have been killed but that was not confirmed until April.
Obama spoke to Weinstein's widow and the Italian government on Wednesday before making the news public on Thursday.
"He takes full responsibility for these operations and believes it is important to provide the American people with as much information as possible about our counterterrorism operations, particularly when they take the lives of fellow citizens," the White House said in a statement.
"The uniquely tragic nature of the operation that resulted in the deaths of two innocent hostages is something we will do our utmost to ensure is not repeated.
"To this end, although the operation was lawful and conducted consistent with our counterterrorism policies, we are conducting a thorough independent review to understand fully what happened and how we can prevent this type of tragic incident in the future."
Although this is the first case of a U.S. hostage being killed by a drone strike, they have killed four other Americans since 2009. Only one of those, jihadist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, was targeted.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday's revelation raised "troubling questions about the reliability of the intelligence that the government is relying on to justify drone strikes.
"In each of the operations acknowledged today, the U.S. quite literally didn't know who it was killing," ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said.
The deaths bring to seven the number of Americans killed in drone strikes, six of them inadvertently.
The White House said it was unaware that the Americans and the Italian, Giovanni Lo Porto, were present at the compounds, which were hit on Jan. 14 and Jan. 19 near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. President Barack Obama apologized to the hostages' families and said he took full responsibility as commander in chief.
"As a husband and as a father, I cannot begin to imagine the anguish the Weinstein and Lo Porto families are enduring today," Obama said. "I know there is nothing I can ever say or do to ease their heartache."
Weinstein, 73, was taken hostage in 2011, four days before his seven-year stint with the U.S. Agency for International Development was due to end. Lo Porto was abducted in 2012, soon after arriving in Pakistan to do humanitarian work.
The American, a grandfather from Maryland, had made several video appeals asking Obama to negotiate his release as his health deteriorated.
Weinstein's widow, Elaine, said the family is "devastated" and wished the U.S. and Pakistani governments "with the power to take action and secure his release would have done everything possible to do so."
"There are no words to do justice to the disappointment and heartbreak we are going through," she said, adding that the family is anxious for the results of the U.S. investigation into the operation.
The hostages were "hidden" at an al Qaeda compound unbeknownst to CIA officials who ordered the drone strike after surveillance, Obama said. The intelligence community recently determined that both men had been killed, along with Ahmed Farouq, an American described as a deputy al Qaeda commander.
The second strike killed Gadahn, who was also known as Adam Pearlman and by the nom de guerre Azzam al-Amriki.
Gadahn was born in California and later became an al Qaeda translator. The 36-year-old's profile rose after the death of bin Laden, when it was discovered he regularly corresponded with the terror boss. The State Department had offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture.
Gadahn was seen by some al Qaeda followers to lack religious credibility and battlefield experience. ISIS said in its December edition of Dabiq, its online propaganda magazine, that al Qaeda was never the same after Ayman al-Zawahri and Gadahn took over.
The details of the strikes were declassified at Obama's direction, the White House said. Senior U.S. officials told NBC News that "cellphone chatter and human intelligence" developed shortly after the airstrikes suggested the hostages may have been killed but that was not confirmed until April.
Obama spoke to Weinstein's widow and the Italian government on Wednesday before making the news public on Thursday.
"He takes full responsibility for these operations and believes it is important to provide the American people with as much information as possible about our counterterrorism operations, particularly when they take the lives of fellow citizens," the White House said in a statement.
"The uniquely tragic nature of the operation that resulted in the deaths of two innocent hostages is something we will do our utmost to ensure is not repeated.
"To this end, although the operation was lawful and conducted consistent with our counterterrorism policies, we are conducting a thorough independent review to understand fully what happened and how we can prevent this type of tragic incident in the future."
Although this is the first case of a U.S. hostage being killed by a drone strike, they have killed four other Americans since 2009. Only one of those, jihadist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, was targeted.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday's revelation raised "troubling questions about the reliability of the intelligence that the government is relying on to justify drone strikes.
"In each of the operations acknowledged today, the U.S. quite literally didn't know who it was killing," ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said.
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