Obama Drone Attack KILLS Ameicans and Italians.

[Comrade Grumpy]

41. Well, they didn't know who they were targeting. So, yeah, "unknown targets."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/american-italian-hostages-killed-in-cia-drone-strike-in-january-1429795801

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The CIA had been closely monitoring the suspected al Qaeda compound in Pakistan’s tribal areas for weeks leading up to the strike that killed the two hostages. The agency collected hundreds of hours of surveillance. Then, a few days before the strike was launched, that surveillance was increased, giving the CIA near-constant visibility of the site and those entering it, Obama administration officials said.

At no point during that extended period of surveillance did the U.S. spy agency detect the presence of the two hostages or of any other civilians inside the compound, which they thought was being used by al Qaeda militants, the officials said. U.S. intelligence agencies now believe al Qaeda took extraordinary measures to keep the hostages out of sight.

Along with Messrs. Weinstein and Lo Porto, the strike on the compound killed Ahmed Farouq, an al Qaeda leader and American citizen, the officials said. The CIA had observed what they believed to be a senior al Qaeda member entering the compound in the days just before the strike but intelligence analysts didn’t know it was Mr. Farouq, the officials said. Similarly, the CIA didn’t know that Mr. Gadahn was at the compound that it bombed later in January.

The White House normally would need to seek special legal clearances to directly target American citizens suspected of plotting attacks against the U.S. That process didn’t apply in these cases because Messrs. Farouq and Gadahn weren’t being directly targeted in the operations, officials said.

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