individual, specific targeted personnel. that s a key point, right, from what was called the kill list, which is a list of names, go after these people, to what are now called the signature strikes, which appears to be what happened here although we don t fully know. malcolm nance, thank you very much. really appreciate it. as of today at least seven americans have been killed by u.s. drone strikes. besides the three we learned about today, four in 2011. jude kenan mohammad, who died in a signature strike in pakistan. samir khan, accused of editing al qaeda s english language magazine inspire killed in yemen. killed alongside him the most famous example, radical cleric, anwar al awlaki. the fourth, awlaki s 16-year-old son killed just two weeks after his father. of the seven americans in total, awlaki was the only one intentionally specifically targeted by a u.s. drone strike. the others were killed inadvertently and they were all americans who were supposed to have greater const
they will not negotiate with terrorists. and that s not going to change. thank you so much for that report, we appreciate it. sure. let s bring in former cia counterterrorism analyst kevin strauss, kevin, thanks for being with us. now that the question is up there on drones and how the united states goes about with those kind of strikes and that drone strike that killed warren weinstein and the italian hostage, so-called a signature strike. tell us what that entails and what that means. well i think the important thing to take away here is whenever you do a kinetic counterterrorism operation to include an air strike, there s going to be a large degree of uncertainty. it s how the intelligence process works, it s a rare situation you re going to know every single detail that you need to know. so whenever these very difficult decisions are going to be made there s going to be uncertainty and people are going to expect a certain degree of risk. this is a perfect example of it.
these effectively were just other combatants and the position i think of both aed ministration bush and obama, is if you join win al qaeda, who is an enemy of the united states if you join the enemy, you take your chances and we re going to attack al qaeda and if you get killed too bad and frankly, i don t know how you could conduct a war otherwise. you had talked about the heightened stepped the administration would have to go through and what would those be? when you talk to officials, they didn t know. this was a signature strike. they can tell from patterns of daily life convoys, the size of the convoys and they look for certain markers to understand how a senior member of aal kiedl qaeda.
is abysmal. we can watch it from the air, from drones, from satellites. there is some cell coverage. but it is only a part of the story of what goes in that you know, the u.s. cannot send up agents up there, operatives, and in a strike like this, you should have some sort of ground intelligence, video from outside the house. at the end of the day, with these satellites, you can t see into a house. apparently these hostages were not walked around at night or even during the day. they couldn t be seen. and you know, this accident, an accident like this, and it was ata terrible accident like this is almost inevitable. it is called a signature strike. you find a suspect compound. you look at it, consider whether they are al qaeda or not. and whether you know the names or not, the white house signs off, and that s what happened. i read a drone strike can t
development. this guy worked in the peace corps. you say it s not worth it? it s worth saying a guy charged with aiding the enemy. there s a difference of trading soldier for soldier and change the policy and say for different categories of individuals captured. i think there s a businessic question here that s legitimate. the question is not whether he s the same as bergdahl. the question is when you have an american citizen sent overseas on official business, how far do you go to bring them home? fair question. fair question and does the u.s. need to go further? i think we need. there s a difference between providing material support, that is providing money, and saying do we have a conversation with groups we consider to be terror groups? i m not talking about a negotiation. would we consider it legitimate to talk to the taliban or al qaeda? i would say, yeah, sure. i want to ask about drone strikes in general. all of these people were killed in a signature strike. that is t