U.S. forces killed an American hostage back in January when the CIA carried out an airstrike against al-Qaida in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, President Barack Obama announced Thursday.
The White House said Thursday that an Italian hostage was also inadvertently killed in the airstrike, The Associated Press reported.
The White House said Warren Weinstein, an American held by al-Qaida since 2011, and Giovanni Lo Porto, an Italian held since 2012, were killed in the January operation. The operation targeted an al-Qaida-associated compound and there was no reason to believe either hostage was present, the White House said.
In addition, the U.S. believes that Ahmed Farouq, an American who the White House says was an al-Qaida leader, was killed in the same operation. U.S. officials have also concluded that Adam Gadahn, an American who had served as a spokesman for the terror network, was killed in a separate operation in January.
The White House said Farouq and Gadhan were not specifically targeted in the operations, nor did the U.S. have information indicating their presence at the sites.
The White House said Obama 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. "
While it believes the operations were lawful, the U.S. is conducting an independent review to understand what happened.
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