{"id":1934528,"date":"2023-05-20T03:30:07","date_gmt":"2023-05-20T07:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-originally-said-drone-strike-killed-al-qaeda-leader-now-its-not-sure\/"},"modified":"2023-05-20T03:32:43","modified_gmt":"2023-05-20T07:32:43","slug":"biden-admin-originally-said-drone-strike-killed-al-qaeda-leader-now-its-not-sure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-originally-said-drone-strike-killed-al-qaeda-leader-now-its-not-sure\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden&#8217;s team claimed drone strike killed al Qaeda leader, now uncertain."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbiden-admin-originally-said-drone-strike-killed-al-qaeda-leader-now-its-not-sure%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1934528&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>Biden Administration&#8217;s Drone Strike on al Qaeda Leader in Syria Questioned<\/h2>\n<p>The Biden administration claimed to have targeted a &#8220;senior al Qaeda leader&#8221; in northwest Syria with a Hellfire missile attack on May 3. However, U.S. military officials are now uncertain whether the victim of the attack was actually a leader of the terrorist group.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are no longer confident we killed a senior [al Qaeda] official,&#8221; one <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/cdc-to-release-revised-guidance-reducing-covid-19-quarantine-time-from-14-days-to-7-10\/\" title=\"CDC to release revised guidance reducing COVID-19 quarantine time from 14 days to 7-10\">official told<\/a> the <em>Washington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h3>Who Was the Victim?<\/h3>\n<p>The victim, Lotfi Hassan Misto, 56, was a bricklayer and farmer in Qorqanya, Syria, which is near a &#8220;known area of interest&#8221; to al Qaeda. After surveying online discussions by jihadists about the attack, four terrorism experts who spoke with the <em>Post<\/em> found no &#8220;references indicating Misto was affiliated with a terrorist group.&#8221; They also said it would be &#8220;very unusual&#8221; for an al Qaeda leader to operate in Misto&#8217;s particular area because it is controlled by a rival group.<\/p>\n<h3>Transparency Promised<\/h3>\n<p>After facing accusations of covering up past failed attacks on terrorist leaders last year, the Biden administration vowed to take steps to &#8220;reduce such risks while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pennsylvania-settles-election-integrity-lawsuit-deletes-178000-names-from-voter-rolls\/\" title=\"PA settles election lawsuit, removes 178k names from voter rolls.\">promising greater transparency<\/a> when unintended killings do occur.&#8221; The promise came in the wake of the administration&#8217;s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, when an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/uncontrollable-events-reporter-mocked-for-attempt-to-shift-blame-for-crises-away-from-biden\/\" title=\"\u2018Uncontrollable Events\u2019: Reporter Mocked For Attempt To Shift Blame For Crises Away From Biden\">errant drone strike<\/a> in Kabul killed 10 civilians. The Pentagon originally reported it had only resulted in the death of a suicide bomber but later admitted to the failure.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Biden administration has failed to disclose the details of Misto&#8217;s death, with military officials refusing to identify publicly &#8220;who their target was, how the apparent error occurred, whether a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-originally-said-drone-strike-killed-al-qaeda-leader-now-its-not-sure\/\" title=\"Biden's team claimed drone strike killed al Qaeda leader, now uncertain.\">legitimate terrorist leader escaped<\/a>, and why some in the Pentagon maintain Misto was a member of al Qaeda despite his family&#8217;s denials,&#8221; the <em>Post<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n<h3>Investigation Ongoing<\/h3>\n<p>Central Command spokesman Michael Lawhorn said officials are still assessing the outcome of the strike and the reports of a civilian casualty.<\/p>\n<p>The command &#8220;takes all such allegations seriously and is investigating to determine whether or not the action may have unintentionally resulted in harm to civilians,&#8221; Lawhorn said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>There is still disagreement within the Pentagon, with another official telling the <em>Post<\/em>, &#8220;Though we believe the strike did not kill the original target, we believe the person to be al Qaeda.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration&#8217;s drone strike on al Qaeda leader in Syria is now being questioned, leaving many wondering about the accuracy of the information provided by the government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Biden administration launched a Hellfire missile attack on a &#8220;senior al Qaeda leader&#8221; in northwest Syria on May 3. However, U.S. military officials are now uncertain if the victim was actually a leader of the terrorist group. &#8220;We are no longer confident we killed a senior [al Qaeda] official,&#8221; one official stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1262,"featured_media":1934841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[3706,4308,11948,3940,3939,7227,4522,4000,12937],"class_list":["post-1934528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon","tag-bidens","tag-claimed","tag-drone","tag-killed","tag-leader","tag-qaeda","tag-strike","tag-team","tag-uncertain"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_finder_url":"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/biden-admin-originally-said-drone-strike-killed-al-qaeda-leader-now-its-not-sure\/","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1934528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1934528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1934841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1934528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1934528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1934528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}