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President Joe Biden Joint Chiefs and Combatant Commanders 

On Thursday, the White House acknowledged that an American hostage, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-operation-kills-al-qaeda-hostages-including-american/2015/04/23/8e9fcaba-e9bd-11e4-aae1-d642717d8afa_story.html">Warren Weinstein</a>, had been inadvertently killed in a U.S. operation earlier this year. Weinstein, along with an Italian hostage named Giovanni Lo Porto, died in what has been described as a drone strike against al-Qaeda militants along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

American hostages have died as a result of U.S. military action before – just last year, journalist Luke Somers was fatally shot while <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/hagel-us-hostage-murdered-in-yemen/2014/12/06/959c0e4c-7d33-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html">U.S. Navy SEALs tried</a> to rescue him from al-Qaeda captivity in Yemen. But Weinstein appears to be the first hostage killed by the U.S. government's controversial drone operations.

Worse still, his death wasn't revealed by the U.S. government for months, partly because it took a long investigation to actually confirm it, according <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/american-italian-hostages-killed-in-cia-drone-strike-in-january-1429795801">to the Wall Street Journal</a>. It's enough to make you wonder how many Americans have been killed by U.S. drone strikes – and how many were killed on purpose.

Americans have been killed by U.S. drone strikes from the very beginning. In 2002, in an operation coordinated by the U.S. military, U.S. citizen Kemal Darwish <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/04/21/225094/us-drone-strikes-came-despite.html">was reported to have been killed in a strike</a> in Yemen. In 2013, the U.S. Justice Department confirmed that four U.S. citizens, including cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, had been killed by CIA drone strikes since 2009. Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim known as a gifted preacher who incited attacks against the West, was <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/aulaqi-incited-young-muslims-to-attacks-against-west/2011/09/30/gIQACMaKAL_story.html">killed in 2011</a> in a strike in Yemen.

Another U.S. citizen, Samir Khan, died <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/a-proud-traitor-samir-khan-reported-dead-alongside-aulaqi/2011/09/30/gIQAYhcdAL_blog.html">in the same strike</a> that killed Awlaki, the Justice Department revealed. Khan was an al-Qaeda militant who created and served as an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/world/middleeast/samir-khan-killed-by-drone-spun-out-of-the-american-middle-class.html">editor for Inspire</a>, the group's magazine. Awlaki's son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/anwar-al-awlakis-family-speaks-out-against-his-sons-deaths/2011/10/17/gIQA8kFssL_story.html">killed in another attack</a> the month after his father died. The 16-year-old was also a U.S. citizen.

The other death announced by the Justice Department in 2013 was that of Jude Kenan Mohammad, a 23-year-old who was born in Florida. He was killed in a <a href="http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/namingthedead/people/nd477/?lang=en">U.S. drone strike</a> in Pakistan in 2011. Mohammad <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/one-drone-victims-trail-from-raleigh-to-pakistan.html">had been acting as a recruiter</a> for al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.

Weinstein isn't the only U.S. citizen killed by a drone strike to be added to the list recently. The same operation also killed an American al-Qaeda militant named Ahmed Farouq, the White House said in a statement. Another strike in the same region in January killed Adam Gadahn, a prominent al-Qaeda figure who was also a U.S. citizen.

The U.S. government believes it can legally justify the killing of American citizens in drone strikes: In 2014, the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/legal-memo-backing-drone-strike-is-released/2014/06/23/1f48dd16-faec-11e3-8176-f2c941cf35f1_story.html">Justice Department released</a> a secret 2011 memo that explained the legal justification for killing American terror suspects living overseas without trial.

And Obama himself has acknowledged that he gave the order to kill Awlaki. "I would have detained and prosecuted Awlaki if we captured him before he carried out a plot, but we couldn’t," he said in a 2013 speech <a href="http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2014/mar/19/kesha-rogers/four-us-citizens-killed-obama-drone-strikes-3-were/">at the National Defense University</a>. "And as president, I would have been derelict in my duty had I not authorized the strike that took him out."

But so far, Awlaki is the only U.S. citizen who was actually targeted by American drones. The other Americans killed by drone strikes listed above were believed to have been killed inadvertently. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, officials say, even when they were terror suspects.

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/weinstein-family-statement-on-his-death-we-are-devastated-by-this-news/2015/04/23/f0fb14f4-e9c6-11e4-aae1-d642717d8afa_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Weinstein family statement on his death: ‘We are devastated by this news’</a>

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/amid-fighting-in-tribal-areas-pakistan-braces-for-a-long-and-deadly-war/2015/02/19/d200b070-b13d-11e4-bf39-5560f3918d4b_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Pakistan braces for a long and deadly war in tribal areas on Afghan border</a>

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/family-of-warren-weinstein-us-citizen-held-by-al-qaeda-tries-to-keep-hoping/2013/12/31/b264a6a6-726c-11e3-9389-09ef9944065e_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Archive: Family of Warren Weinstein, U.S. citizen held by al-Qaeda, tries to ‘keep hoping’</a>

<a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/letter-from-warren-weinstein/721/">Archive: </a><a href="http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/letter-from-warren-weinstein/721/" title="apps.washingtonpost.com">Letter from Warren Weinstein</a>

University of Manchester, BA in economics with a focus on international relations

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, MA

Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.

Adam Taylor

The Washington Post

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