Blog Heap of Links for the day 2 May 2011

As soon as they realised what was happening, Bin Laden's guards opened fire from the rooftop with rocket-propelled grenades and apparently managed to shoot down one of the Black Hawks. A White House official said it was a heart-stopping moment for Barack Obama, echoing the disastrous 'Black Hawk Down' incident in Somalia in 1993 which left 18 US servicemen dead. This time, the crew escaped unhurt and the team went ahead with the raid 'even though they didn't know if they would have a ride home at the end', said the official. As terrified townsfolk emerged from their homes to see what was going on, Pashto-speaking CIA agents told them to go back in and shut the doors. Two dozen U.S. Navy Seals — special forces — wearing night-vision goggles dropped into the high-walled compound by sliding down ropes from Chinooks. They stormed inside to secure the terror chief's hideaway room by room, with head cameras relaying the action to the President and the director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, who was overseeing the operation at the agency's headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

A woman killed during the raid of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan was not his wife and was not used as a human shield by the al Qaeda leader before his death, a U.S. official said on Monday, correcting an earlier description. John Brennan, President Barack Obama's top counter- terrorism adviser, told reporters earlier that the slain woman had been one of bin Laden's wives and had been used -- perhaps voluntarily -- as a shield during the firefight. However, a different White House official said that account had turned out not to be the case. Bin Laden's wife was injured but not killed in the assault.

The violent final minutes were the culmination of years of intelligence work. Inside the CIA team hunting bin Laden, it always was clear that bin Laden's vulnerability was his couriers. He was too smart to let al-Qaida foot soldiers, or even his senior commanders, know his hideout. But if he wanted to get his messages out, somebody had to carry them, someone bin Laden trusted with his life. In a secret CIA prison in Eastern Europe years ago, al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, gave authorities the nicknames of several of bin Laden's couriers, four former U.S. intelligence officials said. Those names were among thousands of leads the CIA was pursuing. One man became a particular interest for the agency when another detainee, Abu Faraj al-Libi, told interrogators that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed as al-Qaida's operational leader he received the word through a courier. Only bin Laden would have given al-Libi that promotion, CIA officials believed. If they could find that courier, they'd find bin Laden. The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history. "We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day...." [Despite this being Obama-slavering propaganda [ABC? of course!], interesting.

Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude. This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.

In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area. Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib

A memo dated Aug. 31, 1961, from William Wood of the Immigration and Naturalization Services, does verify that Barack Obama, Sr. fathered a son, Barack Obama II, who was born in Honolulu on Aug, 4, 1961. For the record, most birthers of my acquaintance believe that Obama was born in the United States. That is not their issue. Wood adds, however, that the child is "living with mother (she lives with her parents & subject resides at 1482 Alencastre St.)." He adds that Obama's citizen spouse plans "to go to Washington State University next semester." This document thoroughly undermines the Obama nativity story, a story that has been told almost as often as Jesus's but with nowhere near the accuracy. Obama led with it in his 2004 convention speech and repeated it in the first sentence of his 2008 speech. Friendly biographer David Remnick describes this story as Obama's "signature appeal: the use of the details of his own life as a reflection of a kind of multicultural ideal," and he underscores its essential role in Obama's ascendancy.

The genius of the Constitution is not some person, time, or place. It is a very improbable conjunction of all three. Jefferson and Madison were not the only ones to fear the abuse of power. That idea goes back to the Epic of Gilgamesh. Every family with an alcoholic father or a tyrannical grandmother knows it. In England John Locke and Edmund Burke feared tyranny as much as the American founders, but they never had a chance to build the foundations of a new, independent, great power. Obama is our first Marxist-Leninist president. He never quite uses those words, but in words and deeds he makes it clear beyond doubt. His two autobiographies all but say it.

With all the back and forth between President Obama and Donald Trump in recent weeks, Twitter flared up with amused conspiratorial comments when NBC News cut away from Trump's The Celebrity Apprentice on the East Coast to carry coverage of the announcement. Some tweeted that the president managed to take out bin Laden and Trump at the same time. Another common joke: "Now Trump will demand to see the death certificate."

Sources tell ABC News that in March President Obama authorized the development of a plan for the U.S. to bomb Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound with two B2 stealth bombers dropping a few dozen 2,000-pound JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) on the compound. But when the president heard the compound would be reduced to rubble he chose not to pursue that option. That would mean there would be no evidence bin Laden was dead to present to the world — no DNA evidence, as the administration anticipates it will have. Plus all 22 people in the compound including women and children, plus likely many neighbors would be killed. The president wanted proof. And he wanted to minimize collateral damage.

Osama Bin Laden and Adolf Hitler share a towering reputation for evil - and also an anniversary. Both were declared dead on May 1. Late on May 1, 1945 - about as late as President Obama's TV announcement Sunday - German radio announced that Hitler had fallen "fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany." He had actually committed suicide the day before.

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

Flag-waving supporters left flowers and patriotic red, white and blue balloons outside the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush Monday in the hours that followed the U.S.-led mission that killed Osama bin Laden. "Thank you President Bush," said a sign left on the gate outside the street leading to the secluded Bush residence. About a dozen people gathered near his security-tight residence until a thunderstorm rolled into the area early Monday. Bush, who was home when he learned of bin Laden's death late Sunday, released a statement congratulating President Barack Obama and praising the U.S. military personnel involved in the operation in northern Pakistan.

"I met repeatedly with my National Security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located Bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside Pakistan," Obama said in an address from the East Room of the White House Sunday night. "Finally, last week I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice," Obama said.

A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden went down firing at the Navy SEALs who stormed his compound... was hit by a barrage of carefully aimed return fire... two dozen SEALs in night-vision goggles dropped into the high-walled compound in Pakistan by sliding down ropes from Chinook helicopters in the overnight raid.... Obama said Monday the world was safer...

As many as 237 members of the House and 41 senators have signed a conservative pledge not to raise taxes, but one conservative senator suggested Sunday that it's time to break that pledge. Changing the tax code to increase federal tax revenue "would be fine with me," Republican Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.

An operation to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden was run jointly by Pakistan and the United States, Pakistani sources said on Monday, belying perceptions of a rift in relations between the two countries' spy agencies.

Pakistan's leader denied suggestions that his country's security forces sheltered Osama bin Laden as Britain demanded Tuesday that Islamabad answer for how the al-Qaida chief lived undetected for six years in a large house in a garrison town close to the capital. But in a nod to the complexities of dealing with a nuclear-armed, unstable country that is crucial to success in the war in neighboring Afghanistan, British Prime Minister David Cameron said having "a massive row" with Islamabad over the issue would not be in Britain's interest.

"They were told, 'We think we found Osama bin Laden, and your job is to kill him...."

Video of Osama bin Laden's dead body being dropped into the North Arabian Sea from the USS Carl Vinson early this morning will be made public, according to officials. The 40-minute ceremony, and perhaps photos of his corpse, will be released "cautiously," according to The Associated Press, citing two Pentagon officials.

U.S. intelligence officials believe Osama bin Laden made a propaganda recording shortly before his death and expect that tape to surface soon. It is unclear whether the tape is audio or video, but a U.S. official says that intelligence indicates it is already working its way through al-Qaida's media pipeline. The official said the timing was coincidental

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...

A black box flight recorder from an Air France plane that crashed off the coast of Brazil in 2009, killing 228 people, has been recovered by a deep-sea search team, reviving hopes of understanding what caused the crash. French investigators said one of the plane's two data recorders had been located by a robot submarine about 3,900 metres (12,800ft) below the Atlantic ocean's surface.

Yvette Vickers, an early Playboy playmate whose credits as a B-movie actress included such cult films as "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman" and "Attack of the Giant Leeches," was found dead last week at her Benedict Canyon home. Her body appears to have gone undiscovered for months, police said. Vickers, 82, had not been seen for a long time. A neighbor discovered her body in an upstairs room of her Westwanda Drive home on April 27. Its mummified state suggests she could have been dead for close to a year

one unfortunate man appears to have been electrocuted twice within the space of a minute by two almighty bolts of lightning.

Eight-year-old Reginald Epps Jr was picked up off his feet and pulled into the swirling darkness when one of the Alabama twisters tore through his home. As his family cowered beneath him he was carried through the air some 30ft before being set down again with just cuts and bruises.