The American al Qaeda member who the Obama administration is considering killing through a drone strike is likely a bombmaker with little public profile who has been linked to the deaths of fellow citizens in Afghanistan, experts say…

Initially, experts and commentators speculated the possible target was Adam Yehiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name Azzam al-Amriki. But security officials told NBC News that the target was not Gadahn.

“As soon as I saw the headline my immediate guess was it was Gadahn,” said Sharad Joshi, an terrorism expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, Calif., and an associate fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House. “Then some analysts saw information indicating that [Gadahn] is more P.R. and the person they are targeting is more an operative and not a public face of al Qaeda.

Adnan Shukrijumah, another al Qaeda member who grew up in the United States, was also ruled out as the target because the individual referred to by the White House has yet to be indicted, in line with the United States’ drone strike policy. Both Shukrijumah and Gadahn have already been formally accused and indicted.