According to reports, Biden administration officials are reportedly retracting claims they made earlier this month in which they claimed to have slain a key al-Qaeda figure.
The decision comes after the murdered man’s family and those who knew him stated that the father of ten, a former bricklayer, had no links to terrorism and was tending to his sheep when he was killed by a Hellfire missile in Syria.
Shortly after the attack, U.S. officials asserted that a senior Al Qaeda leader had been killed by a Predator drone, but they did not provide evidence or identify the suspect.
The Washington Post, however, reported that 56-year-old Lotfi Hassan Misto was actually the victim of the assault and apparently had no links to the radical groups.
“We are no longer confident we killed a senior AQ official,” an official told the Washington Post.
Another official told the post while the victim of the strike wasn’t they intended target they believed him to be a member of Al Qaeda however did not show any evidence for this conclusion.
The Pentagon has been tight-lipped about the strike and has not disclosed who the target was or whether he or she escaped.
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