U.S. Naval Academy Commandant’s Speech On the Killing of Bin Laden…
Awesome.
In a sane world Pakistan would be next on the hit-list.
(Telegraph) — Pakistani security forces allegedly helped Osama bin Laden evade American troops for almost 10 years, according to secret US government files.
American diplomats were told that one of the key reasons why they had failed to find bin Laden was that Pakistan’s security services tipped him off whenever US troops approached.
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) also allegedly smuggled al-Qaeda terrorists through airport security to help them avoid capture and sent a unit into Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban.
The claims, made in leaked US government files obtained by Wikileaks, will add to questions over Pakistan’s capacity to fight al-Qaeda.
Last year, David Cameron caused a diplomatic furore when he told Pakistan that it could not “look both ways” on terrorism. The Pakistani government issued a strongly-worded rebuttal.
But bin Laden was eventually tracked down and killed in compound located just a few hundred yards from Pakistan’s prestigious military academy in Abbotabad.
The raid by elite US troops was kept secret from the government of Pakistan. Only a tight circle within the Obama Administration knew of the operation.
In December 2009, the government of Tajikistan warned the United States that efforts to catch bin Laden were being thwarted by corrupt Pakistani spies.
According to a US diplomatic dispatch, General Abdullo Sadulloevich Nazarov, a senior Tajik counterterrorism official, told the Americans that “many” inside Pakistan knew where bin Laden was.
Ok, maybe not, but this might be as close as we get given the Obama regime’s determination not to upset the Ummah.
But Obama bravely played only nine holes of golf on Sunday and told a bunch of jokes at the White House Corespondent Dinner, where’s his standing ovation?
(Statesman) — Honoring Sunday’s U.S. military operation that killed terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden with tears, words and applause, the Texas Senate this morning gave a lengthy standing ovation to those who carried out the successful strike in Pakistan.
Applauding with the rest his colleagues was state Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, who was critically injured when one of the terrorists’ planed crashed into the Pentagon in Washington.
More than 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including strikes on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center towers in New York.
Following a brief, emotional speech to a silent and somber Senate Chamber, Birdwell led the Senate in the Pledge of Allegiance. Several senators and spectators dabbed tears from their eyes.
Wait, da Joooos didn’t do it?
TEHRAN (FNA) — The US has killed the Al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, in a bid to prevent any possible leakage of intelligence and information about the US-Al-Qaeda joint terrorist operations, a senior Iranian legislator underscored on Monday.
“The West was fully satisfied with bin Laden’s performance during the past years and today… it was obliged to kill him to prevent possible leakage of the priceless intelligence that he had,” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Javad Jahangirzadeh told FNA on Monday.
He mentioned that the West seeks to rebuild its damaged face in the international community, and reiterated that Bin Laden’s survival could endanger the interests of the western countries and disclose their past and future clandestine operations.
Jahangirzadeh warned the world countries that the West has hatched a new plot to find new pretexts for invading and occupying the Muslim countries.
Five words that brought untold warmth to my heart.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden was shot above his left eye, blowing away part of his skull.
The precision kill shot was delivered by a member of Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six during a pre-dawn raid Monday on bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan.
Photos of bin Laden’s injuries were transmitted to Washington as proof that the mission was a success. The administration wasn’t releasing the photos Monday.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
What national unity?
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is appealing to lawmakers to continue the spirit of national unity that followed Osama bin Laden’s death.
At a White House dinner Monday for congressional leaders, Obama said the nation is experiencing the same type of rallying together that occurred after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Some Republicans, including those who’d like to deny Obama a second term, praised the president for the military operation that ended with bin Laden’s burial at sea.
Obama said he has no illusions about the difficulty of some of the policy debates that lie ahead.
But he said he hopes all sides will harness some of that unity and national pride to confront these challenges.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, and to think, the Obama administration went out of their way to give Bin Laden his “strict” Islamic burial knowing full well this was like spitting in our faces.
CAIRO — Muslim clerics said Monday that Osama bin Laden’s burial at sea was a violation of Islamic tradition that may further provoke militant calls for revenge attacks against American targets.
Although there appears to be some room for debate over the burial — as with many issues within the faith — a wide range of Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca.
Sea burials can be allowed, they said, but only in special cases where the death occurred aboard a ship.
“The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don’t think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration,” said Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric in Lebanon.
But the Lebanese cleric Mohammed called it a “strategic mistake” that was bound to stoke rage.
According to Islamic teachings, the highest honor to be bestowed on the dead is giving the deceased a swift burial, preferably before sunset. Those who die while traveling at sea can have their bodies committed to the bottom of the ocean if they are far off the coast, according to Islamic tradition.
“They can say they buried him at sea, but they cannot say they did it according to Islam,” Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai’s grand mufti, said about bin Laden’s burial. “If the family does not want him, it’s really simple in Islam: You dig up a grave anywhere, even on a remote island, you say the prayers and that’s it.”
“Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances,” he added. “This is not one of them.”
The Islamic tradition of a quick burial was the subject of intense debate in Iraq in 2003 when U.S. forces embalmed the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s two sons after they were killed in a firefight. Their bodies were later shown to media.
“What was done by the Americans is forbidden by Islam and might provoke some Muslims,” said another Islamic scholar from Iraq, Abdul-Sattar al-Janabi, who preaches at Baghdad’s famous Abu Hanifa mosque. “It is not acceptable and it is almost a crime to throw the body of a Muslim man into the sea. The body of bin Laden should have been handed over to his family to look for a country or land to bury him.”
Maybe if we give the Palestinians an extra hundred million they’ll change their opinions. Joking, of course that would never happen (the attitude, not the money).
(Haaretz) — Among six predominantly Muslim countries recently surveyed, Muslims in the Palestinian territories voiced the most support for the assassinated al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, a poll released on Monday showed.
The poll, conducted by Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, found that Muslims around the world displayed a declining confidence in bin Laden, while the Palestinian Muslims retained the highest rates for the assassinated terrorist.
More than 34 percent of Palestinian Muslims said in 2011 they had confidence in the terrorist leader to do the right thing in world affairs, a nearly 20 percent drop since 2009. In 2003, 72 percent of Palestinians voiced support for bin Laden; Turkey showed the least support that year, with 15 percent.
Indonesian Muslims showed a decline from 41 percent of in favor of bin Laden in 2007, to 26 percent in 2011, while 22 percent of Egyptians and 13 percent of Muslims in Jordan voiced their confidence in the al-Qaida chief.
Then again, these are the same people who celebrated by passing out sweets after 9/11.
(INN) — While most of the free world praised the United States for having rid it of arch-terrorist Bin Laden, the Hamas organization — which has recently all but merged with Fatah, headed by Mahmoud Abbas — condemned the act.
Similarly, Arabs in the village of Silwan, adjacent to the City of David neighborhood in Jerusalem, rioted Monday night in protest over the elimination of Osama Bin Laden. The rioters threw stones at police and attempted to block roads.
The Gaza-based website Al Qassamreports that Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the local Hamas chapter that runs Gaza, told reporters on Monday that Bin Laden was an “Arab holy warrior.”
Meeting with journalists in his office in Gaza City, Haniyeh said, “If this news [of Bin Laden's killing] is true, then this means that it is part of the American policy based on the oppression and bloodshed in the Muslim and Arab world.”
FUBO.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An administration official says President Barack Obama will travel to New York City on Thursday to mark the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Obama is expected to visit ground zero, the site of al-Qaida’s attack on the World Trade Center, and meet with the families of those killed nearly 10 years ago.
Nice to see giving Osama bin Laden a proper Islamic burial was their top priority.
(Mediaite) — At a press conference today with John Brennan, White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser, not only was Pakistan discussed, but the emerging controversy with Osama bin Laden’s burial was also addressed. Brennan stated bin Laden’s body was buried at sea within 24 hours in accordance with Islamic tradition, but many journalists in the press room loudly expressed their puzzlement, asking “why?”
Brennan explained that the burial took place earlier this morning and that “it was determined that it was in the best interest of all involved that this burial take place again — according to Islamic requirements — at sea.” It was unanimous among Muslim experts that this was the best way to handle it, Brennan said, and he also comforted anyone worried about how easy it might be to retrieve the body by saying that secure burials at sea take place on a regular basis. Plus without a site where the body was buried, Brennan said they would not have to worry about bin Laden’s followers thinking about making a pilgrimage to visit it.
The 9/11 truthers are going to eat this up.
“My shirt was around my neck. I felt the moment that my bra tore. They tore the metal clips of my bra. They tore those open. And I felt that because the air, I felt the air on my chest, on my skin. And I felt them tear out, they literally just tore my pants to shreds. And then I felt my underwear go. And I remember looking up, when my clothes gave way, I remember looking up and seeing them taking pictures with their cell phones, the flashes of their cell phone cameras…”
HT: CBS News
Good.
(LWJ) — The US raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden also resulted in the death of his wife and son, US officials said during a White House press briefing today.
Khalid bin Laden, one of Osama’s younger sons, and Amal al Sadah, were among those killed yesterday during the daring raid by US Navy Seals from SEAL Team 6 and CIA operatives on a fortified mansion in an upscale area of Abbottabad in Pakistan, according to John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s top counter terrorism adviser. Two of bin Laden’s couriers, who have not been named, are also reported to have been killed during the raid.
Little is known about Khalid, who was in his early 20s. He is believed to have been with his father in Afghanistan during the US invasion in late 2001. In January 2010, Khalid issued a letter calling on Iran to release more than 30 of his family members who were under protective custody in Iran. Khalid claimed his family members were “beaten and repressed,” USA Today reported in March 2010.
Last summer, Osama’s family and scores of other top al Qaeda leaders, including Saif al Adel, Suliaman Abu Gaith, Abu Hafs al Mauritani, and Sa’ad bin Laden left Iran and were reported to have rejoined the terror network in Pakistan.
Amal al Ahmed Sadah was Osama’s fourth wife. They were married in the late 1990s in Afghanistan when she was 17 years old. Sadah was from Yemen, and she is thought to have returned to her home country sometime after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, according to The New Yorker. It is unclear when Sadah returned to South Asia to be at Osama’s side.
Dead man talking.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials believe Osama bin Laden made a propaganda recording shortly before his death and expect that tape to surface soon.
It’s unclear whether the tape is audio or video, but a U.S. official says that intelligence indicates it’s already working its way through al-Qaida’s media pipeline. The official said the timing was coincidental and there’s no indication he knew U.S. forces were bearing down on him.
A new recording from bin Laden would provide a final word from the beyond grave for a terrorist who taunted the U.S. with recorded propaganda for years. It could also provide fodder to those who insist he is still alive.
Sorry Bawney, Obama changed nothing, he simply left what Bush put in place.
“Well first of all, I think, let’s give discredit where it is due. For Eric Cantor to phrase it that way, to say he followed the vigilance of President Bush is a degree of key partisanship that exceeded what I even expected from Cantor. That’s just sad.”
For the record, this is what Cantor said:
“I commend President Obama who has followed the vigilance of President Bush in bringing Bin Laden to justice.”
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First and foremost we need to see the pics of his corpse so we can view him with our own eyes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Pentagon officials say the at-sea burial of Osama bin Laden was videotaped and that it probably will be publicly released soon.
The officials said photos of the body prior to its disposal in the North Arabian Sea on Monday also may be released.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because decisions on releasing the materials were pending.
It was not clear whether the firefight in which U.S. forces are said to have shot bin Laden to death was videotaped.
John Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief, told reporters that the administration was still deliberating on release of the material. Making it public might satisfy those who would otherwise doubt that it was bin Laden who was killed.
If true, we should deliver one last installment of financial aid, taped to the tips of a few hundred JDAMs.
Dubai: The compound in Abbottabad where Osama Bin Laden was killed was once used as a safe house by Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency ISI, Gulf News has learnt.
“This area had been used as ISI’s safe house, but it was not under their use any more because they keep on changing their locations,” a senior intelligence official confided to Gulf News. However, he did not reveal when and for how long it was used by the ISI operatives. Another official cautiously said “it may not be the same house but the same compound or area used by the ISI”.
The official also confirmed that the house was rented out by Afghan nationals and is not owned by the government. The house is located just 800 metres away from the Pakistan Military Academy and some former senior military officials live nearby.
Abbottabad is a garrison town located just 50 kilometres north of Islamabad and it is a popular summer resort, originally built by the British during colonial rule. The city houses a number of upscale educational institutions and religious schools as well.
HT: Hot Air
Apparently we should have knocked and asked politely.
(Glenn Greenwald) — The killing of Osama bin Laden is one of those events which, especially in the immediate aftermath, is not susceptible to reasoned discussion. It’s already a Litmus Test event: all Decent People — by definition — express unadulterated ecstacy at his death, and all Good Americans chant “USA! USA!” in a celebration of this proof of our national greatness and Goodness (and that of our President). Nothing that deviates from that emotional script will be heard, other than by those on the lookout for heretics to hold up and punish. Prematurely interrupting a national emotional consensus with unwanted rational truths accomplishes nothing but harming the heretic (ask Bill Maher about how that works).
I’d have strongly preferred that Osama bin Laden be captured rather than killed so that he could be tried for his crimes and punished in accordance with due process (and to obtain presumably ample intelligence). But if he in fact used force to resist capture, then the U.S. military was entitled to use force against him, the way American police routinely do against suspects who use violence to resist capture. But those are legalities and they will be ignored even more so than usual. The 9/11 attack was a heinous and wanton slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians, and it’s understandable that people are reacting with glee over the death of the person responsible for it. I personally don’t derive joy or an impulse to chant boastfully at the news that someone just got two bullets put in their skull — no matter who that someone is — but that reaction is inevitable: it’s the classic case of raucously cheering in a movie theater when the dastardly villain finally gets his due. . . .
This is how President Obama put it in last night’s announcement:
The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it’s the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.
Does hunting down Osama bin Laden and putting bullets in his skull really “remind us that we can do whatever we set our mind to”? Is that really “the story of our history”? That seems to set the bar rather low in terms of national achievement and character.
In sum, a murderous religious extremist was killed. The U.S. has erupted in a collective orgy of national pride and renewed faith in the efficacy and righteousness of military force. Other than that, the repercussions are likely to be far greater in terms of domestic politics — it’s going to be a huge boost to Obama’s re-election prospects and will be exploited for that end — than anything else.
This is why no one with half a brain trusts the left with national security.
Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
I am sorry, but if you believe the newest death of OBL, you’re stupid. Just think to yourself — they paraded Saddam’s dead sons around to prove they were dead — why do you suppose they hastily buried this version of OBL at sea? This lying, murderous Empire can only exist with your brainwashed consent — just put your flags away and THINK!
This one’s for you, Cindy:
Via Daily Kos:
Here’s the real reason they’re upset with us, the post exposing them openly mourning the death of Osama bin Laden:
This same place also has an article up about our very own Julie Waters rec list diary called: Daily Kos Mourns Bin Laden Killing: “I Can’t Comprehend Celebrating Someone’s Death”…
Oh come on, did you ever really doubt this would happen?
And yes, I am the master of the one-liner, thanks for noticing.
As always, on the same wavelength as the left.
(Daily Caller) — At a Monday morning press conference, Muslim-American leaders reiterated their contention that Osama bin Laden never represented Islam but cautioned America against continuing to use violence in Islamic lands.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), somberly expressed relief that justice had been served, but reserved compassion for the “innocent.” . . .
Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, deputy committee member on the Council of Muslim Organizations of Washington, D.C., reminded the audience that despite bin Laden’s evil, Americans should not respond to his death with jubilation.
“We have been consistent since [9/11] of saying that the act of violence against the American people does not represent Islam,” said Malik. “While saying this, we are reminded of the words from the Vatican. . . . and others that as people of faith, it is not right that we dance on the grave of even a mass murderer.”
Ibrahim Ramey, director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, added that while some are relieved that bin Laden has been eliminated, he remains concerned about the ongoing violence in the Middle East.
“Clearly we understood the killing of civilians in the Koran and any ethical system of judgment is something that cannot and should not be tolerated and when it happens in the name of faith, it is the responsibility of people in that faith to utterly and unequivocally condemn that violence — which we did,” Ramey said. “And so in that sense, we see the violence that came full circle around to claim the life of Osama bin Laden yesterday was certainly part of the dialectic of violence that all of us are deeply concerned about. We know that terrorism is wrong and we know that the killing of civilians is wrong, but we want to understand and promote the understanding that war itself in any manifestation is not a solution.”
The legitimization of al-Qaeda’s network of choice continues.
Or something.
(Politico) — Former Vice President Al Gore on Sunday night compared climate skeptics with birthers, saying money has allowed the line between fact and fiction to blur.
“There is now a tendency in our country to struggle over what is a fact and what is not,” Gore said at the opening of a conference on Jewish social justice in Washington.
Gore said a fundamental shift from a marketplace-like exchange of ideas to a system wherein money buys access to airwaves has disenfranchised everyday Americans from having their ideas heard.
“It hurts our country to have such a sharp partisan divide over the basic facts,” he said.
Gore compared doubters of climate change science with the so-called birthers, whose movement he said gained momentum when “questions of fact became questions of power.”
“We just had the object lesson with the birthplace of our president,” he said to laughter. “The chuckles here are hard won because it is still an example of a question of fact being turned into a question of power.”
The upside-down American flag is a dead giveaway this was done by a lefty.
(OC Register) — Residents ran out with American flags, celebratory gunshots were heard throughout the county and local Marines began texting each other with the news that began spreading late Sunday night: Osama bin Laden is dead.
However, in Westminster, a seemingly pro-bin Laden 50-foot long graffiti was painted along the I-405 that said: “Osama Forever.” An upside down American flag was drawn with black spray paint in the middle of the message, and Caltrans crews were called out quickly to remove it.
California Highway Patrol officer Denise Quesada said several commuters reported the graffiti.
HT: anonymous in CA
Dedicated to Osama bin Laden, may he rot in hell with his 72 Helen Thomas look-alike virgins.
Even after finally killing Osama bin Laden the left is still obsessed with “insulting Islam.”
“They ended this just right, even to the point of making sure the body was buried properly at sea according to Islamic law so that there would be no insult to Islam.”
HT: RCP
WARNING: This is going to enrage you. The process involved saying “Allahu Akbar” and asking for Bin Laden to be “admitted to paradise and protected from the torment of Hell-fire.” I feel like vomiting.
(ABC News) — Osama bin Laden’s corpse was taken to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, officials tell ABC News.
The process of his burial at sea was done in accordance with Muslim law — a Muslim seaman conducted the process and said the proper prayers, with bin Laden’s body wrapped in the appropriate way.
Administration officials say it’s important to do this so as to not inflame the Muslim world.
Here are the prayers involved:
The spoken part of the prayer involves quietly reciting Al-Fatiha, then praying for God to bestow peace, mercy and blessings upon the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and finally saying two supplicative prayers. This is done with an Imam present and while facing the qibla (in the direction of Mecca).
Muhammad and his companions explained how the funeral prayer is to be done. It is done as follows:
You say the first Takbir (“Allahu akbar” meaning “Allah is Greater”), then you seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Shaytaan, then you say “Bismillah ir-Rahmaan ir-Raheem” (“In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful”) and recite al-Fatihah (the first surah/first seven ayat; the oft-repeated verses, umm al-Qur’an) followed by recitation of a short surah or several ayat. Then you say Takbir and send blessings upon Muhammad as one does at the end of the prayer. Then you say a third Takbir and make du’aa’ (supplication) for the deceased. The best is to say:
“O Allah, forgive our living and our dead, those who are present among us and those who are absent, our young and our old, our males and our females. O Allah, whoever You keep alive, keep him alive in Islam, and whoever You cause to die, cause him to die with faith. O Allah, forgive him and have mercy on him, keep him safe and sound and forgive him, honour the place where he settles and make his entrance wide; wash him with water and snow and hail, and cleanse him of sin as a white garment is cleansed of dirt. O Allah, give him a house better than his house and a family better than his family. O Allah, admit him to Paradise and protect him from the torment of the grave and the torment of Hell-fire; make his grave spacious and fill it with light. O Allah, do not deprive us of the reward and do not cause us to go astray after this.”
Surreal.
(POLITICO) — The helicopter carrying Navy SEALs malfunctioned as it approached Osama bin Laden’s compound at about 3:30 p.m. ET Sunday, stalling as it hovered. The pilot set it down gently inside the walls, then couldn’t get it going again.
It was a heart-stopping moment for President Barack Obama, who had been monitoring the raid in the White House Situation Room since 1 p.m., surrounded by members of his war cabinet.
“Obviously, everyone was thinking about Black Hawk Down and Desert One,” a senior administration official recalled.
The SEALs disembarked.
“The assault team went ahead and raided the compound, even though they didn’t know if they would have a ride home,” an official said.
The special forces put bombs on the crippled chopper and blew it up, then lifted off in a reinforcement craft just before 4:15 p.m., capping an astounding 40 minutes that gave the United States a tectonic victory in the 10-year war on terror touched off by 9/11.
Where’s an errant JDAM when you need one?
(AFP) — Hundreds took to the streets of Quetta on Monday to pay homage to Osama bin Laden, chanting death to America and setting fire to a US flag, witnesses and organisers said.
Angry participants belonging to a religious party in Quetta, the capital of southwestern province Baluchistan, were led by federal lawmaker Maulawi Asmatullah. They also torched a US flag before dispersing peacefully.
It was the first rally in Pakistan after the United States announced that bin Laden had been killed in an overnight commando mission in Pakistan.
Organisers said between 1,000 and 1,200 people attended the rally, but witnesses put the figure closer to 800.
“Bin Laden was the hero of the Muslim world and after his martyrdom he has won the title of great mujahed (Muslim fighter),” Asmatullah said.
The left (including Obama) has spent almost a decade railing against the CIA “Black Sites,” the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics. Bush has been accused of everything from “human rights violations” to being a “war criminal,” he has been vindicated, history will treat him well.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials say CIA interrogators in secret overseas prisons developed the first strands of information that ultimately led to the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Current and former U.S. officials say that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, provided the nom de guerre of one of bin Laden’s most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics inside CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.
The news is sure to reignite debate over whether the now-closed interrogation and detention program was successful. Former president George W. Bush authorized the CIA to use the harshest interrogation tactics in U.S. history. President Barack Obama closed the prison system.
The bullet that blew his brains out the back of his skull begs to differ.
American bad asses.
(Business Insider) — The military team that killed Osama Bin Laden is an elite special forces group unofficially called Seal Team 6.
Officially, the team’s name is classified and not available to the public, technically there is no team 6. A Tier-One counter-terrorism force similar to the Army’s elusive Delta group, Team 6′s mission rarely make it to paper much less the newspaper.
It shows how important the publicity about Bin Laden’s killing is to the U.S. that this morning, Team 6 is front pages news.
The members of Team 6 are all “black” operatives. They exist outside military protocol, engage in operations that are at the highest level of classification and often outside the boundaries of international law. To maintain plausible deniability in case they are caught, records of black operations are rarely, if ever, kept. . . .
Team 6 poached the top operatives from other SEAL units and trained them even more intensely from there. Even among proven SEAL’s the attrition rate for Team 6 is reported to be nearly half.
There are no names available for current Team 6 members, but the CIA does recruit heavily from their numbers for their Special Operations Group, so it makes sense that they were chosen to work with the CIA on this mission.
Update: Here’s more on the raid itself.
(National Journal) — From Ghazi Air Base in Pakistan, the modified MH-60 helicopters made their way to the garrison suburb of Abbottabad, about 30 miles from the center of Islamabad. Aboard were Navy SEALs, flown across the border from Afghanistan, along with tactical signals, intelligence collectors, and navigators using highly classified hyperspectral imagers.
After bursts of fire over 40 minutes, 22 people were killed or captured. One of the dead was Osama bin Laden, done in by a double tap — boom, boom — to the left side of his face. His body was aboard the choppers that made the trip back. One had experienced mechanical failure and was destroyed by U.S. forces, military and White House officials tell National Journal.
Were it not for this high-value target, it might have been a routine mission for the specially trained and highly mythologized SEAL Team Six, officially called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, but known even to the locals at their home base Dam Neck in Virginia as just DevGru.
This HVT was special, and the raids required practice, so they replicated the one-acre compound. Trial runs were held in early April.
DevGru belongs to the Joint Special Operations Command, an extraordinary and unusual collection of classified standing task forces and special-missions units. They report to the president and operate worldwide based on the legal (or extra-legal) premises of classified presidential directives. Though the general public knows about the special SEALs and their brothers in Delta Force, most JSOC missions never leak. We only hear about JSOC when something goes bad (a British aid worker is accidentally killed) or when something really big happens (a merchant marine captain is rescued at sea), and even then, the military remains especially sensitive about their existence. Several dozen JSOC operatives have died in Pakistan over the past several years. Their names are released by the Defense Department in the usual manner, but with a cover story — generally, they were killed in training accidents in eastern Afghanistan. That’s the code.
How did the helos elude the Pakistani air defense network? Did they spoof transponder codes? Were they painted and tricked out with Pakistan Air Force equipment? If so — and we may never know — two other JSOC units, the Technical Application Programs Office and the Aviation Technology Evaluation Group, were responsible. These truly are the silent squirrels — never getting public credit and not caring one whit. Since 9/11, the JSOC units and their task forces have become the U.S. government’s most effective and lethal weapon against terrorists and their networks, drawing plenty of unwanted, and occasionally unflattering, attention to themselves in the process.
JSOC costs the country more than $1 billion annually. The command has its critics, but it has escaped significant congressional scrutiny and has operated largely with impunity since 9/11. Some of its interrogators and operators were involved in torture and rendition, and the line between its intelligence-gathering activities and the CIA’s has been blurred.
But Sunday’s operation provides strong evidence that the CIA and JSOC work well together. Sometimes intelligence needs to be developed rapidly, to get inside the enemy’s operational loop. And sometimes it needs to be cultivated, grown as if it were delicate bacteria in a petri dish.
Only in the warped mind of a lefty.
(WaPo) — A generation of young Americans slammed the door Monday on the great, big boogeyman of their childhoods with an epic woot-woot and rounds and rounds of “U.S.A.!”
At the news of Osama bin Laden’s death, thousands of people — most of them college-aged and in requisite flip-floppy collegiate gear — whipped up a raucous celebration right outside the White House gates that was one part Mardi Gras and two parts Bon Jovi concert.
There were cigars, a few beers, a lacrosse stick turned flagpole waved by a kid who just climbed a statue, joining others aloft in trees and atop lamp posts. Well past midnight, cars zipped up and down the streets of downtown Washington with women standing up through sunroofs waving ginormous American flags and guys blowing vuvuzelas, spring break style.
It felt a little crazy, a bit much. Almost vulgar.
When I saw that folks were celebrating in the streets at the news of bin Laden’s death, my first reaction was a cringe. Remember how we all felt watching videos of those al-Qaeda guys dancing on Sept. 11?
Are we simply creating star-spangled recruitment tapes for a new generation of terrorists killing in the name of their new martyr?
HT: Newsbusters
People are going to be ripshit if they don’t, we need definitive proof.
(ABC News) — The Obama administration has photographs of Osama bin Laden’s dead body and officials are debating what to do with them and whether they should be released to the public, officials tell ABC News.
“There’s no doubt it’s him,” says a US official who has seen the pictures and also reminds us that OBL was 6ʹ4".
The argument for releasing them: to ensure that the public knows and can appreciate that he’s dead. There is of course skepticism throughout the world that the US government claim that it killed bin Laden is true.
The argument against releasing the pictures: they’re gruesome. He has a massive head wound above his left eye where he took bullet, with brains and blood visible.
With India’s Muslim population being the third largest in the world.
NEW DELHI: The most wanted terrorist of the world, Osama bin Laden’s killing by American operatives in Pakistan has not pleased all in India. A section of prominent Indian Muslim leaders have come to question the claim that Laden was a terrorist.
As the news broke of Osama bin Laden’s death in an American operation in Abbotabad in Pakistan, Muslim organisations in India initially reacted with incredulity, citing US operations in Tora Bora as a precedent where claims of Osama’s death had later been proved to be false.
It took statements from home minister P Chidambaram and Pakistani MP Sherry Rehman to convince them of the veracity of these reports. Once the news sank in, the prominent Muslim leaders said that Bin Laden was definitely not a terrorist but a one-time American ally with whom relations had soured because he had lost his utility.
Syed Ahmed Bukhari, Imam of Jama Masjid said: “When did any court of law in the world convict Laden of terrorist activities. It is only America’s assertion and that of the NATO that he was one. Why should we believe them. As for the government of India’s reactions, I would want to know their views on what is happeninhg in Palestine even now when thousands of Muslims are being killed by Israel with the American help. The killing is a continuation of the US interference in Libya, Iraq and Palestine.”
Send in the clowns!
Video HT: Jay
Is that a goat baaing?
(click image for video)
Hey, it’s not like it’s stipulated in the Constitution, no. . . wait?
(RCP) — CNN Anchor Don Lemon: “We bring up that issue of the birth certificate, Mr. Trump, because people want to know why you care so much? You realize this, that this whole issue of what exactly is a natural-born citizen is has never been challenged in court. So we don’t even know if it would imply to President Obama if he wasn’t born here?”
I know what you’re thinking, they can’t be serious, but I assure you they are.
I’m not cheering — Daily Kos
I will make this brief:
I do not recall a single moment in my life when I felt it right to cheer for someone’s death.
I’m not saying it’s wrong to do so — I just don’t find myself able to relate to it. I can comprehend celebrating events which may involve someone’s death (winning a war, conducting a raid which safely gets hostages home). I just don’t connect with the idea of “we finally killed him. Let’s go out and celebrate!”
And yeah, on a certain level, I get the mocking of Republicans because Bush didn’t get Bin Laden and “we” did. I get the idea that people have focused all their attention on Bin Laden for nearly a decade now, so this may come as a welcome sign that things are moving in the right direction. Did he deserve to die? Probably. I don’t know. I don’t favor the death penalty; I never have, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand why some do. I just don’t feel like “deserve” means anything. Justice is not always about what people deserve.
Was it just for Bin Laden to die? Again, probably, but I can’t claim to speak for justice. That’s part of our law: we do not have monarchs, kings, emperors or gods to make sole decisions of justice. It is a collaborative process. Collectively, as a country, I think we do believe that, but that doesn’t necessarily make it just.
But the man is dead, and not without reason, and while I think it was reasonable and expected that this day would come, there is no possible way I can find it in me to cheer about it.
HT: Jay
He should have been fed to a pack of wild dogs.
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, MAY 2 — The body of Osama bin Laden must be buried in the ground, and throwing it into the sea would be a ‘sin’, said Mahmoud Ashour of the Al Azhar Academy of Islamic Research, the most prestigious Sunni educational institute, while speaking to ANSA.
The Al Azhar official rejected the idea of sea burial of the Al Qaida leader for “trivial motives”, explaining that even when someone drowns, the body must be searched for in order to be able to “bury it in the ground”. “They should bury it in the ground without putting anything on the grave,” explained Ashour, responding to a question about whether Osama bin Laden’s burial could become a sort of pilgrimage site.
And if Obama got his way and closed Gitmo as he promised the day after he took office Bin Laden would still be on the loose.
WASHINGTON — After years of dead ends and promising leads gone cold, the big break came last August.
A trusted courier of Osama bin Laden’s whom American spies had been hunting for years was finally located in a compound 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, close to one of the hubs of American counterterrorism operations. The property was so secure, so large, that American officials guessed it was built to hide someone far more important than a mere courier.
What followed was eight months of painstaking intelligence work, culminating in a helicopter assault by American military and intelligence operatives that ended in the death of Bin Laden on Sunday and concluded one of history’s most extensive and frustrating manhunts.
American officials said that Bin Laden was shot in the head after he tried to resist the assault force, and that one of his sons died with him.
For nearly a decade, American military and intelligence forces had chased the specter of Bin Laden through Pakistan and Afghanistan, once coming agonizingly close and losing him in a pitched battle at Tora Bora, in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. As Obama administration officials described it, the real breakthrough came when they finally figured out the name and location of Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, whom the Qaeda chief appeared to rely on to maintain contacts with the outside world.
Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
American intelligence officials said Sunday night that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the general region where he operated.
Still, it was not until August that they tracked him to the compound in Abbottabad, a medium-sized city about an hour’s drive north of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan.
C.I.A. analysts spent the next several weeks examining satellite photos and intelligence reports to determine who might be living at the compound. A senior administration official said that by September the C.I.A. had decided that there was a “strong possibility” that Bin Laden himself was hiding there.
More pettiness, how about rejoicing in a victory for America?
(The Hill) — The incoming chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) said President Obama deserves credit for the killing on Sunday of Osama bin Laden.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) praised Obama and specifically credited Obama for “refocusing” U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which Wasserman Schultz asserted led to bin Laden’s death.
“President Obama’s leadership in making the targeting of Osama Bin Laden our highest military and intelligence priority, warrants our gratitude,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. “He deserves credit for refocusing U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to root out terrorism which no doubt helped lead to this historic announcement.”
In her role as DNC chairwoman, an office which Wasserman Schultz is set to formally assume this week, the Florida lawmaker is charged with building political support for Obama.
Most lawmakers and political figures in both parties have so far avoided overt politicking after bin Laden’s death was announced. Republican presidential candidates eschewed politics and instead offered their congratulations to Obama and to members of the military and intelligence agencies, though a few candidates did not mention Obama specifically.
Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus, the GOP counterpart to Wasserman Schultz, struck a note of unity in his statement.
“This achievement is a reminder that the United States will continue in its pursuit of freedom and defense of liberty despite any adversity,” he said. “Our nation was forever changed on that day. It is important to note that despite some of our differences, Americans are and forever will be on the side of freedom.”
Say hello to my little friend!
(Bloomberg) — The U.S. forces who killed Osama bin Laden didn’t know for sure he was in a fortified villa near Islamabad until they swooped in and came face to face with the world’s most wanted terrorist.
While U.S. intelligence officers had concluded there was a “strong probability” bin Laden was living in the compound near the Pakistani capital Islamabad, all they could be positive about was that it was a high-value individual, unidentified officials said at a White House briefing. The military’s target was a specially built property in the city full of retired military 35 miles northeast of Islamabad.
The U.S. team was on site for just 40 minutes, and bin Laden was killed resisting the assault, an official said. Three other men, one of whom may have been one of bin Laden’s sons, were killed in the raid along with a woman used as a human shield. Two women were injured. No other civilians or U.S. personnel were injured, said the officials, who spoke on condition they wouldn’t be identified.
“We heard a loud explosion and then the sound of guns firing,” said Iqbal Alam Khan, 37, who works as a merchant in the town of Abbottabad where the assault took place. “It came from Bilal Town,” a property development of newly built villas and mansions about two miles from the center of Abbottabad, he said in a phone interview.
“We didn’t know the cause of the fighting and we didn’t go outside to see because it was the middle of the night,” Khan said.
What a petty statement to make.
“This is the ‘mission accomplished moment’ Bush ‘fantasized’ about.’”
HT: RCP
Yawn.
(Reuters) — The Pakistani Taliban threatened attacks against government leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistan army and the United States on Monday, after the killing of Osama bin Laden in the country.
“Now Pakistani rulers, President Zardari and the army will be our first targets. America will be our second target,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Keep this story in mind when we start seeing more reports of the Obama regime reaching out to the “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood.
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, a conservative organization with links around the Islamic world, has condemned the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces as an “assassination.”
The Brotherhood, which seeks the establishment of a state run according to Islamic principles through peaceful means, is Egypt’s most powerful and organized political movement.
The statement Monday said the group “is against violence in general, against assassinations and in favor of fair trials.”
Bin Laden and his jihadist allies, however, have repeatedly condemned the Brotherhood’s more moderate approach and willingness to work within the system.
The Muslim Brotherhood will be competing for half of Egypt’s parliamentary seats in September’s elections.
Hell fucking yeah!!
(AP) — At roughly 9:30 p.m. the White House released word that President Obama would make a statement to the nation via live broadcast regarding national security. CBS News has reported that the House Intelligence committee aide has confirmed that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body. Update: All U.S. news outlets are also confirming the report that bin Laden’s body is now in US possession.
Update: Bush calls bin Laden death “momentous achievement.”
Update (5/2/11 8:00 am): From Obama’s late-night speech:
“I directed Leon Pannetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority”
“I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden”
“I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden”
“I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorized an operation to get Usama bin Laden and bring him to justice”
“Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad Pakistan”
“I have made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam; bin Laden was not a Muslim leader”
It’s all about me!!
Obama working that line into his OBL speech (then giving him an Islamic burial) makes me sick to my stomach.
(CNS News) — An Islamic civil rights group has called a press conference in Washington on Monday to discuss the death of al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, someone who “never represented Muslims or Islam,” the group said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued the following statement early Monday morning:
“We join our fellow citizens in welcoming the announcement that Osama bin Laden has been eliminated as a threat to our nation and the world through the actions of American military personnel. As we have stated repeatedly since the 9/11 terror attacks, bin Laden never represented Muslims or Islam. In fact, in addition to the killing of thousands of Americans, he and Al Qaeda caused the deaths of countless Muslims worldwide. We also reiterate President Obama’s clear statement tonight that the United States is not at war with Islam.”
CAIR describes itself as America’s largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization.
This is no fringe group, they have received government funding to “create empathy and understanding” towards Muslim community.
(Herald Sun) — THE director of the Forum on Australia’s Islamic Relations (FAIR) has labelled US celebrations over the death Osama Bin Laden “disgusting” and called on people to be more reserved.
Kuranda Seyit said the images of Americans rejoicing in the streets of Washington and New York after US President Barack Obama announced bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan were not appropriate.
“I’m just totally disgusted about it,” he said.
“(The celebrations) are just like the so-called reports by American television of Muslims celebrating after September 11, this is just as bad.
“We need to show a little bit more respect towards humanity, even if they’re the bad guys.”