US Officials Backtrack on Reports of Killing Al-Qaeda Leader in Syria After Family Claims Victim of Drone Strike Was a Sheep Herder and Father of 10

 US officials are backtracking on claims they took out a top Al-Qaeda leader in a Syrian drone strike after the family of a sheep herder identified the victim.

Lotfi Hassan Misto, 56, a local sheep herder and father of 10 was identified by the family as the victim in the hellfire missile strike.

The slain man, Lotfi Hassan Misto, died after being hit by a Hellfire missile on May 3, according to his family. https://t.co/1ATIRiUUZY

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) May 19, 2023

Lotfi Hassan Misto

The Pentagon claimed it killed an al-Qaeda leader on May 3. The victim’s family denied the claim, and experts discovered that the victim had no ties with terrorist groups.

56-year-old Lotfi Hassan Misto is just one of many innocent victims of the US’s so-called war on terror. pic.twitter.com/A5R9KsAdA5

— Press TV (@PressTV) May 19, 2023 

The Washington Post reported:

U.S. military officials are walking back claims that a recent strike in Syria killed an influential al-Qaeda figure, following assertions by the dead man’s family that he had no ties to terrorists but was a father of 10 tending to his sheep when he was slain by an American missile.

Lotfi Hassan Misto, 56, whose family identified him as the victim of a Hellfire missile attack on May 3, was a former bricklayer who lived quietly in this town in northwest Syria, according to interviews with his brother, son and six others who knew him. They described a kind, hard-working man whose “whole life was spent poor.”

The operation was overseen by U.S. Central Command, which claimed hours after the strike, without citing evidence or naming a suspect, that the Predator drone strike had targeted a “senior Al Qaeda leader.” But now there is doubt inside the Pentagon about who was killed, two U.S. defense officials told The Washington Post.

The Biden regime also blew up a family in Kabul in 2021 after their disastrous surrender to the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Another embarrassment for the Biden regime on the international stage.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley