Seized Phone Offers Clues to Bin Laden’s Pakistani Links

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The cellphone of Osama bin Laden’s trusted courier, which was recovered in the raid that killed both men in Pakistan last month, contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, senior American officials who have been briefed on the findings say.

The discovery indicates that Bin Laden used the group, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, as part of his support network inside the country, the officials and others said. But it also raised tantalizing questions about whether the group and others like it helped shelter and support Bin Laden on behalf of Pakistan’s spy agency, given that it had mentored Harakat and allowed it to operate in Pakistan for at least 20 years, the officials and analysts said.

In tracing the calls on the cellphone, American analysts have determined that Harakat commanders had called Pakistani intelligence officials, the senior American officials said. One said they had met. The officials added that the contacts were not necessarily about Bin Laden and his protection and that there was no “smoking gun” showing that Pakistan’s spy agency had protected Bin Laden.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/24/world/asia/24pakistan.html

Al-Qaeda warns of US of Muslim rebellion

Osama bin Laden's longtime lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri, has warned the United States of a coming Muslim rebellion in retribution for the killing of the al Qaeda leader. The statement came in a video posted to a website on Wednesday.

In what appeared to be his first public response to bin Laden's death, the Egyptian-born Zawahri vowed to press ahead with al Qaeda's campaign against the US and its allies. He warned Americans not to rejoice at bin Laden's death, and condemned US forces for burying bin Laden at sea, a move opposed by senior Muslim clerics as un-Islamic. Zawahri also praised the citizen revolts in his native Egypt and other Arab countries, calling on Pakistanis to follow suit.

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Osama bin Laden praises Arab spring in posthumously released tape

A tape recorded by Osama bin Laden before his death in an American special forces raid earlier this month has been posthumously released onto Islamic militant websites.

The message, recorded some time in the ten weeks before the 54-year-old al-Qaida leader was killed in Pakistan on May 2, praises the "Arab Spring" protest movements across the Middle East and predicts that revolutions will spread.

"I think that the winds of change will blow over the entire Muslim world, God willing," bin Laden said in the 12-minute message.

The message, though a video clip, contains only an audio track and an old photo of the terrorist leader, probably indicating that it was designed to be edited with images but that al-Qaida media technicians were either unable to do so or that a decision was taken to upload the tape quickly.

The senior al-Qaida leadership were caught out by the unrest in the Arab World this spring and had difficulty framing an effective response to an outpouring of enthusiasm for democracy and pluralism.

In deposing President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine el Abedine ben Ali in Tunisia, protestors achieved fundamental aims of al-Qaida itself without violence.

In the recording, Bin Laden accused rulers in the Middle East of building themselves into idols and manipulating the media to stay in power.

Al-Qaida figures have frequently blamed the media for the failure of the majority of Muslims to heed its call to arms.

"So, what are you waiting for?" Bin Laden asked in the most recent tape. "Save yourselves and your children, because the opportunity is here."

Bin Laden, who is thought to have been living in a three-storey house in the northern Pakistani town of Abbottabad for up to five years, spoke in high rhetorical language and avoided the more violent or apocalyptic language of many previous statements.

A full transcript of the tape is yet to be made available but bin Laden appears not to have threatened the West directly as has previously often been the case.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/19/osama-bin-laden-tape-posthumous-arab-spring

Al-Qaida in the midst of fierce succession battle

A fierce succession battle appears to be gripping the senior ranks of al-Qaida in the wake of the death of leader Osama bin Laden earlier this month, pitting regional affiliates against the central "hardcore" of the organisation.

Reports from Pakistan named an Egyptian former special forces officer known as Saif al-Adel as the acting leader of al-Qaida.

Al-Adel, who is in his late 40s, is a veteran militant who was close to bin Laden in the 1990s before being detained in Iran after fleeing Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. According to Noman Benotman, a former Libyan militant now living in London, al-Adel was released from Iranian detention and returned to Pakistan last year.

The report in the Pakistani The News newspaper identified al-Adel as having been chosen as "interim leader" of al-Qaida after a meeting at "an undisclosed location". It also said that "none of sons of Osama Bin Laden has shown willingness" to take up a formal position within the organisation.

One of the 54-year-old al-Qaida leader's adult sons, Khaled, was killed with his father in the raid on Abbottabad. Others have been groomed for leadership roles but are currently too young or too inexperienced to command any real support.

If confirmed, the appointment of al-Adel is a major blow to bin Laden's close associate Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian extremist strategist who has long been seen as the group's number two.

Al-Zawahiri is reported to have been given the important, and usually shortlived, role of director of external or international operations for the group. This would nonetheless be something of a demotion for a man who was bin Laden's closest associate and a major figure in his own right.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/18/al-qaida-succession-battle-saif-al-adel-acting-leader

Bin Laden's 'porn' more damning than his terrorism?

In the two weeks since Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden, U.S. officials have waged a curious campaign to belittle him. First they implied that he had used a woman as a human shield. Then they released videos suggesting that he had dyed his beard to look younger. Then they said they'd found pornography in his compound.

The smear campaign seems ridiculous. Bin Laden was a mass murderer. Why bother calling him a sissy and a voyeur?

Bin Laden's "porn stash" are more than a joke. His sympathizers and potential followers are, by several measures, more categorically averse to pornography, adultery, and the mixing of men and women than they are to suicide bombing of civilian targets. If you want to sour these people on Bin Laden and his movement, calling him a terrorist won't cut it. You're better off portraying him as a hypocritical porn hound who lived in a million-dollar mansion, touched himself up for videos, and hid behind women when martyrdom called.

The porn story, like the human shields and the million-dollar mansion, is probably bogus. The 54-year-old zealot with three wives was the least likely guy in the compound to be watching erotic videos. Logically, the story makes no sense. But politically, it's perfect.


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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43065572/ns/slatecom/

Pakistan's prime minister rejects backlash on Bin Laden

Pakistanis in Karachi watch a televised address by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to parliament in which Gilani rejected allegations that the sanctuary of Osama bin Laden in the country showed Pakistani incompetence or complicity.

Reporting from Washington and Islamabad, Pakistan—
In signs of worsening relations with Washington, Pakistan's prime minister angrily rejected claims that collusion or incompetence allowed Osama bin Laden to hide near the Pakistani capital for years, and news media made public what they claim is the name of the top CIA agent in the country.

A private TV station and a right-wing newspaper with ties to Pakistan's spy agency have each reported the name in recent days, marking the second time in six months that journalists here have sought to expose the local CIA station chief.

The U.S. and Pakistan have strongly criticized each other in the week since a team of Navy SEALs killed Bin Laden, although they say they intend to continue security cooperation.

U.S. officials have demanded an explanation of how Pakistan failed to find Bin Laden for more than five years in Abbottabad, a city with a heavy military presence that is close to Islamabad. The Pakistanis have complained that the U.S. raid was an infringement of their sovereignty and have called for a scaling back of U.S. counter-terrorism efforts in their country.

In a speech to parliament Monday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani denied U.S. suggestions that the government harbored Bin Laden or was incompetent because it failed to track him down. Gilani vowed to find out how the terrorist leader was able to hide for so long, but he also lashed out at Washington for the raid.

A senior U.S. official said the United States was "committed to having this relationship continue and grow" and noted that despite some harsh words, Pakistani officials had not yet taken any steps to curb security cooperation.

But he added: "It's going to be more difficult.... Some of this may be bombast for public consumption, but they certainly feel aggrieved by what's happening and are struggling to figure out what's next." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-us-pakistan-20110510,0,4688802.story

Bin Laden's death ushers in whirlwind week as clues emerge

The curtain is just beginning to rise on the scope and power of the world's most-wanted terrorist one week after U.S. Navy SEALs killed him during a daring nighttime raid.

New details have been released almost daily since a team of American commandos stormed bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Islamabad, killing him and four others.

For Americans, and much of the world, news of the killings brought a sense of relief, even satisfaction.

The pain, the frustration, the sadness elicited by the 9/11 attacks have never really left. How could they? For much of the past decade, Americans processed the world through the lens of the worst terrorist attacks ever committed on U.S. soil.

Since that attack, citizens of the United States, Britain, Spain and other countries had grown startlingly accustomed to terror strikes and near-misses. Adding to the pain was the ever-growing laundry list of indignities, the "fog of war," and the clarity to know that personal freedoms were eroding in agonizingly public ways.

Then it happened. Bin Laden was killed.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/08/bin.laden.week.wrap/?hpt=C1

US Intelligence: Al-Qaida Considered 9-11 Anniversary Attack

U.S. officials say an initial review of documents seized from Osama bin Laden's compound shows al-Qaida considered carrying out a terrorist plot against the United States on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

A Homeland Security Department document obtained Thursday by U.S. news organizations says al-Qaida considered an operation against trains at an unspecified location in the United States.

The document says al-Qaida thought about tampering with rail tracks so a train would fall off the tracks in a valley or over bridge.

U.S. officials say they have no evidence the plot was active.

This information appears to be the first widely circulated intelligence stemming from the raid Sunday by an elite U.S. Navy SEAL team on bin Laden's compound in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. In the raid, the Navy SEALs killed bin Laden and took documents and other valuable intelligence information.

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http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/US-Intelligence-Al-Qaida-Considered-9-11-Anniversary-Attack-121361629.html

We don't trot out this stuff as trophies: Obama on Osama photo

Washington: US President Obama has decided not to release photographs of Osama bin Laden's body, CBS News reported on Wednesday. Mr. Obama said he concluded that images of bin Laden, bloodied by gunshots, would do nothing to persuade skeptics, but could inflame tensions in the Muslim world and pose problems for America's national security.

He disclosed his decision in an interview for the CBS program 60 Minutes, part of which will be broadcast on the network's evening news programs on Wednesday.

According to a transcript read aloud at a White House press briefing, Mr. Obama said that there was no doubt bin Laden was dead and that "we don't trot this stuff out as trophies - that's not who we are."

The debate over whether to release photos of bin Laden had consumed the White House over the last two days. Some senior officials said the release of photos was inevitable. On Tuesday, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E Panetta, said he did not think "there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public."

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http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/we-don-t-trot-out-this-stuff-as-trophies-obama-on-osama-photo-103425

Osama bin Laden's bodyguard: I had orders to kill him if the Americans tried to take him alive

A SHIVER ran down Nasser al-Bahri’s spine as he heard the gruesome details of Osama bin Laden’s final moments.

He was suddenly transported back in time to a cave in Afghanistan where the terrorist mastermind had told him exactly how he intended to die.

It was August, 1998, and al-Qaeda had just bombed two US embassies.

Bin Laden knew he was now America’s most hunted man so he called in his devoted bodyguard and gave him a chilling order.

Al-Bahri recalls how “The Sheik”, pulled out a revolver with two bullets in the chamber and handed it to him.

“He told me, ‘If ever the Americans encircle me, I absolutely do not want to end my life as a prisoner of the United States. So you will be in charge of killing me’.”

Bin Laden drew him closer and explained: “I would rather receive two bullets in the head than be taken prisoner. I want to die a martyr – but certainly not in prison.”

Al-Bahri says: “When I heard of his death my first thought was that he had got his wish. But I’m glad I did not have to pull the trigger.”

While millions in the West were celebrating the death of his former boss, al-Bahri, 39, was mourning the loss of the fanatic he still describes as “an unrivalled leader of men”.

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US Weighs Release Of Bin Laden Photo

CIA chief Leon Panetta has suggested that photographs taken of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after he was killed will eventually be made public.

However, the White House was more cautious about the likelihood it would release images of the terrorist leader taken after he was shot in the head during a raid on his home in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad by US Navy SEALS.

"It's fair to say that it's a gruesome photograph," White House spokesman Jay Carney, appearing to refer to an image of bin Laden taken shortly after bin Laden was killed him at the compound.

"I'll be candid. There are sensitivities here in terms of the appropriateness of releasing photographs of Osama bin Laden."

There are fears that releasing the images could be seen as distasteful by some and be exploited by al Qaeda and other extremist groups.

"What we don't want to do is to release anything that might be either misunderstood or that would cause other problems," White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan said on National Public Radio.

At least two sets of photographs of bin Laden after he was shot dead are believed to exist - one set taken after his body was transferred to a hanger in Afghanistan and the second on the USS Vinson before he was buried at sea.

Officials said that bin Laden's body was washed and he was accorded full Islamic rites before being slipped into the Arabian Sea.


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Osama bin Laden changed us in ways minute, monumental

Without him, there would probably be no Department of Homeland Security, no Patriot Act, no Qur’an-burning pastors.

Had Osama bin Laden never been born, there would surely be fewer memorials to slain firefighters, less need for prosthetic limbs for young troops, an American public still largely ignorant of the Muslim notion of martyrdom.

Our military probably would still be more interested in tanks and aircraft carriers, less wary of roadside bombs and suicide belts. The development of killer robot planes might not have come so far. The need to deal with asymmetric threats — battling an army not of battalions but of insurgents — would not be so pressing.

And America would certainly be a country with far fewer long-fading yellow ribbons.

The man who came to symbolize a bloody rejection of all things U.S. left a legacy among those he hated, and those he inspired to hate them. Little wonder that his demise brought so little sympathy.

“In the past few years, (bin Laden’s) main military triumphs have been against such targets as Afghan schoolgirls, Shiite Muslim civilians, and defenseless synagogues in Tunisia and Turkey,” wrote pundit Christopher Hitchens on news of bin Laden’s death and dumping at sea. “Has there ever been a more contemptible leader from behind, or a commander who authorized more blanket death sentences on bystanders?”

In ways small and monumental, bin Laden’s two decades on the world stage changed how America operated within its borders and with other nations. It may not have been entirely his doing, but his life had a profound impact on the nation he so loathed.

It was after he mobilized al-Qaida against the United States, after all, that Washington set up the legal purgatory of Guantanamo Bay for foreign fighters. Since then, the country tormented itself over whether waterboarding is torture and whether torture is always a bad idea.

As fate would have it, the first bits of intelligence that ultimately tracked down bin Laden came from secret prisons overseas. That won’t end the torture debate, but it looks to have ended bin Laden’s run.

Current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, provided the pseudonym of a bin Laden courier. The CIA also got tips from Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both men underwent harsh interrogation at CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.

It was, in a way, the nature of bin Laden’s tactics that prompted America to bend its own ways.

Bin Laden no more invented the suicide bomber than Henry Ford invented the automobile. He just made more of them than anyone had before.

Under his leadership, al-Qaida shifted the rationalization behind suicide bombings. The ultimate attacks of 9/11 weren’t done with bombs, but they fit with a devolved sense of justifications for killing. No longer did a man with an explosive vest need to aim for Israeli soldiers or some other combatants. Now, went the reasoning sold by bin Laden’s organization, truck bombs could target civilians as long as the victims could be painted as somehow sympathetic to Islam’s supposed enemies.

“They built this narrative that Muslims are being besieged and humiliated and targeted by the West in wars and occupation,” said Mohammed M. Hafez, an associate professor at the Naval Post Graduate School who has researched suicide bombers. “They elevated martyrdom in online documents and videos. … They’ve really taken the art of martyrdom veneration to a new level.”

Impact on politics

Bin Laden’s more lethal brand of terrorism changed, too, the dynamics of American politics.

George W. Bush arguably would have had a harder time at re-election in 2004 were he not, as he put it, “a war president.”

Barack Obama’s re-election prospects — had he ever made it to the White House — might look bleaker now had troops on his watch not slain the face of terrorism.

And the hope that bin Laden’s 9/11 terrorist attacks might unite a polarized U.S. turned out to be fleeting at best.


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http://www.kansascity.com/2011/05/02/2844626/osama-bin-laden-changed-us-in.html#ixzz1LGFH9sU3

Obama Announces Killing of Osama bin Laden

WASHINGTON —President Obama announced late Sunday that Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, was killed in a firefight during an operation he ordered Sunday inside Pakistan, ending a 10-year manhunt for the world’s most wanted terrorist. American officials were in possession of his body, he said.

“On nights like this one, ‘’ the president said, “we can say that justice has been done.’’

The fate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Al Qaeda number two in command, was unclear.

The death of Mr. Bin Laden is a defining moment in the American-led war on terrorism. What remains to be seen is whether the death of the leader of Al Qaeda galvanizes his followers by turning him into a martyr, or whether it serves as a turning of the page in the war in Afghanistan and gives further impetus to the Obama administration to bring American troops home.

President Obama said that on Sunday, a small team of U.S. operatives launched a “targeted assault’’ on a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad where months of intelligence work had established that Mr. Bin Laden was living. Mr. Bin Laden was killed after a firefight, and the troops took custody of his body.

The killing ended a 10-year manhunt in which Mr. Bin Laden repeatedly eluded his pursuers, deeply frustrating the Bush administration and counterterrorism officials.

The news of the death of the leader of Al Qaeda electrified the world — crowds gathered outside the White House, cheering, as they waited for the president to confirm the news. Mr. bin Laden was able to elude capture by hiding out in the mountains of Afghanistan and elsewhere. He initially escaped from Tora Bora in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan after an American invasion routed the Taliban, his protectors.


Since then, he issued some 30 messages, in audio, video or electronic text, sometimes taunting, sometimes gloating, sometimes urging new terrorist attacks. Intelligence officials believe the messages were passed from hand to hand repeatedly to obscure any trail back to his hiding place. Even while in hiding, he remained a potent symbolic figure. And American officials believe, based on intercepted communications from second- and third-tier Qaeda operatives, that he also still helped shape Al Qaeda’s strategy.


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http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/bin-laden-dead-u-s-official-says/?partner=rss&emc=rss

WikiLeaks: al Qaeda watched towers burn

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 plot mastermind for al Qaeda, was in Pakistan, watching the attacks on television. according to WikiLeaks documents.

Each of us remembers where we were on September 11, 2001, but we never knew what the masterminds of al Qaeda's terrorist plot were doing that terrible day.

Now, we have an answer, as found in more than 700 documents from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, and just published by WikiLeaks.

As it turns out, while Americans watched in horror as the twin towers burned, al Qaeda's top leaders were watching, too. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the plot mastermind, was in Karachi, Pakistan, watching on television with Ramsi bin al Shib, the day-to-day coordinator of the operation.

"After the success of the attacks, the operatives prostrated themselves and gave thanks to Allah," one document says.

Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who engineered the bombing of the USS Cole, couldn't be there. He was in a Karachi hospital after having had his tonsils out. Nashiri may have been the most dedicated terrorist of all. "He reportedly received injections to promote impotence (rather than be distracted by women)," a document says.

The documents, based on the interrogation of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, say after 9/11, all senior operatives left Pakistan for Afghanistan to meet with Osama bin Laden, who had watched the attacks from Kandahar.

Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, spent the next couple of months moving about Afghanistan by car, finally taking refuge in the Tora Bora mountains. In mid-December 2001, the two disappeared across the border into Pakistan. The others were eventually captured, but not before Bin al Shib threatened to slit his own throat rather than be taken alive.

Of course, one should not believe everything a captured terrorist says. One sensational but unconfirmed claim found in the documents says al Qaeda had a nuclear bomb it would set off if Bin Laden were ever captured.

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