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US PRESIDENT Barack Obama took “full responsibility” yesterday for drone strikes that killed al-Qaida hostages, US citizen Warren Weinstein and Italian Giovanni Lo Porto in the Afghan-Pakistani border region.
He defended the legality of the January drone strikes against an al-Qaida compound.
“Based on the intelligence that we had obtained at the time, including hundreds of hours of surveillance, we believed that this was an al-Qaida compound, that no civilians were present and that capturing these terrorists was not possible,” the president said at the White House.
“And we do believe that the operation did take out dangerous members of al-Qaida.”
Mr Weinstein had been held by al-Qaida since 2011 and Mr Lo Porto since 2012.
Mr Obama voiced regret for the deaths, offering “grief and condolences” to their families.
