Holder: U.S. drone strikes killed 4 Americans

WASHINGTON -- U.S. drone strikes have killed four American citizens in counterterrorism operations overseas since 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday, marking the Obama administration's first public acknowledgment of those killings.

Holder, in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), said the United States "specifically targeted and killed one U.S. citizen," al-Qaida propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, and the government is aware of three other citizens killed since 2009.

Holder said the three other Americans were Samir Khan, a onetime resident of Westbury who was killed in the same drone strike as al-Awlaki; al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, a Denver native, who also was killed in Yemen; and Jude Kenan Mohammed, a former resident of Raleigh, N.C., who was killed in Pakistan.

The letter was sent the day before President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech on national security. Obama will "soon be speaking publicly about our counterterrorism operations and the legal and policy framework that governs those actions," Holder said.

Lawmakers in both parties, along with human rights groups, have pressed the administration to disclose information about government's targeting of suspected terrorists outside the United States. Under the secretive program, unmanned aircraft have been used to kill enemy combatants in countries from Pakistan to Yemen.

Obama promised in his February State of the Union address to explain to Congress and the public how the U.S. was targeting, detaining and prosecuting terrorists. "I recognize that in our democracy, no one should just take my word that we're doing things the right way," he said.

The program came under closer scrutiny during the Senate confirmation of Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan, who was an architect of the drone policy while serving as Obama's counterterrorism chief.