History
How did the helicopters 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.
Wednesday, December 26, 2001... Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader.....
The U.S. team was on site for less than 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
U.S. forces finally found al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden not in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan's border, but in a million-dollar compound in an upscale suburb of Pakistan's capital, with his youngest wife.... fortress-like three-story building.... The building, about eight times the size of other nearby houses, sat on a large plot of land that was relatively secluded when it was built in 2005.... 12- to 18-foot outer walls topped with barbed wire and internal walls that sectioned off different parts of the compound.... Few windows of the three-story home faced the outside of the compound, and a terrace had a seven-foot (2.1 meter) privacy wall.... "It is also noteworthy that the property is valued at approximately $1 million but has no telephone or Internet service connected to it...."
Osama Bin Laden was asked to surrender by US troops before he was shot dead, Fox News is quoting intelligence sources as saying.... One of Bin Laden's sons was also killed in the operation....
Speaking to reporters at the State Department on Monday, Clinton thanked Pakistan for its cooperation and said the country "has contributed greatly to our efforts to dismantle al-Qaida." She said that "in fact, cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound in which he was hiding."
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports, citing a senior Pakistani intelligence official, that members of Pakistan's intelligence service - the ISI - were on site in Abbotabad, Pakistan, during the operation that killed Osama bin Laden. The official said he did not know who fired the shot that actually killed Bin Laden.
The commander, who gave his name as Qudos and operates in the northern province of Baghlan, said: "The killing of Osama bin Laden will bring no change to jihad. Osama is the leader of al-Qaida and he is a powerful man in jihad. Losing him will be very painful for the mujahideen, but the shahadat [martyrdom] of Osama, will never stop the jihad. We will continue our fight until we liberate our lands from the Kafirs." He said his fighters planned to launch an operation called Bader "to avenge the killing of Osama" and claimed many other similar operations would be launched.
U.S. intelligence and law enforcement authorities warned today that al Qaeda may try to strike back at the U.S. for the death of Osama bin Laden and in a sign of the urgency, an elite unit of Marines who handle chemical and biological weapons attacks was recalled today from Japan..... "Though bin Laden is dead, al-Qaeda is not," said CIA Director Leon Panetta. "The terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge him, and we must—and will—remain vigilant and resolute. But we have struck a heavy blow against the enemy." ...
Embassies and defence facilities around the world have been placed on high alert amid fears of terrorist retaliation after US forces killed Osama bin Laden. The US, Britain and Australia all stepped up security at their diplomatic missions while the governments of the Philippines and Indonesia, where al-Qaida affiliates have been active, tightened security at potential targets including embassies and airports. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said it would increase police numbers at airports, the George Washington bridge and Ground Zero, in what one official described as "an abundance of caution". Ronald Noble, general secretary of Interpol, urged law enforcement authorities in the crime agency's 188-member countries to respond to "a heightened terror risk from al-Qaida-affiliated or al-Qaida-inspired terrorists as a result of Bin Laden's death".
Mayor Bloomberg said Monday that New York City remains a top terrorism target and that "the killing of bin Laden will not change that." "Nor will it distract us from a mission that remains our absolutely highest priority: defending our city and country against all those who use violence to attack freedom," Bloomberg said at a ground zero news conference. Commuters are seeing extra police at airports, bridges, subways and the World Trade Center site itself following Osama bin Laden's death.
"American troops coming across the border and taking action in one of our towns, that is Abbottabad, is not acceptable to the people of Pakistan. It is a violation of our sovereignty," Mr. Musharraf told CNN-IBN, an Indian news channel. He added that it would have been "far better if Pakistani Special Services Group had operated and conducted the mission. To that extent, the modality of handling it and executing the operation is not correct."
QUETTA: 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.... 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)," [federal lawmaker Maulawi] Asmatullah said.
"We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior," said Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in Gaza, which faces a challenge from al Qaeda-inspired groups that consider it too moderate. "We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood." Those who revered bin Laden were still in denial about his death but many in the Arab world felt it was long overdue. Some said the killing of bin Laden in a raid by U.S. forces in Pakistan was scarcely relevant in an Arab world fired by popular revolt against oppressive leaders who had resisted violent Islamist efforts to weaken their grip on power. "Bin Laden is just a bad memory," said Nadim Houry of Human Rights Watch in Beirut. "The region has moved way beyond that, with massive broad-based upheavals that are game-changers."
Religious rites were conducted on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier at about 1:10 a.m. Monday in the Persian Gulf. In accordance with Islamic practice, bin Laden was washed and wrapped in a white sheet before buried at sea at 2 a.m. local time, senior U.S. military and intelligence officials said.
a woman believed to be bin Laden's wife identified him by name during the U.S. raid that killed him in Pakistan.
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 senior 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.
US officials have said DNA testing has proved the al Qaeda leader was killed in a villa in Pakistan. They have also identified him by facial recognition. But photographs of Bin Laden after his reported death have not been released. Also, reports have suggested that Saudi Arabia was asked to take his body - but refused to do so. The fact his body was buried at sea has so far only added to the speculation, although as a Muslim, he had to be laid to rest as quickly as possible.
In the early hours of Monday, Sohaib Athar reported on Twitter that a loud bang had rattled his windows in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, adding that he hoped it wasn't "the start of something nasty. A few hours later Athar posted another tweet: "Uh oh, now I'm the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it."
The U.S. special forces team that hunted down Osama bin Laden was under orders to kill the al Qaeda mastermind, not capture him
The helicopter carrying Navy SEALs malfunctioned as it approached Osama bin Laden's compound... The special forces put bombs on the crippled chopper and blew it up, then lifted off in a reinforcement craft...
"To see yourself on the shores of your native land surrounded by enemies, to be a sitting duck, I'll never forget it," said Eliecer Grave de Peralta, 76. "I'll never forget the betrayal by Kennedy." On Sunday, Bay of Pigs veterans in Florida and New Jersey will hold ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the failed invasion. By the "Martyrs of Assault Brigade 2506" monument in Miami, veterans and other Cuban-Americans will engage in their annual ritual of calling out the names of the roughly 100 men killed in the invasion, as the crowd chants "Presente" after each one. In New Jersey, veterans will mark the day with a similar ceremony. "That day carries many memories for me," said Bay of Pigs veteran Francisco "Pepe" Hernandez, 70, who co-founded and now heads the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation, the most powerful Cuban exile lobby in the world. "More than anything, they're bitter memories because of so many young men who died needlessly because of the extraordinary errors of the Kennedy Administration."
After admitting a role in the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols gave conflicting statements about whether another conspirator, John Doe No. 2, existed, recently released FBI reports show.
The journalist "advised that a source within the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Service advised that the Oklahoma City bombing was sponsored by the Iraqi Special Services who contracted seven (7) former Afghani Freedom Fighters out of Pakistan," an April 17, 1996 FBI memo states, recounting the then-ABC journalist's interview with FBI agents a year earlier on the evening of the April 19, 1995 bombing. (The Iraqi connection, of course, never materialized.) [Ahem?]
In one interview, on May 26, 2005, "Nichols declined to identify John Doe #2," the FBI reported. "Nichols advised John Doe #2's name had not been mentioned during the investigation and, as a result, he feared for his life and his family's well being should it become public." In an interview the next day, "Nichols declined to provide any significant new information. Nichols advised he would pass a polygraph examination," the FBI reported. A month later, though, Nichols told a U.S. congressman during a prison interview that "he did not know 'John Doe,'" the FBI reported. Nichols told the congressman someone else was involved but would not name the other person at this time, the FBI also reported.
COLLINSVILLE - Hardly a day passes that Harry "Bub" Kaiser doesn't pause in his walker and gaze at a display case in his dining room bearing his World War II medals. He just received them last month, and he remembers vividly the day they came in the mail. "I cried," he said. "I was jubilant. I was so excited I couldn't settle down for three days." The 90-year-old still gets emotional when he talks about his six medals, among them the Bronze Star. "You are looking at one proud man,"
Geraldine A. Ferraro, who earned a place in history in 1984 as the first woman and first Italian-American to run on a major party national ticket, has died, according to her family. Ms. Ferraro passed away today at Massachusetts General Hospital, surrounded by her loved ones. The cause of death was complications from multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that she had battled for twelve years. Ms. Ferraro was seventy-five years old.
Dick Biedermann is an 88-year-old who refuses to let age get the best of him. A World War II Navy veteran, Biedermann is on a mission to spread the word that more donations are needed to carry on the Honor Flights program in Oklahoma. The national program provides World War II veterans with an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., so they can visit the nation's memorial that honors their generation's fight against tyranny. Also included in the daylong trip are visits to the Iwo Jima Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. Oklahoma joined the program last year, with two flights out of Oklahoma City to the National World War II Memorial. Each flight held 110 veterans, along with about 60 chaperones.
Hussain Hashem al-HUSSAINI, Hussain Hashem al-HUSSAINI, Oklahoma City, Third Suspect, John Doe 2, Homeless Man Hussain Hashem al-Hussaini is
The author of a book on the Oklahoma City bombing says a man arrested in Quincy after a street fight is the same man she wrote about in her book, "The Third Terrorist: The Middle East Connection to the Oklahoma City Bombing."
Pages
Top 25 Blog-Heap-o'Links Headers
Mindful Webworks for art's own sake (and some for fun). The art and wonder of it all await your scrutiny.
Webworks dedicated to getting people and property from here to there in an intelligent and automated way, and all the history and means of transportation.
Webworks directly concerning (as opposed to merely inspired by) the Urantia Papers.
Subscribe to Urantiana
Webworks regarding human liberties and similar social and legal fundamentals.
Presented in illustrated documentary, what we know of his story, and the history of our community he inspired.
LEGAL AND SAFE! But your mother might not approve.