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A U.S. counterterrorism operation in January against Al-Qaeda in Pakistan killed an American and an Italian being held by the group, the White House said on Thursday.
The operation, in which American contractor Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto were killed, also resulted in the death of an American Al-Qaeda leader, Ahmed Farouq, the White House said. Another American Al-Qaeda member, Adam Gadahn, was also killed, likely in a separate operation, the White House added.
In an address at the White House, President Barack Obama expressed "tremendous sorrow" over the hostage deaths and said the United States had no reason to believe hostages were at the Al-Qaeda compound targeted in the operation.
"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. "And we do believe that the operation did take out dangerous members of Al-Qaeda."
"As president and commander-in-chief, I take full responsibility for all counterterrorism operations, including the one that took the lives of Warren and Giovanni," he added.
Weinstein was abducted in Lahore, Pakistan, in 2011 while working for a U.S. consulting firm. Al-Qaeda had asked to trade him for some of its members being held by the United States.
Weinstein was seen in videos released in May 2012 and December 2013, asking for Obama to intervene on his behalf and saying he was suffering from heart problems and asthma.
The White House did not describe the operation, but The Wall Street Journal reported that it was the first known instance in which the U.S. has killed a hostage in a drone strike.
Normally, the White House needs to acquire special legal permission to target U.S. citizens, but it did not in this case because Farouq and Gadahn were not the intended targets of the operations, the Journal reported.
"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," the White House said in a statement.
While 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," the White House added.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Weinstein's wife, Elaine Weinstein, said her family was devastated by the news. She placed blame on the kidnappers and said the family looked forward to the results of the government's investigation.
But she added that assistance from certain "elements of the U.S. government" had been "inconsistent and disappointing" over the course of his three-and-a-half-year ordeal.
"We were so hopeful that those in the U.S. and Pakistani governments with the power to take action and secure his release would have done everything possible to do so, and there are no words to do justice to the disappointment and heartbreak we are going through," she said.
The Pakistani government and military, she said, "failed to take action earlier in his captivity … instead treating Warren's captivity as more of an annoyance than a priority."
Italian media said Lo Porto, an aid worker from Palermo, was kidnapped three days after arriving in Pakistan on Jan. 19, 2012. He was supposed to work for a German organization building houses for victims of a 2010 flood.
Another man was kidnapped with him but later separated and freed in October 2014 by German special forces.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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