American al Qaeda member Adam Gadahn is shown in this image captured from undated video courtesy of Intelcenter. [Photo/Agencies]

Italian media said Lo Porto, who was from Palermo, was kidnapped three days after arriving in Pakistan to work for a German organization building houses for victims of a 2010 flood. Another man was kidnapped with him but later freed in October 2014 by German special forces.

The White House said the Weinstein and Lo Porto families would receive compensation from the US government.

TREASON CHARGE

An al Qaeda spokesman has said Farouq was the deputy head of al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which tried unsuccessfully last year to hijack a Pakistan warship.

Farouq died in a Jan. 15 drone strike in the Shawwal area of North Waziristan, AQIS said in a video on Twitter on April 12, reported by the SITE monitoring group.

Gadahn was born in Oregon, grew up in California, converted to Islam at 17 and became a spokesman and translator for al Qaeda. He was charged by the United States with treason in 2006, becoming the first person to face such US charges since the World War Two era, according to the Justice Department.

The deaths of Weinstein and Lo Porto were the latest involving Western hostages held by Islamist militants. Islamic State has beheaded journalists and aid workers, while an American woman aid worker it held died in unclear circumstances in February. An American and a South African held by an al Qaeda unit in Yemen died in December in a failed rescue bid by US special forces.

CIA drone strikes in Pakistan have steeply declined from a peak of around 128 in 2010, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which tracks the strikes. There have been seven drone strikes in Pakistan this year, the group said.