An American member of al-Qaeda was killed in the same U.S. drone strike that resulted in the death of two hostages in January.
Ahmed Farouq, who the White House identified as an al-Qaeda "leader," was killed in a U.S. government counterterrorism operation that took place near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in an area controlled by the Pakistani Taliban, though no members of that group were said to be killed.
"Based on the intelligence that we had obtained at the time, including hundreds of hours of surveillance, we believed that this was an al-Qaeda compound, that no civilians were present and that capturing these terrorists was not possible," Obama said on Thursday. "And we do believe that the operation did take out dangerous members of al-Qaeda."
American aid worker Warren Weinstein and Italian national Giovanni Lo Porto were hidden at the compound, unbeknownst to U.S. counterterrorism officials.
Adam Gadahn, another "prominent" American al-Qaeda member, was also killed by mistake in a separate operation.
"While both Farouq and Gadahn were al-Qaeda members, neither was specifically targeted, and we did not have information indicating their presence at the sites of these operations," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement. Obama added on Thursday that the operation was "fully consistent with the guidelines" that the U.S. follows for conducting counterterrorism missions in the region.
Farouq was deputy emir of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, according to the Long War Journal.
In letters that an al-Qaeda commander sent to Osama bin Laden in 2010, a man believed to be Farouq was described as a “a good man” who “knows Arabic well” with a "sound mind." The letters were presented as evidence in a terrorism trial, according to Long War Journal, which identified him as in charge of the group's propaganda arm.
Adam Gadahn was a U.S. citizen who grew up on a California goat farm and converted to Islam as a teenager, and named in 2004 as one of seven suspected al-Qaeda operatives being sought by the FBI. He was a grandson of a prominent Jewish urologist, according to the LA Times.
The strike was first reported by Pakistani media in January. A Predators or Reaper drone fired two missiles at the compound, killing seven militants and injuring four. It was the seconded drone strike in the region this year.
A U.S. government official told the Associated Press that the drone strikes occurred on Jan. 14 and Jan. 19. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the attacks and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Speaking at the White House after disclosing the deaths of the hostages, President Obama made no mention of Farouq and Gadahn, choosing instead to apologize to the families of Weinstein and Lo Porto.