Washington: An American and an Italian who had been held hostage for several years by al Qaeda were inadvertently killed in a US counterterrorism operation in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan in January, President Barack Obama said on Thursday.
The operation in which American doctor Warren Weinstein and Italian aid worker 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.
Weinstein, 73, was abducted in Lahore in 2011 while working for a US consulting firm. Al Qaeda had asked to trade him for members of the militant group 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.
Lo Porto had been missing in Pakistan since January 2012.
Italian media said Lo Porto, who was from Palermo, Sicily, was kidnapped three days after arriving in Pakistan on Jan 19, 2012, to work for a German organisation building houses for victims of a 2010 flood. Another man was kidnapped with him but later got freed in October 2014 by German special forces.
Although the operation took place in January, a US official said authorities concluded only a few days ago that the two hostages were killed.
Obama said the US intelligence had hundreds of hours of surveillance on the compound targeted in the attack and there had been no signs that Weinstein and Lo Porto were held there.
The White House said 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.” Weinstein’s wife, Elaine, said her family was devastated by his death. She criticised the US government for ‘inconsistent and disappointing’ assistance during her husband’s years in captivity.
Like other American families whose relatives have been killed over the past year after being held hostage by militants in the Middle East, she called for a better US government policy for relaying information to hostages’ families. “We hope that my husband’s death and the others who have faced similar tragedies in recent months will finally prompt the US government to take its responsibilities seriously and establish a coordinated and consistent approach to supporting hostages and their families,” she said in a statement.
US Representative John Delaney, who has helped the Weinstein family, said the United States needs to do a better job handling American hostages.
