Tag: Osama bin Laden (page 4)

Obama's speech: 9:36 p.m. (Live blogging) (Update: Full text now available here.)

Obama starts recounting the 9/11 attacks.

He says years ago Osama escaped from Afghanistan into Pakistan. After he took office, he directed Leon Panetta to make the killing or capture of Osama the top priority.

Last August, they got a lead. It took many months to run it to ground. Osama was within a compound deep into Pakistan. Obama determined last week we had enough intelligence to take action and he authorized an operation.

Today the targeted operation was carried out in Pakistan. No Americans or civilians were killed. They got Osama and recovered his body. Osama bin Laden was brought to justice. [More...]

Osama bin Laden released a tape today, threatening to kill any captured Americans if Khalid Sheikh Mohmammed is executed.

"The White House has expressed its desire to execute him," bin Laden said, according to a translation provided by Flashpoint Partners, which is headed by terrorism expert Evan Kohlmann. "The day America makes that decision will be the day it has issued a death sentence for any one of you that is taken captive."

U.S. Reaction:

U.S. officials dismissed the threat, saying that it has long been clear that Americans captured by al-Qaeda cannot expect to live.

This sounds like a weeks-old message delivered by carrier pigeon.

Osama bin Laden released a videotape yesterday claiming credit for AQAP and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed bomb plot on the Delta flight to Detroit on Christmas Day.

In a short recording carried by the Al-Jazeera Arabic news channel, bin Laden addressed President Barack Obama saying the attack was a message like that of Sept. 11 and more attacks against the U.S. would be forthcoming.

"The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the Sept. 11," he said.

"America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine," he added. "God willing, our raids on you will continue as long as your support to the Israelis will continue."

[More...]

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has a new report on Afghanistan.

The report states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops at least. It says that a review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants "removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora."

The blame for blowing the chance to get bin Laden -- and for the current state of the war in Afghanistan -- is placed squarely on former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his top commander Tommy Franks.

The full report is here (pdf). [More...]

NPR and other news outlets are reporting that the U.S. believes Osama bin Laden's 20-something year old son, Saad bin Laden, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan.

It's believed he was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a U.S. Predator drone sometime this year. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official tells NPR that without a body to conduct DNA tests on, it's hard to be completely sure. But he characterized U.S. spy agencies as being "80 to 85 percent" certain that Saad bin Laden is dead.

The airstrike was months ago. Why are we just hearing this now? Also,

The U.S. counterterrorism official says Saad bin Laden wasn't important enough to target personally — that he was "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Al-Jazeera reports that Osama bin Laden has released a tape critical of the U.S. and President Barack Obama.

It reported Bin Laden as saying that Obama was continuing in the steps of his predecessor, George Bush, and warning Americans to be prepared for the consequences of the White House's policies.

News of the recording came after Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia at a start of a trip that will also take him to Egypt, where he will deliver an eagerly awaited speech at Cairo University.

The New York Times has more details: [More...]

Bump and Update: ABC News has an explanation for the black beard in the Osama photo accompanying his upcoming video:

The "phony beard" may be an important clue as to where bin Laden is hiding, according to Clarke. "One place where a beard would stand out would be southeast Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia," Clarke told ABC News. "No one's thought he was there, but that is an environment where most men, Muslim men don't have beards."

ABC also reports U.S. authorities have obtained a transcript of the tape, which will be directed to suicide bombers.

Original Post 9/6/07
A New Osama bin Laden Video is Imminent

An Islamic website reports that Osama bin Laden will be releasing his first video since 2004 in time for the 6th anniversary of 9/11.

More....

Newsweek's Evan Thomas writes a 15 page online article on why we haven't found Osama bin Laden. A few snippets:

Rather than send the snake eaters to poke around mountain caves and mud-walled compounds, the U.S. military wanted to fight on a grander stage, where it could show off its mobility and firepower. To the civilian bosses at the Pentagon and the eager-to-please top brass, Iraq was a much better target.

By invading Iraq, the United States would give the Islamists—and the wider world—an unforgettable lesson in American power. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was on Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board and, at the time, a close confidant of the SecDef. In November 2001, Gingrich told a NEWSWEEK reporter, "There's a feeling we've got to do something that counts—and bombing caves is not something that counts."

Others say intelligence dried up long ago and the U.S. is just searching for a needle in a haystack, and the chance of success is "zero." Yet, without any intelligence on the whereabouts of Osama or what he's up to, experts quoted in the article maintain:

More...

Al-Jazeera broadcast part of an interview today (remainder to be broadcast tomorrow) with a Taliban leader who says Osama bin Laden is alive and was behind the attack on Bagram Air Force Base when Cheney visited in February. 14 (or 23) people died in the attack. Cheney was reportedly Osama's target.

Dadullah said Bin Laden planned and supervised the "suicide" operation which targeted Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, in Bargam air force base during his visit to Afghanistan in February. Dadullah said: "Thank God, he is alive, we get updated information about it. Thank God, he plans the operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

"You may remember the martyr operation inside the Bagram base which targeted a senior US official ... that operation was a result of his wise planning. "He planned that operation in details and guided us through it. The operation was a success."

The White House responds that it has not seen any intelligence to back up the claim.

ABC News' blog reports:

Armed with fresh intelligence, the CIA is moving additional man power and equipment into Pakistan in the effort to find Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, U.S. officials tell ABC News.

Officials tell ABC the trail's not cold.

People familiar with the CIA operation say undercover officers with paramilitary training have been ordered into Pakistan and the area across the border with Afghanistan as part of the ramp-up.

...Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testified last week that current intelligence "to the best of our knowledge" puts both bin Laden and al Zawahri in Pakistan. It was the first time a high-ranking U.S. official publicly identified Pakistan as bin Laden's hiding place.

This may just be a yearly thing, as bin Laden changes locations every March when the mountain snow covers melt.