WFAAWASHINGTON — Al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden is dead and the United States has his body, a person familiar with the developments says. CNN and other news organizations are reporting the same information.
President Barack Obama was expected to make that announcement from the White House late Sunday night.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak ahead of the president.
CNN reports that bin Laden’s body was recovered from a mansion outside Islamabad, Pakistan.
May 2, 2011 front pages
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/default.asp
Osama Bin Laden Raid Yields ‘Mother Lode Of Intelligence’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-intelligence_n_856694.html#comments
The assault force of Navy SEALs snatched a trove of computer drives and disks during their weekend raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, yielding what a U.S. official called “the mother lode of intelligence.”
World ‘safer’ without Bin Laden, says Obama
LIVE COVERAGE
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698
h/t Wonkette PHOTOS of Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden’ Buried At Sea Moments After Being ‘Killed’
Good morning, America is #1, Never Fourget, etc. Is everyone still so excited about “Osama bin Laden” being buried at sea, just hours after being “killed” by the CIA? Our Government really went the extra mile to make sure Osama was buried with dignity: “After Bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. forces in Pakistan, senior administration officials said the body would be handled according to Islamic practice and tradition. That practice calls for the body to be buried within 24 hours … The U.S. decided to bury him at sea.” Ha-ha, what, are you surprised? Don’t be! We have been robot-bombing/torturing/raping/slaughtering Muslims in accordance to Islamic practice and tradition for more than ten years. And that is why we hastily dumped “Osama bin Laden’s dead corpse” into the ocean before anyone could get a good look at him — because we respect Islam and all of its followers. (Just read that sentence a few times; let the sadness seep in.) Oh, and slightly off-topic: That pic of Dead-Laden was definitely photoshopped, according to The Telegraph. But don’t let that stop you! Add that hawt foto to your Facebook Freedom album, and then tag the shit out of it! Americans .
http://wonkette.com/444785/osama-bin-laden-buried-at-sea-moments-after-being-killed
….Waiting for the deathers to ask where is the death certificate?
2012 Election Cancelled
Obama Buoyed by 100 Percent Approval Rating
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – In what historians are calling an unprecedented development in American politics, both major parties decided today to cancel the 2012 election.
The decision to scrap the 2012 contest came on the heels of a new poll showing President Barack Obama with an approval rating of one hundred percent, believed to be a record high for an
American president.
Mr. Obama even polled well among Republicans, with a majority of GOP voters agreeing with the statement, “I no longer care that he wasn’t born here.
Read on
http://www.borowitzreport.com/2011/05/02/2012-election-cancelled/
Barack Obama Feb 27 2008: “I Have News For You John McCain”
Who dat who sent Osama Bin Laden to da gates of Hell?
I CAN’T HEAR YOU, JOHN MCSHAME!!!
Uh oh!
LMAO
did I just hear Dylan Ratigan ask for a photo of the dead Bin Laden? http://wonkette.com/444785/osama-bin-laden-buried-at-sea-moments-after-being-killed
If Ratigan and the rest of his frat buddies were REAL journalist, instead of water-carriers for the GOP, they would know what the HELL is going on and report the facts. but NO, it was Trump for 2 straight weeks on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, CNN, with Anderson Cooper, night and day. BOY BYE!
GTFOOH Dylan Ratigan! Piss poor journalist!
I love my President!
President Obama Visiting Ground Zero To Mark Osama Bin Laden’s Death On Thursday
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama plans to visit New York City on Thursday to mark the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
The White House says Obama will 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.
U.S. forces killed bin Laden during a raid on a compound in Pakistan where he had been hiding, then buried him at sea.
Flag-waving crowds have been gathering at the lower Manhattan site of the attack since Obama announced bin Laden’s death late Sunday.
White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer announced Obama’s visit on Twitter.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/obama-ground-zero-osama-bin-laden_n_856693.html
Osama Bin Laden Killed While Firing At SEALS: Reports
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead-last-moments_n_856467.html#comments
WASHINGTON — Declaring the killing of Osama bin Laden “a good day for America,” President Barack Obama said Monday the world was safer without the al-Qaida terrorist and mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. His administration used DNA testing to help confirm that American forces in Pakistan had in fact killed bin Laden, as U.S. officials sought to erase all doubt about the stunning news.
A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden went down firing at the Navy SEALs who stormed his compound.
“Today we are reminded that as a nation there is nothing we can’t do,” Obama said of the news bound to lift his political standing and help define his presidency. He hailed the pride of those who broke out in overnight celebrations as word spread around the globe.
An elite crew of American forces killed bin Laden during a daring raid on Monday, capping the world’s most intense manhunt, a search that spanned nearly a decade.
Bin Laden was shot in the head during a firefight and then quickly buried at sea. White House officials were mulling the merits and appropriateness of releasing a photo.
As spontaneous celebrations and expressions of relief gave way to questions about precisely what happened and what comes next, U.S. officials warned that the campaign against terrorism is not nearly over – and that the threat of deadly retaliation against the United States and its allies was real.
Senior administration officials said the DNA testing alone offered near 100 percent certainty that bin Laden was among those shot dead. Photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation by a woman believed to be bin Laden’s wife on site, and matching physical features like bin Laden’s height all helped confirmed the identification.
“We can all agree this is a good day for America,” a subdued Obama said during a Medal of Honor ceremony in the glimmering White House East Room.
Still, it was unclear if the world would ever get visual proof.
May 2, 2011
Notes on the Death of Osama bin Laden
Posted by Steve Coll
No doubt there will be time to reflect more deeply about the news announced by President Obama last night. For now, I thought it might be useful to annotate some of the initial headlines.
On where he was found:
Abbottabad is essentially a military-cantonment city in Pakistan, in the hills to the north of the capital of Islamabad, in an area where much of the land is controlled or owned by the Pakistani Army and retired Army officers. Although the city is technically in what used to be called the Northwest Frontier Province, it lies on the far eastern side of the province and is as close to Pakistani-held Kashmir as it is to the border city of Peshawar. The city is most notable for housing the Pakistan Military Academy, the Pakistani Army’s premier training college, equivalent to West Point. Looking at maps and satellite photos on the Web last night, I saw the wide expanse of the Academy not far from where the million-dollar, heavily secured mansion where bin Laden lived was constructed in 2005. The maps I looked at had sections of land nearby marked off as “restricted areas,” indicating that they were under military control. It stretches credulity to think that a mansion of that scale could have been built and occupied by bin Laden for six years without its coming to the attention of anyone in the Pakistani Army.
The initial circumstantial evidence suggests that the opposite is more likely—that bin Laden was effectively being housed under Pakistani state control. Pakistan will deny this, it seems safe to predict, and perhaps no convincing evidence will ever surface to prove the case. If I were a prosecutor at the United States Department of Justice, however, I would be tempted to call a grand jury. Who owned the land on which the house was constructed? How was the land acquired, and from whom? Who designed the house, which seems to have been purpose-built to secure bin Laden? Who was the general contractor? Who installed the security systems? Who worked there? Are there witnesses who will now testify as to who visited the house, how often, and for what purpose? These questions are not relevant only to the full realization of justice for the victims of September 11th. They are also relevant to the victims of terrorist attacks conducted or inspired by bin Laden while he lived in the house, and these include many Pakistanis, as well as Afghans, Indians, Jordanians, and Britons. They are rightly subjects of American criminal law.
Outside the Justice Department, other sections of the United States government will probably underplay any evidence of culpability by the Pakistani state or sections of the state, such as its intelligence service, I.S.I., in sheltering bin Laden. As ever, there are many other fish to fry in Islamabad and at the Army headquarters, in nearby Rawalpindi: an exit strategy from Afghanistan, which requires the greatest possible degree of coöperation from Pakistan that can be attained at a reasonable price; nuclear stability; and so on.
Pakistan’s military and intelligence service takes risks that others would not dare take because Pakistan’s generals believe that their nuclear deterrent keeps them safe from regime change of the sort under way in Libya, and because they have discovered over the years that the rest of the world sees them as too big to fail. Unfortunately, they probably are correct in their analysis; some countries, like some investment banks, do pose systemic risks so great that they are too big to fail, and Pakistan is currently the A.I.G. of nation-states. But that should not stop American prosecutors from following the law here as they would whenever any mass killer’s hideout is discovered.
Of course, Mullah Omar and Al Qaeda’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, probably also enjoy refuge in Pakistan. The location of Mullah Omar, in particular, is believed by American officials to be well known to some Pakistani military and intelligence officers; Omar, too, they believe, is effectively under Pakistani state control. Perhaps the circumstantial evidence in the bin Laden case is misleading; only a transparent, thorough investigation by Pakistani authorities into how such a fugitive could have lived so long under the military’s nose without detection would establish otherwise. That sort of transparent investigation is unlikely to take place.
On who was living with Bin Laden:
The early reports suggest that he was living with his “youngest wife.” Bin Laden, who was fifty-three years old when he died, had always lived surrounded by family and children, so it is not surprising that he had managed to do so even as a fugitive. He is known to have married at least four times. His first wife was a cousin from Syria. His second and third wives were highly educated Saudi women. His fourth wife was a kind of mail-order teen-age bride from Yemen, whom he married while living in Afghanistan during the nineteen-nineties, according to the account of bin Laden’s former Yemeni bodyguard. Bin Laden’s Syrian and Saudi wives were said to have gone home before or immediately after the September 11th attacks, and the Saudi wives were said to be living in the kingdom, without contact with Osama. When I visited Yemen in 2007, to conduct research on the bin Laden family, Yemeni journalists told me that his youngest wife had returned home and was living in the region either of Tai’zz or of Ibb, significant cities to the south of Sanaa, the capital. It seems that she may have found her way to Pakistan to live with her husband. My own guess had been that bin Laden would have accepted informal divorce from his older wives on the ground of involuntary separation, and would have remarried a local woman or two while in hiding in Pakistan, perhaps a daughter presented by one of his Pathan hosts. That is at least conceivable as well. Apparently, one of his adult sons was killed in the raid. Osama has more than a dozen sons. Some have returned to Saudi Arabia, but others have appeared in videos with their father, vowing to fight alongside him. It is conceivable that one of his sons could make a claim on Al Qaeda leadership in the years ahead.
On what bin Laden’s death means for Al Qaeda:
On the constructive side: The loss of a symbolic, semi-charismatic leader whose own survival burnished his legend is significant. Also, Al Qaeda has never had a leadership succession test. Now it faces one. The organization was founded more than twenty years ago, in the summer of 1988, and at the initial sessions bin Laden was appointed amir and Ayman al-Zawahiri deputy amir. It is remarkable that, for all the No. 3s who have been killed, and for all the ways in which it has been degraded since September 11th, Al Qaeda had retained the same two leaders, continuously, for so long. Zawahiri is famously disputatious and tone-deaf. His relatively recent online “chat” taking questions about Al Qaeda’s violence did not go well. Bin Laden was a gentle and strong communicator, if somewhat incoherent in his thinking. Zawahiri is dogmatic and argumentative, and has a history of alienating colleagues.
On the other hand: Al Qaeda is more than just a centralized organization based in Pakistan. It is also a network of franchised or like-minded organizations, and an ideological movement in which followers sometimes act in isolation from leaders. The best guesstimates are that Al Qaeda has several hundred serious members or adherents in Pakistan, along the Pakistan side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and perhaps up to a hundred scattered around Afghanistan. Just last week, the German government disrupted a cell near Dusseldorf in which one of the members, of Moroccan origin, had allegedly travelled to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where he received explosives training from an Al Qaeda contact. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, appears to be just as potent. Dan Benjamin, the State Department counterterrorism coördinator, gave a speech last week at New America that provided a very good, up-to-date summary of Al Qaeda and its affiliates worldwide, their capabilities and connections to one another.
On the hunt itself:
After President Obama took office, he and the new Central Intelligence Agency director, Leon Panetta, reorganized the team of analysts devoted to finding Osama bin Laden. The team worked out of ground-floor offices at the Langley headquarters. There were at least two-dozen of them. Some were older analysts who had been part of the C.I.A.’s various bin Laden-hunting efforts going back to the late nineteen-nineties. Others were newer recruits, too young to have been professionally active when bin Laden was first indicted as a fugitive from American justice.
As they reset their work, the analysts studied other long-term international fugitive hunts that had ended successfully, such as the operations that led to the death of the Medellín Cartel leader Pablo Escobar, in 1993. The analysts asked, Where did the breakthroughs in these other hunts come from? What were the clues that made the difference and how were the clues discovered? They tried to identify “signatures” of Osama bin Laden’s life style that might lead to such a clue: prescription medications that he might purchase, hobbies or other habits of shopping or movement that might give him away.
The Langley analysts were one headquarters egghead element of the hunt. Similar analytical units, at Central Command, in Tampa, and at the International Security Assistance Force, in Kabul, sorted battlefield and all-source intelligence, designated subjects for additional collection, and conducted pattern analysis of relationships among terrorists, couriers, and raw data collected in the field. Detainee operators in Iraq, in Afghanistan, at Guantanámo, and at secret C.I.A. sites also participated. Apparently, the breakthrough started several years back from detainee interrogations; it’s not clear yet how or by what means the information about the courier who led to the Abbottabad compound was extracted.
Overseas, C.I.A. officers in the Directorate of Operations and the Special Activities Division—intelligence officers who ran sources and collected information, as well as armed paramilitaries—carried out the search for informants from bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Units from the military’s Joint Special Operations Command, which includes the Navy Seals, Delta, and other specialized groups, joined in. Often, Special Operations and the C.I.A. worked in blended task-force teams deployed around Afghanistan, and, more problematically, as the Raymond Davis case indicated, around Pakistan.
These teams searched not only for bin Laden but also for other “high-value targets,” as they are legally and bureaucratically known inside the U.S. government. My understanding is that, as of this spring, there were approximately forty legally designated, fugitive high-value targets at the top of the wanted-list system. If there were forty, I suppose there are now thirty-nine.
Read Jon Lee Anderson, Dexter Filkins, Hendrik Hertzberg, George Packer, David Remnick, Lawrence Wright, and more of our coverage of Osama bin Laden’s death.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/05/notes-on-the-death-of-osama-bin-laden.html#ixzz1LE85coC7
WH presser happening live now
http://www.whitehouse.gov/live?utm_source=050211&utm_medium=schedule&utm_campaign=daily
the press is asking where Bin Laden was buried.
Hat tip LTMidnight
Limbaugh says he must open show “congratulating” president Monday, lavishes praise on Obama for OBL mission.
“Thank God for President Obama. If he had not been there, who knows what would have happened?”
Highlights from Limbaugh’s show:
Obama “single-handedly” came up with technique to kill OBL and was the “only qualified” person in the room to think up “extremely effective” method. “No one else thought of that.”
“I can’t tell you how happy and proud” it made me.
Obama deserves praise for “continuing” not “assembling” team that pulled off mission.
Read more: http://thepage.time.com/2011/0…
http://thepage.time.com/2011/0…
DO NOT TRUST LIMPBALLS…
Who dat impersonating Limpballs?
These sleaze balls can’t stand it when the media is not focusing on their antics. PBO has been getting media attention since Saturday’s WHCD smackdown and called out the media to do their damn jobs.
LOL
http://s1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa478/phil651/?action=view¤t=pRPrT.jpg
How the US tracked couriers to elaborate bin Laden compound
First intelligence of a courier, then an extraordinary house with high walls — and no telephone or Internet. Bin Laden and a son are among five killed in a firefight.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42853221/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/?gt1=43001
The trail that led to Osama bin Laden began before 9/11, before the terror attacks that brought the son of a Saudi construction magnate to prominence. The chase grew more urgent last fall, when U.S. intelligence discovered an elaborate compound in Pakistan, a clue that eventually culminated in Sunday’s raid on a fortified and isolated compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.
Details of the hunt for and killing of the 54-year-old bin Laden were still being assembled Monday, but briefings by senior White House and CIA officials filled in some gaps in the account of the investigation and death of the world’s most-wanted terrorist.
U.S. intelligence officials were aware of bin Laden’s growing radicalism before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and began assembling a dossier on him.
“From the time that we first recognized bin Laden as a threat, the U.S. gathered information on people in bin Laden’s circle, including his personal couriers,” a senior official in the Obama administration said in a background briefing from the White House early Monday.
After the Sept. 11, attacks, “detainees gave us information on couriers. One courier in particular had our constant attention. Detainees gave us his nom de guerre, his pseudonym, and also identified this man as one of the few couriers trusted by bin Laden.”
Like my daughter said, Pakistan’s got some ‘SPLAININ’ to do!
Obama’s speech tonight:
Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory — hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.
And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child’s embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.
On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.
We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda — an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.
Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we’ve made great strides in that effort. We’ve disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.
Yet Osama bin Laden avoided capture and escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continued to operate from along that border and operate through its affiliates across the world.
And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.
Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. 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 of Pakistan. And 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.
Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
For over two decades, bin Laden has been al Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda.
Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must — and we will — remain vigilant at home and abroad.
As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not — and never will be — at war with Islam. I’ve 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; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.
Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we’ve done. But it’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding. Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.
Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.
The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens. After nearly 10 years of service, struggle, and sacrifice, we know well the costs of war. These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one, or look into the eyes of a service member who’s been gravely wounded.
So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.
Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.
We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day.
Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.
And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.
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.
Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/following-the-reaction-to-bin-ladens-death/#more-103947
Mon May 2, 4:47 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time of the September 11 attacks and famously said he wanted Osama bin Laden dead or alive, on Sunday called the death of the al Qaeda leader a “momentous achievement.”
President Barack Obama called Bush in Dallas at 9:04 p.m. central time to inform him that bin Laden was dead and they spoke for four minutes, a Bush spokesman said.
The September 11 attacks were a defining moment of Bush’s presidency. He launched the war in Afghanistan and the hunt for bin Laden spanned the rest of his presidency.
“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,” Bush said in a statement.
“The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done,” he said.
(Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Philip Barbara)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110502/wl_nm/us_obama_binladen_bush;_ylt=AjJbzWnFgljwUlBT9yYXNuCs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFpZzhuaW8zBHBvcwMzOQRzZWMDYWNjb3JkaW9uX21vc3RfcG9wdWxhcgRzbGsDYnVzaGNhbGxzYmlu?om_rid=DRaeQf&om_mid=_BNvrDpB8axZlav
Osama Bin Laden Dead: Inside The Raid That Killed Him
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead-inside-raid-that-killed-him_n_856158.html
WASHINGTON — Helicopters descended out of darkness on the most important counterterrorism mission in U.S. history. It was an operation so secret, only a select few U.S. officials knew what was about to happen.
The location was a fortified compound in the affluent Pakistani suburbs of Islamabad. The target was Osama bin Laden.
Intelligence officials discovered the compound in August while monitoring an al-Qaida courier. The CIA had been hunting that courier for years, ever since detainees told interrogators that the courier was so trusted by bin Laden that he might very well be living with the al-Qaida leader.
Nestled in an affluent neighborhood, the compound was surrounded by walls as high as 18 feet, topped with barbed wire. Two security gates guarded the only way in. A third-floor terrace was shielded by a seven-foot privacy wall. No phone lines or Internet cables ran to the property. The residents burned their garbage rather than put it out for collection. Intelligence officials believed the million-dollar compound was built five years ago to protect a major terrorist figure. The question was, who?
The CIA asked itself again and again who might be living behind those walls. Each time, they concluded it was almost certainly bin Laden.
President Barack Obama described the operation in broad strokes Sunday night. Details were provided in interviews with counterterrorism and intelligence authorities, senior administration officials and other U.S. officials. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation.
By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear enough that Obama wanted to “pursue an aggressive course of action,” a senior administration official said. Over the next two and a half months, Obama led five meetings of the National Security Council focused solely on whether bin Laden was in that compound and, if so, how to get him, the official said.
Normally, the U.S. shares its counterterrorism intelligence widely with trusted allies in Britain, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. And the U.S. normally does not carry out ground operations inside Pakistan without collaboration with Pakistani intelligence. But this mission was too important and too secretive.
On April 29, Obama approved an operation to kill bin Laden. It was a mission that required surgical accuracy, even more precision than could be delivered by the government’s sophisticated Predator drones. To execute it, Obama tapped a small contingent of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six and put them under the command of CIA Director Leon Panetta, whose analysts monitored the compound from afar.
Panetta was directly in charge of the team, a U.S. official said, and his conference room was transformed into a command center.
Details of exactly how the raid unfolded remain murky. But the al-Qaida courier, his brother and one of bin Laden’s sons were killed. No Americans were injured. Senior administration officials will only say that bin Laden “resisted.” And then the man behind the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil died from an American bullet to his head.
It was mid-afternoon in Virginia when Panetta and his team received word that bin Laden was dead. Cheers and applause broke out across the conference room.
Obama in 2008: ‘We will kill bin Laden”
TO LET IT BE SAID, AND SO IT IS DONE!
THANK YOU, SPECIAL OPS & POTUS!
Bush: Truly not concerned about bin Laden
What an IDIOT. How did this man ever get to be POTUS and into the White House?
BWA HA HA HA This had to go up there in the post, SG2. It’s a winner! thanks
LOL
Hell Yeah!
CNN’s Live Blog reports:
CNN’s Chris Lawrence, citing U.S. officials, reports that the compound where bin Laden was found – in Abbotabad, Pakistan, about 100 kilometers outside Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad – was three stories tall, and about eight times larger than any of the buildings around it.
An official said a “small U.S. team” was involved in the operation at the compound – the official would not confirm any U.S. military involvement. An official said bin Laden resisted the assault – and was killed in the firefight.
Three other men were killed in the firefight, and a woman being used as a human shield was also killed, the officials said. There were no U.S. casualties, the officials said. The U.S. team was at the compound for about 40 minutes, officials said.
A U.S. helicopter crashed during the raid because of mechanical reasons, an official said. It was destroyed, the officials said.
Osama Bin Laden Reportedly Shot In The Head
CNN: Osama bin Laden was shot in the head during a U.S. raid, a congressional source familiar with the operation says.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
Swaggerific!
BWA HA HA You really know how to bring on the SWAGGA, Mr. President!
Al Jazeera English: Live Stream
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
LOOK AT THESE FOOLS ON FOX
No you dumbass mofos; you’re not getting your wish for the POTUS’ death anytime soon.
Shaking the haters off
LOL
Rat Bastards! Lowlife dogs!
Watch live video here:
http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/22309266
3 CHICS THANKS THE MEN AND WOMEN OF OUR MILITARY FOR THEIR HEROIC EFFORTS!
NO ONE IN DC GOT SWAGGA LIKE POTUS!
Swag on down the hall, Mr. President. LOL
—————————————-
Breaking News Alert: Obama confirms that Osama bin Laden has been killed
May 1, 2011 11:39:06 PM
—————————————-
Osama bin Laden has been killed in a CIA operation in Pakistan, President Obama announced from the White House Sunday, ending a years-long manhunt for the leader of al-Qaeda and architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington.
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/PSLW3N/OJUAFX/I9JCLP/P7BNRQ/LV834/MQ/h
For more information, visit washingtonpost.com
The President has been quietly working behind the scenes with our military and took out the head of 911 USA masacre. This is BIG NEWS, and I don’t wanna hear jackshit from the left, right, or the middle about anything this admin is or has been doing to keep America safe.
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012!
Hey Now! That’s what I’m talking ’bout!
President Obama ran on taking Osama Bin Laden out during his adminstration’s tenure. He promised!
Osama Bin Laden is dead & the US has his body!
The President signed on for more troops to finish up the job on Bin Laden.
President Barack Hussein Obama gets to announce Osama Bin Laden is dead.
the hilariousness of this can’t be lost on folks. I mean, damn, I’m gonna tune into FOX, that’s how bad I wanna see the GOPers CHOKE ON IT.
LMBAO! -0((
Sweet Jesus! Osama Bin Laden is dead! President Obama got him!
The President made a promise to the American people, that he would defeat Al Queada and take out Bin Laden, and he has seen to it that our military has done that.
just stunned. it’s almost surreal. anti-climatic, because he’s been the Bogeyman for so long.
“JUSITCE HAS BEEN DONE.”
Praise The Lord!
Amen! The crowd is going wild outside the White House.