President Obama has apologized after the White House revealed a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan killed an American government contractor and an Italian aid worker held hostage by al-Qaeda in January. Despite hundreds of hours of surveillance and near-constant visibility of the al-Qaeda site, officials said they did not know the hostages were there. Officials said the strike also killed an American linked to al-Qaeda, Ahmed Farouq, while another American, al-Qaeda member Adam Gadahn, was killed in a separate strike. Obama apologized to the families of hostages Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto.

President Obama: “As president and as commander-in-chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations, including the one that inadvertently took the lives of Warren and Giovanni. I profoundly regret what happened. On behalf of the United States government, I offer our deepest apologies to the families.”

We’ll have more on the drone strike later in the broadcast.