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Osama Bin Laden is DEAD

in_cutter said:
So they have identified his wives:

c3bc5ddd-affe-9e58.jpg


Faceless phantoms lol
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two of them look very similar :asif
 
Finally we hear about the photos.However it has not been released to the public.Only a few members of Congress.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-inhofe-photos-20110512,0,2585898.story

Osama bin Laden: 'He's gone. He's history,' says senator after seeing photos.

A U.S. senator who has seen the photographs of the slain Osama bin Laden has no doubt the man he saw was the former leader of Al Qaeda.

“He’s gone. He’s history,” said James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who became one of few to see the photos of Bin Laden that the White House has so far refused to release.

Inhofe, appearing on CNN’s "In the Arena" Wednesday evening, described Bin Laden’s death at the hands of the U.S. military in Pakistan in graphic detail, saying that in the pictures he viewed, Bin Laden had either been shot in the eye socket, or a bullet traveled through the ear and exited the eye socket.


“That was pretty grueling,” Inhofe told host Eliot Spitzer.

But the Republican said he was most struck by photos of the cleaned-up corpse prior to his burial, and suggested those photos should be released to the public.

“They had taken enough blood and material off his face so it was easier to identify who it was,” said Inhofe, who said he saw 15 photos in all at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency Wednesday, including some that showed Bin Laden alive. “Now those are the ones -- and then of course the burial at sea, had the transition -- first of all, identifying who it was.”

Inhofe did not accept the Obama administration's assertion that releasing the photos could inflame some sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

“I don't buy this whole concept that's coming out of the White House that, you know, you don't want to do this, you might make the terrorists mad. Well, you know, those people want to kill all of us anyway. They've tried 32 times, maybe more than that, during the -- since 9/11 on very sophisticated plans to do some -- inflict a lot of harm to America,” Inhofe said. “We've stopped each one of them. So if they have a way of doing it, they're going to do it anyway. It's not going to be because they have seen some gruesome picture.”

In the course of the interview, Inhofe joined the ranks of several politicians and media figures who have transposed Bin Laden’s name with that of the president’s, at point saying “three of first 12 pictures were of Obama when he was alive.”
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^^

I will take their word for it. :yk

This is more interesting.

Expert: bin Laden’s DNA results are inconsistent

A Fort Worth DNA expert says that no results from DNA samples from Osama bin Laden’s body after he was killed in a U.S. raid on his hideout in Pakistan have been disclosed by U.S. government officials and that any media reports about the DNA are inaccurate.
Bruce Budowle is a local DNA expert and professor in the University of North Texas Health Health Science Center’s Department of Forensic and Investigative Genetics, and executive director of the Institute of Investigative Genetics.
Budowle made a splash last week when he was quoted in national media as an expert in DNA – and he said bin Laden’s DNA case has not been reported well.
“Given what I’ve seen so far, there have been some inconsistencies in what’s been presented, and the reason for that is unknown at this time,” he said last week during an interview with the Business Press.
Budowle, who worked for the FBI in its forensic science laboratory for 26 years and assisted in identifying victims of the 9/11 attacks, said the media have only speculated about DNA evidence, but no accurate information has been presented.
“It could be because someone made a mistake in the beginning, or someone’s not telling stuff or the media misinterpreted, but it’s all speculation at this point,” Budowle said.
The DNA test results that were reported also were inconsistent values, he said.
“We’ve heard that it’s from his sister in Boston, that’s one explanation, and someone else said he only has a half sister and not a full sister, yet they had a 99.99 percent certainty. That alone says there was something done to the calculations,” he said.
But if officials did need bin Laden’s DNA to confirm that it was his body the U.S. team brought out of Pakistan, they could get it quickly, Budowle said.
“In crime labs it can take a lot longer of a time frame, but in theory, if you just had one single mission, and you’re making a comparison, it can probably be done in a few hours,” he said.
DNA testing can increase the chances of accurately identifying an individual by using a large number of genetic markers, such as from blood or a cheek swab.
“If you have a sample from the individual from years before and it is a direct comparison, you can have a very, very high probability, like 99.9 percent. However, if you are comparing indirectly and do not have a sample from the individual but comparing to a relative, you’re only getting partial information, so the power is reduced unless you have a lot of relatives,” Budowle said.
The more family members one has to compare to an individual’s DNA, the better the result for identification.
Many speculate if officials do have a direct sample of DNA from bin Laden, or if they have an indirect sample of DNA from a family member to compare the results.
“That’s where the problem comes in. Right now, anything is just speculation or at best misunderstood,” he said.
Budowle said he did not know what officials used to compare DNA results for bin Laden, but speculated that they used the standard routine genetic markers first, which are used in most crime labs.
Bin Laden’s DNA test results also depend on what family member was used.
“I think there’s a lot of confusion so far on what has been conveyed,” he said.
According to administration officials, facial recognition software was also used to help identify bin Laden’s body.
“They both can be very accurate, but given the pool of candidates, it may be one is better in one situation than another,” Budowle said.
Accuracy and probability are two large factors when comparing DNA results.
“Probability is not accuracy, because something can be very accurate but the result may not give you a high probability for certainty for identity,” he said.
If officials do have bin Laden’s DNA, then it probably would be used for further studies, possibly to see whether it shows up in any other evidence, such as explosive devices or in other terrorists attacks.
“My guess is that you would be unlikely see his [DNA] because it didn’t look like he was active himself. He seemed to use others to do the work, so the chances of his DNA leading us to other cases may be remote,” Budowle said.
click image to enlarge
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http://www.timesleader.com/FwBp/rotator/Expert-bin-Ladens-DNA-results-are-inconsistent-.html
 
There are some questions being raised about Laden, but the laternative seems even more ridiculous

As for people who say those videoes might be doctored, I really wonder whether people have lost common sense completely. 15 years ago Hollywood showed a video where Forrest Gump was with Kennedy. Yet US state with thousands time the budget of hollywood, with futuristic helicopters which cannot be detected, made an obious fake video which teenagers on forums and blogs are able to all fake after seeing it once? Does that even make sense?

Believe me, if US really wanted to make a fake video, even the best experts would have problems telling if its fake
 
apparently a guy interviewed by ary news said he lives next door. He was sleeping on the roof and he heard helicopters so he went to see what was happening. He saw one helicopter crash on its own, just straight down. He then said the other 2 helicopters dispersed. He even said he went inside the compound to check but there was nothing there. The Americans arrived and told him to get lost. Ary interviewed him like a day after the incident but since then he has become an unreliable source.
 
Seems like the propaganda war has begun.

Osama bin Laden’s hideout had cache of porn

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/05/osama-bin-laden-porn-.html

It appears Osama bin Laden may not have been totally disconnected electronically.

Despite reports that he didn’t have Internet connection or mobile service, Reuters quotes high ranking Pentagon officials saying the Navy SEALs found pornography --- and a lot of it -- at Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consisting of “modern, electronically recorded video.”

No word on how it got there.

But some analysts are speculating it may have been transferred by thumb-sized flash drives that he used to send emails while in hiding. Or it could’ve been through the satellite television that he used to watch Al Jazeera.

Either way, it was there, according the officials, who declined to disclose the titles of the “extensive” collection.
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whats next ? .... osama bin laden was actually daffy duck in disguise .

whoever has the better media wins the psychological war , at least .
 
What a hypocrite , first drinking Jewish Coke and now smut peddled by mostly Jewish producing houses.

What a disgrace , he doesnt even deserve uttering even one word of the Holy Quran.
 
USaqaf said:
What a hypocrite , first drinking Jewish Coke and now smut peddled by mostly Jewish producing houses.

What a disgrace , he doesnt even deserve uttering even one word of the Holy Quran.
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We should give you a higher position or something since you're allowed to decide who deserves to recite the Quran and who can't.
 
Law enforcement agencies claim to have arrested an American citizen involved in suspicious activities near the **** Chita mountain in the Fateh-Jang area of Lahore.

Intelligence sources told Express 24/7 that an American citizen, Mathew Greg Bennett was involved in suspicious activities near the **** Chita mountain.

He was followed and arrested by intelligence officials from Rawalpindi.

The American suspect has been shifted to undisclosed location for further interrogation.

The news comes after another American citizen, Aaron Mark DeHaven was barred from leaving the country. DeHaven was initially apprehended in February for staying in Pakistan on an expired visa. He was scheduled to be deported from Peshawar Airport however his travel has been barred on account of carrying incomplete documents.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/168672/american-citizen-arrested-in-rawalpindi/


The censored word is Kaala Chita :inti
 
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Abdullah22 said:
I also read that he took Viagra and some 'witnesses' report that vans of Coca Cola drinks used to deliver at his house.
[Serious]
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Lol the funny thing is I predicted they would say they found porn...whats the next revelation to further character assassinate Mr Bin Laden...the porn will in fact be found to be gay kafir child porn...sounds ridiculous but then so does him using women as human shields, telling his sons not to fight Jihad, smoking green, taking viagra and watching porn...

Seems nothing ever needs to be proven it just needs to be said...
 
Btw am I the only person who finds it odd that Hamza Bin Laden was nowhere to be found...
 
The US to go so low in their propaganda war was never expected. They are desperate. The dying empire is very desperate. Anything to make their image in the world good again.
 
How ridiculous is that pornography article ... everyone with half a brain knows its pure propaganda, slandering a dead man's legacy.
 
Poison said:
How ridiculous is that pornography article ... everyone with half a brain knows its pure propaganda, slandering a dead man's legacy.
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true--- how possibly they could affiliate that to him...
its not the end of propaganda more to come,

now CIA would mysteriously find general kiyani and pasha having dinner with him at Marriott hotel
 
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Indiafan said:
There are some questions being raised about Laden, but the laternative seems even more ridiculous

As for people who say those videoes might be doctored, I really wonder whether people have lost common sense completely. 15 years ago Hollywood showed a video where Forrest Gump was with Kennedy. Yet US state with thousands time the budget of hollywood, with futuristic helicopters which cannot be detected, made an obious fake video which teenagers on forums and blogs are able to all fake after seeing it once? Does that even make sense?

Believe me, if US really wanted to make a fake video, even the best experts would have problems telling if its fake
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facepalm......yes everything that comes out of Pentagon is true.

I got sms that Osama's death is as real as WWF! :yk ....no doubt about that.
 
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Poison said:
How ridiculous is that pornography article ... everyone with half a brain knows its pure propaganda, slandering a dead man's legacy.
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It's par for the course with America. Noriega's house was full of devil worship paraphernalia, and who can forget Saddam's soldiers killing babies in their incubators during the first Gulf war?
 
Cpt. Rishwat said:
It's par for the course with America. Noriega's house was full of devil worship paraphernalia, and who can forget Saddam's soldiers killing babies in their incubators during the first Gulf war?
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Lol Noriega another one of their assets too...

I remember the list they gave for Uday Hussein...he had books on torture, cheetahs and lions, millions of dollars worth of heroin and liquor...didnt he also have pics of naked women covering his gym and an HIV kit?...

He was a brutal guy no doubt and scum but that did scream embellishment...to show who they have murdered an evil man...

With Bin Laden the audience is Muslims...he wasnt true to his cause...he was a coward who hid behind a woman and didnt want his children fighting...he was also a hypocrite who liked porn, smoking a joint etc...wonder how many people buy it...

Interesting you mention the incubator thing...I posted the video earlier in the thread...everyone seems to believe the witnesses...now we dont know who they are...whether they are agents or whether they are under duress...the incubator thing showed how lying was a deliberate tool...
 
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Kriketer said:
facepalm......yes everything that comes out of Pentagon is true.

I got sms that Osama's death is as real as WWF! :yk ....no doubt about that.
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No, I am using common sense. If they had faked the video, no teenagers on a forum could say its fake by looking at it on youtube. Not with billions of dollars and the latest tech at their disposal
 
Here is a interesting article for some to ponder. I have my doubts about the US version of the events but some people do take everything overboard with their farfetched theories.

The Pakistani government and media plays a huge rule in shaping peoples views for their own benefits, after reading this it becomes a bit clear as to why Pakistanis live in denial.

Pakistan's reaction to Osama's killing shows it's a country of contradictions

The young army captain standing in front of Osama bin Laden's house seemed genuinely perplexed by all the fuss. He did not particularly mind his latest assignment, guarding the vegetable fields on the outskirts of Abbottabad, amid the scent of wild mint and the rustling poplar trees.

But he could not understand how the bucolic landscape might have hidden the world's most wanted terrorist, only a short walk from the revered Pakistan Military Academy. It was impossible for him to believe that security officials had overlooked the high-security fortress in such a sensitive location.

Nor did the captain consider for a moment that somebody in his own ranks might have hidden Mr. bin Laden. Thousands of his comrades had been killed by al-Qaeda-sympathizing local militants, perishing during sweeping offensives into the mountains or blasted on their daily commute.

This puzzle seemed to cause him physical pain. He squinted as if the sunlight hurt his eyes, before offering the only solution that gave him relief.

“This whole thing was a drama,” he said, with intense conviction, as soldiers around him nodded with approval. “This is the only thing I feel certain about: Nothing happened here except a big show.”

This is the salve that now comforts millions of Pakistanis at a time of fundamental crisis. They choose the magical world of conspiracy.

It's a remedy for what psychologists would call cognitive dissonance, the discomfort of holding two conflicting views at the same time. Pakistan fights terrorism; Pakistan helps terrorists.

The two statements would seem mutually exclusive, but it's only one of the broader contradictions within a country founded as a secular state but increasingly threatened by religious extremists; fiercely independent but badly reliant on foreign assistance, particularly from the hated United States; nuclear armed, but deeply insecure living next door to a more powerful nuclear-armed rival, India.

You don't have to worry about such contradictions if you indulge in fantasy.

Osama bin Laden died of natural causes years ago, in Afghanistan. He died in Yemen. He died with his hands and feet bound by plastic straps, carried into the house on a helicopter and executed there in an American operation to embarrass Pakistan. His own bodyguard shot him in the heart, but he survived with supernatural strength, until he requested that his loyal follower shoot him in the head.

These are not whispers in Pakistan; they are full-throated howls. They thunder down from the loudspeakers of mosques, they appear on the front pages of the biggest newspapers, they fill the screaming debates on prime-time television.

Such ideas frequently come from quasi-official sources: security officials, retired generals or other mouthpieces of the Pakistani establishment. Senators questioned the reality of Mr. bin Laden's death during a debate in the upper house of Parliament this week.

Perhaps the only conspiracy theory that never gets attention among Pakistanis is the possibility that their leaders are sowing confusion on purpose, pulling the woolly strands of doubt over their eyes.

HUNTING RABBITS

The profusion of theories about the Abbottabad operation has shifted debate away from the initial shock of discovering Osama bin Laden next door to a military camp. Media and politicians fixate instead on narrow technical issues – “How did U.S. helicopters evade our radar?” – or pontificate on a warped strain of geopolitical questions. They debate whether American masterminds selected this moment to unthaw the terrorist leader so they could choreograph an exit for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, or secure a win for President Barack Obama in the next election.

That diffusion of public curiosity, the dispersal of questions down a thousand blind alleys, makes it less likely that any official inquiry will have damning consequences for Pakistani authorities. The government announced that an investigation would be led by Lieutenant-General Javed Iqbal, a loyal assistant to the military chief, but did not release the terms of reference. It's unclear whether Gen. Iqbal will be permitted to ask questions about who helped Mr. bin Laden evade authorities while he lived in his Pakistani redoubt for six years, much less publicize the results.

A leading opposition figure, Nawaz Sharif, called for a broader inquiry headed by the highest-ranking judges in the country, but he suggested a framework that would focus on why the military lacked the power to stop the U.S. incursion and whether any Pakistani officials had secret agreements with their American counterparts to allow such a raid.

If investigations into Mr. bin Laden's death get sidetracked by the astonishing breadth of Pakistani suspicions, it would fit a historical pattern. The world's intelligence agencies have used this region as a chessboard for hundreds of years. The city of Abbottabad itself was founded in 1853 by a hero of the so-called Great Game, a British intelligence officer named Sir James Abbott who wore local clothes and attempted covert schemes to further the interests of the Empire. His missions weren't always flawless – a reconnaissance trip into the mountains cost him two fingers, sliced off by a brigand's sword – but the intelligence collected by agents like Mr. Abbott helped to maintain the uneasy fringes of British and Russian influence. It's not all that different from what the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency does today.

Those who inhabited these rough lands were rarely principal actors in whatever schemes played out on their territory, and generations of bitter experience taught them to be wary of foreign powers.

Even the birth of Pakistan remains a subject of active conspiracy talk: To this day, local newspapers continue to report new revelations about the behind-the-scenes politicking of the commissions that partitioned India in 1947. Many people in Pakistan feel that their country was shortchanged in those backroom talks. The legacy of partition has been three wars, a nuclear standoff and a lingering nervousness about Indian aggression that continues to dominate all conversations about national security in Islamabad.

At some point in the following half-century, Pakistani skepticism about world affairs turned into corrosive cynicism. Now, all major events get filtered through the lens of double games and triple bluffs; taking developments at face value is widely seen as unfashionably naive.

Movie shops prominently display pirated copies of crude 9/11 conspiracy films, and many people here prefer to believe that the attacks on the Twin Towers were a scheme hatched by Zionists, or the CIA, to give America a pretext for war in their region. Such conclusions fit comfortably into Pakistan's idea of itself as a nation under siege.

THE COMFORT OF RITUAL

Conspiracy theories can also soften hard truths about domestic affairs, allowing the country to avoid moments of badly needed public reckoning. When the governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by a member of his own security team this year, apparently because he wanted to repeal a harsh blasphemy law, the incident could have provided a moment for serious debate about religious extremism. Instead, President Asif Ali Zardari gave speeches suggesting that the attack was the result of a grand plot by his opponents.

The same thing happened after a cabinet minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, was assassinated in March. A popular newspaper, Jang, ran a front-page headline calling the killing a “heinous conspiracy against Pakistan” and claiming that the incident was somehow a result of American counterterrorism efforts. By interpreting the slaying as an insult against the nation, commentators avoided discussing Pakistan's chronic problem with radical groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, which claimed responsibility for Mr. Bhatti's death.

The conspiracy reflex kicked in hours after Osama bin Laden's death. A security official visited The Globe and Mail's hotel room in Quetta, Pakistan, and apologetically explained that the streets had become too dangerous for foreign journalists because of protests against the U.S. raid.

Some locals apparently believed the reports of Mr. bin Laden's death, the official said, rolling his eyes with the genteel condescension that Pakistani authorities often reserve for the uneducated masses. “We will never really know what happened,” he said, sipping green tea.

A few commentators in the English-speaking press appeared so familiar with this routine that they poked fun at the ritual.

“Tell me lies. Sweet little lies,” Sana Bucha, an anchor for GEO News, wrote in an opinion column. “I want to be lied to. Again. Because the lies only infuriated me. This ‘truth' – half-baked or completely raw – is scary.”

As Ms. Bucha foreshadowed, the local media soon filled with a kaleidoscope of rumour. Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, former chief of Pakistan's military, was quoted on the front pages of Urdu-language newspapers speculating that Mr. bin Laden died a decade ago, of natural causes, and the Americans had instead killed someone who resembled him.

The Daily Nawa-i-Waqt, a venerable and popular Urdu newspaper, devoted a colourful “special edition” to debunking the death. Its reporters examined the gas bills for the raided compound in Abbottabad and concluded that consumption levels were too low for the wealthy bin Laden family. The paper claimed that the body recovered from the house was too short – only 5-foot-6, they wrote – to qualify as his corpse. One article even speculated that the verdant fields around Abbottabad gave off too much pollen, making the place uninhabitable for an elderly man in frail health.

“It was an invented story,” the newspaper concluded. “There is a fear that this whole drama was staged to target Pakistan's nuclear assets.”

FABULIST IN CHIEF

Perhaps the most prominent skeptic was retired Lt.-Gen. Hamid Gul, former chief of Pakistani intelligence. A frequent commentator in the local and foreign media, affable and sharp-witted, Gen. Gul started giving interviews in the first minutes after Mr. Obama announced Mr. bin Laden death – and, by his own account, has barely had a chance to pause between appointments in the following days.

His son, Mohammed Abdullah Gul, who assists with his father's schedule, claimed that he conducted 1,200 interviews during the nine days after the raid at Abbottabad. When confronted with the improbability of that number, he explained that Gen. Gul sometimes worked 16-hour shifts to satisfy all the requests.

Nor had demand for Gen. Gul's analysis slackened by Thursday, when his office in Rawalpindi was crowded with reporters from several countries. His son amused the journalists with his home remedies for chicken pox – a mothball wrapped in red cloth, tied around the right arm – while waiting for his father to finish with a television crew.

When he appeared, the 74-year-old former intelligence chief launched into a 20-minute lecture about why Mr. bin Laden could not have lived in Abbottabad. His words still carried an aura of command, although two decades have passed since his days in office, when he orchestrated the proxy war that drove the Russians out of Afghanistan. That experience left him with a fondness for holy warriors, a soft spot that appears undiminished by the fact that so many extremists later turned against Pakistan. He smiles at the recollection of a meal with Mr. bin Laden during his mellower days, in 1993, sitting with the exiled jihadi on the lawn of a house in Sudan.

Gen. Gul said the old man pictured in footage released by the United States did not resemble the man he knew. For one thing, he said, the U.S. videos showed an elderly man holding a remote control in his right hand – but Mr. bin Laden was left-handed.

“Also, he's sitting too close to the TV screen,” Gen. Gul said. “It's unnatural.”

In the same vein, he said, Mr. bin Laden's true hideout would have contained a dialysis machine and other medical equipment to care for an elderly kidney patient. What's more, he added, the place should have included stronger defences. “The video shows a broken old man,” Gen. Gul said, with obvious disgust. “He doesn't look anything like the operational commander of a major terrorist network.”

When asked about the three women and 17 children discovered in the compound, Gen. Gul flashed a knowing look. Pakistan will keep them in custody, he said, because their testimony could shatter American illusions. Pakistan could choose to unleash them as witnesses and spoil Mr. Obama's chances of another run at the U.S. presidency, he suggested, but that would be short-term thinking; better to let the Americans get away with their trickery, if it gives them a pretext for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.

Pakistan has long wanted a U.S. pullout from the neighbourhood, thinking that a new government more friendly to Islamabad would replace the current regime in Kabul.

“We should bide our time,” Gen. Gul said. “The Americans want to declare ‘Mission Accomplished,' okay, we both want to end the war. So maybe it's better to keep the truth under wraps
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.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ons/article2021970/singlepage/#articlecontent
 
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Are we still debating whether he is dead or not? Hasn't he been spotted at some club recently?
 
Pathan_007 said:
Here is a interesting article for some to ponder. I have my doubts about the US version of the events but some people do take everything overboard with their farfetched theories.

The Pakistani government and media plays a huge rule in shaping peoples views for their own benefits, after reading this it becomes a bit clear as to why Pakistanis live in denial.

.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ons/article2021970/singlepage/#articlecontent
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Look on the bright side their collective dumbness allows the citizens of all other nations to feel morally and intellectually superior.
 
LethalSami said:
i love that guy.........he has ballz of steel..................

do u wanna trade Ahmedinejad with :zardari??????????
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leave steel , i suspect admantium . lol

on serious note .... he is equally loved in arab as surveys reveal .

yes trade zardari for him as Pak needs someone like Ahmadi right now while zardari in iran would end in Qazvin prison .
 
Should compare with a picture where his ear isn't being pushed down by his turban. Nose looks pretty much the same, have to keep in mind picture quality and aging. He's dead, some of us just aren't sure when or how.
 
Ayman al-Zawahiri delivers eulogy to Osama Bin Laden

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13696051

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's number two, has warned that Osama Bin Laden will continue to "terrify" the US from beyond the grave.

The statement was posted on Jihadist websites.

It comes five weeks after US forces killed Bin Laden, and less than a week after another prominent figure, Ilyas Kashmiri, died in a US drone attack.

This is the first time al-Zawahiri has spoken publicly since Bin Laden's death.

It remains to be seen who - if anyone - will become the new, pre-eminent leader of the world's most notorious militant group.

Al-Zawahiri notably omits to refer to a new leader for al-Qaeda, despite speaking for 28 minutes in the new video.

Most of it is taken up with a eulogy to Bin Laden.

"The sheikh has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice," Zawahri says.

"Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or a group, but a rebelling nation, which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance."

Speaking in measured tones, al-Zawahiri denounces the Americans for burying his former leader at sea.

He also backs the wave of Arab unrest and calls for Sharia Islamic law to be applied in Egypt.

And he warns Libyans that Nato's bombing campaign seeks to replace Muammar Gaddafi with a Western-backed tyrannical regime.
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And the commission begins...

No one at any tier of Pak Army knew about OBL raid: DGMO

ISLAMABAD – DGMO Maj-Gen Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmad has told the Abbottabad commission that no one at any tier of Pakistan Army had knowledge of US raid at Osama bin Laden’s compound.

The director general of military operations (DGMO) asserted that the cause of apparent failure in intercepting OBL compound raiders was that Pakistan forces did not expect a clandestine operation by an allied state and the intruders took advantage of existing ‘environment of trust’.

The DGMO in his detailed statement before the commission investigating Abbottabad incident explained army’s perspective on the US operation. He also told the commission about the contacts made by the chief of army staff with the air chief, the foreign secretary, the prime minister and the president soon after learning about the incident.

Maj-Gen Ishfaq also gave details regarding army posts established along Pak-Afghan border as he informed about army’s anti-terror operations in different northern and north-western areas of the country. He told the investigative body that the presence of army in those areas was meant to eliminate militancy so as to establish the writ of the state.

The DGMO stated that no threat whatsoever was envisaged from Afghanistan and International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), the military alliance that includes the US forces.

Both Afghanistan and Isaf are allies of Pakistan in the fight against terrorism. Pakistan and US/Isaf conduct anti militant operations on respective side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and plans of operations close to the border are fully shared, he added.

Maj-Gen Ishfaq also said that the US operation in Abbottabad was not known to any tier in the Pakistan Army. US acted in an environment of trust and army was therefore taken by surprise, he asserted. The DGMO told the commission that strategic sites ‘are very well protected’ and are under air and ground protection of Pakistan armed forces; as such not comparable with the place and situation of OBL compound area. He explained that Abbottabad

Cantonment is an open cantonment, which hosts only training institutions and as such no fighting troops are deployed in the garrison. Nevertheless, these institutions have their own security in place to deal with any security threat, he told the commission.

The third meeting of the inquiry commission was held here on Monday in the Committee Room of the Cabinet Division under the chairmanship of Justice Javed Iqbal, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court and president of the commission. The meeting was attended by commission members IG(r) Abbas Khan, former diplomat Ashraf Jehangir Qazi and Lt Gen(r) Nadeem Ahmed. Next meeting of the commission would be held on August 1, wherein DG ISI would give a briefing to the commission.
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For the first time,a Navy SEAL gives a detailed account of the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden.The Navy SEAL confirms the mission was always to kill,not to capture alive.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...sion-was-to-shoot-to-kill-from-the-start.html

The most detailed account so far of the assassination of the world’s most wanted man describes the May 1 operation in Abbottabad as a “covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden”.

Published in The New Yorker magazine, it presents the strongest challenge yet to the Obama’s administration’s insistence that the al-Qaeda chief, codenamed “Crankshaft”, could have been captured if he had “conspicuously surrendered”.

An unnamed US special operations officer, said to be “deeply familiar with the bin Laden raid”, told the magazine that the 23 Navy Seals were clear that this was not the case.

“There was never any question of detaining or capturing him,” the officer said. “It wasn’t a split-second decision. No one wanted detainees.”

The plan, according to the article’s author, Nicholas Schmidle, was for the Seals to “overpower bin Laden’s guards, shoot and kill him at close range, and then take the corpse back to Afghanistan”.

In May, John Brennan, Mr Obama’s counter-terrorism chief, said the commandos would not have killed him if they were confident he was not wearing an “improvised explosive device on his body” or “some type of hidden weapon”.

Schmidle reports the first Seal to find bin Laden believed one or both of the wives guarding him were wearing suicide vests. He shot one in the calf before rugby tackling them to save two colleagues. Neither turned out to be wearing explosives.

A second Seal then shot bin Laden in the chest and again in the head with his M4 rifle, and said over his radio: “For God and country – Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo” – the codeword for a hit on bin Laden.

When he later met them in private, Mr Obama “never asked who fired the kill shot, and the
Seals never volunteered to tell him”, according to Schmidle.
The author describes for the first time some of the men who took part in the raid, who are sworn to secrecy for the rest of their lives.

The squadron leader, who he calls “James”, is said to be “a broad-chested man in his late thirties”, who “does not have the lithe swimmer’s frame that one might expect of a Seal – he is built more like a discus thrower”.

A chief petty officer, “Mark”, is said to have led teams of Seals on a sweep of the compound’s inner courtyard to take out possible guards. The Seals are said to have worn “desert digital” camouflage and carried energy gel shots among their kits.

They are said to have trained in a replica of the compound constructed in dense forests in North Carolina, before carrying out more rehearsals at night in the Nevada desert in April.
Schmidle says the turbulence that caused one of the Black Hawk helicopters to crash was not predicted because the perimeter of the replica was made from chain-link fencing, through which air could flow freely, rather than solid walls, which trapped the “wash” of the aircraft’s rotors.

The article details more from the months of planning that took place after the discovery in summer 2010 of bin Laden’s courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, in the town, about 40 miles from the capital Islamabad.

He was watched returning to a property with one resident who never went outside except to pace around the compound’s yard. No internet or phone activity was detected inside and all rubbish was burned rather than left for removal.

As Mr Obama and his advisers grew more certain that “the Pacer” was bin Laden, it is said they considered having special operations troops land outside Abbottabad and travel into the compound on foot, but it was feared that they would arrive too tired.

They also reportedly discussed the forces tunnelling into the compound, but it was discovered that the building was in a flood basin and the water table was too close to the surface.
It is also claimed that officers from Team Six, which carried out the raid, had made up to a dozen entries into Pakistan on missions to find bin Laden and his lieutenants.
After finally deciding to go ahead with a night raid from the air, Mr Obama is said to have called Admiral William McRaven, the officer overseeing the mission, and told him: “Godspeed to you and your forces. Please pass on to them my personal thanks.”

As portrayed in a now famous photograph, Mr Obama and several of his closest aides monitored the raid from the White House. Joe Biden, the Vice-President, who is Catholic and fingered a rosary throughout the raid, is reported to have said: “We should all go to Mass tonight.”

Following the raid and the shooting of bin Laden, and the arrival of a rescue Chinook, a medic took two bone marrow samples from the al-Qaeda chief’s corpse and extracted other DNA samples with swabs. Bin Laden was eventually dumped in the Arabian Sea. Five days later, Mr
Obama travelled to Kentucky to meet the Seals, who briefed him on the raid using a 3D model of the compound and a laser pen.

“James” is said to have told the president: “Everything we have done for the last ten years prepared us for this”.After discovering that a dog, a Belgian Malinois called Cairo, had been in
the team, Mr Obama is said to have asked to meet it. “If you want to meet the dog, Mr President, I advise you to bring treats,” “James” is said to have told him. The Seals presented Mr Obama with a signed US flag from the rescue Chinook.

For all the plaudits heaped on the Seals, however, Schmidle reports that not everyone in the national security establishment was particularly impressed.

An unnamed defence department official, who dismisses comparisons with history’s most daring Seal raids, says it was a routine night raid, like “mowing the lawn”.
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Last edited:
Another version of the Bin Laden story.
Will we ever find out the truth?

http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/th...-in-by-informant-courier-was-cover-story.html

Forget the cover story of waterboarding-leads-to-courier-leads-to bin Laden (not to deny the effectiveness of waterboarding, but it’s just not applicable in this case.) Sources in the intelligence community tell me that after years of trying and one bureaucratically insane near-miss in Yemen, the US government killed OBL because a Pakistani intelligence officer came forward to collect the approximately $25 million reward from the State Department's Rewards for Justice program. The informant was a walk-in.The ISI officer came forward to claim the substantial reward and to broker US citizenship for his family. My sources tell me that the informant claimed that the Saudis were paying off the Pakistani military and intelligence (ISI) to essentially shelter and keep bin Laden under house arrest in Abbottabad, a city with such a high concentration of military that I'm told there's no equivalent in the US.
The CIA and friends then set about proving that OBL was indeed there. And they did.
Next they approached the chiefs of the Pakistani military and the ISI. The US was going to come in with or without them. The CIA offered them a deal they couldn't refuse: they would double what the Saudis were paying them to keep bin Laden if they cooperated with the US. Or they could refuse the deal and live with the consequences: the Saudis would stop paying and there would be the international embarassment...
The ISI and Pakistani military were cooperating with the US on the raid.
The cooperation was why there were no troops in Abottabad. They were all pulled out. It had always seemed very far-fetched to me that a helicopter could crash and later destroyed in an area with such high military concentration without the Pakistanis noticing. But then it seemed even wilder to believe that a US Navy SEAL (DEVGRU) actually shot a woman who rushed them in the leg. Yeah, right. I know these guys. They only way they'll shoot a woman in the leg is if they are double tapping a head or chest and that leg got in the way.
DEVGRU shoots to kill.
The cover story was going to be a drone strike in Pakistan. Things went south when the helicopter crashed. The White House freaked and the cooperating Pakistanis were thrown under the bus.
Splat.

Although the White House really pissed off the intel and DEVGRU guys with their knee-jerk reaction that tossed the Pakistanis under the proverbial bus, ironically it did have the same outcome as the original CIA cover story: the way they were treated, no one believes Generals Kiyani and Pasha were cooperating with the US.
Big shaka for that, Barry!
 
It wont surprice me if there is some attack in america .. US goverment would say Osama Bin Laden strikes again...
 
Some interesting findings by the Abbottabad Commission Report.


Findings of Abbottabad Commission: How US reached Osama



ISLAMABAD: The Abbottabad Commission Report, which is yet to be made public, contains a treasure trove of information on the hunt for the world’s most wanted man – Osama Bin Laden.

Its findings reveal that the arrest of Khalid Bin Attash (an Al Qaeda member who was involved in the pre-9/11 attacks such as on USS Cole and the embassies in Africa) in ‘2002’ from Karachi led to the first major breakthrough – he is the one who identified Abu Ahmed Ali Kuwaiti (the Kuwaiti born Pakistani who was OBL’s right hand man and courier and the man who led the Americans to Bin Laden.

After this information came to light, the Kuwaiti intelligence service was contacted but it could not provide any details about the man.

During the search for this man, CIA provided four phone numbers between “2009 to Nov 2010” to Pakistan but without any details as to who they were searching for, a source privy to the report’s details has told Dawn.

Dawn has learnt that these numbers “most of the time remained off” but while the ISI kept the CIA in the loop it did so “without knowing the context and to whom these numbers belonged”.

Now in retrospect, the commission report confirms Attash’s disclosure – Kuwaiti was OBL’s right hand man.

According to what the commission has discovered, he was with OBL’s family in Karachi when it moved to the port city in Oct/Nov 2001.

In 2002, when the family (including OBL’s wives) moved to Peshawar, Kuwaiti was with them and this is where OBL joined them – in mid-2002.

From here they moved to Swat where OBL was visited by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

A month later, KSM was arrested in Rawalpindi, prompting the scared OBL family to move to Haripur.

Kuwaiti and his brother Ibrar (who had joined the fugitives in Swat) were with OBL and they all stayed in Haripur till 2005.

And it is here that the move to Abbottabad was planned and executed by Kuwaiti. He is the one who purchased a plot in Abbottabad by using a fake identity card and also supervised the construction of the house, which says a source was custom built.

It contained three complexes. “One open compound, an annexe where Kuwaiti and his family lived and the main three storey house,” said the source, adding that the two top storeys were used by OBL and his family.

The youngest wife stayed on the second floor while the older wives – Sharifa and Khaira – stayed on the lower floor.

Ibrar and his wife lived on the ground floor.

The source explained that the house was built so that the children of Ibrar could not see OBL.

The commission has been told that OBL never had a phone line, an internet or cable connection either in Swat, Haripur or Abbottabad though a dish was used to watch Al Jazeera in more than one city that the families stayed in.

Dawn has learnt that the commission has pointed out the violations committed by the residents of the Abbottabad House which remained unchecked by the authorities at the local level.

For instance, it has noted that a manual ID card was used to purchase land even though a computerised CNIC had been made mandatory in 2004 by Nadra – “the manual NIC was accepted by the Revenue Department, Cantonment Board and others,” said the source, adding that the identities and the addresses were never verified.

He also said that the third floor was built in violation of the building plan and once again no authority intervened.

In addition, the commission has noted that “the fort type construction remained unnoticed by cantonment board, police, intelligence agencies and the locals. The occupants also remained unchecked for non-payment of property tax since 2005”.

When the compound in Abbottabad was stormed by the Navy Seals in the middle of the night, OBL’s first reaction was to tell his family to stay calm and recite the kalima.

When the Seals reached Laden’s room, he is said to have a weapon in his hand and was searching for a grenade on a shelf — he was shot as he turned around, the source has told Dawn. It was at this point that Amal and OBL’s daughter Summaya rushed at the men to stop them, leading to Amal’s bullet injury. Summaya and Kuwaiti’s wife were asked to identify OBL after which the rest of the inhabitants of the house were told by the Seals that Laden had been killed.

Last but not least, Dawn has learnt that the commission has given recommendations to the government that are aimed at averting another May 2 like operation.

It was not possible to find out whether or not the report has investigated and/or made any recommendations to prevent fugitives such as OBL from hiding in Pakistan. Neither is it clear whether or not the commission has held anyone responsible for the presence of OBL in the country or the May raid by the Americans.

The recommendations that Dawn has learnt about are focused on checking American activity in the country and averting operations by outside forces by suggesting that the role of the post of chairman joint chiefs of staff committee be enhanced for more effective coordination between the armed forces. It has also recommended strengthening the National Security Council so that it can take immediate steps as the commission has noted that certain high government functionary could not be contacted during operation.

The commission has also recommended a probe over the issuance of visas to a large number of US contractors who established a spy network within Pakistan.
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http://dawn.com/news/1023524/findin...w-us-reached-osama/?commentPage=1&storyPage=2
 

Bin Laden killing: official report criticises Pakistan and US

Leaked report into killing of al-Qaida chief criticises both Pakistan and US, which it says 'acted like a criminal thug'



Pakistan failed to detect Osama bin Laden during the six years he hid in Abbottabad because of the "collective incompetence and negligence" of the country's intelligence and security forces, the official report into the killing of the al-Qaida chief in 2011 has concluded.

The much anticipated report, a copy of which was obtained by al-Jazeera, is withering in its criticism of Pakistan's dysfunctional institutions, which were unable to find the world's most wanted man during his long stay in a major Pakistani city.

"It is a glaring testimony to the collective incompetence and negligence, at the very least, of the security and intelligence community in the Abbottabad area," said the report, which criticised Pakistan's military spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), for having prematurely "closed the book" on Bin Laden in 2005.

Nor does the 336-page document rule out the possibility of involvement by rogue Pakistani intelligence officers, who have been accused of deliberately shielding Bin Laden by some commentators.

"Given the length of stay and the changes of residence of [Bin Laden] and his family in Pakistan … the possibility of some such direct or indirect and "plausibly deniable" support cannot be ruled out, at least, at some level outside formal structures of the intelligence establishment."

It warns that the influence of radical Islamists inside the armed forces had been "underestimated by senior military officials whom the commission met".
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/08/osama-bin-laden-pakistan-criticised
 
Top Leaders Knew About Osama bin Laden's Presence: Ex-Pak Defence Minister

New Delhi: Pakistan's top civilian and military leadership knew about Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's presence in the country much before the US Navy SEALs killed him in a raid in 2011, the then defence minister of Pakistan has claimed.

The Pakistani establishment, the country's powerful army chief and the intelligence agency ISI were aware that Osama bin Laden was living in Abbottabad, according to Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, who was Pakistan's defence minister between 2008 and 2012.

Former Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, then army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and joint chief of staff all knew that Osama was in Pakistan, Mr Mukhtar told CNN-IBN.

The former defence minister's admissions are contrary to what Pakistan has been claiming so far that it was unaware of Osama bin Laden's presence in the country until the US Navy SEALs killed him in a daring raid in May 2011.

Asked if President Zardari and General Kayani had information about Osama bin Laden and were there people both in the civilian and military chain of command who had prior information, Mr Mukhtar answered in the affirmative.

Asked if they had prior information in terms of suspicion of the location of the world's most wanted man, Mr Mukhtar said, "Some people knew, people in the Pakistan army as well as people in the other forces they also knew it and they were on the lookout for somebody of the stature of Osama bin Laden."

Mr Mukhtar's admissions come on the heels of investigative reporter Seymour Hersh's claim that a Pakistani agent had leaked to the US Osama's Abbottabad hideout address.

Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011 in a raid by the US Navy SEALS.
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http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/top-...nce-minister-1231834?pfrom=home-lateststories
 
Asad Durrani, former head of the ISI said that he believed the Pakistan govt's admission of 'incompetence' was for political reasons and that he finds it unlikely Pakistan didn't know about the whereabouts of OBL.

I cannot say exactly what happened but my assessment […] was it is quite possible that they [the ISI] did not know but it was more probable that they did. And the idea was that at the right time, his location would be revealed. And the right time would have been, when you can get the necessary quid pro quo - if you have someone like Osama bin Laden, you are not going to simply hand him over to the United States.

He asserted that Bin Laden was, in his opinion, handed over in exchange for an agreement on “how to bring the Afghan problem to an end”. Asked by Hasan whether Bin Laden’s compound was an ISI safe house, Durrani responded:

“If ISI was doing that, than I would say they were doing a good job. And if they revealed his location, they again probably did what was required to be done.”
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The twist in the interview of Ahmed Muktar is a step of Raw to sabotage the visit our PM to USA/it is an attempt to undermine Pak worldwide</p>— Senator Rehman Malik (@SenRehmanMalik) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRehmanMalik/status/654052868492820480">October 13, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It is yellow journalism which now India has started using agst Pakistan.It is the first attack of Raw after the Indo-USA joint declaration</p>— Senator Rehman Malik (@SenRehmanMalik) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRehmanMalik/status/654052174687830016">October 13, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Ahmed Muktar was talking about the information regarding post killing of OBL where as the Indian Anchor twisted to pre OBL killing</p>— Senator Rehman Malik (@SenRehmanMalik) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRehmanMalik/status/654051358937608192">October 13, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I will hold a press conference tomorrow and expose how the Indian anchor tries to put the words in the mouth of Ahmed Muktar/</p>— Senator Rehman Malik (@SenRehmanMalik) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRehmanMalik/status/654050632920375297">October 13, 2015</a></blockquote>
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sshakir411 said:
no proof of ISI protection. Unless you can provide it you're just making an assumption.
Click to expand...
Yes you are correct.. I have no proof. But worlds most wanted man crossed border with family, entered into a Pakistani city, build a 3 storey house just few miles away from military camp, lived there for 5 years, his wife and son used to regularly go for grocery shopping and no one from Pak military got to know?? :murali

This proves 2 things:
A) Either Pak intelligence is very bad.
B) They were intentionally shielding him.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
 
Indian_Supporter said:
Yes you are correct.. I have no proof. But worlds most wanted man crossed border with family, entered into a Pakistani city, build a 3 storey house just few miles away from military camp, lived there for 5 years, his wife and son used to regularly go for grocery shopping and no one from Pak military got to know?? :murali

This proves 2 things:
A) Either Pak intelligence is very bad.
B) They were intentionally shielding him.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

The part where you say he crossed border with family, and built the house is also an assumption.

The fact that he has more than one wife should tell you that ISI do not keep a tab on how many times which wife has been impregnated.

These are all theories that you have heard about. Nothing concrete. But hey, everyone is free to believe what they like.
 
Indian_Supporter said:
Yes you are correct.. I have no proof. But worlds most wanted man crossed border with family, entered into a Pakistani city, build a 3 storey house just few miles away from military camp, lived there for 5 years, his wife and son used to regularly go for grocery shopping and no one from Pak military got to know?? :murali

This proves 2 things:
A) Either Pak intelligence is very bad.
B) They were intentionally shielding him.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

OR

C) He was never there, died years ago and the raid was staged by CIA or jointly between CIA/ISI.
D) Was planted there by ISI and information given to CIA because they were to scared from the backlash in the country had they handed him over.
E) Seymour Hershes story
 
PetroDollars said:
OR

C) He was never there, died years ago and the raid was staged by CIA or jointly between CIA/ISI.
D) Was planted there by ISI and information given to CIA because they were to scared from the backlash in the country had they handed him over.
E) Seymour Hershes story
Click to expand...
But didn't Al qaeda admitted his death after the raid?
 
Pakistani posters I sympathise with, they usually have a lot to defend, and they must be tired defending the indefensible.

1. OBL was found in Pakistan.. ISI didn't know he was here.. give us proof.
2. The talented trio spot fixing.. you can't ban a player for just bowling a no-ball
3. Ajmal is not a chucker.. ICC conspiracy.
 
PetroDollars said:
OR

C) He was never there, died years ago and the raid was staged by CIA or jointly between CIA/ISI.
D) Was planted there by ISI and information given to CIA because they were to scared from the backlash in the country had they handed him over.
E) Seymour Hershes story
Click to expand...

Or OBL was a gentle muslim who was killed by CIA to cover up the drama of 9/11.
 
tempus123 said:
Pakistani posters I sympathise with, they usually have a lot to defend, and they must be tired defending the indefensible.

1. OBL was found in Pakistan.. ISI didn't know he was here.. give us proof.
2. The talented trio spot fixing.. you can't ban a player for just bowling a no-ball
3. Ajmal is not a chucker.. ICC conspiracy.
Click to expand...

Similarly, Indians...

"Oh Pakistan is a theocratic sharia state that treats their minorities badly, while India is a democratic secular society where rainbows are abundant."

Next day's headline... A man killed for allegedly having beef in his fridge even though it was mutton.

"If you want to eat beef go to Pakistan" :))

just playing btw i love my indian friends.
 
blackanhyellow said:
Similarly, Indians...

"Oh Pakistan is a theocratic sharia state that treats their minorities badly, while India is a democratic secular society where rainbows are abundant."

Next day's headline... A man killed for allegedly having beef in his fridge even though it was mutton.

"If you want to eat beef go to Pakistan" :))

just playing btw i love my indian friends.
Click to expand...

Just comparing laden being found in your country and having national bowlers chuckers or fixers with communal violence.. Lol
 
Virtually every PK I meet seems convinced that OBL is not dead, which begs several questions such who did his Yemeni lady think she was married to and why is Dr Shakil Afridi still in jail.
 
Children play cricket in a patch of scorched grass and scattered rubble in Abbottabad -- all that remains of the final lair of the man who was once the most wanted person on the planet.

It was in this Pakistani city that Osama bin Laden was killed in the clandestine "Operation Geronimo" raid by US Navy Seals in the early hours of May 2, 2011.

The operation had global repercussions and dented Pakistan's international reputation -- exposing contradictions in a country that had long served as a rear base for Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies while suffering from the effects of terrorism.

Bin Laden had been living in seclusion for at least five years in Abbottabad, hidden behind the high walls of an imposing white building less than two kilometres from a renowned military academy.

"It was a very bad thing for this place and for the whole country," said Altaf Hussain, a retired schoolteacher, walking down an alley alongside Bin Laden's former residence.

"By living here, Osama gave this city a bad reputation."

The raid caught Pakistan between a rock and a hard place.

Officials could deny knowing he was there -- but in doing so they would effectively be admitting to a shocking intelligence failure.

They could also have admitted that the world's most infamous fugitive was under their protection, but that would concede being powerless to prevent Washington from carrying out such a daring raid on sovereign soil.

- 'People named their children Osama' -

They opted for the former, but the US operation reinforced an already strong anti-American sentiment among a population tired of the heavy financial and human toll paid for the war on terror -- and Islamabad's alliance with Washington after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Pakistan was initially receptive to the founding myth of Al Qaeda -- the resistance of Muslims to American imperialism.

But at the time of his death, Bin Laden's local popularity had waned.

"Before, I remember that people named their children Osama, even in my village," said Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, a specialist in jihadist networks.

Bin Laden's death did not stop extremism from spreading in Pakistan, and conservative religious movements became even more influential.

Over the next three years, several terror groups -- foremost among them the Pakistani Taliban -- carried out bloody attacks and established strongholds in northwestern tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

A military campaign launched in 2014 helped bring down the violence, although a recent series of minor attacks has raised fears that extremists are regrouping.

- 'Some say he was good' -

Without its charismatic leader, Al Qaeda "survived, but barely" and is no longer able to launch major attacks in the West, says Yusufzai.

The group is also no longer "a great threat to Pakistan", believes Hamid Mir -- the last journalist to interview Bin Laden face-to-face -- although other groups such as the Islamic State remain so.

He said while the Al-Qaeda founder is still seen as a "freedom fighter" by some, many also acknowledge him as "a bad person who killed innocent people and caused destruction -- not only in Pakistan, but in many countries, in violation of the teachings of Islam".

Bin Laden nonetheless retains an aura in radical circles.

"He is alive in the heart of every Taliban and every jihadist", said Saad, an Afghan Taliban official living in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan caused a scandal two years ago by telling parliament that bin Laden had died a "martyr" -- a noble demise in the Islamic world.

Even in Abbottabad, a prosperous and largely tolerant medium-sized city, there is ambiguity towards Bin Laden, whose house was razed in 2012 by authorities so that it would not become a memorial.

"In this street, there are differences of opinion," says teenage former neighbour Numan Hattak.

"Some say he was good, others that he was bad."

https://www.france24.com/en/live-ne...ter-his-death-bin-laden-still-haunts-pakistan
 
His death anniversary today. Is the world a better place without him? Did a lot change?
 
WASHINGTON: A Taliban spokesman has said that there was no justification for the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 as Osama bin Laden’s involvement in the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were never proven.

Zabihullah Mujahid made the claim during an interview with NBC Nightly News on Wednesday, less than two weeks after the Taliban captured Kabul. The Taliban, however, have pledged not to allow Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group to use Afghanistan for attacking the United States and its allies.

The Washington Post, while reporting the spokesperson’s claim, pointed out that “Bin Laden’s well documented role as the plotter of the attacks made him the most wanted fugitive in the world until he was killed by US Navy Seals in 2011.”

“When Osama bin Laden became an issue for the Americans, he was in Afghanistan. Although there was no proof, he was involved” in 9/11, Mr Mujahid told NBC News. “Now, we have given promises that Afghan soil won’t be used against anyone.”

Pressed again on Bin Laden’s role in the 9/11 terror attacks, he said: “There is no evidence. Even after 20 years of war, we have no proof he was involved.”

NBC’s Richard Engel commented on the spokesman’s claim, asking: “So it sounds like, even now, after all this, you’re accepting no responsibility?”

“There was no justification for this war, it was an excuse for war,” the Taliban official said.

Asked if the Taliban expect the Biden administration to fulfill its promise of withdrawing all Ame*rican troops by Aug 31, as promised, he said: “The withdrawal is almost finished. These are our happiest moments.”

The Post also quoted from the 9/11 Commission report, which concluded that the “9/11 attack was driven by Osama Bin Laden.”

According to the report, “final preparations (for the 9/11 attacks) were underway during the summer of 2001, dissent emerged among Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan over whether to proceed.”

The Bush administration, which invaded Afghanistan, blamed the Taliban government for providing a safe harbor in Afghanistan for bin Laden.

President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban hand Bin Laden over and dismantle terrorist training camps. When the Taliban refused, US forces invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban regime.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2021
 
Richard Marcinko, who has died at the age of 81, made his mark on the US military as founding commander of Seal Team Six, one of America's elite special forces units which would later carry out a deadly raid against Osama Bin Laden.

A Vietnam War veteran, he led the group for its first three years, and was awarded more than 30 medals and citations during his career with the US Navy.

His direct and abrasive leadership style brought great success but often caused conflict with superiors. Some accused him of encouraging a reckless, "bad boy" culture at Seal Team Six.

Off the battlefield, Marcinko faced legal battles and was briefly jailed for defrauding the US government.

Despite this, he played a vital role in boosting America's counter-terrorism capabilities at the tail end of the Cold War.

His larger-than-life personality, and his autobiography Rogue Warrior, helped to cement Seal Team Six's place in military folklore and popular culture.

BBC
 
Eleven years ago, a team of two dozen Navy SEALs flew under the cover of darkness into Abbottabad, Pakistan to carry out one of the most important counter-terrorism missions in history – to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

Thirty minutes into that mission, the SEALs had their man and something they were not expecting, thousands of pages of Osama bin Laden's personal letters and notes.

In 2017, the CIA declassified most of those letters without context and little translation.

Author and Islamic scholar Nelly Lahoud wanted to read it all. She's spent much of her career researching al Qaeda with stints at Harvard and Cambridge Universities and she's fluent in Arabic. So she dug in. Carefully examining many of those documents, line by line.

Tonight, we'll hear what she found, gaining a rare glimpse into the inner sanctum of al Qaeda through the "bin Laden Papers."

This is the bustling city of Abbottabad, Pakistan.

From overhead, you can still see the scar in the landscape. This vacant lot – where boys now play cricket – is where Osama bin Laden's home once stood and where the world's most wanted terrorist hid until the evening of May 1, 2011.

President Obama in speech on May 2, 2011: Tonight I can report to the American people and to the world, that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.

The operation, called Neptune Spear, took 30 minutes. But then one SEAL alerted command that they'd found a ton of computers and electronics and needed more time.

The SEALs were granted ten more minutes that stretched into 18.

They grabbed computers, VHS tapes, books, thumb drives, hard drives and notebooks, carrying them out in bags strung around their neck.

Sharyn Alfonsi: How important was that last-minute decision by the SEAL team to take those documents?

Nelly Lahoud: Bin Laden's greatest fear was about exposing al Qaeda's secrets. And so the fact that the SEALs decided to recover these letters ensured that al Qaeda's secrets were exposed.

In 2012, Nelly Lahoud was teaching at West Point when the CIA declassified the first 17 documents from the raid. She was asked to lead the analysis of those documents for West Point's Combatting Terrorism Center.

For the last five years she's been reading, translating and analyzing the remaining declassified documents. Consulting with U.S. generals, admirals and members of the special forces community to make sense of it all.

There are home videos, like this one, of Osama bin Laden's son, Hamza, getting married in Iran.

Family photos, audio files, and letters. 500,000 files in all. Nelly Lahoud focused on 6,000 pages of them for her book, "The bin Laden Papers."

Sharyn Alfonsi: So you were creating kind of a narrative based on all of the documents?

Nelly Lahoud: And you couldn't do it any other way. You couldn't have a division of labor where several people will take [it] on because they're all so connected. Vague references in one letter can only be explained if you looked at several other letters. So really to get a grasp of what was really going on, you really need to be able to have read them all together.

Letters were the only way Osama bin Laden communicated with al Qaeda associates for nearly a decade because he was trying to evade capture.

Bin Laden had television in his compound, but didn't have access to the internet or phone, so everything was written by hand or on computers, and encrypted on flash drives that were given to couriers to deliver. All the letters were backed up on hard drives.

Nelly Lahoud: We see in the letters diminutive bin Laden, somebody who is very different from this powerful figure that we were reading about daily in the newspapers for over a decade. And the disconnect between his ambitions and between his capabilities is confounding.

That "disconnect" was clear immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

Nelly Lahoud: Al Qaeda did not anticipate that the United States would go to war.

Sharyn Alfonsi: What did they think was going to happen?

Nelly Lahoud: A limited airstrike, but they didn't think that they would go beyond that.

But as the war raged on in Afghanistan, Lahoud says, these letters show that Osama bin Laden was surprised by how Americans reacted to 9/11.

Nelly Lahoud: He thought that the American people would take to the streets, replicate the anti-Vietnam war protests and they would put pressure on their government to withdraw from Muslim majority states.

Sharyn Alfonsi: A large miscalculation.

Nelly Lahoud: Huge miscalculation.

In November of 2002, U.S. intelligence officials warned al Qaeda might be planning, "spectacular attacks" that could cause "mass casualties."

But Lahoud says letters show, that by that time, al Qaeda was weak. Top leaders had been killed or forced into hiding and the terrorist organization was rudderless.

Sharyn Alfonsi: There is definitely a narrative that bin Laden was still controlling al Qaeda from behind the scenes, "the puppet master" somewhere hidden away. But is that what the papers show?

Nelly Lahoud: Far from it.

Sharyn Alfonsi: So he was not calling the shots (at that point)?

Nelly Lahoud: Absolutely not.

She says Osama bin Laden didn't communicate with his al Qaeda associates for three years because he was on the run. It's still unknown exactly where he was hiding.

But in 2004, he reconnects with al Qaeda in this letter, offering surviving members his new plan to attack America.

Nelly Lahoud: He's very eager to replicate the 9/11 attacks in the United States. You know he is mindful that now the security conditions are very difficult at airports.

She read us part of a chilling letter from Osama bin Laden to the head of al Qaeda's international terror unit.

Bin Laden writes that rather than hijack a plane, operatives should charter one for their next attack on the U.S. And adds if that's too difficult, they should target U.S. railways.

Then, bin Laden, who had a degree in civil engineering explains exactly how to do it.

Nelly Lahoud: He wanted to have 12 meters of steel rail removed so that, this way, the train could be derailed. And we find him, explaining the simple ******* that they could use. You know, he said, "You're-- you could use a compressor. You could use a smelting iron tool."

Sharyn Alfonsi: He's in-- in those small details.

Nelly Lahoud: At the granular-- most granular level, yes.

Sharyn Alfonsi: What does that say to you?

Nelly Lahoud: He's very methodical, very methodical. He thinks-- he doesn't want to leave anything for chance.

Fortunately, he was never able to execute his plan.

Because Lahoud says al Qaeda had been gutted by the war. She read us this letter from Tawfiq, a young associate who was running operations for al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is telling Osama bin Laden just how incapacitated the terror organization had become.

Nelly Lahoud: "The weakness, failure, and aimlessness that befell us were harrowing. We Muslims were defiled and desecrated. Our state was ripped asunder, our lands were occupied, our resources were plundered."

Sharyn Alfonsi: And so he's giving the state of al Qaeda to Osama bin Laden, who-- probably hasn't heard this at this point?

Nelly Lahoud: He didn't know. He didn't know the reality. And he actually warns him, that "I'm gonna tell you the truth as it is. And I know that some of the brothers here are not telling you everything in detail because they don't want to upset you, particularly because of the delicate situations in which you find yourself with…"

That delicate situation, is bin Laden's life in hiding.

By 2005, Osama bin Laden was living behind the 18 foot walls of the Abbottabad compound he shared with some of his wives, children, and grandchildren.

In one clip, bin Laden's 22-year-old son, Khaled, is showing off the compound's meager gardens and animals he tends to.

Khalid also recorded his fathers public statements that were intended to be seen around the world.

You can hear him giggling as the lights malfunction.

But Nelly Lahoud says it was actually two of bin Laden's daughters who played the greater role in crafting their father's messages and jihad missions.

Nelly Lahoud: The people who really worked on Osama's public statements were mostly his-- daughters, Miriam and Sumaiya. And one of the pages, you know-- we find Osama soliciting explicitly, "Start preparing, start thinking about the ideas that need to go into the public statement." That's his own words.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Is this surprising how involved they were?

Nelly Lahoud: Yes, it was. It was surprising to me. In the world of al Qaeda, and of jihadism broadly, women are not part of the public face of jihad.

But privately, the bin Laden women were very involved. In this letter to a relative, bin Laden's wife, Siham, is mourning the loss of a daughter who died in childbirth but then the tone quickly changes.

Nelly Lahoud: And then she goes on to shame and at the same time incite the men to take up jihad. And she says, you know, "Our women and children are suffering, while the men are being servile and coward." So that's the kind of personality that we are encountering about the women in the compound, yes.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Wow.

Al Qaeda was also running low on cash. Lahoud says documents show that in 2006, al Qaeda had just $200,000 in its coffers and was unable to support or control an increasingly fractious jihad.

Still, she says Osama bin Laden kept plotting. Lahoud showed us one letter to another young associate, Younis, who'd impressed bin Laden with his sharp intellect.

Nelly Lahoud: It says: "This is specifically addressed to you, top secret, do not share it with anyone."

It is Osama bin Laden's plan for another terror attack in 2010. This time, he wanted to target multiple crude oil tankers and major shipping routes around the Middle East and Africa.

Nelly Lahoud: He says, "It does not escape you, the importance of oil for industrialized economy today. And it is similar to blood for human beings. So, if you cause somebody to bleed excessively, even if you don't kill him you will at least weaken him." And that's-- he really-- what he really wanted to do to the American economy.

She says bin Laden details how al Qaeda operatives should integrate themselves into those port areas as fishermen. He instructs them exactly where to buy a specific kind of wooden boat to evade radar and then, once again, goes into the granular details of his plan.

Nelly Lahoud: "The boats need to carry a large volume of explosives, preferably placed in an arch position, facing the vessel."

Sharyn Alfonsi: So he is not only telling them what explosives to buy, he's telling them how to place the explosives.

Nelly Lahoud: In an arch position.

But his final plan to attack seems to have been halted by something he never saw coming, the Arab Spring. According to a family notebook, a unique item seized in the raid, the peaceful protests were confusing and concerning to the Bin Ladens.

Nelly Lahoud: On one level they were very excited by the fact that the people were able to bring down dictators. But at the same time there were all these question marks about, 'What is the value of jihad at the moment?' And we find this really throughout this notebook. 'Is jihad still necessary?'

Lahoud says Bin Laden was struggling with the answer to that question before he was killed.

U.S. intelligence agencies say most al Qaeda terrorist activity is now being carried out by smaller al Qaeda offshoots.

Bin Laden's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, now heads al Qaeda.

This month, he appeared in a new video denouncing the enemies of Islam.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/osama-bin-laden-documents-60-minutes-2022-04-24/
 
Today marks the death anniversary of Osama Bin Laden, the former head of Al Qaeda. Adored by some, hated by others Bin Laden was allegedly killed in a compound in Abbottabad back in 2011.
 
Probably one of the most notorious and evil people of the 21th century. Deserved to die a far more terrible death than he did. Wasn’t surprised at all when it was revealed where he was hiding all those years.
 
No one knows if he is dead or alive, or if he was in Pakistan or not, because they didn't show us his dead body.
 
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