"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."

Said President Obama this morning.

Al Qaeda leader Ahmed Farouq, who was an American citizen, was also killed in the operation that killed the two innocent hostages....

American officials at the time had "no reason to believe either hostage was present" when the operation was launched on a compound in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. U.S. officials also did not know that Farouq or Gadahn were present at the targeted sites and "neither was specifically targeted," Earnest said.