What Do You Think?

[Cymberly]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13290274


5 May 2011 Last updated at 07:28 GMT


Bin Laden: Publishing images poses 'US security risk'


President Barack Obama has said publishing photos of the dead Osama Bin Laden threatens US national security.

"I think that, given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk," Mr Obama said.

The al-Qaeda leader was killed by US special forces in northern Pakistan on Monday. His body was buried at sea.

On Thursday, Mr Obama is to visit the site of the 11 September 2011 attacks on New York, one of many Bin Laden claimed to have masterminded.

Mr Obama said: "It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence, as a propaganda tool. That's not who we are."

The US administration has been monitoring world reaction - amid conspiracy theories about the al-Qaeda leader following conflicting accounts given by US officials.

"There are going to be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you won't see Bin Laden walking on this Earth again," Mr Obama said.
Legality question

Mr Obama's decision - revealed during an interview with CBS television's 60 Minutes programme - prompted a mixed reaction from US politicians, some of whom were shown the photos.


Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House of Representatives, said he shared the president's view.

"In my opinion there's no end served by releasing a picture of someone who has been killed," he said, quoted by CNN.

But senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the decision was a mistake.

"I know Bin Laden is dead," he said. "But the best way to protect and defend our interests overseas is to prove that fact to the rest of the world. I'm afraid the decision made today by President Obama will unnecessarily prolong this debate."

The decision came as US officials began to comb through computer hard drives, mobile phones and USB sticks found during the US Navy Seals raid on the compound in Abbottabad where Bin Laden was living.

US Attorney General Eric Holder said Washington expected to add more names to its terrorism watch-list as a result of data seized in the raid.

Two telephone numbers and 500 euros ($745; £450) were also found stitched into Bin Laden's clothing, there in case he needed to make a quick getaway.

Critics have raised concerns about the legality of the operation, after the US revised its account to acknowledge Bin Laden was unarmed when shot dead.

But Mr Holder said Bin Laden was a lawful military target, whose killing was "an act of national self-defence".

"It was a kill-or-capture mission. He made no attempt to surrender."

Survivors

Three other men and one woman died in Monday's assault, while one of the al-Qaeda leader's wives was injured.

The Pakistani military is holding the survivors of the US special forces operation. They are being kept at secret locations in the cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

The 54-year-old Bin Laden - America's most-wanted man - was buried at sea from a US aircraft carrier, say US officials.

Mr Obama, who monitored the progress of the raid from the White House, saw his approval rating jump 11 points to 57% in a New York Times/CBS News poll on Wednesday.

The compound where the operation took place is just a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Military Academy.

In unusually frank remarks, CIA director Leon Panetta told Time magazine: "It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission. They might alert the targets."

Pakistan rejected the US suggestions it could not have been trusted in advance.

Some US lawmakers are calling for billions of dollars in aid for Pakistan to be reduced or stopped altogether.

[Cymberly]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/gaddafis_libya_reminds_us_it_issued_the_first_bin_laden_arrest_warrant/2011/05/04/AFLEJJqF_story.html?wprss=rss_world



Gaddafi’s Libya reminds U.S. who issued the first bin Laden arrest warrant



By Simon Denyer, Thursday, May 5, 2011

TRIPOLI, Libya — In an attempt to portray itself as an ally in the battle against al-Qaeda, Libya reminded the United States on Wednesday that Moammar Gaddafi’s government, not anyone in Washington, was the first to issue an arrest warrant against Osama bin Laden, back in 1998.

The warrant, approved by Interpol, came after two German anti-terrorism agents were gunned down in the Libyan city of Sirte in 1994, an attack the government in Tripoli blamed on the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a militant organization linked to al-Qaeda.

Five months after the warrant was issued, al-Qaeda carried out coordinated bombings on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than 200 people.

“At the time, they didn’t listen to us, because no one listened to Libya then,” said one senior Libyan government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Gaddafi’s open endorsement of terrorist attacks against Western nations, as well as Libya’s involvement in the bombing of a Berlin nightclub in 1986 and the downing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, turned the country into a pariah state and led President Ronald Reagan to nickname its leader “the mad dog of the Middle East.”

According to former British intelligence agent David Shayler, eight years after Lockerbie, Britain’s MI6 sponsored the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in a 1996 attempt to kill Gaddafi.

It was as a result of this connection, two former French intelligence agents alleged, that the British secret service subsequently thwarted Libya’s attempt to turn the spotlight on Libyan Islamists and bin Laden.

After years of U.N. sanctions, Gaddafi gradually repaired relations with the West. His government became an ally in George W. Bush’s fight against terrorism after Tripoli surrendered its weapons of mass destruction program in 2003 and diplomatic relations were restored. It is something Libya likes to frequently point out to foreign journalists in Tripoli, as officials portray the rebels they are fighting as led by al-Qaeda and argue that the United States is backing the wrong horse.

Last weekend, less than 36 hours before U.S. commandos surrounded bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan, NATO sent rockets onto a house owned by the Gaddafi family in Tripoli, killing one of Gaddafi’s sons and three of his grandchildren, in what the Libyan government described as a deliberate attempt to assassinate its leader.

That left the Gaddafi regime in the slightly tricky diplomatic situation this week of not knowing whether to congratulate the United States for taking out a mutual enemy or condemn President Obama for engaging in a political assassination.

At a news conference early Wednesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim first tried to dodge the question and then drew a distinction between the two events.

“Bin Laden, he was not a head of state, and that’s why there is a difference. He was not a head of a political party or political organization. When we come to the definition of ‘political assassination,’ we should be a bit careful about whether bin Laden was a political figure or not,” he said.

“The Libyan government, it is not its policy to target an individual leader to achieve political gain. But, again, Libya was the first victim of al-Qaeda . . . and Libya was very cooperative in combating al-Qaeda.”

Earlier, the Foreign Ministry repeated its allegation about al-Qaeda’s increasing involvement on the side of the rebels in the Libyan conflict.

“There is no doubt that defeating al-Qaeda as an organization and an ideology cannot be achieved under the policy conducted by the U.S., Britain and France in Libya and elsewhere in the world,” it said in a statement Tuesday.

Although some Islamist radicals have joined the cause of Libya’s rebellion, the vast majority of rebel fighters appear to be ordinary Libyans fed up with four decades of repression under Gaddafi’s government.

The Germans killed in 1994 were Silvan Becker, said to be one of Germany’s foremost experts on Islamist extremism and the Arab world, and his wife, Vera. Becker’s slaying is thought by some experts to have affected Germany’s ability to spot the Hamburg plotters who coordinated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Becker was also investigating the Berlin nightclub attack and the Lockerbie bombing.

[jerrys1960]

http://arabnews.com/world/article384172.ece


CIA watched Bin Laden from nearby house

By AUGUSTINE ANTHONY | REUTERS

Published: May 7, 2011

ABBOTTABAD/NEW YORK: Extensive surveillance of Osama Bin Laden's hideout from a nearby CIA safe house in Abbottabad led to his killing in a Navy SEAL operation, US officials said, a revelation likely to further embarrass Pakistan's spy agency and strain ties.

The US officials, quoted by the Washington Post, said the safe house was the base for intelligence gathering that began after Bin Laden's compound was discovered last August, and which was so exhaustive the CIA asked Congress to reallocate tens of millions of dollars to fund it.

"The CIA's job was to find and fix," the Post quoted one US official as saying, using special forces terminology for locating a target. "The intelligence work was as complete as it was going to be, and it was the military's turn to finish the target."

US officials told the New York Times that intelligence gathered from computer files and documents seized at his compound showed Bin Laden had for years orchestrated Al-Qaeda attacks from the Pakistani town.

One US official said there was no indication from the intelligence that further plans were drawn up for the railway plot or that steps were taken to carry it out. The US Department of Homeland Security said it had no information of an imminent threat.

The CIA spent several months monitoring Bin Laden's hideout, watching and photographing residents and visitors from a rented house nearby, according to US officials quoted in the New York Times and Washington Post.

Observing from behind mirrored glass, CIA officers used cameras with telephoto lenses and infrared imaging equipment to study the compound, and they used sensitive eavesdropping equipment to try to pick up voices from inside the house and to intercept cell phone calls, the New York Times said. A satellite used radar to search for possible escape tunnels.

The US administration has refused to be drawn on details on the raid, but, in a further sign of fractious relations between the allies, senior Pakistani security officials told Reuters that US accounts had been misleading.

In Washington, people familiar with the latest US government reporting on the raid told Reuters on Thursday that only one of four principal targets shot to death by US commandos was involved in any hostile fire.

As the elite Navy SEALs moved in on a guest house inside Bin Laden's compound, they were met with fire and shot a man in the guest house. He proved to be Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, an al Qaeda courier US intelligence agencies had long been tracking.

The commandos then entered the main residence, where they killed another courier and a son of Bin Laden, the sources said. They finally shot and killed the Al-Qaeda leader in a top-floor room after having earlier fired at him as he poked his head out of a door or over a balcony.

US officials originally spoke of a 40-minute firefight. The White House has blamed the "fog of war" for the changing accounts.

[jerrys1960]

http://arabnews.com/world/article392261.ece


Pakistan suspected of retaliating after US raid

By SEBASTIAN ABBOT | AP

Published: May 10, 2011


ISLAMABAD: Suspicion has been rising that Pakistan’s intelligence service leaked the name of the CIA chief in Islamabad to local media in anger over the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden — the second outing of an American covert operative here in six months.

The US said Monday it has no plans to pull the spy chief, but the incident is likely to exacerbate an already troubled relationship between the two countries a week after Navy SEALs in helicopters swooped down on Bin Laden’s compound without first telling the Pakistanis. The CIA and Pakistan’s spy agency have long viewed each other with suspicion, which the death of the terror leader has laid bare.

The Pakistani military and intelligence services have suffered withering criticism at home for failing to stop the US operation. Many Pakistanis view the raid as a violation of their sovereignty — even if they were pleased that Bin Laden was killed.

US officials have said they didn’t tell Pakistanis in advance because they were worried someone might tip off Bin Laden. American forces also used helicopters with radar-evading technology so the Pakistanis couldn’t track them.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani defended the military and intelligence services Monday, telling parliament it was “disingenuous for anyone to blame Pakistan ... for being in cahoots with Al-Qaeda.” He acknowledged his nation’s failure to track Bin Laden but said the failure wasn’t Pakistan’s alone.

“Yes, there has been an intelligence failure,” Gilani said. “It is not only ours but of all the intelligence agencies of the world.” US officials have said they see no evidence that anyone in the upper echelons of Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment was complicit in hiding Bin Laden in Abbottabad, an army town only 35 miles from the capital. But suspicions remain, and members of Congress have threatened to cut off US aid if evidence is found.

President Barack Obama said the US believes Bin Laden must have had a support network inside Pakistan.

“But we don’t know who or what that support network was,” Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” “We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that’s something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate.” Gilani proclaimed the death of Bin Laden as “indeed justice done” since Al-Qaeda has launched many attacks inside Pakistan. But he warned the US not to try a similar covert raid in the future.

“Unilateralism runs the inherent risk of serious consequences,” Gilani said. “Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force. ... No one should underestimate the resolve and capability of our nation and armed forces to defend our sacred homeland.” At the same time, however, he stressed the importance of Pakistan-US ties and insisted the relationship was still strong.

“Our communications at the official and diplomatic levels with the US, during this phase, have been good, productive and straightforward,” said Gilani.

Gilani’s speech and the suspected leak of the CIA station chief’s name illustrate the balancing act that Pakistani officials seem to be trying to achieve in responding to the Bin Laden raid.

Civilian and military leaders must placate a domestic population that is upset at the US for violating the country’s sovereignty and outraged at the country’s army and intelligence agency for allowing it to happen. But they must also worry about preserving their relationship with the US, which provides billions of dollars in military and civilian aid for cooperation on the war in Afghanistan.

“Gilani’s statement and the leak of the name of the supposed CIA station chief appear to be in keeping with Islamabad’s need to maintain relations with the United States and at the same time try and counter growing US

pressure in the wake of the Osama Bin Laden killing,” said Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with STRATFOR, a private security think tank in Austin, Texas.

Even before the discovery of Bin Laden, many US

officials accused Pakistan of playing a double game by taking American aid, promising its support and then failing to target key Islamist militants wanted by the US, including Taleban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar.

But the US is in a difficult position because it is reliant on Pakistan’s help to go after Taleban militants on its territory and ships a large percentage of its non-lethal goods to its forces in Afghanistan through the country. Pakistan also allows the CIA drones to carry out missile strikes on militant targets in the border regions.

Pushing Pakistan too hard could jeopardize the relationship with the critical, if fickle, ally.

On Friday, the private TV channel ARY broadcast what it said was the current CIA station chief’s name. The Nation, a right-wing newspaper, picked up the story Saturday.

Although the name was misspelled, the publication of any alleged identity of the US spy agency’s top official in this country could be push-back from Pakistan’s powerful military and spy agency in retaliation for the American raid.

The Associated Press is not publishing the station chief’s name because he is undercover and his identity is classified. A spokesman for Pakistani intelligence declined to comment.

ARY’s news director, Mazhar Abbas, said the television station’s reporter gleaned the name from a source. He defended the broadcast, saying it was “based on fact” and rejected suggestions the name was leaked to the television channel by an official with a motive.

A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of discussing CIA personnel issues, told the AP that there are no plans to remove the station chief from Pakistan.

Asad Munir, a former intelligence chief with responsibility for Pakistan’s militant-populated tribal areas, said very few people know the name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad. But he said that releasing it would not necessarily jeopardize the American’s safety.

“Normally people in intelligence have cover names,” Munir said. “Only if there is a photograph to identify him could it put his life in danger.” In December, the CIA pulled its then-station chief out of Pakistan after a name alleged to be his surfaced in public and his safety was deemed at risk. That name hit the local presses after it was mentioned by a lawyer who planned a lawsuit on behalf of victims of US drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt.

Suspicions have lingered that that outing was orchestrated by Pakistan’s spy agency to avenge an American lawsuit that named its chief over the 2008 terror attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai. The Pakistani agency denied leaking the CIA operative’s name.

[jerrys1960]

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20110507bc.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+japantimes+%28The+Japan+Times%3A+All+Stories%29


Saturday, May 7, 2011

The heartland of bin Laden

By BRAHMA CHELLANEY

New Delhi — The killing of Osama bin Laden by United States special forces in a helicopter assault on a sprawling luxury mansion near Islamabad recalls the capture of other al-Qaida leaders in Pakistani cities. Once again, we see that the real terrorist sanctuaries are located not along Pakistan's borders with Afghanistan and India, but in the Pakistani heartland.

This, in turn, underlines another fundamental reality — that the fight against international terrorism cannot be won without demilitarizing and de-radicalizing Pakistan, including by rebalancing civil-military relations there and reining in the country's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Other terrorist leaders captured in Pakistan since 9/11 — including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaida's third in command; Abu Zubeida, the network's operations chief; Yasser Jazeeri; Abu Faraj Farj; and Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the coordinators of 9/11 — were also found living in cities across Pakistan.

If there is any surprise about bin Laden's hideout, it is its location in a military town, Abbottadad, in the shadow of an army academy.

This only underscores the major protection that bin Laden must have received from elements of the Pakistani security establishment to help him elude the U.S. dragnet. The breakthrough in hunting him down came only after the U.S., even at the risk of rupturing its long-standing ties with the Pakistani army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), deployed a number of CIA operatives, Special Operations forces, and contractors deep inside Pakistan without the knowledge of the Pakistani military.

In recent years, with its senior operations men captured or killed and bin Laden holed up in Pakistan, the badly splintered al-Qaida had already lost the ability to mount a major international attack or openly challenge U.S. interests. With bin Laden's death, al-Qaida is likely to wither away as an organization.

Yet its dangerous ideology is expected to live on and motivate state-sponsored non-state actors. It will be mainly such elements that will have the capacity to launch major transnational terrorist attacks, like the 2008 Mumbai strikes. Even in Afghanistan, the U.S. military's main foe is not al-Qaida but a resurgent Taliban, which enjoys safe haven in Pakistan.

That is why the spotlight is likely to turn on the terrorist nexus within Pakistan and the role of, and relationship between, state and nonstate actors there. Significantly, as the CIA closed in on bin Laden, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullens, for the first time publicly linked the Pakistani military with some of the militants attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan's homegrown Islamist militias operate openly, and the Pakistani army and intelligence remain loath to sever their ties with extremist and terrorist elements.

For the U.S., Pakistan poses a difficult challenge. Despite providing $20 billion to Pakistan in counterterrorism aid since 9/11, the U.S. has received grudging assistance, at best, and duplicitous cooperation, at worst. Today, amid a rising tide of anti-Americanism, U.S. policy on Pakistan is rapidly unraveling. Yet Pakistan, with one of the world's lowest tax-to-GDP ratios, has become more dependent than ever on U.S. aid.

Even as Americans exult over bin Laden's killing, the U.S. government must recognize that its failed policy on Pakistan has inadvertently made that country the world's main terrorist sanctuary. Rather than helping to build robust civilian institutions there, the U.S. has pampered the jihadist-penetrated Pakistani military establishment, best illustrated by the fresh $3 billion military aid package earmarked for the next fiscal year.

After dictator Pervez Musharraf was driven out of office, the new Pakistani civilian government ordered the ISI to report to the interior ministry, but received no support from the U.S. for this effort to assert civilian control, allowing the army to quickly frustrate the effort.

After coming to office, U.S. President Barack Obama implemented a military surge in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, however, he implemented an aid surge, turning it into the largest recipient of U.S. aid, even though the Afghan Taliban leadership and al-Qaida remnants remained ensconced in the country. This only deepened U.S. involvement in the wrong war and emboldened Pakistan to fatten the Afghan Taliban, even as sustained U.S. attacks continued to severely weaken al-Qaida.

Make no mistake: the scourge of Pakistani terrorism emanates more from the country's generals than from the bead-rubbing mullahs. It is the self-styled secular generals who have reared the forces of jihad and fathered the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jalaluddin Haqqani militia, and other groups. Yet, by passing the blame for their terrorist-proxy policy to their mullah puppets, the generals have made the U.S. believe that the key is to contain the religious fringe, not the puppeteers.

In fact, Pakistan's descent into a jihadist dungeon occurred not under civilian rule, but under two military dictators — one who nurtured and let loose jihadist forces, and another who took his country to the very edge of the precipice.

Without reform of the Pakistani army and ISI, there can be no end to transnational terrorism — and no genuine nation-building in Pakistan. How can Pakistan be a "normal" state if its army and intelligence agency remain outside civilian oversight and decisive power remains with military generals?

With bin Laden dead, the only way that al-Qaida can reconstitute itself is if the Pakistani military succeeds in reinstalling a proxy regime in Afghanistan.

Until the Pakistani military's viselike grip on power is broken and the ISI cut down to size, Pakistan is likely to remain Ground Zero for the terrorist threat that the world confronts.

[jerrys1960]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/cia-had-safe-house-near-hideout/story-e6frg6so-1226051448208?from=public_rss


CIA had safe house near Osama bin Laden hideout

* Brad Norington, Washington correspondent
* From: The Australian
* May 07, 2011



HE hideout where Osama bin Laden was killed by US commandos was under surveillance for months by a team of CIA spies who operated out of a nearby safe house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

The surveillance was part of a massive intelligence gathering effort that set out to confirm the al-Qa'ida leader was inside the fortified compound after the US gained an important lead last August.

The Washington Post reported that secret intelligence-gathering was so extensive and costly in the final part of the long hunt for bin Laden that the CIA went to the US congress in December to ask that tens of millions of dollars in budget funds be redirected to finance the operation.

Surveillance, which also involved months of satellite imagery and eavesdropping to record voices inside bin Laden's sanctuary, was intended to monitor the pattern of movements inside and identify the main target.

But the founder of al-Qa'ida was so careful to remain hidden that the CIA was not certain he was inside and rated the odds at 60 to 80 per cent.

President Barack Obama ordered the raid that ended a search lasting almost a decade for the world's most wanted terrorist based on strong but circumstantial evidence accumulated after bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, was tracked to the compound in the heart of one of Pakistan's biggest military cities.

Revelations about the CIA safe house, which did not play a part in the commando raid this week and has been shut down, came as evidence seized from bin Laden's home showed that al-Qa'ida had considered attacking trains in the US on the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

US authorities stressed yesterday the plans were "aspirational" and dated back to February last year. No recent intelligence indicated an active plan for an attack to proceed.

An intelligence message issued by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security yesterday advised that al-Qa'ida was "allegedly contemplating" an attack on trains at an unspecified location in the US on September 11 this year.

One of the options included trying to force a train off a bridge or derail it in a valley.

"We have no information of any imminent terrorist threat to the US rail sector, but wanted to make our partners aware of the alleged plotting," Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler said. As more details emerge about the raid on bin Laden's compound - despite a White House decision to shut down issuing further information after several muddled accounts - it became clear yesterday that the gunfight inside bin Laden's compound was brief and the terrorist leader was killed not long after commandos entered the building.

The US SEAL team led by Joint Special Operations Command in co-operation with the CIA spent most of the 38 minutes in the compound retrieving a mountain of computers, disks and documents.

After taking the material back to the US, intelligence analysts are wading through it to find leads that could identify al-Qa'ida operatives and possible future plots, with the hope of breaking what remains of bin Laden's organisation.

The CIA is also combing the material for any evidence that bin Laden was protected for up to five years or longer that he lived in the compound by Pakistan.

A possible attack on the US rail system was the first intelligence to be released from the massive amount confiscated.

Pakistan's Foreign Secretary, Salman Bashir, yesterday blasted the US raid that killed bin Laden for a "violation of sovereignty", despite the arguments of US Attorney-General Eric Holder that it was legal as an act of war, and amounted to self-defence after attacks on the US.

Mr Bashir also vigorously denied that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate or elements within the government were "in cahoots" with al-Qa'ida in giving bin Laden sanctuary. "This is a false hypothesis," he said.

"This is a false charge. It cannot be validated on any account and it flies in the face of what Pakistanis, and in particular the Inter-Services Intelligence, has been able to accomplish."

Carl Levin, chairman of the US Senate armed services committee, said yesterday that high levels of the ISI organisation must have known about bin Laden's whereabouts but admitted he could not prove it.

The senior Democrat senator also told US-based ABC News that he had "no doubt" that the highest levels of the Pakistani government were protecting other others including Taliban leader Mullah Omar and heads of the Haqqani terrorist network who had been responsible for killing US troops in Afghanistan.

The US gives $US3 billion ($2.8bn) in aid a year to Pakistan but the relationship between the two countries is at breaking point after bin Laden's killing, and many in the US congress want to reconsider funds given to Islamabad.

Mr Obama marked the death of bin Laden by laying a wreath yesterday at the Ground Zero site in New York where the two most deadly terrorist attacks ordered by bin Laden occurred on September 11, when two passenger jets destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and killed almost 3000 people.

Vice-President Joe Biden attended a separate ceremony at the Pentagon in Washington to honour those killed there in another 9/11 attack, which killed 184. Mr Obama will travel to Fort Worth in Kentucky today to congratulate the Navy SEAL team that conducted the successful raid in Pakistan. He is said to have already met Vice-Admiral William McRaven, who was in charge of the mission.

According to the Homeland Security Department, the alleged al-Qa'ida plot to attack US trains was based on "initial reporting" that was often inaccurate and subject to change.

US authorities issued a warning about a possible al-Qa'ida threat to New York public transport in 2008, and an Afghan immigrant, Najibullah Zazi, pleaded guilty last year to plotting a suicide bombing on the subway after he had attended an al-Qa'ida camp in Pakistan's Waziristan region.

At the time, Mr Holder called Zazi's plot one of the most serious US security threats since 9/11.

[jerrys1960]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/al-qa039ida-confirms-bin-laden-death/story-fn8ljzlv-1226051459984?from=public_rss


Al-Qa'ida confirms bin Laden death, vows revenge

* From: AFP
* May 06, 2011



IN a statement posted on jihadist internet forums, al-Qa'ida has confirmed the death of its leader Osama bin Laden and threatened to avenge it.

"We in al-Qa'ida organisation pledge to Allah the almighty and ask his help, support and steadfastness to continue on the path of jihad, the path walked upon by our leaders, and on top of them, Sheikh Osama," US monitoring group SITE Intelligence reported, quoting the statement.

"We also stress that the blood of the mujahid Sheikh Osama bin Laden, may Allah have mercy upon him, weighs more to us and is more precious to us and to every Muslim than to be wasted in vain," it said.

"We call upon our Muslim people in Pakistan, on whose land Sheikh Osama was killed, to rise up and revolt to cleanse this shame that has been attached to them by a clique of traitors and thieves who sold everything to the enemies.

"(We call upon them) to rise up strongly and in general to cleanse their country (Pakistan) from the filth of the Americans who spread corruption in it," said the statement.

Al-Qa'ida also said tonight it will soon release an audiotape of bin Laden that was recorded a week before he was killed by US commandos in Pakistan.

[jerrys1960]

http://arabnews.com/world/article384245.ece



US ‘highly vigilant’ after Al-Qaeda revenge threat

By AGENCIES

Published: May 7, 2011 00:24

WASHINGTON: The White House said Friday it was “highly vigilant” to security threats following Al-Qaeda’s threat to avenge the killing of its leader.

“We are quite aware of the potential for activity and are highly vigilant on that matter for that reason,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney. Carney also noted that an Al-Qaeda message issued earlier confirmed the death of Osama Bin Laden.

The SITE monitoring group reported that the terror network confirmed the death of Bin Laden Friday and swore revenge for his killing by elite US commandos, some of whom President Barack Obama met on Friday.

“We in Al-Qaeda organization pledge to the Almighty and ask His help, support and steadfastness to continue on the path of jihad, the path walked upon by our leaders, and on top of them, Osama,” SITE said, quoting the statement.

The statement specified the location of Bin Laden’s death and those responsible, and so is likely to squelch fringe conspiracy theories that were beginning to form about his demise.

The statement directly threatened Pakistan’s leaders. “We call upon our Muslim people in Pakistan, on whose land he was killed, to rise up and revolt to cleanse this shame that has been attached to them by a clique of traitors and thieves who sold everything to the enemies.”

The killing of Bin Laden will give “a new impetus” to the fight against foreign “invaders” in Afghanistan, the Taleban said in a statement issued on Friday. “The sapling of jihad has always grown, spruced and reached fructification through irrigation by pure blood,” it added.

Meanwhile, Bin Laden was scheming how to hit the United States hard again, according to newly uncovered documents that show Al-Qaeda plans for derailing an American train on the upcoming 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Details of the plan emerged as some of the first intelligence was gleaned from the trove of information found in Bin Laden’s residence.

The confiscated material reveals the rail attack planning as of February 2010. One idea outlined in handwritten notes was to tamper with an unspecified US rail track so that a train would fall off the track at a valley or a bridge.

Counterterrorism officials said they believe the plot was only in the initial planning stages, and there is no recent intelligence about any active plan for such an attack.

Other intelligence pulled from the compound represented a terrorist wish list but has revealed no specific plan so far. Some documents indicated a desire to strike the US with large-scale attacks in major cities and on key dates such as anniversaries and holidays. But there never was any sign that those were anything more than ambitions, said a US official who preferred anonymity.

In related news, one of three wives living with Bin Laden has told Pakistani interrogators she had been staying in the hide-out for five years without leaving its upper floors, a Pakistani intelligence official said Friday. The woman, identified as Yemeni-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, and the other two wives of Bin Laden are being interrogated in Pakistan after they were taken into custody following the raid.

[jerrys1960]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13354995


11 May 2011


Bin Laden sons protest to US over 'arbitrary killing'



The sons of Osama Bin Laden have criticised the US authorities for carrying out his "arbitrary killing".

A statement given to the New York Times newspaper said the family wanted to know why the al-Qaeda leader had not been captured alive.

Relatives who survived the 2 May raid in Pakistan should be freed, it said.

Another statement appeared on a jihadist website saying the burial of Bin Laden at sea "demeans and humiliates his family".

Osama Bin Laden was shot dead by US special forces during a raid on his home in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad.

US officials have said that while Bin Laden was unarmed he had given no indication to the US troops that he wanted to surrender.

Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the killing was lawful and "an act of national self-defence".

Humiliation

The statement printed by the New York Times was attributed to Bin Laden's fourth son, Omar Bin Laden, who has repeatedly distanced himself from his father's ideology.

It said that in absence of a body or photographic evidence, the family were not convinced he was dead.

But if he was dead, it said, they were questioning "why an unarmed man was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world".

They argue Bin Laden's killing had broken international law and that figures such as former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic had been given the chance to stand trial.

"We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems and crime's adjudication as justice must be seen to be done."

The family said they were demanding an inquiry into why Bin Laden was "summarily executed without a court of law" and demanded the release of his three wives and several children, who are believed to be in Pakistani custody.

The statement also said the US decision to bury Bin Laden's corpse at sea had deprived the family of performing religious rites.

A slightly different version of the report was published on a jihadist websites, said the SITE Intelligence Group.

It said US President Barack Obama was "legally responsible" for clarifying "the fate of our father" and that the sea burial "demeans and humiliates his family and his supporters".

US President Barack Obama has urged Pakistan to investigate how the al-Qaeda leader could live in the garrison city of Abbottabad undetected and to find out if any officials knew of his whereabouts.

Pakistan's PM Yousuf Raza Gilani has insisted that allegations of Pakistani complicity and incompetence are "absurd".

[jerrys1960]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13318372


7 May 2011


Bin Laden killed: Explore issues


By Aidan Lewis
BBC News


After receiving news that a team of US Navy Seals had shot dead Osama Bin Laden at a compound in northern Pakistan, President Barack Obama announced that justice had been done.

The demise of the man held responsible for mass atrocities, including the 11 September 2001 attacks, was welcomed around the world.

But as the US narrative of the raid has developed - and changed - since Monday's raid, there have been growing questions about whether it was legal to kill the al-Qaeda leader.

At one level, these questions have focused on what happened during the operation at the building in Abbottabad in which Bin Laden was found.

"The issue here is whether what was done was an act of legitimate self-defence," said Benjamin Ferencz, an international law specialist who served as a prosecutor during the Nuremburg trials and argued that it would have been better to capture Bin Laden and send him to court.

"Killing a captive who poses no immediate threat is a crime under military law as well as all other law," he told the BBC World Service.
'Killing appropriate'

Putting the case for the legality of the raid on Wednesday, US Attorney General Eric Holder said it was "conducted in a way that was consistent with our law, with our values".
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

It's lawful to target an enemy commander in the field”

Eric Holder US Attorney General

"If he had surrendered, attempted to surrender, I think we should obviously have accepted that, but there was no indication that he wanted to do that and therefore his killing was appropriate," he told the Senate judiciary committee.

No blow-by-blow account of what happened in the moments before Bin Laden was shot has been settled on.

US officials have suggested that Bin Laden may have been reaching for a weapon, and that the Navy Seals may have suspected that people in the compound were wearing suicide belts.

But they have also said Bin Laden was not carrying a weapon - after initially saying he was.

And they have told US media that just one person in the compound shot at the special forces team, in what appears to have been a fairly one-sided confrontation.

Legal experts have therefore asked whether the US forces were instructed to kill, and whether Bin Laden was offered a chance to give himself in.

Proportionate response?

Like Mr Ferencz, British law professor Philippe Sands QC says it is impossible to make a definitive legal judgement without knowing precisely what happened. But he says the case for the raid's legality has been weakened.

"The question to ask is: were the measures taken in the actual situation that pertained reasonable and proportionate given the circumstances in which the [Navy Seals] found themselves?" he told the BBC.

"The facts for Bin Laden don't appear to easily meet that standard."

On a broader level, US officials have justified Bin Laden's killing as an act committed as part of an armed conflict with al-Qaeda.

Mr Holder said Bin Laden's killing was "an act of national self-defence", calling the al-Qaeda leader "a lawful military target" who had acknowledged his role in the 9/11 attacks.

"It's lawful to target an enemy commander in the field," he said.

Some legal experts have backed up that position.

"I don't think that this is an extrajudicial killing," Philip Bobbitt, a specialist on constitutional law and international security, told the BBC's World Tonight programme. "I think this is part of an armed conflict authorised by the United Nations, authorised by both houses of Congress."
'Setting precedents'

The extent to which Bin Laden could have still been a key commander, given the restrictions on his movements and communictions, has been queried, though the US has said he was "active in operational planning" from Abbottabad.

But the fact that Bin Laden was killed in a normally quiet town, in a country with which the US is not at war and says it was not given prior warning of the raid, has also raised questions.

"As a matter of international law, one country is not free to enter another country apparently without the authorisation of that country, and intervene, whether to kidnap or kill a national of a third state," Mr Sands said.

He acknowledged that under what is known as the doctrine of necessity, where there is an "overriding threat to national security", such an act might not give rise to responsibility or liability.

But he said the difficulty with that argument was that it comes against a background of a rise in extrajudicial killings, including through the use of drones, and that this was not a "lawful direction to be taking".

The logical conclusion of any idea that Bin Laden could be killed as an enemy combatant was "that anyone associated with al-Qaeda in any country in the world can be taken out, can be executed," Mr Sands said.

"I think it's deeply troubling if we are indeed moving to a place where you can have a global assassination policy for those who are perceived to cause trouble," he added.

The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, and the special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin, have raised a similar concern.

"In certain exceptional cases, use of deadly force may be permissible as a measure of last resort... including in operations against terrorists," they said in statement.

"However, the norm should be that terrorists be dealt with as criminals, through legal processes of arrest, trial and judicially decided punishment," they added.

"Actions taken by states in combating terrorism, especially in high profile cases, set precedents for the way in which the right to life will be treated in future instances."

[jerrys1960]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13317717


6 May 2011

Excerpts from 'al-Qaeda' statement on Bin Laden's death

A statement attributed to al-Qaeda has acknowledged the death of its leader, Osama Bin Laden, at the hands of the Americans.

The statement, published on jihadist internet forums, vows to continue attacks on the US and its "agents" and says an audiotape recorded by Bin Laden shortly before his death would be released soon.

The communique - attributed to al-Qaeda's General Command - is dated 3 May. Here are some excerpts.

"On an historical day of the days of the great Islamic Ummah [community of Muslims worldwide]... the mujahid migrant ascetic leader - Sheikh Abu Abdullah Osama Bin Mohammed Bin Laden (may God bless his soul) has been killed in a moment of truthfulness, for he made his word truthful to his actions.

"Thus, he joined the magnificent procession of the Ummah that has been extended with the great leaders, loyal soldiers, and honourable knights.

"He refused to accept vice in exchange for his religion, or to submit and be humiliated by the misguided and the receivers of the wrath [of God], who have been stricken by disgrace and misery. The sheikh faced the weapon with weapon, force with force, and accepted to challenge the supercilious throngs that came out arrogantly and ostentatiously with their machinery, gear, aircrafts, and armies.

"Despite all this, his determination never wavered and his strength was never weakened; he instead stood up to them, face-to-face like a high mountain. He continued to fight the kind of battles that he was accustomed to... until he received the bullets of deception and non-belief to surrender his soul to its Creator...

"After a life full of efforts and diligence, courage and patience, incitement and jihad, generosity and charity, expatriation and travels, advice and good planning, wisdom and sophistication, the life of the sheikh came to an end during this specific era.

"His blood, words, attitudes, and his ending are to remain a soul running within the junctions of our Islamic Ummah generation after generation.

"If the Americans succeeded in killing Osama, that is no shame or disgrace. Are not men and heroes killed but on the battlefields? But can the Americans, with their media, agents, tools, soldiers, and apparatus kill what Sheikh Osama lived and died for?

"Alas! The sheikh did not found an organisation that lives with his life and dies with his death.

"Sheikh Osama Bin Laden, God bless him, was not a prophet sent during the 20th Century, but rather a Muslim man from this honourable Muslim Ummah.

"God raised his rank as he held high His religion. He cherished him as he cherished the religion; and through him, God frightened the totality of the unbelieving nations as [Osama] feared only the religion of God.

"If the light of Islam and jihad could be extinguished with the killing or death of someone, it would have been extinguished the day the master of the creation, Muhammad, peace be upon him, died and some Arabs committed apostasy.
Blood 'a curse'

"Based on this understanding, we in al-Qaeda vow to God the Exalted and seek His support to help us go forward on the path of jihad that was trekked by our leaders, headed by Sheikh Osama.

"We will not relent or hesitate; we will not stray or quit until God judges between us and our enemies by the truth, He indeed is the fairest of judges.

"We stress that Sheikh Osama's blood, God bless his soul, is more precious to us and to every Muslim to go in vain. It will, God willing, remain a curse that will chase and haunt the Americans and their agents inside and outside the country.

"Very soon, God willing, their joy will turn into mourning and their blood will be mixed with their tears. We will fulfil Sheikh Osama's oath, God bless his soul: 'America and anyone who lives in America will not enjoy peace until our people in Palestine enjoy it.'

"The soldiers of Islam, whether in groups or individually, will not relent, despair, surrender, or weaken and will continue to plan until you are afflicted with a catastrophe that turns your children's hair grey prematurely.

"We call on our Muslim people in Pakistan where Sheikh Osama was killed to revolt and wash this shame brought upon them by a band of traitors and bandits who sold out to the Ummah's enemies and disparaged the sentiment of this noble, mujahid people.

"We call on them to revolt altogether to cleanse their country, Pakistan, of the American filth who spread mischief in the land.

"The sheikh refused to depart this life before sharing his Muslim Ummah its happiness with the revolutions against injustice and wrongdoers. He, may God bless his soul, recorded a message one week before he died, which included a congratulatory note, advice, and guidance that will soon, God willing, be disseminated.

"He concluded his message with these poetic verses: 'Telling the tyrant the truth is the honour and the hope. It is the path to this life and the path to the next. You can choose to die a slave or a freeborn.'

"We warn the Americans against any mishandling or improper treatment of the sheikh's corpse or anyone of his noble family whether dead or alive.

"The corpse should be handed over to their families. Otherwise, any mistreatment will open for you multiple doors of evil for which you can only blame yourselves. We call on all Muslims to carry out their duty to demand this right."

[jerrys1960]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/144073


Published: 05/11/11

Al Qaeda Issues New Threat Against US

by Chana Ya'ar


The international Al Qaeda terrorist organization has issued a new threat against the United States, just 10 days after its founder and mastermind, Osama bin Laden, was assassinated by U.S. Navy SEALs.

The leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Nasser al-Wahishi, issued the warning in a message posted on Islamic websites.

“Do not think that the case is over?” al-Wahishi warned. “What is coming is even worse. What awaits you is more intense and more damaging. You will bite your fingers and regret the days of Sheikh Osama bin Laden,” he said, according to the message translated by the U.S. Center for Monitoring Islamic Websites.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- currently believed by U.S. intelligence officials to be Al Qaeda's largest subgroup -- is comprised of several Yemeni and Saudi terrorist factions that merged in January 2009.

The group created a network together with remote, but powerful tribes in Yemen who opposed the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. AQAP has infiltrated the capital of Yemen, the nation where bin Laden's father was born, as well as Saudi Arabia.

In addition, the group has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in France and is considered an active threat to the U.S. homeland.

[dorahuegens]

Seems the "facts" of these news stories are changing more and more frequently.

The joy of "make it up as you go" reporting - as long as the report fits the adgenda anything goes.

Even if just about every statement in the article can be refuted and proven false.

As if it is not difficult enough to keep up with the real news.






copied from:
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=626680




'Bin Laden dead long before US raid'
Posted: 2011/05/12
From: Mathaba




Iran's intelligence minister says the country has reliable information that former head of the al-Qaeda terrorist group Osama bin Laden died of disease some time ago.

“We have accurate information that bin Laden died of illness some time ago,” Heidar Moslehi told reporters on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting on Sunday.

He questioned Washington's claim that bin Laden was killed by American troops in a hiding compound in Pakistan on May 1.

“If the US military and intelligence apparatus have really arrested or killed bin Laden, why don't they show him (his dead body) why have they thrown his corpse into the sea?” Moslehi asked.

“When we apprehended [former Jundallah ringleader Abdul Malik] Rigi, we showed him and also aired his interview,” ISNA quoted the intelligence chief as saying.

By releasing such false news, he said, the White House seeks to overshadow regional awakening.

Moslehi said US officials resort to such PR campaigns to divert attention from their domestic problems as well as their “fragile” economic situation.

US President Barack Obama claimed that Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces on May 1 in a hiding compound in Pakistan.

A US official later announced that bin Laden's body was abruptly buried at sea, falsely boasting that his hasty burial was in accordance with the Islamic law, requiring burial within 24 hours of death.

However, burial at sea is not an Islamic practice and Islam does not have a timeframe for burial.

US officials also claimed their decision for a sea burial was made because no country would accept bin Laden's remains, without elaborating on which countries were actually contacted on the matter.

Analysts, however, have raised serious questions as to why US officials did not allow for the application of a DNA test to officially confirm the identity of the corpse before its hasty burial.

[jerrys1960]

dorahuegens said:

Seems the "facts" of these news stories are changing more and more frequently.


Dora that is exactly why I have been posting all these postings of this story from so many different sources. It is high profile and should give a very good example about how the "facts" reported by various sources change or in some cases don't change as time goes on.

Hopefully in time we can look back at all of this and see who were the lairs and who were the people trying to tell the truth about what happened.

In the not so near future knowing who said what, who changed their stories and who flat out lied, in this and other news could become helpful in determining who we should trust and who we should not.

I am going to make what some people will call a very paranoid sounding statement also, "In the near future knowing the difference between the person that tells the truth and someone that simply tells a good sounding story, for many of us, will likely be major key factor in determining how much longer we get to live and the quality of that life."

[jerrys1960]

copied from:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/u-s-officials-seized-bin-laden-documents-show-plans-to-strike-small-u-s-cities-1.361243


U.S. officials: Seized bin Laden documents show plans to strike small U.S. cities


haaretz.com
Thu, May 12, 2011


U.S. officials: Seized bin Laden documents show plans to strike small U.S. cities

In papers acquired during U.S. raid on his compound, al-Qaida leader gave an estimate of the number of Americans who would have to be killed in order to force U.S. withdrawal from Mideast.

By The Associated Press Tags: Israel news Osama bin Laden

Deep in hiding, his terror organization becoming battered and fragmented, Osama bin Laden kept pressing followers to find new ways to hit the U.S., officials say, citing his private journal and other documents recovered in last week's raid.

Strike smaller cities, bin Laden suggested. Target trains as well as planes. Above all, kill as many Americans as possible in a single attack.

Though he was out of the public eye and al-Qaida seemed to be weakening, bin Laden never yielded control of his worldwide organization, U.S. officials said Wednesday. His personal, handwritten journal and his massive collection of computer files reveal his hand at work in every recent major al-Qaida threat, including plots in Europe last year that had travelers and embassies on high alert, two officials said.

They described the intelligence only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about what was found in bin Laden's hideout. Analysts are continuing to review the documents.

The information shatters the government's conventional thinking about bin Laden, who had been regarded for years as mostly an inspirational figurehead whose years in hiding made him too marginalized to maintain operational control of the organization he founded.

Instead, bin Laden was communicating from his walled compound in Pakistan with al-Qaida's offshoots, including the Yemen branch that has emerged as the leading threat to the United States, the documents indicate. Though there is no evidence yet that he was directly behind the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner or the nearly successful attack on cargo planes heading for Chicago and Philadelphia, it's now clear that they bear some of bin Laden's hallmarks.

Don't limit attacks to New York City, he said in his writings. Consider other areas such as Los Angeles or smaller cities. Spread out the targets.

In one particularly macabre bit of mathematics, bin Laden's writings show him musing over just how many Americans he must kill to force the U.S. to withdraw from the Arab world. He concludes that small attacks had not been enough. He tells his disciples that only a body count of thousands, something on the scale of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, would shift U.S. policy.

He also schemed about ways to sow political dissent in Washington and play political figures against one another, officials said.

The communications were in missives sent via plug-in computer storage devices called flash drives. The devices were ferried to bin Laden's compound by couriers, a process that is slow but exceptionally difficult to track.

Intelligence officials have not identified any new planned targets or plots in their initial analysis of the 100 or so flash drives and five computers that Navy SEALs hauled away after killing bin Laden. Last week, the FBI and Homeland Security Department warned law enforcement officials nationwide to be on alert for possible attacks against trains, though officials said there was no specific plot.

Officials have not yet seen any indication that bin Laden had the ability to coordinate timing of attacks across the various al-Qaida affiliates in Pakistan, Yemen, Algeria, Iraq and Somalia, and it is also unclear from bin Laden's documents how much the affiliate groups relied on his guidance. The Yemen group, for instance, has embraced the smaller-scale attacks that bin Laden's writings indicate he regarded as unsuccessful. The Yemen branch had already surpassed his central operation as al-Qaida's leading fundraising, propaganda and operational arm.

Al-Qaida has not named bin Laden's successor, but all indications point to his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri. The question is whether Zawhiri, or anyone, has the ability to keep so many disparate groups under the al-Qaida banner. The groups in Somalia and Algeria, for instance, have very different goals focused on local grievances. Without bin Laden to serve as their shepherd, it's possible al-Qaida will further fragment.