History
The release of the videos — recovered from Bin Laden's compound — by U.S. intelligence officials is clearly designed to expose the Bin Laden myth as a carefully manufactured fraud: the godfather of terror reduced to a doddery old man with nothing to do but watch videos of himself.
They video include outtakes of his propaganda films and, taken together, portray him as someone obsessed with his own image and how he is portrayed to the world.
Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, said Bin Laden believed "his network was strong enough [that] he'd get a heads-up" before any US strike against him. He suggested that Bin Laden's confidence might have been the reason his compound was only lightly guarded. It may also explain why Bin Laden was not armed when he was killed during the operation in the early hours of Monday. ... Seal teams had to "breach three or four walls" inside the compound to get to Bin Laden's building because the Black Hawk helicopter carrying commandos whose mission was to land on the roof was the one that suffered mechanical failure. His disclosure that Bin Laden was carrying 500 Euros in cash raised obvious questions about whether the al-Qa'ida chief was intending to flee to Europe, as US dollars would have been the obvious choice of currency to carry if he intended to change it in countries neighbouring Pakistan....
Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said Thursday the helicopter damaged when it hit the compound's wall was heavily loaded and lost lift because of a change in air temperature. "It was not a mechanical failure," he said. One reason for the skittishness about discussing the helicopters is now becoming clear: They were stealthy choppers not known to be used in the field.
Al Qaeda confirmed the death of Osama bin Laden on Friday in an Internet message that vowed revenge on the United States and its allies, including Pakistan [YAY! Confirmation from Al Qaeda!]
U.S. commandos missed with their first shot at the world's most wanted man poked his head out of a third-floor room in his fortress.... U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee: "I hope they went in with the idea of killing him, not capturing him. We needed to take this guy out. And I know that's what the executive order said. "The other thing you have to remember is that this was pitch dark. When they got into the room with bin Laden, they already had to go through some other folks downstairs, two of which they killed. And they were having to use explosives to blow doors open. By the time they got to him, they didn't know what they would find. "They blew the door open, and they looked down the hallway and he stuck his head out of the room that he was in, and saw them, and ducked back in. They fired a shot, and missed him the first time — and then went to the room. And that's when they killed him. "They did in fact find an AK-47 and a pistol in bin Laden's room. Whether he was making any move to get to that is not clear. But taking him down in pitch-dark conditions was the right thing to do." ["...taking him down in pitch-dark conditions was the right thing to do."]
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) doubles down…. "The initial information on the courier was obtained from waterboarding in 2003. That came from Khalid Sheik Mohammad… People who were on the ground and very familiar to the situation told me this."
seen as an aging terrorist hiding in barren rooms, short of money and struggling to maintain his grip on al-Qaida.... Three of bin Laden's wives were living with him in the compound and are being interrogated by Pakistani authorities, who took them into custody after Monday's raid, along with 13 children, eight of them bin Laden's.... One of the wives, identified as Yemeni-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, told interrogators she had been staying in bin Laden's hideout since 2006 and never left the upper floors of the large but sparsely furnished building,... Disputes over money between bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, led the group to split into two factions five or six years ago.... Bin Laden was "cash strapped" in his final days....
Commandos who conducted the assault on bin Laden's compound in Pakistan gave Obama first-hand accounts of what happened, and he awarded them the highest presidential honor a military unit can receive... most Americans regard the secretive special operations unit that killed bin Laden -- the mastermind of the September 11 hijack-plane attacks on the United States -- as national heroes... A huge "Job well done!" banner hung from the wall.... ["MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!"]
PWND - Osama Bin Laden T-Shirt
"Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information. "We had some observation of the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound."
Osama bin Laden and his comrades offered no resistance when killed by U.S. special forces in a Pakistani town, Pakistani security officials said on Thursday. U.S. accounts of what happened have changed throughout the week, and initial characterizations of a 40-minute gun battle have given way to officials being quoted as saying only one of the five people who were killed had been armed. ... "The people inside the house were unarmed. There was no resistance," one of the officials said. "It was cold-blooded," said the second official.... Photographs acquired by Reuters and taken about an hour after the assault show three dead men -- not including bin Laden -- lying in pools of blood. No weapons could be seen in the closely cropped images. ...
"Those were 38 of the most intense minutes. I have no idea what any of us were looking at that particular millisecond when the picture was taken," she said on Thursday when asked about the photo during a visit to Rome. "I am somewhat sheepishly concerned that it was my preventing one of my early spring allergic coughs. So it may have no great meaning whatsoever," Clinton added.
Osama bin Laden's house, described by the US government as a $1m (£605,000) mansion, is in fact worth no than $250,000 say property professionals in Abbottabad
The White House Tuesday blamed "the fog of war" for conflicting statements in its recounting of the events surrounding the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, but the history of misstatements from U.S. government officials about various combat operations raises questions about whether briefers also were subjecting us to a counterterrorism strategy and not just completely confused in their initial statements.
Senior Pakistani security officials said Osama bin Laden's daughter had confirmed her father was captured alive and shot dead by the US Special Forces during the first few minutes of the operation carried out at the huge compound in Bilal Town, Abbottabad. ... About the slain woman: officials said she could either be Bin Laden's wife or a close family member since she offered to sacrifice her life for him. "As per our information, she shielded Bin Laden during the operation and was killed by American commandos...." a 12-year-old daughter of bin Laden was among the six children rescued from the three-storey compound. The daughter has reportedly told her Pakistani investigators that the US forces captured her father alive but shot him dead in front of family members. ... according to information Pakistani officials collected from detained persons, Osama was neither armed nor did inmates at the compound fire at the US choppers or commandos. "Not a single bullet was fired from the compound at the US forces and their choppers. Their chopper developed some technical fault and crashed and the wreckage was left on the spot" ...
Onondaga Nation Territory -- Leaders of the Onondaga Nation blasted as "reprehensible" the code name used for Osama bin Laden in the commando assault that killed him: "Geronimo." "We've ID'd Geronimo," U.S. forces reported by radio Sunday to the White House. Later, word came that "Geronimo" was dead. Geronimo was an Apache leader in the 19th century who spent many years fighting the Mexican and U.S. armies until his surrender in 1886. "Think of the outcry if they had used any other ethnic group's hero," the Onondaga Council of Chiefs said in a release Tuesday. "Geronimo bravely and heroically defended his homeland and his people, eventually surrendering and living out the rest of his days peacefully, if in captivity." "Geronimo is arguably the most recognized Native American name in the world," the chiefs said, "and this comparison only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes about our people."
the picture that includes the most recognizable image of OBLs face — from the hangar in Afghanistan — is so gruesome and mangled its not appropriate for say the front page
From Omar bin Laden's up-close look at the next generation of mujahideen and al Qaeda training camps he says the worst may lie ahead, that if his father is killed America may face a broader and more violent enemy, with nothing to keep them in check. "From what I knew of my father and the people around him I believe he is the most kind among them, because some are much, much worse," Omar bin Laden, who was raised in the midst of his father's fighters, told ABC News in an exclusive interview in February 2010. "Their mentality wants to make more violence, to create more problems."
Ephrata Middle School teacher Gary Weddle vowed on September 11, 2001 to stop shaving until Osama bin Laden was caught. On Monday, after almost ten years, he finally shaved off his lengthy beard. [Principal:] Mr. Weddle, we are truly honored and humbled by your example and extremely privileged to know you. The life lasting impact the commitment to your vow has had on over 2,000 students in the last ten years is more than a teacher could even begin imagine. As of yesterday Facebook has come alive as your former students excitedly rejoice in the fact that you can now shave! It might be added that our current population of students was aged two and three when you made your vow. They are the ones to see what so many of them wanted to witness.
"At 4.32pm yesterday, Monday 2 May, police officers from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary conducted a stop check on a vehicle close to the Sellafield site in West Cumbria. "As a result, police officers from Cumbria Constabulary arrested five men from London, all aged in their 20s, under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act. "They were taken to police custody in Carlisle overnight and are being transported to Manchester this morning. "The investigation is being led by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit. "A road closure affected the area for a short period of time."
Conspiracy theorists are an ingenious bunch, but at the moment the White House is making this ridiculously easy for them. Gideon Rachman says he gives it 24 hours before conspiracy theories about Osama bin Laden begin circulating, but they are already flowing vigorously. The Taliban says he's still alive, for example.... why did it allow bin Laden's body to be dropped into the sea? Is the US really so sensitive to Islamic burial practices that it is prepared to hand conspiracy theorists such a gift?...
His face is one of the most recognizable in the world, but in the end, could it have been DNA fingerprinting that proved to U.S. officials that they had finally nailed Osama bin Laden? ... all the DNA analysis will say for sure is that the dead person is one of the many sons of Osama bin Laden's father. One factor could make things easier: Osama bin Laden was the only child whom his mother, Alia Ghanem, had with his father. That could make it easier to triangulate any tissue samples with samples from half-siblings. It is not an exact science, however....
A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden was shot above his left eye, blowing away part of his skull.
The White House backed away Monday evening from key details in its narrative about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, including claims by senior U.S. officials that the Al Qaeda leader had a weapon and may have fired it during a gun battle with U.S. forces. Officials also retreated from claims that one of bin Laden's wives was killed in the raid and that bin Laden was using her as a human shield before she was shot by U.S. forces. ... "The bottom line is the team that entered that room was met with resistance and took appropriate action," said a third American official. The White House on Monday night declined to elaborate on the nature of the resistance bin Laden allegedly put up. However, an official confirmed that the Al Qaeda founder was shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest.
An operation to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden was run jointly by Pakistan and the United States, Pakistani sources said on Monday, belying perceptions of a rift in relations between the two countries' spy agencies.
Pakistan's leader denied suggestions that his country's security forces sheltered Osama bin Laden as Britain demanded Tuesday that Islamabad answer for how the al-Qaida chief lived undetected for six years in a large house in a garrison town close to the capital. But in a nod to the complexities of dealing with a nuclear-armed, unstable country that is crucial to success in the war in neighboring Afghanistan, British Prime Minister David Cameron said having "a massive row" with Islamabad over the issue would not be in Britain's interest.
"They were told, 'We think we found Osama bin Laden, and your job is to kill him...."
Video of Osama bin Laden's dead body being dropped into the North Arabian Sea from the USS Carl Vinson early this morning will be made public, according to officials. The 40-minute ceremony, and perhaps photos of his corpse, will be released "cautiously," according to The Associated Press, citing two Pentagon officials.
U.S. intelligence officials believe Osama bin Laden made a propaganda recording shortly before his death and expect that tape to surface soon. It is unclear whether the tape is audio or video, but a U.S. official says that intelligence indicates it is already working its way through al-Qaida's media pipeline. The official said the timing was coincidental
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