Osama Bin Laden Dead

[mariomike]

“The nation’s fire fighters and paramedics are grateful to President Obama, our intelligence agencies and the U.S. military forces, including the Navy SEALS who carried out the mission, for providing some peace to the families of those who died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
We will always remember the 343 members of the FDNY who lost their lives responding that day and continue to think of and assist those still suffering the incredible health effects from working at Ground Zero and the Pentagon. We will never forget their sacrifice. This is a proud moment for America.”:
http://www.iaff.org/Comm/Press/11Press/BinLaden050211.pdf

"God bless the members of FDNY-EMS and remember all those members of EMS killed on 9-11":
http://www.fdnyemswebsite.com/Page13.html

Edit to add:
"I encourage every firefighter and EMS responder to be cautious and really pay attention," he said, noting that retaliation is very possible. "They really need to be aware for anything out of the ordinary."
Acting U.S. Fire Administrator Glenn Gaines

 

[Redeye]

When I read about his body being handled in accordance with Muslim tradition, my initial reaction was a bit mixed. Then, when I thought rationally about it, that's just another reason we're better than "them". I'm sure that Daniel Pearl's body was handled in accrodance with ?Jewish? tradition.  :

In fact, I have to wonder if the whole thing was well documented.  Releasing that video would probably be a great PR move for the US in the Islamic world.

 

[57Chevy]

                                        shared with provisions of The Copyright Act

Computer experts warn of bin Laden malware scams
Agence France-PresseMay 3, 2011
http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/story.html?id=4718177#ixzz1LJ7mbCkh

WASHINGTON - Computer security experts warned on Monday that online scammers have already started to exploit the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to spread malware.

"Watch out for the links you’re likely to come across in email or on social networking sites offering you additional coverage of this newsworthy event," Paul Ducklin of computer security firm Sophos said in a blog post.

"Many of the links you see will be perfectly legitimate links," Ducklin said. "But at least some are almost certain to be dodgy links, deliberately distributed to trick you into hostile Internet territory."

By late Monday, researchers at US computer security firm McAfee were seeing email messages as well as updates at social network Facebook and microblogging service Twitter baited with promises of pictures or news of bin Laden.

"I suppose this was just inevitable," David Marcus of McAfee said in an online message.

"The reported death of Osama bin Laden is just too good a lure for cybercriminals and scammers to pass up."

Cyber crooks were using "expected lures" in messages to dupe people into clicking on links booby-trapped with malicious software designed to steal data from or take control of infected computers, according to Marcus.

Ploys included a bogus promise of a look at a video debunking reports of his killing by showing the 9/11 mastermind holding up a newspaper with today’s date, McAfee reported.

Another trick was to promise graphic pictures of bin Laden’s corpse.

Mike Lennon of SecurityWeek said cybercriminals "typically use very attractive headlines to encourage users to click links and direct them to malware infected Web pages."

"Links are already beginning to spread across Facebook, similar to what happened following news of the recent earthquake in Japan," Lennon said.

"Users should be cautious of spam containing links to photos, videos and other information that sounds remarkably interesting on bin Laden’s death.

"Users also need to be cautious of tweets through Twitter, and Facebook posts, as cybercriminals gear up to attract unsuspecting traffic to spread malware," he continued.

Cybercriminals frequently use high-profile news events in a bid to entrap unsuspecting victims.

 

[Journeyman]

al Jazeera has an interesting take on it....

Osama's death 'a good career move'? 
Al-Qaeda's leader might appear to have died with a bang, but he had long since died with a whimper.
  Robert Grenier

For Osama bin Laden, violent death must have come as a blessing. It has given him, at least fleetingly, a seeming prominence that in fact had long since ebbed away, not only in the Muslim world, but even within al-Qaeda itself.

To many in the US, for whom bin Laden's demise is indeed an important event, president Barack Obama's announcement represents long-delayed justice for the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the fulfillment of a long-standing promise from two quite different US presidents. But in the Muslim world, where bin Laden and the movement he spawned produced the vast majority of their victims, the enigmatic Saudi's passing represents something quite different.

One supposes that for bin Laden, if he had any clear conception of his place in the world nearly 10 years after the attack which brought him to global prominence, life must have become unbearable. For the violent extremists whom bin Laden has sponsored and encouraged, it is a mark of pride that they seek death for what they believe. And even for those among them who hide in the shadows, it is with the conviction that they live today to strike at their enemies tomorrow.

But for bin Laden, who might well have met martyrdom with many of his followers at Tora Bora, such was his megalomaniacal conception of his importance that he believed his greatest contribution to the movement would be to ensure his own survival, even as those around him were martyred for the cause.

Consider, then, what it must have been like for such an ego to fade into functional obscurity. As he was reduced to issuing occasional audio tapes of increasing irrelevance, even the core of the organisation he founded learned to live without him. And the scattered little groups around the globe which had appropriated the al-Qaeda name in fact had little connection to bin Laden's organisation, and still less to bin Laden himself.

Complete article at LINK

 

[JB 11 11]

In fact, I have to wonder if the whole thing was well documented.  Releasing that video would probably be a great PR move for the US in the Islamic world.

Assuming that they did actually abide by Islamic traditions.... part of me would not be surprised if they simply kicked his body over the side of the ship followed by a few colourfull comments regarding his love for pork products

 

[a_majoor]

The narrative keeps changing. Now it seems there is some sort of power struggle to claim credit for the strike for whatever domestic political advantage it can gain:

http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/05/03/leon-panetta-not-obama-issued-order-to-kill-bin-laden/

Leon Panetta, not Obama, issued order to kill bin Laden?

Was it Leon Panetta – not a waffling Barack Obama, supported in his indecision by Valerie Jarett – who finally ordered the assassination of bin Laden. We don’t know the truth of this. We weren’t there. But a “White House insider” quoted on Socybrty says the following:

    Q: You stated that President Obama was “overruled” by military/intelligence officials regarding the decision to send in military specialists into the Osama Bin Laden compound. Was that accurate?

    A: I was told – in these exact terms, “we overruled him.” (Obama) I have since followed up and received further details on exactly what that meant, as well as the specifics of how Leon Panetta worked around the president’s “persistent hesitation to act.” There appears NOT to have been an outright overruling of any specific position by President Obama, simply because there was no specific position from the president to do so. President Obama was, in this case, as in all others, working as an absentee president.

    I was correct in stating there had been a push to invade the compound for several weeks if not months, primarily led by Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, David Petraeus, and Jim Clapper. The primary opposition to this plan originated from Valerie Jarrett, and it was her opposition that was enough to create uncertainty within President Obama. Obama would meet with various components of the pro-invasion faction, almost always with Jarrett present, and then often fail to indicate his position. This situation continued for some time, though the division between Jarrett/Obama and the rest intensified more recently, most notably from Hillary Clinton. She was livid over the president’s failure to act, and her office began a campaign of anonymous leaks to the media indicating such. As for Jarrett, her concern rested on two primary fronts. One, that the military action could fail and harm the president’s already weakened standing with both the American public and the world. Second, that the attack would be viewed as an act of aggression against Muslims, and further destabilize conditions in the Middle East.

There’s more of this astounding report at the link. Who knows? But it would account for why this took so long to happen.

h/t Webutante

This is sort of like a Bob Woodward story about infighting in the Bush White House. I would wonder when/if there will be any independent accounts backing this up/denying this story, or just a morass of accounts with different spins.

 

[57Chevy]

                                            shared with provisions of The Copyright Act

U.S. won't release photos of bin Laden, says Obama
Sheldon Alberts, Washington Correspondent, Postmedia NewsMay 4, 2011
http://www.canada.com/news/release+photos+Laden+says+Obama/4726053/story.html#ixzz1LPZyOfc4

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has decided not to release the death photos of Osama bin Laden, rejecting arguments that the United States needed to offer definitive proof the al-Qaida leader was indeed killed in a weekend raid by Navy SEALs.

Obama revealed his decision to CBS News in an interview taped with the current affairs program 60 Minutes, the network said on Twitter.

In concluding the photographs should remain classified, Obama sided with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who both counseled that releasing pictures of bin Laden could create a backlash against America in the Muslim world.

The president's decision comes just hours after CIA director Leon Panetta told U.S. media it was likely the photos would be released at some time.

"I just think it's important, they know we have it, to release it," Panetta said.

White House press secretary earlier this week described some of the images of bin Laden as "gruesome."

CNN, citing senior administration officials, said one set of photos taken of bin Laden's body upon the Navy SEALs' return to Afghanistan after the secret mission clearly identifies the al-Qaida leader but also shows an "open head wound across both eyes."

 

[HavokFour]

CNN, citing senior administration officials, said one set of photos taken of bin Laden's body upon the Navy SEALs' return to Afghanistan after the secret mission clearly identifies the al-Qaida leader but also shows an "open head wound across both eyes."

That terrible fake? Come on now CNN...

 

[jemcgrg]

Courtesy of Fox News.

Yes this is actually what they had displayed.

I love the news anchors face.

It looks like he is about to giggle

 

[jemcgrg]

This is an interesting birthday present too I suppose

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Great. If the picture is genuine, they've just compromised a Team member  :

 

[mariomike]

"Fake bin Laden photo leads to computer virus":
http://www.newspressnow.com/localnews/27779378/detail.html

 

[HavokFour]

Finally got some pictures of the aftermath. No Bin Laden, but these may be his brother and the courier. Helicopter wreckage included.

WARNING, GRAPHIC CONTENT.

[Mod edit to remove link to malicious site]

Note:  If you followed the link that used to be in this thread, run a virus check on your computer.  You were attacked.

 

[HavokFour]

Anyone know what kind of chopper it was? The tail looks really odd.

Whats left of the rest of it.

 

[PuckChaser]

Anyone know what kind of chopper it was? The tail looks really odd.

Army Times has cleared that up: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/05/army-mission-helocopter-was-secret-stealth-black-hawk-050411/

 

[tomahawk6]

Most everyone has seen a dead man. A Pakistani security man took photos of the OBL compound including the bodies of OBL associates. He sold the images to Reuters. Click on through the slides.Panetta admitted today that the White House lost the streaming video feed during the raid for 20-25 minutes.

Graphic warning.

http://www.reuters.com/subjects/bin-laden-compound

 

[a_majoor]

From ABC news:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/navy-seals-return-united-states-killing-osama-bin/story?id=13525344

Navy SEALs Who Captured, Killed Osama Bin Laden Return to United States

By PIERRE THOMAS (@PierreTABC) , MARTHA RADDATZ (@martharaddatz) , JAKE TAPPER (@jaketapper) and JESSICA HOPPER
May 4, 2011

The elite Navy SEAL fighters responsible for capturing and killing Osama bin Laden returned to the United States today. Before their return, a trove of information seized by the SEALS arrived at a FBI laboratory.
The SEALs, members of elite Team Six, arrived at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, D.C., sources told ABC News.

The arrival of the military members comes amid news that President Obama will not release photos of Bin Laden's corpse. Obama administration officials believe the photos could pose a national security risk and endanger Americans living in the United States and abroad.

A trove of information seized in the 40-minute raid that left Bin Laden dead arrived at an FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va., between Monday night and Tuesday, sources told ABC News. At least five computers, 10 hard drives and more than 100 digital media items, including disks, DVDs and thumb drives, traveled more than 7,000 miles to the FBI facility.

In addition to the digital media and paper documents, the Navy SEALs also took guns and a number of other items from the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound. Those guns have been checked for fingerprints, which will be run through a huge intelligence database that culls fingerprints from terrorist safe houses and the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

DNA evidence was taken from some of the killed and wounded who were guarding Bin Laden.

"We want to know who has been there and where else they may have been," one official said.

Duplicates of this data will be given to a special interagency task force at the CIA's counterterrorism center.
Of all the equipment that the SEALS took into and out of Bin Laden's sprawling compound in Abbottabad, the one thing they didn't have was a tape measure to help in identifying the terrorist. One SEAL was forced to lie down next to the corpse of Bin Laden to approximate his height, sources told ABC News.

Bin Laden appeared to be ready to run at any time with money and phone numbers stitched into his clothes when the SEALs found him on an upper floor of his compound.

Bin Laden's clothing had 500 euros and two phone numbers sewn into it, sources told ABC News. Analysts are tracing those phone numbers and going through each computer seized, running keyword searches using words like "explosives" or "weddings." Weddings is a word often used by al Qaeda to signify a bombing.
"There's a lot we have to go through, some encryption, some coding. It's in another language. It's in Arabic, so there's a lot to go through before we really find out what we have, but remember small pieces of information can be critically important," said Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

At a briefing on Capitol Hill, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said that some of the information seized has already been reviewed by her agency.

As the material is examined, analysts will look to see if more individuals should be added to the terrorist and no-fly watchlists.

"The material that was seized will be reviewed by an interagency team -- CIA, Justice, other intelligence agencies and other law enforcement agencies are all contributing people and machines. ... As we glean information from that material we will make appropriate determinations about who would be added to the watchlist and no-fly list," said Attorney General Eric Holder at Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing today.

Osama bin Laden Unarmed During Raid

Officials said the No. 1 priority in evaluating the information would be to hunt for sketches and plans for attacks abroad and within the United States that Bin Laden had approved. Second, analysts are hunting for evidence regarding Ayman al-Zawahiri's whereabouts. He is al Qaeda's No. 2 in command and U.S. officials assume that Bin Laden knew where he was and how to contact him.

"It's our best opportunity for new clues about him," one official said.

When the 24 SEALs arrived by helicopter to the sprawling million-dollar compound in Abbottabad, intelligence showed only 60 percent to 80 percent certainty that Bin Laden was in the compound.
"The reality was we could have gone in there and not found Bin Laden at all," said CIA Director Leon Panetta on PBS' Newshour.

The president and top advisers, including Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, watched the action in real time, likely in night vision from a drone aircraft.
Panetta was on a corner of the screen explaining to the president and his team what they were seeing.

Panetta was receiving information from Vice Admiral William McRaven, a former SEAL himself. McRaven was running the operation.

"He is a stud. ... When things were at their tensest, he just got cooler," said one official about McRaven.
Things got tense when one of the Blackhawk helicopters stalled, breaking a rotor on the 18-foot walls of the compound. The SEALs switched to plan B and brought in a Chinook helicopter.

The elite team engaged in a firefight with Bin Laden's two trusted couriers, waking up neighbors.
"I heard gunfire around 1 a.m.," said Syed Riaz Hussein. "It was followed by a huge blast."

The SEALs moved to the third floor of the compound where they found Bin Laden. The 9/11 mastermind was unarmed. His young wife charged at the SEALs and was shot in the leg.

The SEALs worried that Bin Laden might be wearing a suicide vest or have the room booby trapped.
White House spokesman Jay Carney reaffirmed that killing Bin Laden -- even though he was unarmed -- was lawful.

"The team had the authority to kill Osama bin Laden unless he offered to surrender, in which case the team was required to accept his surrender if the team could do so safely. The operation was conducted in a manner fully consistent with the laws of war," said Carney at a press conference today.

Five people died, including Bin Laden's son Khalid. Twelve to 15 others, including women and children, survived the raid. At least two women and two children who survived have been taken to Islamabad.
The first indication for Obama that Bin Laden had been killed came when a Navy SEAL sent back the coded message to Washington that said simply "Geronimo-E KIA."

ABC News' Luis Martinez, Nick Schifrin, Habibullah Khan, Brian Ross and Lisa Jones contributed to this report.

 

[StepDad]

Apparently that chopper may be a new top secret STEALTH technology chopper. Special blades make it very low noise as well as stealthy. You can only hear it when it's directly overhead and the noise level is substantially less than a normal chopper. Was HE worth the risk. There is now a chance that stealth technology could fall into Chinese hands.

 

[MikeL]

Apparently that chopper may be a new top secret STEALTH technology chopper. Special blades make it very low noise as well as stealthy. You can only hear it when it's directly overhead and the noise level is substantially less than a normal chopper. Was HE worth the risk. There is now a chance that stealth technology could fall into Chinese hands.

Any source about this possible sealth tech to China?

The helo was BIP'd, and looking at the pics there isn't to much left of it anyways. Is that going to be enough to reverse engineer? Something, I don't know. 

 

[StepDad]

My comment about the secrecy of the chopper was based on reports made on CNN very early this AM. Pentagon will apparently not comment on it.