Overnight, the US President has reported that Osama Bin Laden was killed in a raid on a hill-top compound with 12 - 18 ft barb wire topped walls in Abbottabad, 32 mi N of Islamabad, Pakistan. Map:
Summary report here. Clipping:
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is dead and the U.S. has his body, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.
The terror mastermind of al-Qaida responsible for the 9/11 attacks on America was shot in the head by U.S. forces in a mansion outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad . . . .
[US President Obama reported in his announcement:] "Last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible to lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain and it took many months to run this thread to the ground.
"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 [apparently 20 -25 Seals with accompanying Pakistani forces, helicoptered in from Afghanistan in four helicopters, one of which crashed due to mechanical difficulties] 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," said Obama. "Justice has been done."
According to news reports he has been identified through DNA testing (Reuters mentions facial recognition technology, accor. to Wiki) and has already been buried at sea.
This evidently ends a chapter in the ongoing global war with Islamist terrorism. END
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F/N: Wikipedia is often a good source to track developing news. Wiki article is here.
F/N 2: Atlas Shrugs on the behind the scenes details, here. This includes that the key information on the courier apparently came out of the CIA's "enhanced interrogations" of Gitmo detainees Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his successor as Al Qaeda operations commander, Abu Faraj; i.e. the controversial waterboarding programme.
F/N 3: Nonie Darwish on why it took 10 years. Speculative, but worth pondering. Cf. this from Wikileaks on how Pakistani military/security sources would tip Bin Laden off whenever the US got too close, especially in light of the near proximity [perhaps 1/2 mi] of his compound to a Pakistani Military training base.
F/N 4: Daily Telegraph news story timeline. Al Jazeera live blog timeline.
F/N 5: For the record, courtesy PL: A Hamas leader's protest at the death of Bin Laden. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood -- poised to perhaps be 1/2 of Egypt's post revolution parliament -- chimes in. (Hamas is actually the Palestinian off-shoot of the MB.)
F/N 2: Atlas Shrugs on the behind the scenes details, here. This includes that the key information on the courier apparently came out of the CIA's "enhanced interrogations" of Gitmo detainees Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his successor as Al Qaeda operations commander, Abu Faraj; i.e. the controversial waterboarding programme.
F/N 3: Nonie Darwish on why it took 10 years. Speculative, but worth pondering. Cf. this from Wikileaks on how Pakistani military/security sources would tip Bin Laden off whenever the US got too close, especially in light of the near proximity [perhaps 1/2 mi] of his compound to a Pakistani Military training base.
F/N 4: Daily Telegraph news story timeline. Al Jazeera live blog timeline.
F/N 5: For the record, courtesy PL: A Hamas leader's protest at the death of Bin Laden. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood -- poised to perhaps be 1/2 of Egypt's post revolution parliament -- chimes in. (Hamas is actually the Palestinian off-shoot of the MB.)
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