Tag: Osama bin Laden

The U.S. today released documents seized during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden was fixated on attacking U.S. targets and pressured al Qaeda groups to heal local rivalries and focus on that cause, according to documents the United States says were seized in bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan and released on Wednesday.

The documents are available here.

The release contains two sections. The first is a list of non-classified, English-language material found in and around the compound. The second is a selection of now-declassified documents.

Seymour Hersh's version of the targeted killing of Osama bin Laden couldn't be more different from that of the White House.

[Hersh] claims that Bin Laden’s burial at sea never happened, that Bin Laden was an invalid when the SEALs raided the compound and killed him, and that there was no firefight at all during the SEAL raid. Additionally, Hersh’s account says that the ISI captured and set bin Laden up in Abbottabad in the first place, to use him as “leverage” in the country’s dealings with al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Hersh's version appears here in the London Review of Books.[More...]

The former Seal who goes by the name Mark Owen was on 60 minutes tonight. He said the raid on the Osama bin Laden compound was not a kill mission.

He then describes how they were going up the stairs and had been told to expect one of bin Laden's sons to be there. They saw a figure disappear behind a door. They didn't know who it was. A Seal, on a hunch, whispers "Khalid." The figure peeks around the corner. The Seal shoots him dead. It was Khalid bin Laden.

Owen: “Curiosity killed the cat. I guess Khalid, too.”

But this was not a kill mission.

Pakistan has sentenced Dr. Shakil Afridi, who aided the CIA in finding Osama Bin Laden to 33 years in prison. The New York Times has more here.

The CIA had asked Afridi to run a fake Hepatitis vaccine program. Details here. Leon Pannetta criticized his arrest on "60 Minutes".

A court in Pakistan has convicted Osama bin Laden's three wives and two adult daughters of illegally remaining in Pakistan, hiding their identity from authorities and forgery. The court sentenced them to 45 days in detention, after which they will be deported.

Although in custody in a private house since May when Osama was killed, they will get credit for time served since March 3 when they were arrested.

They have two weeks left, and they will serve the sentence at the home where they've been detained, not in prison. They will be allowed to take their minor children with them when they leave. Two of the wives are from Saudi Arabia, and one is from Yemen.

Despite statements months ago by Pakistan that the wives and children present at the Abouutabad compound the night Osama bin Laden was killed would be released and returned to their home countries, Pakistan is still holding them.

The family of Amal al Sadah, Osama bin Laden's youngest wife who is from Yemen, has petitioned the chief justice of Pakistan to order her and her children's release and return to Yemen. Last October, the Pakistani commission that investigated and interviewed the wives recommended they be sent home.

Al Sadah's brother, who has been in Pakistan waiting to take them home, alleges the children and wives are being kept in poor conditions, deprived of adequate medical care and sunlight and that the children are traumatized and have not been allowed to go to school. [More..]

Bump: In an interview on "60 Minutes" tonight, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticizes Pakistan for arresting Shakil Afridi, the doctor that the CIA asked to run a fake vaccine program in hopes of getting DNA to confirm Osama bin Laden's presence at the Abbottabad compound. An inquiry commission in Pakistan has since recommended that Dr. Afridi be charged with high treason. Panetta says Pakistan should release Afridi:

“For them to take this kind of action against somebody who was helping to go after terrorism, I just think is a real mistake on their part.

[More...]

Pakistan has completed its interviews of Osama bin Laden's wives and children and declared them free to leave Pakistan and travel freely.

The Pakistani Commission also recommended that a physician who worked with the CIA to conduct a fake vaccination program designed to obtain DNA from the citizens of Abbouttabad be charged with treason.

The vaccination ruse has been widely criticized by aid agencies, which have said it could harm legitimate immunization programs in Pakistan. The vaccination team was reported to have gained access bin Laden's house in Abbottabad, but that it didn't confirm bin Laden's presence there.

The U.S. wants Pakistan to allow the doctor to live in the U.S.

Yesterday, the Australian reported information from Pakistani officials that the three wives of Osama bin Laden had turned on each other, and the older two were accusing the youngest, Amal Ahmed al-Sadah of Yemen, of betraying Osama bin Laden, either by supplying information or by allowing herself to be tracked to the compound. It read like an episode of Desperate Housewives.

Today, via The Sunday Times of London, the Australian reports the Seals left behind a comprehensive pocket guide, that indeed seems there must have been a mole. And that the Obama Administration's insistence that it wasn't sure Osama would be at the compound was disingenuous, at best. [More...]

Glenn Sargent at The Plum Line obtained a copy of the May 9th letter CIA Chief Leon Panetta wrote John McCain. He quotes three paragraphs:

Nearly 10 years of intensive intelligence work led the CIA to conclude that Bin Ladin was likely hiding at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. there was no one “essential and indispensible” key piece of information that led us to this conclusion. Rather, the intelligence picture was developed via painstaking collection and analysis. Multiple streams of intelligence — including from detainees, but also from multiple other sources — led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Ladin was at this compound. Some of the detainees who provided useful information about the facilitator/courier’s role had been subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. Whether those techniques were the “only timely and effective way” to obtain such information is a matter of debate and cannot be established definitively. What is definitive is that that information was only a part of multiple streams of intelligence that led us to Bin Ladin.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates was on "60 Minutes" tonight. He said he had doubts about the intelligence information that Osama bin Laden was at the Abbouttabad compound.

While he had confidence in the SEALs before the mission, Gates told us he was very nervous about the intelligence on the mission. "I was very concerned, frankly. I had real reservations about the intelligence. My worry was the level of uncertainty about whether bin Laden was even in the compound. There wasn't any direct evidence that he was there. It was all circumstantial. But it was the best information that we had since probably 2001," he explained.

"And did you feel you had to strike while the iron was hot, if you will?" (Katie) Couric asked. "I think everybody agreed that we needed to act and act pretty promptly," he replied.

Gates also had a lot of praise for President Obama: [More...]

Pakistan allowed U.S. officials to interview the three wives of Osama bin Laden who were at the compound in Abbottabad during the raid that killed Osama.

The wives were described as "hostile." Why wouldn't they be? All three lost a husband, one (or two, depending on which inconsistent report you believe) lost a son, and one was shot in the leg.

Reportedly, the eldest of the three wives spoke for the group. That would be Khairia Saaba, otherwise known as Umm Hamzah, who is 7 years older than Osama and the mother of the missing or dead or captured Hamza bin Laden. [More....]