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Osama Bin Laden Is Dead

Al-Qaeda 'confirms death' of leader Osama bin Laden
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... king1.html
Fri, May 06, 2011

Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of its leader Osama bin Laden, according to a US-based jihadist monitoring service.

Five days after US president Barack Obama announced bin Laden's death in a raid by US special forces on a compound in Abbottabad, north of the Pakistan capital Islamabad, al-Qaeda vowed not to deviate from the path of armed struggle.

The group said bin Laden's blood "is more precious to us and to every Muslim than to be wasted in vain".

"It (bin Laden's blood) will remain, with permission from Allah the Almighty, a curse that chases the Americans and their agents, and goes after them inside and outside their countries," the militant network said in a statement released on Islamist internet forums and translated by the SITE monitoring service.

"Their happiness will turn into sorrow, and their blood will be mixed with their tears,” the statement. "We call upon our Muslim people in Pakistan, on whose land Sheikh Osama was killed, to rise up and revolt to cleanse this shame that has been attached to them by a clique of traitors and thieves ... and in general to cleanse their country from the filth of the Americans who spread corruption in it."

After killing bin Laden and four of his associates, US troops confiscated computers, DVDs and documents from the home where it is believed the al-Qaeda chief had been hiding for up to six years.

Reports in the US claim these show bin Laden was planning a new attack on America. Information indicates al-Qaeda considered attacking US trains, although no imminent threat was detected.

In a separate development, it emerged overnight that extensive surveillance of bin Laden's hideout from a nearby CIA safe house in Abbottabad led to his killing. The revelation is likely to further embarrass Pakistan's spy agency and strain ties between the two countries.

The Washington Post

said the safe house was the base for intelligence gathering that began after bin Laden's compound was discovered last August. "The CIA's job was to find and fix," the Post quoted one US official as saying, using special forces terminology for locating a target. "The intelligence work was as complete as it was going to be, and it was the military's turn to finish the target."

US officials told the New York Times that intelligence gathered from computer files and documents seized at his compound showed bin Laden had been orchestrating al-Qaeda attacks from the Pakistani town for years, and may have been planning a strike on the US rail sector this year, the 10th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

According to a document seen by the Associated Press news agency, information about the apparent plans was contained in a joint FBI and Homeland Security bulletin, which suggested al-Qaeda was considering plans to attack the US on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

One idea outlined in handwritten notes was to tamper with an unspecified US rail track so that a train would fall off the track at a valley or a bridge, according to the joint bulletin circulated to law enforcement officials around the country yesterday.

The al-Qaeda planners noted that if they attacked a train by tilting it, the plan would only succeed once because the tilting would be spotted the next time.

The FBI and Homeland Security told local officials to be on the lookout for clips or spikes missing from train tracks, packages left on or near the tracks and other indications that a train could be vulnerable.

Meanwhile, one of Osama bin Laden's wives has reportedly told Pakistani interrogators the al-Qaeda leader and his family had been living for five years in the compound where he was killed by US forces this week.

A Pakistani security official, who identified the woman as Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, the youngest of bin Laden's three wives, said she was wounded in the US raid on Monday. Both Pakistan's army and its powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), have been facing mounting pressure to explain how it was possible for bin Laden to live deep inside Pakistan undetected for years.

Elsewhere, Taliban fighters, appearing in a video purporting to show frontline militants in southern Afghanistan, have said the killing of bin Laden will inspire them to continue fighting until all foreign troops have left the country.

Agencies
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DieDieMyDarling said:
I initially thought the reason Osama had been hidden away, buried at sea, was because the Seals who had caught him, tore him up with bullets and anything else at hand, as revenge for 9/11, possibly even tortured him.
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Good point, seems plausible.

DieDieMyDarling said:
You can't really release images to the press that shows Osama laying flayed like a victim in Hellraiser, eyes burned out, teeth pulled from his gums, genitalia skewered like a pin-cushion, etc.
Click to expand...

Well, you could. If his features were still vaguely recognisable after a headshot - and I am no expert on ballistics, but isn't the entry point usually fairly clean but the exit wound where the damage is done? - his body, and the torture wounds you hypothesise, could easily be covered up by a plain and lengthy neck to foot Arabic-style robe. All you would see would be neck up and hands/feet. A good mortician could cover up burns etc... on hand/feet and markings on the face (within reason).

Would have to be a pretty horrific hatchet job to the face/head to make it completely impossible to release images should they have wished.

The AQ confirmation, combined with the momentous risk of it backfiring if it was just an outright lie or if he had been offed previously or died naturally in AQ arms and the US just chose now to reveal it, pretty much quenches any conspiracy about Monday's events... unless of course AQ are CIA puppets! ;)

Still a lot of unanswered questions, but the major conspiracy I think can retire gracefully.
 
ramonmercado said:
Al-Qaeda 'confirms death' of leader Osama bin Laden
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... king1.html
Fri, May 06, 2011

Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of its leader Osama bin Laden, according to a US-based jihadist monitoring service.

Five days after US president Barack Obama announced bin Laden's death in a raid by US special forces on a compound in Abbottabad, north of the Pakistan capital Islamabad, al-Qaeda vowed not to deviate from the path of armed struggle.

The group said bin Laden's blood "is more precious to us and to every Muslim than to be wasted in vain".

"It (bin Laden's blood) will remain, with permission from Allah the Almighty, a curse that chases the Americans and their agents, and goes after them inside and outside their countries," the militant network said in a statement released on Islamist internet forums and translated by the SITE monitoring service.

"Their happiness will turn into sorrow, and their blood will be mixed with their tears,” the statement. "We call upon our Muslim people in Pakistan, on whose land Sheikh Osama was killed, to rise up and revolt to cleanse this shame that has been attached to them by a clique of traitors and thieves ... and in general to cleanse their country from the filth of the Americans who spread corruption in it."
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Without wanting to tempt fate, seems a rather desperate call to arms. The defiant cry of an almost beaten foe.

The revolutions across the Middle East and Muslim North Africa suggest that people there are sick of being oppressed by dictators and used by terrorists, a positive wind of change toward democracy and a better way of life seems attainable and aside from the minority of extremists that you get in any walk of life I doubt the regular people will be eager to sign up to AQ when a moderate democratic peaceful future is an option.

Since Madrid/London there has not been any major attack - unless I am being very forgetful - and it seems in both the US and UK that the authorities have gotten on top of the viper's nest and find themselves one step ahead. The intel you would presume they have taken from OBL's lair should, you would think, continue that position.

Aside from just handing people the material to make bombs and sending them out with no official plan to just detonate on subways, busy cities I feel it would be hard to plan anything major at present - although I would take no pleasure whatsoever on this occasion on being proven wrong on that.

I don't think for a minute AQ are done, but I think isolated smaller incidents are likely to be the policy going forward for the time being rather than elaborate 'Hollywood' attacks.

Pakistan is a different matter. I personally feel there are forces there who knew and kept quiet about OBL and if proof of that is uncovered then we potentially have a danger of a new Iraq/Afghanistan. Hopefully the US, and the UK, who would be unbelievably shortsighted to follow, have learned a lesson and would not go down the war route. Uncovering Pakistan's complicity would shame them to the world and hopefully be enough punishment. Taking reprisals further would only pour petrol on a fire that could be reaching it's burning embers.
 
McAvennie_ said:
Well, you could. If his features were still vaguely recognisable after a headshot - and I am no expert on ballistics, but isn't the entry point usually fairly clean but the exit wound where the damage is done? - his body, and the torture wounds you hypothesise, could easily be covered up by a plain and lengthy neck to foot Arabic-style robe. All you would see would be neck up and hands/feet. A good mortician could cover up burns etc... on hand/feet and markings on the face (within reason).

Would have to be a pretty horrific hatchet job to the face/head to make it completely impossible to release images should they have wished.

The AQ confirmation, combined with the momentous risk of it backfiring if it was just an outright lie or if he had been offed previously or died naturally in AQ arms and the US just chose now to reveal it, pretty much quenches any conspiracy about Monday's events... unless of course AQ are CIA puppets! ;)

Still a lot of unanswered questions, but the major conspiracy I think can retire gracefully.
Click to expand...

Well, I guess that's what it would come down to. Just how bad would the wounds be? And, I guess even more important, they probably could have explained away horrible disfiguration, etc, by saying it took more than one bullet to kill him. A few bullets to the face could pretty much destroy it, even if done after the fact.

My theory is certainly not without holes (insert joke here).

I find it strange that AQ would use this as a rallying cry, rather than denying it and feeding on the already building conspiracies. They could have come out and said he died 3 years ago, even if it's a lie, just to make the US look bad. Or say that Osama passed away quietly in his sleep a week ago, and that the Navy Seals stole his body for their own agenda, to make Obama look good.

There's a lot they could have done. But instead, they've just admitted to a fair cop. Seems odd.

That's the thing about savage terrorists though, they're not exactly the most level headed of people. They don't always work by the laws of logic.
 
I agree, not all AQ CIA puppets:

26 April 2011 Last updated at 16:50

'Al-Qaeda assassin worked for MI6', secret cables claim

An alleged al-Qaeda militant suspected of bombing a luxury hotel and two churches in Pakistan in 2002 was an informer for MI6, it has been claimed.

Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili was detained at Guantanamo Bay between 2003 and last year.

The Guardian claims to have seen secret Wikileaks files in which he is described as an al-Qaeda "assassin".
Click to expand...

continues ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13191959
 
The Guardian claims to have seen secret Wikileaks files in which he is described as an al-Qaeda "assassin".
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure this was debunked a couple of days later... from memory I think that another inmate, under torture, had claimed Adil was an MI6 agent but no other evidence was produced and it appeared to be a false lead.

I'm intrigued as to how the "It was the CIA/MI5 wot dun it" crowd on here explain the large numbers of AQ supporters in the Muslim world as well as the West. Are the poppy-burners in Luton also in the pay of the CIA? What about the hundred thousand plus in the UK who think that the London bombings were justified? Are they all secret agents/in the pay of the intelligence services?
 
McAvennie_ said:
Pakistan is a different matter. I personally feel there are forces there who knew and kept quiet about OBL and if proof of that is uncovered then we potentially have a danger of a new Iraq/Afghanistan. Hopefully the US, and the UK, who would be unbelievably shortsighted to follow, have learned a lesson and would not go down the war route.
Click to expand...

Pakistan won't be invaded - they have the means to fight back.
 
Mal_Content said:
I agree, not all AQ CIA puppets:

26 April 2011 Last updated at 16:50

'Al-Qaeda assassin worked for MI6', secret cables claim

An alleged al-Qaeda militant suspected of bombing a luxury hotel and two churches in Pakistan in 2002 was an informer for MI6, it has been claimed.

Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili was detained at Guantanamo Bay between 2003 and last year.

The Guardian claims to have seen secret Wikileaks files in which he is described as an al-Qaeda "assassin".
Click to expand...

continues ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13191959
Click to expand...

Separate US intelligence reports said Mr Hamlili was "possibly involved" in a bombing outside Karachi's Sheraton hotel in May 2002 which killed 11 French engineers and two Pakistani citizens.
Click to expand...

For this one, there are good reasons to suspect a false-flag attack.
 
Pictures of the dead bin Laden shown on th'interweb are hoaxed, according to this:

http://blog.fotolibra.com/?p=639 (fotolibra is an image library)

Look Away Now …
May 6th, 2011 by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director

… if you don’t want to see a particularly gruesome image of the assassinated Osama bin Laden.

I’ve put it at the bottom of this blog so you don’t have to look at it without scrolling down, not for any vicarious pleasure, but for the simple purpose of showing what can be achieved with digital image manipulation software such as Adobe Photoshop (other digital image manipulation applications are available).

What purports to be the shocking photograph of the dead bin Laden which President Obama deemed too disturbing for public view has of course cropped up all over the place, mainly on right-wing conservative American websites. And they are truly scary (the websites, that is).

You will have read in previous postings on this blog that US courts do not allow digital photographic images as evidence because of the ease with which they can be manipulated. Actually as anyone who has battled with Photoshop will know, it’s not that easy, but a truly skilled Photoshop artist can make it look simple — and realistic.

The image is indeed shocking — until you look at the image on the right.

On the left you will see a purported photograph of Osama bin Laden after he stupidly opened the door to some visiting American gentlemen. On the right you will see a much nastier image — Osama bin Laden alive.

Compare the two images.

Look at the angle of the head.

Look at his ear; look at the highlight inside it.

Look at the highlight on the tip of his nose.

Look at his mouth hanging slackly open, doubtless in the process of delivering some deranged spittle-flecked invective.

The images are identical, except that in one he appears to have met with an accident.

It’s the same image. The one of the left has been Photoshopped — it’s a completely fraudulent image. I’m not suggesting for a moment that this is the image that Barack found too disturbing to release; that one is undoubtedly real and I’m sure it’s profoundly unpleasant.

But in lieu of having the real thing, some talented Photoshop artist has been employed to provide slaughter pron [porn?] for slavering right-wingers. It’s very good — until some clever chappie like David Hoffman unearths the original image.

Unless of course Hoffman has been even smarter and recreated the image on the right from the original on the left!

Now you can see why American courts don’t permit digital images as evidence. The camera lies through its teeth.

Thanks to David Hoffman Photographs for putting the two images together, and for Will Carleton of Photo Archive News for bringing them to my attention.
Click to expand...
 
Ones wonders what Alex Jones and his cohorts have to say now...
 
Sorry, I'm getting too confused by this story. I can't quite see why the US administration is peddling so much wonky info unless the general aim is to cause worldwide confusion. First we have a mass battle at the compound monitored live by The Pres and Hilary where lots of guns go off and Osama chucks wives at the Seals while shooting off an AK47. Then we get the 'real' story of an old guy in his pyjamas being double tapped because said nightwear could be a suicide bomb.

I think it's a bold decision to deliberately release several different versions of the story as it allows freedom for anyone to pick the one they fancy but for a nation that harbours so many who search for conspiracy theories on every minute detail, it just seems a bit screwed up.
 
rynner2 said:
Pictures of the dead bin Laden shown on th'interweb are hoaxed, according to this:

http://blog.fotolibra.com/?p=639 (fotolibra is an image library)

...
Click to expand...
This one has already been covered, on this very Thread, from clippings, including, the Daily Telegraph. It's two years old, at least.

Someone has already pointed out the youthful blackness of the beard.
 
jimv1 said:
Sorry, I'm getting too confused by this story. I can't quite see why the US administration is peddling so much wonky info unless the general aim is to cause worldwide confusion. First we have a mass battle at the compound monitored live by The Pres and Hilary where lots of guns go off and Osama chucks wives at the Seals while shooting off an AK47. Then we get the 'real' story of an old guy in his pyjamas being double tapped because said nightwear could be a suicide bomb.

I think it's a bold decision to deliberately release several different versions of the story as it allows freedom for anyone to pick the one they fancy but for a nation that harbours so many who search for conspiracy theories on every minute detail, it just seems a bit screwed up.
Click to expand...

I agree. You'd think they'd have got their story together before speaking to the press.
 
jimv1 said:
I think it's a bold decision to deliberately release several different versions of the story as it allows freedom for anyone to pick the one they fancy but for a nation that harbours so many who search for conspiracy theories on every minute detail, it just seems a bit screwed up.
Click to expand...

What seems more likely is that, in the scramble to release the news about OBL being killed, various wires got crossed. Seems to me that they just chucked alot of stuff out there and then had to do some tidying up as more details became known. So if anything it's just a botched bit of PA.

Conspiracists are always in a win-win with stories like these - I mean, if the news that OBL had been killed had been handled more succinctly, I've no doubt that some conspiricists would then claim the story to be 'too tidy'...
 
Rigsby said:
I believe Pieczenik.
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Seems he's either been a bit short with the truth or doesn't actually know what the full story is.
 
jimv1 said:
...

I think it's a bold decision to deliberately release several different versions of the story as it allows freedom for anyone to pick the one they fancy but for a nation that harbours so many who search for conspiracy theories on every minute detail, it just seems a bit screwed up.
Click to expand...
Exodus 23:27

I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

English Standard Version (©2001)
 
The revolutions across the Middle East and Muslim North Africa suggest that people there are sick of being oppressed by dictators and used by terrorists, a positive wind of change toward democracy and a better way of life seems attainable and aside from the minority of extremists that you get in any walk of life I doubt the regular people will be eager to sign up to AQ when a moderate democratic peaceful future is an option.

Since Madrid/London there has not been any major attack - unless I am being very forgetful - and it seems in both the US and UK that the authorities have gotten on top of the viper's nest and find themselves one step ahead...
Click to expand...

It's great isnt it? The manner in which the 'rest of the world', led by that guiding light of peace and freedom, the USA, is casting out dictators and undemocratic regimes and replacing them with governments that have been voted for by the people, for the people. It stands to reason that these newly democratic countries will be the lynchpins of stability and security, so that other, dare we say more backward regimes, look upon them as magnificent examples of democracy in action. I'm talking places like Iraq and Afghanistan. We havent spent hundreds of billions in aid and military materiel for them to backslide now have we?

And what about those countries that have given Western military powers significant aid in the hunt for global terrorism, they must be reaping the benefits of that policy surely? I'm talking Pakistan and other mid-Asian countries.

Uh, well here's the facts ladies and gentlemen.

Terrorist attacks 2008

Terrorist attacks 2009

Terrorist attacks 2010

terrorist attacks 2011

There's dozens and dozens so i'll just pick out my 'favourites':

Feb 1st 2008, Baghdad Iraq: Two mentally disabled women were strapped with explosives and sent into busy Baghdad markets, where they were blown up by remote control. The bombs killed at least 98 people and wounded more than 200 at two popular pet market

June 5th 2009, Upper Dir, Pakistan: A suicide bomb ripped through a mosque packed with worshippers in northwest Pakistan Friday, killing 38 people and wounding dozens more in the deadliest such attack in more than two months

February 26th 2010 Kabul, Afghanistan: A suicide bomber detonated in an area including a shopping centre, guest house and hotel in the Afghan capital, with gunfire heard after at least two blasts 17 dead, 30+ wounded

18th January 2011, Tikrit, Iraq: A suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden vest in the middle of hundreds of potential volunteer army recruits who were waiting to be interviewed outside a police recruitment centre 66 dead 100+ wounded

Here's a neat website:

https://wits.nctc.gov/FederalDiscoverWITS/index.do?N=0

Rally to that banner of 'enduring freedom', we have nothing to lose but our limbs :cry:
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
jimv1 said:
...

I think it's a bold decision to deliberately release several different versions of the story as it allows freedom for anyone to pick the one they fancy but for a nation that harbours so many who search for conspiracy theories on every minute detail, it just seems a bit screwed up.
Click to expand...
Exodus 23:27

I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

English Standard Version (©2001)
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
Twin_Star said:
And what about those countries that have given Western military powers significant aid in the hunt for global terrorism, they must be reaping the benefits of that policy surely? I'm talking Pakistan and other mid-Asian countries.
Click to expand...

But then again it may be premature to write off the whole process just because a few idiots decide that they have no qualms about killing other people. Such things tend to manifest in politically unstable countries - Northern Ireland is a good example. That doesn't mean that everything is doomed to failure. Acts of terrorism try to instill mistrust or instability in the process, after all.
 
Jerry_B said:
What seems more likely is that, in the scramble to release the news about OBL being killed, various wires got crossed. Seems to me that they just chucked alot of stuff out there and then had to do some tidying up as more details became known. So if anything it's just a botched bit of PA.

Conspiracists are always in a win-win with stories like these - I mean, if the news that OBL had been killed had been handled more succinctly, I've no doubt that some conspiricists would then claim the story to be 'too tidy'...
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Hmmm. I'm not sure. As I say, the US administration know how something as small as a birth certificate can come under intense scrutiny. I believe the mission was meticulously planned, choosing a Chuck Norris man-to-man approach rather than remotley stalking and employing a Top Gun missile strike on the compound (which The Pres and Hillary may/may not have viewed live) I'm pretty certain they must have meticulously planned ahead for the disposal of the corpse according to tradition and potential martyrdom. So I don't quite buy a simple lack of coordination in the subsequent muddled and messy releasing of the biggest news story in the last decade.

That's what's confusing me.

Edit - (There's also the release of the pictures of the bits of wrecked Super Secret Space Stealth Chopper which adds another odd element but that's a side issue.)
 
There's more evidence that he died years ago (via credible people) than that he died a few days ago. Where's the evidence of that? There's none.
Burried at sea? Yeah right.
They aren't releasing the photo of him dead, cause there's no photo :)
 
Rigsby said:
There's more evidence that he died years ago (via credible people) than that he died a few days ago. Where's the evidence of that? There's none.
Burried at sea? Yeah right.
They aren't releasing the photo of him dead, cause there's no photo :)
Click to expand...

Then why are Al Qaida backing this 'latest' death of Bin Laden up?

The fact that Al Qaida have obviously weighed up events, discussed, vetted and issued one coherent statement shows who's better dealing in communications.
 
jimv1 said:
I'm pretty certain they must have meticulously planned ahead for the disposal of the corpse according to tradition and potential martyrdom. So I don't quite buy a simple lack of coordination in the subsequent muddled and messy releasing of the biggest news story in the last decade.

That's what's confusing me.
Click to expand...

They may have had plans about what was going to happen, but after the fact stuff seems to have been muddled in, like I've said, the rush to get the news out. Maybe the various departments involved with it all made a hash up of this.
 
Rigsby said:
There's more evidence that he died years ago (via credible people) than that he died a few days ago. Where's the evidence of that? There's none.
Burried at sea? Yeah right.
They aren't releasing the photo of him dead, cause there's no photo :)
Click to expand...

As JimV has pointed out, the recent announcement from Al Q elements disprove such conspiracy theories - and also perhaps unmask certain conspiratorial parties as being somewhat wooly with their 'truth' about the situation.
 
Jerry_B said:
...

As JimV has pointed out, the recent announcement from Al Q elements disprove such conspiracy theories - ...
Click to expand...
Recent announcements purporting to come from Al Qaeda sources, allegedly. Those are the very pronouncements that I would expect extraordinary evidence for. Proof somewhat lacking in the past, in my opinion. Especially those rather suspect 'Bin Laden' audio tape rants.

Always been the weakest link in the chain. News from nowhere.
 
Hang on, Fox news sourced this from the PAKISTAN Observer who reported it, that's how journalism works - sources - and wouldn't this newspaper be a reliable source?
 
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