Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden dead - Barack Obama

[Neo]

Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden dead - Barack Obama

2 May 2011

Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been killed by US forces in Pakistan, President Barack Obama has said.

The al-Qaeda leader was killed in a ground operation outside Islamabad based on US intelligence, the first lead for which emerged last August.

Mr Obama said after "a firefight", US forces took possession of his body.

Bin Laden was accused of being behind a number of atrocities, including the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.

He was top of the US "most wanted" list.

Mr Obama said it was "the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al-Qaeda".

The US has put its embassies around the world on alert, warning Americans of the possibility of al-Qaeda reprisal attacks for Bin Laden's killing.

Crowds gathered outside the White House in Washington DC, chanting "USA, USA" after the news emerged.

Raid details
Bin Laden approved the 9/11 attacks in which nearly 3,000 people died, saying later that the results had exceeded his expectations.

He evaded the forces of the US and its allies for almost a decade, despite a $25m bounty on his head.

Mr Obama said he had been briefed last August on a possible lead to Bin Laden's whereabouts.

"It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground," Mr Obama said.

"I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located Bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan.

"And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorised an operation to get Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice," the president said.

On Sunday a team of US forces undertook the operation in Abbottabad, 100km (62 miles) north-east of Islamabad.

After a "firefight" Bin Laden was killed and his body taken by US forces, the president said.

Mr Obama said "no Americans were harmed".

Giving more details of the operation, a senior US official said a small US team had conducted the operation in about 40 minutes.

One helicopter was lost due to "technical failure".

Advertisement"After a firefight, US forces killed Osama Bin Laden and took custody of his body"
Three other men were also killed in the raid, including one of Bin Laden's sons. One woman was killed when she was used as "a shield", the official said.

The size and complexity of the structure in Abbottabad had "shocked" US officials.

It had 4m-6m (12ft-18ft) walls, was eight times larger than other homes in the area and was valued at "several million dollars", though it had no telephone or internet connection.

The US official said that intelligence had been tracking a "trusted courier" of Bin Laden for many years. His identity was discovered four years ago, his area of operation two years ago and then, last August, his residence in Abbottabad was found, triggering the start of the operation.

'Momentous achievement'
Former US President George W Bush described the news as a "momentous achievement".

"The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done," Mr Bush said in a statement.

His predecessor, Bill Clinton, said in a statement: "This is a profoundly important moment not just for the families of those who lost their lives on 9/11 and in al-Qaeda's other attacks but for people all over the world who want to build a common future of peace, freedom, and cooperation for our children."

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says that, to many in the West, Bin Laden became the embodiment of global terrorism, but to others he was a hero, a devout Muslim who fought two world superpowers in the name of jihad.

The son of a wealthy Saudi construction family, Bin Laden grew up in a privileged world. But soon after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan he joined the mujahideen there and fought alongside them with his Arab followers, a group that later formed the nucleus for al-Qaeda.

After declaring war on America in 1998, Bin Laden is widely believed to have been behind the bombings of US embassies in East Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and the attacks on New York and Washington.

BBC News - Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden dead - Barack Obama

[Neo]

Some interesting pictures released today:

[Neo]

[Neo]

So Osama is dead....end of an era...but will it make any difference?

AQ is a highly professional and well experienced terrorist organisation with leaders more capable leaders than Osama, he will be replaced without any problems. Imho one of the following names will head the organisation soon:
Ayman al-Zawahiri, Saif al-Adel, Suleiman Abu Gaith or even the less popular Fazul Abdullah Mohammed.

[keysersoze]

Apparently a few laptops and other Intel were taken. The AQ house of cards is not going to last much longer.

[Neo]

Osama Bin Laden and after

Analysis by S.P. Seth

In their confident advocacy of the ending of “the legend of the so-called superpower that is America”, Osama and his band of fighters, who became al Qaeda, were inspired by their victory against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s

The wild popular jubilation in the US over Osama Bin Laden’s killing is indicative of the need for a demonstrative victory. The successful execution of a limited operation against Osama in his hideout in Abbottabad could not have been more dramatic. It had all the hallmarks of a Hollywood thriller resulting in the good guys (the US special forces) prevailing over the evil (Osama Bin Laden), with his deserved death. As President Obama said, justice was done for the 9/11 bombing of the New York Trade Centre, with Osama as its mastermind. Or to put it in the cowboy/Indian analogy, as the Sydney Morning Herald did editorially: “For the moment, America is walking tall back into town with the body of the outlaw [Osama] thrown over the saddle.”

However, Geoffrey Robertson, a well-known international law practitioner, is not happy with the way Osama was killed and disposed off. In a newspaper article, he writes: “...It [Osama’s death] endorses what looks increasingly like a cold-blooded assassination ordered by a president, who as a former law professor, knows the absurdity of his statement that ‘justice was done’.” As we know now from the US Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) director, the order was to kill him. Osama was unarmed at the time of his execution, and his young wife was shot in the leg but not killed.

Osama Bin Laden’s death is a great morale booster for the US at a time when much of the news about the country is not all that encouraging. The economy is languishing, the dollar is sliding, its credit rating is no longer top notch and the grind of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is taking its toll on the US in all sorts of ways. Whether the positive impact of Osama’s killing will be fleeting or lasting remains to be seen. The reaction in the US, both at the public and official level, is self-congratulatory. President Obama, in his victory speech to declare Osama’s death, was keen to highlight his personal role. With his polls sliding, this should help him to regain the popular ground, though it is too early to make any confident prediction. Because, in politics, even a week can be an eternity. In Obama’s case, his re-election still has quite some time to go.

Apart from the news and commentary on Osama’s death, the second most discussed related issue in the global media is whether or not the Pakistan government was complicit in hiding Osama bin Laden. The clincher for those who believe in Pakistan’s complicity is that Osama could not have lived in his Abbottabad house for an extended period without being detected in a garrison town with its elite military academy and other military facilities all around. The Pakistan government is simply trying to shrug off the whole affair with varied explanations. But it might have some explaining to do to the US, even though the latter, at its highest levels, is seeking to emphasise their shared anti-terror commitment and credentials. It is common knowledge that, of late, the relations between the US and Pakistan have been more than usually tense, especially after the Raymond Davis affair. The Davis episode aside, the US has been suspicious of Pakistan’s perceived duplicitous dealings, seeking to keep their options open with the terrorists while professing a common cause with the US.

Osama’s death is likely to lead to random acts of violence by assorted terrorist outfits professing ideological inspiration from their former mentor. A large-scale terrorist attack is likely to take time, if it does eventuate. In the Arab world, supposed to have been the centre of Osama’s Islamist revolution, his message has already been overtaken by the popular revolutionary upsurge to overthrow the region’s dictators and replace them with a democratic dispensation. In a sense, in the heartland of Islam, Osama’s massage has become irrelevant for the time being. But in the medium and long term, if political democracy does not lead to economic betterment of the people, there is a danger that people might find refuge in religion, looking for targets of hate and violence elsewhere.

The question then is: what made Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda tick? Because, if it was relevant then, it might still be lurking. An insight into this is provided by an interview he gave CNN in 1997. He said, “It [US] wants to occupy our countries, steal our resources, impose agents on us [Arab kings and dictators] to rule us, and then wants us to agree to all this.” He added, “If we refuse to do so, it says we are terrorists.”

Osama’s rage on the Palestinian question is still relevant. He said, “When Palestinian children throw stones against the Israeli occupation, the US says they are terrorists. Whereas when Israel bombed the United Nations building in Lebanon while it was full of children and women, the US stopped any plan to condemn Israel.” Israeli intransigence and US support of it remains a provocative issue for the Muslim world.

In their confident advocacy of the ending of “the legend of the so-called superpower that is America”, Osama and his band of fighters, who became al Qaeda, were inspired by their victory against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Once the Soviets were forced to quit Afghanistan, the US did not appear invincible to them. And Osama’s thesis/ideology found resonance with many Muslims in the world, where al Qaeda franchises to kill people became popular.

Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda provided the trigger against the US and western powers’ perceived injustices against the Muslim world. Susan Sontag, a US writer, had the courage to articulate this soon after the 9/11 attacks in a short essay published in The New Yorker. She wrote on September 24, 2001, “The disconnect between last Tuesday’s monstrous dose of reality and the self-righteous drivel and outright deceptions being peddled by public figures and TV commentators is startling, depressing. The voices licenced to follow the event seem to have joined together in a campaign to infantilise the public.”

And she added, “Where is the acknowledgement that this was not a ‘cowardly’ attack on ‘civilisation’ or ‘liberty’ or ‘humanity’ or ‘the free world’ but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?”

Her withering criticism of US self-image and policies, for which she was pilloried relentlessly in her country, remains relevant.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

[Neo]

No firm evidence of Pakistani complicity: Pentagon

WASHINGTON (May 06, 2011) : The US has no ``definitive evidence' that Pakistan knew Osama bin Laden had been living in the compound where a Navy SEALs assault team killed him, but the Pakistanis must now show convincingly their commitment to defeating the al Qaida terrorist network, a senior Pentagon official said Thursday.

Michele Flournoy, the top policy aide to Defence Secretary Robert Gates, told reporters that the Pakistani government should, for example, help the US exploit the materials the SEALs collected inside bin Laden's lair during their raid on Monday. Flournoy was the first Pentagon official to comment on-the-record about the raid. She offered no new details about it, but said it dealt ``a very severe blow' to al Qaida and offers incentive for Pakistan to cooperate more fully in defeating the terrorist network.

``This is a real moment of opportunity for us in terms of making further gains against al Qaida,' she said. Questions about whether Pakistan knew of bin Laden's whereabouts, and may even have helped hide him, arose immediately after Monday's raid. Flournoy said US officials have pressed Pakistan for more details about the matter.

``We are still talking with the Pakistanis and trying to understand what they did know, what they didn't know,' she said. ``We do not have any definitive evidence at this point that they did know that Osama bin Laden was at this compound.' Pressed for more detail about what evidence the US might have about Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's whereabouts prior to the raid, Flournoy declined to elaborate, saying that kind of information would have to come from the CIA, which led the hunt for bin Laden and oversaw Monday's raid.

Flournoy, the under-secretary of defence for policy, said she held previously scheduled talks at the Pentagon on Monday, just hours after the raid was announced, with a Pakistani government delegation. In that session and follow-up talks on Tuesday, Flournoy said she made clear that members of Congress even those who have been supporters of increased co-operation with Pakistan will be increasingly sceptical about the wisdom of continuing to provide billions of dollars in US aid.

Pakistan must take ``very concrete and visible steps to show their co-operation as a counterterrorism partner,' she said, ``because I do think that Congress will have to be convinced to sustain both civilian and military assistance to Pakistan.' She added that the Obama administration still intends to keep close ties to Pakistan, even as it presses the Pakistanis for more information about bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad, the military garrison town a few dozen miles from Islamabad, the capital.

Top Stories - No firm evidence of Pakistani complicity: Pentagon

[Neo]

Qaeda confirms Bin Laden’s death, warns US of retaliation

* Terror network says it will release an audiotape made by Osama week before his death
* Extremists claim Bin Laden’s death would rally Muslims to his cause

WASHINGTON: The al Qaeda confirmed the death of its leader Osama Bin Laden on Friday and swore revenge for his killing by elite US commandos, the SITE monitoring group reported.

In a statement posted on extremist Internet forums, the terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks on the US said, it would release an audio tape made by its Saudi-born founder a week before his death.

The declaration came ahead of US President Barack Obama meeting members of the famed Navy SEALs team that killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad, and as limited protests against the death were held in parts of the Muslim world.

“We in the al Qaeda organisation pledge to God 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 quoted a statement by the organisation as saying.

“The blood of Osama, may God have mercy upon him, weighs more to us and is more precious to us and to every Muslim than to be wasted in vain,” the statement added.

The statement promised that the US and those who lived in the country “will never enjoy security until our people in Palestine enjoy it”.

The statement specified the location of Bin Laden’s death and those responsible, and so is likely end to fringe conspiracy theories that were beginning to form about his demise, while it directly threatened Pakistan’s leaders.

“We call upon the Muslims of Pakistan, on whose land 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,” the statement made by the terror organisation added.

It is not yet clear how far Bin Laden’s death is likely to affect al Qaeda’s operational capabilities and its ability to follow through on its threats.

Intelligence found in Osama’s compound revealed al Qaeda was considering a possible train attack at an unspecified location in the US as a grim marker of this year’s 10th anniversary of 9/11.

US officials played down any imminent threat, describing the plot as “aspirational”, but it may indicate that Bin Laden remained more integral to the everyday running of al Qaeda than previously thought.

Some extremists have claimed that his death would rally Muslims to his cause, but while protests were held in parts of the Islamic world following Friday prayers, they were limited in scale.

Analysts say it is a sign the al Qaeda founder has lost popularity, particularly among Arab youth who have swept some dictators from power with pro-democracy street protests in this year’s Arab spring. afp

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan