involved you would want and need dna confirmation before you d have the president come out and say this has happened. as the statement said this was previously classified information. the president made a decision to declassify. in his words, the words of the statement, at least, he decided the public had a right to know. the president announced there were two americans killed two americans who had joined the ranks of al qaeda, one of them relatively well-known to those who follow the story, that is adam gadahn. this is the individual who was originally born adam pearlman and also known as ahsan the american. the other not well-known ahmed farouq an al qaeda leader who was an american citizen. what else do we know about these two individuals killed in this same mission, the white house says? well adam gadahn as you mentioned, jake really the one who is most prominent here. incredible story from california jewish background
mr. obama leaving white house brady briefing room after giving the grim news that a u.s. counter-terrorism operation, one we re told was conducted from the air, likely a drone strike killed two hostages two innocents, including warren weinstein, a u.s. contractor who had been held hostage by al qaeda since august 2011 as well as an italian hostage named giovanni lo porto, who had been an al qaeda hostage since 2012. in addition the white house statement given before the press remarks by president obama talked about separate counter-terrorism operations in which two other americans, although these were americans who had joined al qaeda, were likely killed. those individuals being ahmed farouq an american who we re told was the deputy amir of a new off shoot of al qaeda in the
with his reaction to what we saw here this morning. good morning again, bret. hi, martha. the president expressing grief for these families. it s interesting to hear about this operation as we re just getting bits and pieces. a producer over at the pentagon saying the senior defense official says this strike was conducted by an armed drone under the operation of the cia and that the u.s. government, the intelligence community, had no reason to believe that the two hostages were there. the american the italian. they had no reason to believe on these other on this other strike that these al-qaeda figures were there. apparently, according to the senior defense official they had near certainty that the u.s. hostage and the italian hostage were not present at the al-qaeda location. they didn t know that adam gadahn or ahmed farouq were also there. so it goes to the point of sketchy intelligence on some of these operations as they move forward. the fact that it s taken this
tragic tragic counter-terrorism operation that went wrong in which an american hostage warren weinstein and italian national giovanni lo porto were killed as well as these two high value al qaeda targets adam gadahn and ahmed farouq. ahmed farouq not as well-known nick paton walsh. he s somebody said to be the deputy emir of a new al qaeda offshoot al qaeda indian subcontinent adam gadahn nick very well-known to those who follow national security stories. let s deal initially with farouq gadahn a well-known al qaeda member prevalent in a lot of propaganda american citizen, million dollar award out for information leading to his capture. a high-profile figure. we can accept if the u.s. was aware they were going after him
either local civilians or militants militants? josh i won t be able to provide specific numbers on this. i can tell you that in the specific strike that resulted in the death of dr. weinstein and mr. lo porto, there was one other al qaeda leader who was among those who was killed. that is the ahmed farouq the american citizen al qaeda leader. this was a strike against an al qaeda compound. and the result was the death of at least one al qaeda leader. i can tell you that the assess assessment that we have right now does not raise questions about additional civilian loss of life. again, the reason for that is that the standard that was in