Anglonautes > History > 2011 > USA > Terrorism > Osama bin Laden is killed (II)

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History > 2011 > USA > Terrorism (II)

President Obama on Death of Osama bin Laden

Video White House Published 1st May 2011

President Obama

praises those Americans who carried out

the operation to kill Osama bin Laden,

tells the families of the victims of September 11, 2001

that they have never been forgotten,

and calls on Americans

to remember the unity of that tragic day.

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=ZNYmK19-d0U&feature=channel_video_title

U.S. raid opens Pakistani military

to rare domestic criticism

KARACHI | Wed May 4, 2011
9:42am EDT
Reuters
By Faisal Aziz

KARACHI (Reuters) - The special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden was a major intelligence coup for the United States but it has opened up its ally the Pakistani military to accusations of incompetence and domestic criticism of the usually respected force.

Pakistan's army has long been seen as the most effective institution in an unstable country where civilian leaders are seen as too inept and corrupt to handle any crisis.

Now political parties and ordinary Pakistanis are asking unusually tough questions about how the assault could have taken place in a garrison town without the knowledge of the army.

The United States wants to know if Pakistan -- recipient of billions of dollars in U.S. military aid -- knew that bin Laden was living comfortably in the city of Abbottabad not far from the capital.

For some Pakistanis, the burning, and embarrassing issue, is how the assault in a city beside a Pakistani military academy took place while the army was kept in the dark.

"Every Pakistani wants to know how come the borders of an independent and sovereign country were violated, an attack was carried out, people killed and then the foreign attackers fled safely, and our agencies remained unaware," said Altaf Hussain, of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a key government ally.

Pakistan has welcomed bin Laden's death, but its foreign ministry expressed "deep concerns" about the raid, which it called an "unauthorized unilateral action."

The CIA said it kept Pakistan out of the loop because it feared bin Laden would be tipped off, highlighting the depth of mistrust between the two supposed allies.

"ARE WE SAFE?"

There have been only small scattered protests against bin Laden's killing in Pakistan, where anti-U.S. sentiment runs high, but a small group of women doctors staged a protest in Abbottabad to criticize the army.

"Wake up army" and "where is national pride?" read placards carried by some of the women.

U.S. helicopters carrying the commandos used radar "blind spots" in the hilly terrain along the Afghan border to enter Pakistani airspace undetected in the early hours of Monday.

"There is not just confusion that prevails in Pakistan, but also a national depression at the loss of national dignity and self-esteem as well as sovereignty," cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, wrote in Britain's Independent newspaper.

The Pakistani media, as well as ordinary people, are not only decrying what they say is a breach of sovereignty, but are also worried about the safety of the country's nuclear weapons.

"The biggest question is where do we stand now? We had the belief that our defense was impenetrable, but look what has happened. Such a massive intrusion and it went undetected," said prominent television political anchor Kamran Khan.

"After such a lapse, what is the guarantee that our strategic assets and security installations are safe? There is anger all around, and this is a cause where anger should be built," he said.

Pakistan spends a huge chunk of its budget every year on defense, thanks to its old rivalry with neighbor India and the war against homegrown Taliban militants.

The military, though often criticized for its role in politics, is largely respected.

"We have been feeding the military for decades at the cost of our children's future, their education, everything," said Ibrahim Ali, a shopkeeper in a middle class neighborhood of the city of Karachi.

"But look how capable they are. Tomorrow, the Indians will come and attack us and we will just say that they used technology and exploited the blind spots. It's ridiculous."

(Additional reporting by Sahar Ahmed;
Editing by Michael Georgy and Robert Birsel)

U.S. raid opens Pakistani military to rare domestic criticism,
R,
4.5.2011,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-binladen-pakistan-army/
u-s-raid-opens-pakistani-military-to-rare-domestic-criticism-idUSTRE7432SA20110504

Special report:

Why the U.S. mistrusts

Pakistan's spies

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON
Thu May 5, 2011
8:46am EDT
Reuters
By Chris Allbritton
and Mark Hosenball

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In 2003 or 2004, Pakistani intelligence agents trailed a suspected militant courier to a house in the picturesque hill town of Abbottabad in northern Pakistan.

There, the agents determined that the courier would make contact with one of the world's most wanted men, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who had succeeded September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammad as al Qaeda operations chief a few months earlier.

Agents from Pakistan's powerful and mysterious Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as the ISI, raided a house but failed to find al-Libbi, a senior Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters this week.

Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf later wrote in his memoirs that an interrogation of the courier revealed that al-Libbi used three houses in Abbottabad, which sits some 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Islamabad. The intelligence official said that one of those houses may have been in the same compound where on May 1 U.S. special forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

It's a good story. But is it true? Pakistan's foreign ministry this week used the earlier operation as evidence of Pakistan's commitment to the fight against terrorism. You see, Islamabad seemed to be pointing out, we were nabbing bad guys seven years ago in the very neighborhood where you got bin Laden.

But U.S. Department of Defense satellite photos show that in 2004 the site where bin Laden was found this week was nothing but an empty field. A U.S. official briefed on the bin Laden operation told Reuters he had heard nothing to indicate there had been an earlier Pakistani raid.

There are other reasons to puzzle. Pakistan's foreign ministry says that Abbottabad, home to several military installations, has been under surveillance since 2003. If that's true, then why didn't the ISI uncover bin Laden, who U.S. officials say has been living with his family and entourage in a well-guarded compound for years?

The answer to that question goes to the heart of the troubled relationship between Pakistan and the United States. Washington has long believed that Islamabad, and especially the ISI, play a double game on terrorism, saying one thing but doing another.

MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE

Since 9/11 the United States has relied on Pakistan's military to fight al Qaeda and Taliban forces in the mountainous badlands along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. President George W. Bush forged a close personal relationship with military leader Musharraf.

But U.S. officials have also grown frustrated with Pakistan. While Islamabad has been instrumental in catching second-tier and lower ranked al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, and several operatives identified as al Qaeda "number threes" have either been captured or killed, the topmost leaders - bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman al Zawahiri -- have consistently eluded capture.

The ISI, which backed the Taliban when the group came to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, seemed to turn a blind eye -- or perhaps even helped -- as Taliban and al-Qaeda members fled into Pakistan during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, according to U.S. officials.

Washington also believes the agency protected Abdul Qadeer Khan, lionized as the "father" of Pakistan's bomb, who was arrested in 2004 for selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

And when Kashmiri militants attacked the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008, killing 166 people, New Delhi accused the ISI of controlling and coordinating the strikes. A key militant suspect captured by the Americans later told investigators that ISI officers had helped plan and finance the attack. Pakistan denies any active ISI connection to the Mumbai attacks and often points to the hundreds of troops killed in action against militants as proof of its commitment to fighting terrorism.

But over the past few years Washington has grown increasingly suspicious-and ready to criticize Pakistan. The U.S. military used association with the spy agency as one of the issues they would question Guantanamo Bay prisoners about to see if they had links to militants, according to WikiLeaks documents made available last month to the New York Times.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last July that she believed that Pakistani officials knew where bin Laden was holed up. On a visit to Pakistan just days before the Abbottabad raid, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused the ISI of maintaining links with the Taliban.

As the CIA gathered enough evidence to make the case that bin Laden was in Abbottabad, U.S. intel chiefs decided that Pakistan should be kept in the dark. When U.S. Navy Seals roped down from helicopters into the compound where bin Laden was hiding, U.S. officials insist, Pakistan's military and intel bosses were blissfully unaware of what was happening in the middle of their country.

Some suspect Pakistan knew more than it's letting on. But the Pakistani intelligence official, who asked to remain anonymous so that he could speak candidly, told Reuters that the Americans had acted alone and without any Pakistani assistance or permission.

The reality is Washington long ago learned to play its own double game. It works with Islamabad when it can and uses Pakistani assets when it's useful but is ever more careful about revealing what it's up to.

"On the one hand, you can't not deal with the ISI... There definitely is the cooperation between the two agencies in terms of personnel working on joint projects and the day-to-day intelligence sharing," says Kamran Bokhari, Middle East and South Asia director for global intelligence firm STRATFOR. But "there is this perception on the part of the American officials working with their counterparts in the ISI, there is the likelihood that some of these people might be working with the other side. Or somehow the information we're sharing could leak out... It's the issue of perception and suspicion."

The killing of bin Laden exposes just how dysfunctional the relationship has become. The fact that bin Laden seems to have lived for years in a town an hour's drive from Islamabad has U.S. congressmen demanding to know why Washington is paying $1 billion a year in aid to Pakistan. Many of the hardest questions are directed at the ISI. Did it know bin Laden was there? Was it helping him? Is it rotten to the core or is it just a few sympathizers?

What's clear is that the spy agency America must work within one of the world's most volatile and dangerous regions remains an enigma to outsiders.

GENERAL PASHA

ISI chief Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha visited Washington on April 11, just weeks before bin Laden was killed. Pasha, 59, became ISI chief in September 2008, two months before the Mumbai attacks. Before his promotion, he was in charge of military operations against Islamic militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. He is considered close to Pakistan military chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, himself a long-time ISI chief.

A slight man who wastes neither words nor movements, Pasha speaks softly and is able to project bland anonymity even as he sizes up his companions and surroundings. In an off-the-record interview with Reuters last year, he spoke deliberately and quietly but seemed to enjoy verbal sparring. There was none of the bombast many Pakistani officials put on.

Pasha, seen by U.S. officials as something of a right-wing nationalist, and CIA Director Leon Panetta, who was in the final stages of planning the raid on Osama's compound, had plenty to talk about in Washington. Joint intelligence operations have been plagued by disputes, most notably the case of Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore in January. Davis was released from jail earlier this year after the victims' families were paid "blood money" by the United States, a custom sanctioned under Islam and common in Pakistan.

Then there are the Mumbai attacks. Pasha and other alleged ISI officers were named as defendants in a U.S. lawsuit filed late last year by families of Americans killed in the attacks. The lawsuit contends that the ISI men were involved with Lashkar-e-Taiba, an anti-India militant group, in planning and orchestrating the attacks.

An Indian government report seen by Reuters states that David Headley, a Pakistani-American militant who was allied with Lashkar-e-Taiba and who was arrested in the United States last year, told Indian interrogators while under FBI supervision that ISI officers had been involved in plotting the attack and paid him $25,000 to help fund it.

Pakistan's government said it will "strongly contest" the case and shortly after the lawsuit was filed Pakistani media named the undercover head of the CIA's Islamabad station, forcing him to leave the country.

TECHNIQUE OF WAR

The ISI's ties to Islamist militancy are very much by design.

The Pakistan Army's humiliating surrender to India in Dhaka in 1971 led to the carving up of the country into two parts, one West Pakistan and the other Bangladesh. The defeat had two major effects: it convinced the Pakistan military that it could not beat its larger neighbor through conventional means alone, a realization that gave birth to its use of Islamist militant groups as proxies to try to bleed India; and it forced successive Pakistani governments to turn to Islam as a means of uniting the territory it had left.

These shifts, well underway when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, suited the United States at first. Working with its Saudi Arabian ally, Washington plowed money and weapons into the jihad against the Soviets and turned a blind eye to the excesses of Pakistan's military ruler, General Zia ul-Haq, who had seized power in 1977 and hanged former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1979.

Many Pakistanis blame the current problems in Pakistan in part on Washington's penchant for supporting military rulers. It did the same in 2001 when it threw it its lot with Musharraf following the attacks on New York and Washington. By then, the rebellion in Indian Kashmir had been going since 1989, and U.S. officials back in 2001 made little secret that they knew the army was training, arming and funding militants to fight there.

That attitude changed after India and Pakistan nearly went to war following the December 2001 attack on India's parliament, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militant groups -- a charge Islamabad denied. Musharraf began to rein in the Kashmiri militant groups, restricting their activity across the Line of Control which divides the Indian and Pakistani parts of Kashmir. But he was juggling the two challenges which continue to defy his successor as head of the army, General Ashfaq Kayani -- reining in the militant groups enough to prevent an international backlash on Pakistan, while giving them enough space to operate to avoid domestic fall-out at home.

The ISI has never really tried to hide the fact that it sees terrorism as part of its arsenal. When Guantanamo interrogation documents appearing to label the Pakistani security agency as an entity supporting terrorism were published recently, a former ISI head, Lt. General Asad Durrani, wrote that terrorism "is a technique of war, and therefore an instrument of policy."

Critics believe that elements of the ISI -- perhaps an old guard that learned the Islamization lessons of General Zia ul-Haq a little too well -- maintain an influence within the organization. "It is no secret that Pakistan's army and foreign intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, actively cultivated a vast array of Islamist militants - both local and foreign, from the early 1980s until at least the events of September 11, 2001 - as instruments of foreign policy," STRATFOR wrote in an analysis posted on its website this week.

LIST OF GRIEVANCES

That legacy is at the heart of Washington's growing mistrust of the ISI.

Take the agency's ties to the powerful Afghan militant group headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani, which has inflicted heavy casualties on U.S. forces in the region.

"We sometimes say: You are controlling -- you, Pasha -- you're controlling Haqqani," one U.S. official said, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"Well, Pasha will come back and say ... 'No, we are in contact with them.' Well, what does that really mean?"

"I don't know but I'd like our experts to sit down and work out: Is this something where he is trying (to), as he would put it, know more about what a terrorist group in his country is doing. Or as we would put it, to manipulate these people as the forward soldiers of Pakistani influence in Afghanistan."

When U.S. Joint Chiefs head Admiral Mike Mullen visited Islamabad last month he was just as blunt.

"Haqqani is supporting, funding, training fighters that are killing Americans and killing coalition partners. And I have a sacred obligation to do all I can to make sure that doesn't happen," Mullen told a Pakistani newspaper.

"So that's at the core -- it's not the only thing -- but that's at the core that I think is the most difficult part of the relationship."

Just across the border in Afghanistan, Major General John Campbell reaches into a bag and pulls out a thick stack of cards with the names and photos of coalition forces killed in the nearly year-long period since he's been on the job. Many of the men in the photos were killed by Haqqani fighters.

"I carry these around so I never forget their sacrifice," Campbell said, speaking to a small group of reporters at U.S. Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khost province.

"There are guys in Pakistan that have sanctuary that are coming across the border and killing Americans... we gotta engage the Pakistanis to do something about that," he said.

Campbell calls the Haqqani network the most lethal threat to Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are entrenched in a near decade-old war.

"The Haqqani piece, it's sort of like a Mafia-syndicate. And I don't know at what level they're tied into the ISI -- I don't. But there's places ... that you just see that there's collusion up and down the border," he said.

DRONE WARS

Another contentious subject discussed on Pasha's trip to Washington was the use of missile-firing drones to attack suspected militant camps on Pakistani territory.

Once Obama moved into the White House, the drone program begun by the Bush Administration not only continued, but according to several officials, increased. Sometimes drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan took place several times in a single week.

U.S. officials, as well as counter-terrorism officials from European countries with a history of Islamic militant activity, said that they had no doubt that the drone campaign was seriously damaging the ability of al Qaeda's central operation, as well as affiliated groups like the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, to continue to use Pakistan as a safe haven.

But the increasingly obvious use of drones made it far more difficult for either the CIA or its erstwhile Pakistani partners, ISI, to pretend that the operation was secret and that Pakistani officials were unaware of it. Since last October, the tacit cooperation between the CIA and ISI which had helped protect and even nurture the CIA's drone program, began to fray, and came close to breaking point.

Before Pasha visited CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, last month, Pakistani intelligence sources leaked ferocious complaints about the CIA in general and the drone program in particular, suggesting that the agency, its operatives and its operations inside Pakistan were out of control and that if necessary, Pakistan would take forcible steps to curb them -- including stopping drone attacks and limiting the presence of CIA operatives in Pakistan.

When Pasha arrived at CIA HQ, U.S. officials said, the demands leaked by the Pakistanis to the media were much scaled down, with Pasha asking Panetta that the US give Pakistan more notice about drone operations, supply Pakistan with its own fleet of drones (a proposal which the United States had agreed to but which had subsequently stalled) and that the agency would curb the numbers of its personnel in Pakistan.

U.S. officials said that the Obama administration agreed to at least some measure of greater notification to the Pakistani authorities about CIA activities, though insisted any concessions were quite limited.

Just weeks later, Obama failed to notify Pakistan in advance about the biggest U.S. counter-terrorist operation in living memory, conducted on Pakistani soil.

LEARNING FROM HISTORY

It was different the first time U.S. forces went after bin Laden.

Washington's first attempt to kill the al Qaeda leader came in August 1998. President Bill Clinton launched 66 cruise missiles from the Arabian Sea at camps in Khost in eastern Afghanistan to kill the group's top brass in retaliation for the suicide bombings on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The CIA had received word that al Qaeda's leadership was due to meet. But Bin Laden canceled the meeting and several U.S. officials said at the time they believed the ISI had tipped him off. The U.S. military informed their Pakistani counterparts about 90 minutes before the missiles entered Pakistan's airspace, just in case they mistook them for an Indian attack.

Then U.S. Secretary of State William Cohen came to suspect bin Laden escaped because he was tipped off. Four days before the operation, the State Department issued a public warning about a "very serious threat" and ordered hundreds of nonessential U.S. personnel and dependents out of Pakistan. Some U.S. officials said the Taliban could have passed the word to bin Laden on an ISI tip.

Other former officials have disputed the notion of a security breach, saying bin Laden had plenty of notice that the United States intended to retaliate following the bombings in Africa.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Now that the U.S. has finally killed bin Laden, what will change?

The Pakistani intelligence official acknowledged that bin Laden's presence in Pakistan will cause more problems with the United States. "It looks bad," he said. "It's pretty embarrassing." But he denied that Pakistan had been hiding bin Laden, and noted that the CIA had struggled to find bin Laden for years as well.

Perhaps. But the last few days are unlikely to convince the CIA and other U.S. agencies to trust their Pakistani counterparts with any kind of secrets or partnership.

Recent personnel changes at the top of the Obama Administration also do not bode well for salvaging the relationship.

Panetta, a former Congressman and senior White House official, is a political operator who officials say at least got on cordially, if not well, with ISI chief Pasha. But Panetta is being reassigned to take over from Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. His replacement at the CIA will be General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. military operations in neighboring Afghanistan.

The biggest issue on Petraeus's agenda will be dealing with Pakistan's ISI. The U.S. general's relationship with Pakistani Army chief of Staff Kayani, Pasha's immediate superior, is publicly perceived to be so unfriendly that it has become a topic of discussion on Pakistani TV talk shows.

"I think it is going to be a very strained and difficult relationship," said Bruce Riedel, a former adviser to Obama on Afghanistan and Pakistan. He characterized the attitude on both sides as "mutual distrust."

After a decade of American involvement in Afghanistan, experts say that Petraeus and Pakistani intelligence officials know each other well enough not to like each other.

(Additional reporting by Rebecca Conway in Islamabad, Mark Hosenball and Phil Stewart in Washington, and Sanjeev Miglani in Singapore)

(Writing by Bill Tarrant; editing by Simon Robinson,
Claudia Parsons and Jim Impoco)

Special report: Why the U.S. mistrusts Pakistan's spies, R, 5.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/05/us-binladen-pakistan-isi-idUSTRE74408220110505

Analysis:

Could bin Laden have reached

Pakistan nuclear sites?

ISLAMABAD | Thu May 5, 2011
8:04am EDT
Reuters
By Michael Georgy

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Revelations that Osama bin Laden spent years in Pakistan before he was killed there must be rattling anyone who believes al Qaeda and its allies can get their hands on the unstable country's nuclear arsenal.

During his time at a fortified compound, did the world's most wanted man manage to sneak supporters into Pakistan's nuclear sites to gain the ultimate weapon for global holy war?

That's a question that could haunt some policy makers in Western capitals for many years.

The answer among experts is a resounding no, but bin Laden's stay here is fueling concern about Pakistan's overall stability, vital for securing its nuclear weapons.

Anthony Cordesman, a national security analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said the fact that bin Laden had managed to evade capture for so long in Pakistan should not raise additional red flags about the security of the country's nuclear arsenal.

Measures used to monitor people are completely different in intensity than that used to keep track of nuclear weapons.

Realities on the ground did not change while bin Laden was living in a mansion in the city of Abbottabad -- which is near a military academy -- before U.S. special forces killed him.

Experts say weapons are not mated with delivery systems and mastering the nuclear command system could take years - even if al Qaeda, which is known to be actively seeking nuclear material, was able to plant its own nuclear scientists.

So al Qaeda or its allies launching a Pakistani nuclear warhead seems inconceivable.

Militants could exploit Pakistan's chaos to steal enough radioactive material to build a dirty bomb, which does not require as much technical know-how.

Pakistan, a South Asian nation that often lurches from one political or economic crisis to another, has long insisted that its nuclear arms are secure.

Bin Laden's presence in the country, however, has deepened suspicions that al Qaeda and its Taliban partners have sympathizers in Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency. Pakistani officials deny any collusion with al Qaeda.

"If a portion of the intelligence community knew he was there but the Pakistani government at an official level did not, then it raises another host of issues about whether you have these sort of pockets of dissidents ... within the system that for their own reasons .... choose to do things that are not official policy," said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.

Personnel assigned to sensitive nuclear facilities are all vetted by the Pakistani intelligence service.

"CHECKERED HISTORY"

The possibility that the ISI knew bin Laden was in Pakistan is troubling for the United States, which has poured billions of dollars in military aid into Pakistan hoping it would be a reliable partner in the war on militancy.

"There are a set of vulnerabilities around Pakistan's ever-increasing nuclear arsenal; and there are burgeoning efforts by terrorists to get nuclear weapons/technology," said Professor Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at the University of Bradford.

"Many of the most likely vectors of that transfer involve the possibility of collusion by one or more of those with access to nuclear weapons or materials in Pakistan, which probably number 50,000 to 70,000 people."

Pakistan's nuclear program has been under suspicion since 2004 in part because of leading scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's smuggling ring stretching to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

In December, Pakistan dismissed Western concerns over the security of its nuclear weapons program following the publication of U.S. State Department cables by anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks.

A fresh cache of U.S. diplomatic cables showed widespread concern about the safety of the weapons with worries stretching from Washington to Riyadh to Moscow.

The stakes are getting higher. Experts say Pakistan has been building additional nuclear weapons by boosting its plutonium, and now may have up to 100 weapons.

Olli Heinonen, senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, noted in a blog that at the end of this decade Pakistan is poised to have the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal, trailing only the United States, Russia and China.

Western countries fear al Qaeda will press on with its global holy war despite losing bin Laden so the security of Pakistan's nuclear program will remain under close scrutiny.

Heinonen suggested more assurances were needed that nuclear materials and facilities are fully under Pakistani government control and are operated safely.

"Pakistan's nuclear program has had a checkered history. The death of bin Laden creates an opportunity for Pakistan to chart a new nuclear future," wrote Heinonen, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency's nuclear safeguards inspections worldwide.

Pakistani security analysts say it would have been very difficult for bin Laden to infiltrate Pakistan's nuclear establishment. But some say his presence in Pakistan sent a troubling signal.

"It would have been difficult for al Qaeda people to get even a menial job in a Pakistani nuclear facility," said Imtiaz Gul, author of "The Most Dangerous Place", a book about Pakistan's lawless frontiers, strongholds of militant groups.

"Still. It is worrying for all Pakistanis that the most wanted person in the world lived in this country undetected."

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington, Fredrik Dahl in Vienna, Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Rebecca Conway in Islamabad; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Analysis: Could bin Laden have reached Pakistan nuclear sites?, R, 5.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/05/us-binladen-pakistan-nuclear-analysis-idUSTRE7442VC20110505

Pakistan Islamists to protest

against U.S. bin Laden raid

ISLAMABAD | Thu May 5, 2011
2:41am EDT
Reuters
By Saeed Azhar

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's most influential Islamist party urged its followers to hold mass rallies on Friday to demand their government withdraw its support of the U.S. war on militancy after U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad.

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), one of the country's biggest religious political parties, said the United States had violated the sovereignty of key ally Pakistan by sending its own forces into the garrison town of Abbottabad to kill the al Qaeda leader.

Pakistan's support is key to U.S. efforts to combat Islamist militants, and also to fighting against the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.

"Even if there was any sympathy for the Americans, that would dissipate after the way they crushed and violated our sovereignty and our independence," JI chief Syed Munawar Hasan told Reuters on Thursday.

"We have appealed to everyone to hold peaceful demonstrations on Friday on a very large scale," he said. "Our first demand is Pakistan.... should withdraw from the war on terror."

Anti-American sentiment runs high in Pakistan, despite billions of dollars in aid for the nuclear-armed country with a troubled economy. Pakistan's religious parties have not traditionally done well at the ballot box, but they wield considerable influence in a country where Islam is becoming more radicalized.

There have so far been few public protests in Pakistan against bin Laden's killing early on Monday at Abbottabad, 50 kms (31 miles) north of Islamabad. One of Pakistan's most violent militant groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba, held special prayers for the al Qaeda leader and called his death "martyrdom."

The United States war on militancy is unpopular in Pakistan, because of the often high civilian cost of drone attacks against suspected militants along the Afghan border. But many people are also critical of al Qaeda's radical interpretation of Islam and the suicide bombings its followers carry out.

The fact that bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, after having appeared to have lived there for several years, has also embarrassed many people in the government and the country's powerful spy agency.

(Editing by Michael Georgy and Miral Fahmy)

Pakistan Islamists to protest against U.S. bin Laden raid, R, 5.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/05/us-binladen-pakistan-protest-idUSTRE74414N20110505

U.S. reaffirms firefight

at bin Laden compound

WASHINGTON | Wed May 4, 2011
10:03pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials reaffirmed on Wednesday that there was a firefight at the compound in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden was killed, despite growing questions about the Obama administration's version of events and revelations the al Qaeda leader was not armed.

"I know for a fact that shots were exchanged during this operation," said a Pentagon official.

After a briefing by senior intelligence and defense officials, members of the House Armed Services Committee declined to discuss details of what they had been told.

But asked about bin Laden being shot unarmed, the senior Democrat on the panel, Representative Adam Smith, told reporters the U.S. assault team did come under fire.

"They came in at night. It was dark. There were people moving around. They were fired at by, I think more than one person," Smith said. "There were weapons in the area. It was a fast-moving situation in which they felt threatened and they responded accordingly."

Citing U.S. officials, NBC reported that four of the five people shot to death in the operation that killed bin Laden, including the al Qaeda leader, were unarmed and never fired a shot --an account that differs from the administration's original assertions the Navy SEALS engaged in a prolonged firefight.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon said the identification of bin Laden included a DNA comparison with bin Laden's mother and three sons.

"He was identified multiple ways. DNA photograph analysis, there is no question," Smith added.

The House Armed Services Committee was not shown pictures of bin Laden but some members asked to see them so they could tell constituents they saw them, McKeon said.

Another member of the panel, Representative Rob Andrews, said the more people that could validate bin Laden's death, the less likely the conspiracy theorists could thrive. Andrews said he would like to see the photos to help "stamp out conspiracy nonsense."

(Reporting by JoAnne Allen; Editing by Peter Cooney)

U.S. reaffirms firefight at bin Laden compound, R, 4.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/05/us-binladen-firefight-idUSTRE7440BN20110505

Special report:

Why the U.S. mistrusts

Pakistan's spy agency

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON | Wed May 4, 2011
9:14pm EDT
Reuters
By Chris Allbritton and Mark Hosenball

Special report: Why the U.S. mistrusts Pakistan's spy agency, R, 4.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/05/us-binladen-pakistan-isi-idUSTRE74408220110505

Obama decides

not to release bin Laden photos

WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD | Wed May 4, 2011
7:13pm EDT
Reuters
By Jeremy Pelofsky and Kamran Haider

WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD (Reuters) - President Barack Obama decided on Wednesday not to release photographs of slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's body, saying they could incite violence and be used by militants as a propaganda tool.

Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking to head off suggestions that killing bin Laden was illegal, said the U.S. commandos who raided his Pakistani hide-out on Monday had carried out a justifiable act of national self-defense.

In deciding not to make public the pictures of the corpse, Obama resisted arguments that to do so could counter skeptics who have argued there is no proof that bin Laden, who was rapidly buried at sea by U.S. forces, is dead.

"I think that given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk," Obama told the CBS program "60 Minutes."

"It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence. As a propaganda tool," the president added.

"There's no doubt that Bin Laden is dead," Obama said. "And so we don't think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference. There are going be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again."

Obama's decision followed intense debate in his administration. CIA Director Leon Panetta had said on Tuesday the pictures would be released.

Washington also had to weigh sensitivities in the Muslim world over what White House spokesman Jay Carney called "a gruesome photograph." U.S. Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte said she had seen a picture showing bin Laden's face and believed it confirmed his identity.

KILL OR CAPTURE

Defending the killing of what the White House has acknowledged was an unarmed bin Laden, Holder said he was a legitimate military target and had made no attempt to surrender to the American forces who stormed his fortified compound near Islamabad and shot him in the head.

"It was justified as an act of national self-defense," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee, citing bin Laden's admission of being involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.

It was lawful to target bin Laden because he was the enemy commander in the field and the operation was conducted in a way that was consistent with U.S. laws and values, he said, adding that it was a "kill or capture mission."

"If he had surrendered, attempted to surrender, I think we should obviously have accepted that, but there was no indication that he wanted to do that and therefore his killing was appropriate," he said.

U.S. acknowledgment on Tuesday that bin Laden held no weapon when shot dead had raised accusations Washington had breached international law. Exact circumstances of his death remained unclear and could yet fuel controversy, especially in the Muslim world.

Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called the killing "quite clearly a violation of international law." Geoffrey Robertson, a prominent London-based human rights lawyer, said the killing "may well have been a cold-blooded assassination" that risked making bin Laden a martyr.

Husayn al-Sawaf, 25, a playwright, said in Cairo: "The Americans behaved in the same way as bin Laden: with treachery and baseness. They should've tried him in a court. As for his burial, that's not Islamic. He should've been buried in soil."

But there has been no sign of mass protests or violent reaction on the streets in south Asia or the Middle East.

Pakistan, for its part, faced national embarrassment, a leading Islamabad newspaper said, in explaining how the world's most-wanted man was able to live for years in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, just north of the capital.

The Dawn newspaper compared the latest humiliation with the admission in 2004 that one of the country's top scientists, Abdul Qadeer Khan, had sold its nuclear secrets.

INTELLIGENCE LAPSES

Pakistan has welcomed bin Laden's death, but its Foreign Ministry expressed deep concerns about the raid, which it called an "unauthorized unilateral action."

The country blamed worldwide intelligence lapses for a failure to detect bin Laden, while Washington worked to establish whether its ally had sheltered the al Qaeda leader, which Islamabad vehemently denies.

"There is an intelligence failure of the whole world, not just Pakistan alone," Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters in Paris.

An early U.S. account of the commando raid said bin Laden had taken part in a firefight with the helicopter-borne U.S. troops. Al Arabiya television suggested the architect of the 9/11 attacks was first taken prisoner and then shot.

The Arabic television station said a Pakistani security source "quoted the daughter of Osama bin Laden that the leader of al Qaeda was not killed inside his house, but had been arrested and was killed later."

Carney on Tuesday cited the "fog of war" as a reason for the initial misinformation on whether bin Laden was armed.

He insisted that bin Laden resisted when U.S. forces stormed his compound in the 40-minute operation, but would not say how. Panetta told PBS television the strike team opened fire in response to "threatening moves" as they reached the third-floor room where they found bin Laden.

There has been little questioning of the operation in the United States, where bin Laden's killing was greeted with street celebrations. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday showed the killing boosted Obama's image, improving Americans' views of his leadership and his efforts to fight terrorism.

In Pakistan, the streets around bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad remained sealed off on Wednesday, with police and soldiers allowing only residents to pass through.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban, who harbored bin Laden until they were overthrown in late 2001, challenged the truth of his death, saying Washington had not provided "acceptable evidence to back up their claim" that he had been killed.

(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Ralph Boulton and Patrick Worsnip; Editing by Anthony Boadle and Philip Barbara)

Obama decides not to release bin Laden photos, R, 4.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/04/us-obama-statement-idUSTRE74107920110504

U.S. says

bin Laden unarmed when killed

ABBOTTABAD/WASHINGTON | Wed May 4, 2011
12:38am EDT
Reuters
By Kamran Haider and Matt Spetalnick

ABBOTTABAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden was unarmed when U.S. special forces shot him dead, the White House said, as it vowed to "get to the bottom" of whether Pakistan helped the al Qaeda leader elude a 10-year manhunt.

Pakistan faced growing pressure on Wednesday to explain how the world's most-wanted man was able to live for years in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, just north of Islamabad. Pakistan has denied it gave shelter to bin Laden.

The revelation that bin Laden was unarmed appeared to contradict an earlier account from a U.S. security official that the al Qaeda leader "participated" in a firefight with the helicopter-borne American commandos.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Tuesday cited the "fog of war" -- a phrase suggested by a reporter -- as a reason for the initial misinformation.

If this becomes controversial, it could complicate U.S. efforts to mend ties with the Muslim world in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, conflicts sparked by the September 11, 2001 attacks that bin Laden orchestrated.

U.S. officials were also wrestling with whether to release graphic photographs of bin Laden's body -- he was shot in the head -- which could provide proof of his death but risks offending Muslims.

"It's fair to say that it's a gruesome photograph," Carney said.

Pakistan has welcomed bin Laden's death, but its foreign ministry expressed "deep concerns" about the raid, which it called an "unauthorized unilateral action."

The CIA said it kept Pakistan out of the loop because it feared bin Laden would be tipped off, highlighting the depth of mistrust between the two supposed allies.

U.S. helicopters carrying the commandos used radar "blind spots" in the hilly terrain along the Afghan border to enter Pakistani airspace undetected in the early hours of Monday.

Carney insisted bin Laden resisted during the raid -- although he would not say how -- when U.S. forces stormed his compound.

"There was concern that bin Laden would oppose the capture operation and, indeed, he resisted," Carney said. "A woman ... bin Laden's wife, rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed."

The Navy SEAL assault team had "full authority" to kill bin Laden, CIA Director Leon Panetta said.

The U.S. security official had told Reuters on Monday the raid was a "kill operation," although he added bin Laden would have been taken alive if he had surrendered.

U.S. officials have also backtracked on an earlier statement that bin Laden's wife had been used as a human shield.

Panetta said in an interview with PBS television that the strike team opened fire in response to "threatening moves" as they reached the third-floor room where they found bin Laden in his sprawling compound.

"The authority here was to kill bin Laden," he said. "And obviously, under the rules of engagement, if he had in fact thrown up his hands, surrendered and didn't appear to be representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But they had full authority to kill him."

UNLAWFUL KILLING?

While many world leaders applauded the U.S. operation that killed bin Laden, there were concerns in parts of Europe that the United States was wrong to act as policeman, judge and executioner.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder defended the action as lawful on Tuesday, but some in Europe said bin Laden should have been captured and put on trial.

"It was quite clearly a violation of international law," former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told German TV. "The operation could also have incalculable consequences in the Arab world in light of all the unrest."

Geoffrey Robertson, a prominent London-based human rights lawyer, said the killing "may well have been a cold-blooded assassination" that risked making bin Laden a martyr.

"It's not justice. It's a perversion of the term. Justice means taking someone to court, finding them guilty upon evidence and sentencing them," the Australian-born Robertson told Australian Broadcasting Corp television.

Pakistan has come under intense international scrutiny since bin Laden's death, with questions on whether its security agencies were too incompetent to catch him or knew all along where he was hiding, and even whether they were complicit.

The compound where bin Laden has been hiding -- possibly for as long as five or six years -- was close to Pakistan's military academy in Abbottabad, about 40 miles from Islamabad.

"It would be premature to rule out the possibility that there were some individuals inside of Pakistan, including within the official Pakistani establishment, who might have been aware of this," White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan told National Public Radio.

"We're not accusing anybody at this point, but we want to make sure we get to the bottom of this."

PAKISTAN UNDER PRESSURE

British Prime Minister David Cameron told BBC radio that Islamabad must answer questions about what he called bin Laden's "support network" in Pakistan.

CIA Director Panetta, in an unusually blunt interview with Time magazine, explained why Islamabad was not informed of the raid until all the helicopters carrying the U.S. Navy SEALs -- and bin Laden's body -- were out of Pakistani airspace.

"It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission: they might alert the targets," Panetta said.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, in the first substantive public comment by any Pakistani leader, defended his government, which receives billions of dollars in aid from the United States.

"Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing," Zardari wrote in the Washington Post. "Such baseless speculation ... doesn't reflect fact."

Later Pakistan's foreign ministry said its Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency had been sharing information about the compound with the CIA and other friendly intelligence agencies since 2009 and had continued to do so until mid-April.

"It is important to highlight that taking advantage of much superior and technological assets, CIA exploited the intelligence leads given by us to identify and reach Osama bin Laden," the ministry said in a lengthy statement.

RATINGS BOOST

U.S. President Barack Obama has enjoyed a popularity boost from the killing of the architect of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. About four in 10 Americans say their opinion of Obama improved after he ordered the raid. But the bump in his ratings could be short-lived as voters focus again on domestic concerns crucial to his 2012 re-election prospects.

Obama may face more pressure to speed up the planned withdrawal this July of some U.S. forces from the unpopular war in Afghanistan.

The killing of bin Laden could also aid a political settlement by making it easier for the Afghan Taliban to sever their ties with al Qaeda.

"I do think that this opens the door to push for a political settlement; that depends, however, on President Obama choosing to take the opportunity," said Joshua Foust at the American Security Project in Washington.

The first Taliban response, however, has been to challenge the truth of bin Laden's death, saying Washington had not provided "acceptable evidence to back up their claim" that he had been killed.

No photos or video of bin Laden's body or swift burial at sea have been released.

Panetta said there was never any doubt that ultimately a photograph would be made public, but other officials said no final decision had been taken, reflecting an intense internal debate in Washington.

"I'll be candid. There are sensitivities here in terms of the appropriateness of releasing photographs of Osama bin Laden," said Carney.

(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide;; Writing by Alex Richardson;
Editing by Dean Yates and John Chalmers)

U.S. says bin Laden unarmed when killed, R, 4.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/04/us-obama-statement-idUSTRE74107920110504

Concerns raised over shooting

of unarmed bin Laden, burial

Wed, May 4 2011
BERLIN/SINGAPORE | Wed May 4, 2011
10:09am EDT
By Erik Kirschbaum and Jonathan Thatcher

BERLIN/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The killing of Osama bin Laden when he was unarmed has raised concerns the United States may have gone too far in acting as policeman, judge and executioner of the world's most wanted man.

But for several Muslim leaders, the more unsettling issue is whether the al Qaeda leader's burial at sea was contrary to Islamic practice.

The White House said on Tuesday that bin Laden had resisted the U.S. team which stormed his Pakistan hideout and that there had been concerns he would "oppose the capture operation".

Spokesman Jay Carney declined to specify what sort of resistance bin Laden offered but added: "We expected a great deal of resistance and were met with a great deal of resistance. There were many other people who were armed ... in the compound."

Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt told German TV the operation could have incalculable consequences in the Arab world at a time of unrest there.

"It was quite clearly a violation of international law," .

It was a view echoed by high-profile Australian human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson.

"It's not justice. It's a perversion of the term. Justice means taking someone to court, finding them guilty upon evidence and sentencing them," Robertson told Australian Broadcasting Corp television from London.

"This man has been subject to summary execution, and what is now appearing after a good deal of disinformation from the White House is it may well have been a cold-blooded assassination."

Robertson said bin Laden should have stood trial, just as World War Two Nazis were tried at Nuremburg or former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was put on trial at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague after his arrest in 2001.

"The last thing he wanted was to be put on trial, to be convicted and to end his life in a prison farm in upstate New York. What he wanted was exactly what he got - to be shot in mid-jihad and get a fast track to paradise and the Americans have given him that."

Gert-Jan Knoops, a Dutch-based international law specialist, said bin Laden should have been arrested and extradited to the United States.

"The Americans say they are at war with terrorism and can take out their opponents on the battlefield," Knoops said. "But in a strictly formal sense, this argument does not stand up."

A senior Muslim cleric in New Delhi, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, said U.S. troops could have easily captured bin Laden.

"America is promoting jungle rule everywhere, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan or Libya. People have remained silent for long but now it has crossed all limits."

BURIAL AT SEA CONCERN

Son Had, spokesman for Jema'ah Ansharut Tauhid, the Islamic group founded by Indonesian firebrand Abu Bakar Bashir, said it was clear that bin Laden had become a martyr.

"In Islam, a man who died....in fighting for sharia will earn the highest title for mankind other than a prophet, that is a martyr. Osama is a fighter for Islam, for sharia."

But for many Muslim leaders the greater concern was bin Laden's burial at sea, not land. His body was taken to an aircraft carrier where U.S. officials said it was buried at sea, according to Islamic rites.

I.A. Rehman, an official with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said it was more important than the issue of how bin Laden was killed.

"The fact that he was not armed is a smaller thing...There will be more focus on whether he was buried in an Islamic way. There has been reaction from Islamic clerics that he was not properly buried and this will be discussed for some time."

Saudi Sheikh Abdul Mohsen Al-Obaikan, an adviser to the Saudi Royal Court, was more direct.

"That is not the Islamic way. The Islamic way is to bury the person in land (if he has died on land) like all other people."

Amidhan, a member of Indonesia's Ulema Council (MUI), the highest Islamic authority in the world's biggest Muslim society, said he was more concerned about the burial that the killing.

"Burying someone in the ocean needs extraordinary situation. Is there one?," he told Reuters.

"If the U.S. can't explain that, then it appears just like dumping an animal and that means there is no respect for the man ... and what they did can incite more resentment among Osama's supporters."

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Washington, Michael Perry in Sydney, Alistair Scrutton in New Delhi, Rebecca Conway in Islamabad, Olivia Rondonwu in Jakarta, Aaron Gray-Block in Amsterdam; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Concerns raised over shooting of unarmed bin Laden, burial, R, 4.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/04/us-binladen-legitimacy-idUSTRE74318620110504

Bin Laden killing

highlights perils

deep inside Pakistan

ISLAMABAD | Wed May 4, 2011
9:55am EDT
Reuters
By Michael Georgy

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - It is saddled with a feckless government, dogged by poverty and corruption and now, with the revelation that the world's most-wanted man was holed up in its backyard, Pakistan looks more like a failed state than ever.

Pressed into an alliance with the United States in its "war on terror" days after the September 11, 2001, attacks, nuclear-armed Pakistan has never been able to shake off doubts about its commitment to the battle against Islamist militancy.

When U.S. Special Forces killed Osama bin Laden in a dramatic helicopter raid on Monday, it turned out that -- contrary to popular imagination -- the al Qaeda leader had not been hiding in a mountain cave along the violence-plagued border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, an area U.S. President Barack Obama once described as "the most dangerous place in the world".

He had in fact been living in a respectable townhouse a two-hour drive up the road from Islamabad and a short walk from a military academy that counts among its alumni the army chief.

The government denies it knew where bin Laden was, but for many the discovery will only confirms Pakistan's reputation as "al Qaeda central".

"Pakistan is truly at the epicenter of global terrorism," Lisa Curtis, senior researcher on South Asia at the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a paper on bin Laden's killing.

The suspicion that Pakistani security agents might have been playing a double game, shielding bin Laden from the world's biggest manhunt have led to calls for punishment.

"Perhaps the time has come to declare it a terrorist state and expel it from the comity of nations," British-Indian author Salman Rushdie wrote of Pakistan in a column this week.

PROBLEMS FROM BIRTH OF THE NATION

Pakistan is beset by a host of problems, some of which have bedeviled it since the bloody partition of British-ruled India and its independence in 1947 as a home for South Asia's Muslims.

Its economy is propped up with an International Monetary Fund loan and about a third of its people live in poverty.

Levels of literacy and education are dire, especially for women. So-called ghost schools, with no teachers or children and corrupt officials pocketing the budget, are rife.

Violent religious conservatism is becoming more mainstream: this year alone two senior officials have been assassinated for challenging a law the stipulates death for insulting Islam.

Pakistan's population -- at 170 million the world's sixth-largest -- is growing at more than 2 percent a year. The threat of environmental catastrophe such as water shortages, especially in the longer term when glaciers melt in the Himalayas and rivers run dry, raise a nightmare scenario of deprivation.

All the while, a venal elite defends its privileges, squabbling politicians enrich themselves and the army, which has ruled for more than half of the country's 64-year history, looms over public life with the prospect of intervention a constant.

But it is the cocktail of Islamist militants and nuclear weapons that raises the biggest fears around the world.

Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, days after arch-rival India conducted tests, and it now has what experts believe is the world's fastest-growing nuclear arsenal with about 80 bombs, material for scores more, and a range of missiles to deliver them.

Former CIA official Bruce Riedel wrote in a piece in the Wall Street Journal last month that Pakistan's arsenal of nuclear warheads is on track to become the fourth-largest in the world by the end of the decade, behind only the United States, Russia and China.

INDIA OBSESSION

Compounding fears of what its enemies see as a loose-cannon nuclear power, the father of the Pakistani bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, confessed in 2004 to selling nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Khan was pardoned by the government, although placed under house arrest for five years, leading to suspicions of official complicity in the world's most serious proliferation scandal.

The government and military denied any involvement in the proliferation ring and they regularly reject concern over the security of the country's nuclear weapons program.

At the heart of many of Pakistan's woes, and its support over three decades for Islamist militants, is its rivalry with India. The two countries have gone to war three times since their partition after World War Two.

Pakistan, along with the United States and Saudi Arabia, nurtured the Islamist fighters, including bin Laden, who drove Soviet forces out of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Since its creation, Pakistan has seen a friendly Afghanistan -- into which its forces could withdraw in the event of an invasion by a much bigger Indian army -- as a central plank of national security.

That, too, was the reason for its support of the Afghan Taliban in the 1990s: the perceived necessity of a friendly, ethnic Pashtun-dominated Taliban government in Kabul rather than one led by pro-Indian north Afghan factions.

Even today, nearly 10 years after signing up to the U.S. campaign against militancy, Pakistan is refusing to move against Taliban factions based on its side of the border because of its fear of an Indian-dominated Afghanistan.

Similarly, Pakistan for years nurtured militants fighting Indian forces in its part of the Kashmir region, the source of most bitterness between the neighbors since their independence.

It is conceivable that bin Laden was protected by Pakistan's security service, not because of any support for his vision of global holy war, but because bin Laden might have been seen as a valuable asset, like an ace to play, in the event of a show-down with India.

All this does not necessarily mean the country is failing, said Pakistani security analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi.

"Pakistan can't be described as a terrorist state. The problem is that there are people who are sympathetic to militants," he said.

"The state of mind that has been created in Pakistan is a problem and the military has a role in it but Pakistan has the capacity to overcome this."

AFGHAN CONDUIT

Pakistan's role in bin Laden's killing remains murky.

The United States has hinted at Pakistani help in tracking bin Laden down, but said the country's security agencies were kept in the dark about the operation to kill him because of fear the al Qaeda leader would have been tipped off.

Pakistan has given similar mixed signals, denying knowledge of the raid but saying Pakistan's main security agency had been passing on information to the CIA about the bin Laden compound since 2009.

Pakistani political analyst Mosharraf Zaidi said both Islamabad and Washington appeared to be making a coordinated effort to create the impression Pakistan was kept in the dark.

That would provide Pakistan with "plausible deniability" in the event of a public backlash over bin Laden's killing.

"That bin Laden was alive and well till May 1 because the Pakistanis were helping him, and that he is dead and buried, because the Pakistanis helped kill him - both can be simultaneously true. And they probably are," Zaidi wrote in an commentary this week.

The full truth may never be known but, for now at least, the United States needs Pakistan's help to bring the Afghan war to some sort of conclusion as it heads toward the start of a troop drawdown this summer.

Let alone its influence over the Taliban, Pakistan is the conduit for a large volume of supplies going to U.S. forces in landlocked Afghanistan -- from drinking water to food and fuel.

In the event of a complete breakdown in relations with the United States over bin Laden, which looks unlikely, Pakistan can always count on fair-weather ally China for support.

And despite the predictions of its imminent implosion, Pakistan will probably muddle through this crisis, as it has every other crisis since its formation.

There's even cause for some hope after the dust settles from bin Laden's killing.

Talks with India are back on, though no breakthroughs are expected, and a government that has been in power since 2008 has bolstered its position with a new coalition partner and could become Pakistan's first-ever civilian government to complete a full term.

Despite signs of growing intolerance in society, there is at least some hope that the security agencies, locked in a bloody struggle with Pakistani Taliban militants, are beginning to realize the danger of courting extremism.

realize "It will take some doing to dismantle it," Zaidi said of Pakistan's militant infrastructure, or "second-line of defense" against India.

"Religious zeal was easy to inject into the Pakistani bloodstream, it will be difficult to extract. The process cannot and must not be rushed."

Rizvi said the security establishment had to decide whether militants would be given free rein or suppressed.

"The future of Pakistan, honestly speaking, is to me uncertain. But in my opinion, Pakistan will neither be declared a failed state or a terrorist state. It is a state mired in difficulties and problems."

(Writing by Rob Birsel; Editing by John Chalmers)

Bin Laden killing highlights perils deep inside Pakistan, R, 4.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/04/us-binladen-pakistan-idUSTRE7432Z120110504

Photos show three dead men

at bin Laden raid house

ISLAMABAD | Wed May 4, 2011
7:49pm EDT
Reuters
By Chris Allbritton

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Photographs acquired by Reuters and taken about an hour after the U.S. assault on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons.

The photos, taken by a Pakistani security official who entered the compound after the early morning raid on Monday, show two men dressed in traditional Pakistani garb and one in a t-shirt, with blood streaming from their ears, noses and mouths.

The official, who wished to remain anonymous, sold the pictures to Reuters.

None of the men looked like bin Laden. President Barack Obama decided not to release photos of his body because it could have incited violence and used as an al Qaeda propaganda tool.

"I think that given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk," Obama told the CBS program "60 Minutes."

Based on the time-stamps on the pictures, the earliest one was dated May 2, 2:30 a.m., approximately an hour after the completion of the raid in which bin Laden was killed.

Other photos, taken hours later at between 5:21 a.m. and 6:43 a.m. show the outside of the trash-strewn compound and the wreckage of the helicopter the United States abandoned. The tail assembly is unusual, and could indicate some kind of previously unknown stealth capability.

Reuters is confident of the authenticity of the purchased images because details in the photos appear to show a wrecked helicopter from the assault, matching details from photos taken independently on Monday.

U.S. forces lost a helicopter in the raid due to a mechanical problem and later destroyed it.

The pictures are also taken in sequence and are all the same size in pixels, indicating they have not been tampered with. The time and date in the photos as recorded in the digital file's metadata match lighting conditions for the area as well as the time and date imprinted on the image itself.

The close-cropped pictures do not show any weapons on the dead men, but the photos are taken in medium close-up and often crop out the men's hands and arms.

One photo shows a computer cable and what looks like a child's plastic green and orange water pistol lying under the right shoulder of one of the dead men. A large pool of blood has formed under his head.

A second shows another man with a streak of blood running from his nose across his right cheek and a large band of blood across his chest.

A third man, in a T-shirt, is on his back in a large pool of blood which appears to be from a head wound.

U.S. acknowledgment on Tuesday that bin Laden was unarmed when shot dead had raised accusations Washington had violated international law. The exact circumstances of his death remained unclear and could yet fuel controversy, especially in the Muslim world.

Pakistan faced national embarrassment, a leading Islamabad newspaper said, in explaining how the world's most-wanted man was able to live for years in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, just north of the capital.

Pakistan blamed worldwide intelligence lapses for a failure to detect bin Laden, while Washington worked to establish whether its ally had sheltered the al Qaeda leader, which Islamabad vehemently denies.

(Editing by Jon Boyle.)

Photos show three dead men at bin Laden raid house, R, 7.4.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/04/us-binladen-pakistan-photos-idUSTRE7437KK20110504

Factbox:

Details of the Osama bin Laden raid

WASHINGTON | Tue May 3, 2011
5:34pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House press secretary Jay Carney provided the following official narrative on Tuesday of the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan:

* A small team of U.S. commandos assaulted a compound in the town of Abbottabad near the capital Islamabad on Monday with orders to capture or kill bin Laden.

* U.S. military personnel flew in on two helicopters, one of which suffered mechanical problems and was later destroyed. The team methodically cleared the compound, moving from room to room in an operation lasting nearly 40 minutes. They were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation. Bin Laden was killed when he "resisted."

* In addition to the bin Laden family, two other families lived in the compound -- one family on the first floor of the bin Laden building and one family in a second building. One team began the operation on the first floor of the bin Laden house and worked their way to the third floor. A second team cleared the separate building.

* On the first floor of bin Laden's building, two al Qaeda couriers were killed along with a woman who was shot in cross-fire. Bin Laden and his family were found on the second and third floor of the building.

* In the room with bin Laden, a woman -- bin Laden's wife -- rushed a U.S. commando and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was unarmed.

* A third helicopter flew in to replace the destroyed one, and the team departed via the helicopters to the USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.

* Aboard the USS Carl Vinson, Islamic rites were observed in disposing of the al Qaeda leader's body.

His body was washed, wrapped in a white sheet and placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. The bag was then placed on a flat board that was tipped up, and bin Laden's body was eased into the sea.

(Reporting by Alister Bull; Editing by Philip Barbara)

(Washington newsroom)

Factbox: Details of the Osama bin Laden raid, R, 3.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-binladen-usa-raid-factbox-idUSTRE7426U120110503

Q+A:

What really happened in Abbottabad?

WASHINGTON | Tue May 3, 2011
4:55pm EDT
Reuters
By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House, Pentagon and CIA are congratulating themselves over what appears to have been a stunningly successful mission to hunt down and kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

But since Navy SEALs raided bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on Monday, conflicting accounts have emerged about what really went on before, during and after the commando raid.

Here are some questions and answers about key issues where conflicting stories have surfaced:

Q: What was the purpose of the U.S. commando operation?

A: Aides to President Barack Obama have suggested that the commando team's orders were to either capture bin Laden or kill him. However, U.S. officials familiar with the plan say there was an overwhelming expectation from the outset that bin Laden would be killed during the operation.

In planning the operation, a senior U.S. defense official told a background briefing, "there were certainly capture contingencies, as there must be." But U.S. officials said that the "capture contingencies" related to a possibility thought to be highly unlikely: a humble and abject surrender, in which the al Qaeda founder would put his hands up, raise a white flag and beg not to be shot. There has been no evidence presented that anything like this happened.

Q: Did bin Laden fight back?

A: The U.S. government says bin Laden "resisted" before he was killed by commandos.

According to some early accounts, bin Laden had a gun in his hand but did not fire it. According to one of these accounts, as U.S. raiders made their way through his three-story hideout, they met with hostile fire on the first and second floors, but no shooting on the third, where they found bin Laden.

On Tuesday, however, White House press secretary Jay Carney gave the following version: "In the room with bin Laden, a woman - bin Laden's wife - rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed."

Q: How many times was bin Laden shot, and where?

A: Officials told Reuters they were still awaiting final after-action reports as to how many times and where bin Laden was shot. But an official who saw pictures of the body said he was shot at least once in the face.

The standard Navy SEAL tactic in such an operation would be to shoot the target once in the chest (to stop) and once in the head (to kill). Most, though not all, media reports say this is what happened.

Q: Did bin Laden use a woman as a human shield?

A: This was suggested Monday by presidential counterterrorism advisor John Brennan said at the White House: "There was a family at that compound, and there was a female who was, in fact, in the line of fire that reportedly was used as a shield to shield bin Laden from the incoming fire."

On Tuesday, however, U.S. officials said that on the first floor of bin Laden's building, two al Qaeda couriers were killed along with a woman who was killed in cross-fire. White House officials said they were not sure if the woman was used as a shield.

Bin Laden's wife, who was found in the room with him, rushed U.S. commandos and was shot in the leg but not killed.

Q: Did the U.S. commandos take any prisoners?

A: The BBC reported it had been told by a Pakistani intelligence official that the Americans had taken one man alive as captive during the raid, possibly a son of bin Laden. Several U.S. officials said flatly that this is false: that the only person, dead or alive, taken away by U.S. raiders from the scene was the body of Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden family members were taken from the scene by Pakistani authorities, a U.S. official said, and it will be up to Pakistan what happens to bin Laden's survivors now.

Q: Why did one of the U.S. commandos helicopters crash?

A: It didn't crash, exactly,

U.S. officials familiar with the raid said that what happened was this: the original plan was that the two Blackhawk helicopters carrying the main assault force were supposed to hover above bin Laden's compound throughout the course of the raid and the commandos were supposed to rappel from the aircraft down to the ground.

However, U.S. officials said that one of the helicopters encountered trouble due to unexpected flying conditions. In an account whose details other officials confirmed, Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said: "I know what I've been told, which was that the temperature was 17 degrees higher than anticipated, and based on the temperature, and the load in the helicopter, the helicopter began to descend, and so it was a kind of controlled but hard landing."

Other officials said the landing was hard enough to disable the helicopter which the U.S. team destroyed. The second Blackhawk then made an unscheduled landing and the raiders later piled into that aircraft and two Chinook helicopters which had flown in as backup when the mission was over.

(Additional reporting by Alister Bull, and Susan Cornwell;
Editing by Warren Strobel and Jackie Frank)

Q+A: What really happened in Abbottabad?, R, 3.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-binladen-qanda-idUSTRE7426Z720110503

No proof Pakistanis knew

bin Laden location: U.S.

WASHINGTON | Tue May 3, 2011
4:25pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There is no evidence Pakistani officials knew Osama bin Laden was living at a compound deep inside the country, but the United States is not ruling out the possibility, President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser said on Tuesday.

The death of the al Qaeda leader in Monday's U.S. raid on his compound in Abbottabad, a military garrison town 38 miles from the capital Islamabad, has led some U.S. lawmakers to demand a review of U.S. aid to nuclear-armed Pakistan.

"They (Pakistani officials) are expressing as great a surprise as we had when we first learned about this compound, so there is no indication at this point that the people we have talked to were aware of this, but we need to dig deeper into this," White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said in an interview with National Public Radio.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari said bin Laden "was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be" but he did not answer accusations his security services should have known of the hide-out.

When asked whether officials in Pakistan's military might have known about bin Laden's presence in the compound, Brennan said it was possible.

"I think it would be premature to rule out the possibility that there were some individuals inside of Pakistan, including within the official Pakistani establishment, who might have been aware of this, but we're not accusing anybody at this point."

Brennan said it appeared that bin Laden had lived for the past five to six years in the compound in Abbottabad, the site of an important Pakistani military academy.

Bin Laden was living in neighboring Afghanistan at the time of the al Qaeda September 11 attacks on the United States and when a subsequent U.S.-led invasion helped topple the Taliban government.

"Well I think the latest information is that he was in this compound for the past five or six years and he had virtually no interaction with others outside that compound. But yet he seemed to be very active inside the compound," Brennan said on the CBS Early Show program.

"And we know that he had released videos and Audis. We know that he was in contact with some senior al Qaeda officials," Brennan added.

"So what we're trying to do now is to understand what he has been involved in over the past several years, exploit whatever information we were able to get at the compound and take that information and continue our efforts to destroy al Qaeda," Brennan added.

He also said the United States was continuing to pursue Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's chief organizer and the possible successor to bin Laden, and that it was believed he was living in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

"I'm not going to say what country he is in," Brennan told NPR.

BIN LADEN PHOTOS

Brennan also said the United States was considering whether to release photographs and video taken during the raid but has not yet made a decision.

"We want to make sure that we're able to do it in a thoughtful manner. We also want to anticipate what the reaction might be on the part of al Qaeda or others to the release of certain information so that we can take the appropriate steps beforehand," Brennan told CNN.

"Any other material, whether it be photos or videos or whatever else -- we are looking at it and we'll make the appropriate decisions," Brennan said.

Asked about any computers, documents and other material seized at the compound, Brennan said the material was being reviewed by U.S. authorities.

"What we're most interested in is seeing if we can get any insight into any terrorist plot that might be underway so that we can take the measures to stop any type of attack planning. Secondly, we're trying to look and see whether or not there are leads to other individuals within the organization or insights into their (al Qaeda) capabilities," Brennan said.

He said the United States was eager to learn from the material about the circumstances of bin Laden's residence in Abbott.

(Reporting by Will Dunham and Paul Simao; Editing by David Storey)

No proof Pakistanis knew bin Laden location: U.S., R, 3.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-binladen-usa-residence-idUSTRE7422H520110503

Pakistan denies sheltering bin Laden

amid U.S. doubts

WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan
Tue May 3, 2011
1:11pm EDT
Reuters
By Mark Hosenball and Kamran Haider

WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's president on Tuesday denied suggestions that his government may have sheltered Osama bin Laden but admitted his security forces were left out of a U.S. raid to kill the al Qaeda chief.

U.S. officials kept Pakistani authorities in the dark out of concern that they might "alert the targets" and jeopardize the special forces assault on Monday that ended a long manhunt for bin Laden, CIA Director Leon Panetta told Time magazine.

The revelation that bin Laden had holed up in a luxury compound in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, possibly for five to six years, prompted many U.S. lawmakers to demand a review of the billions of dollars in aid Washington gives to nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, issuing his first response to questions about how the world's most-wanted militant was able to live for so long in comfort and undetected near Islamabad, did little to dispel suspicions.

"Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing," Zardari wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. "Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn't reflect fact."

It was the first substantive public comment by any Pakistani leader on the airborne raid by U.S. forces on bin Laden's compound that brought to an end a long manhunt for the al Qaeda chief who had become the face of Islamic militancy.

Pakistan has faced enormous international scrutiny since bin Laden was killed, with questions over whether its military and intelligence agencies were too incompetent to catch him, or knew all along where he was hiding and even whether they had been complicit.

Reflecting U.S.-Pakistani relations strained by years of mistrust, Islamabad was kept in the dark about the raid until after all U.S. aircraft were out of Pakistani airspace.

Pakistan denied any prior knowledge of the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden, but said it had been sharing information about the targeted compound with the CIA since 2009.

While Islamabad hailed the killing of bin Laden as an important milestone in the fight against terrorism, Pakistan's foreign ministry said it had expressed "deep concerns" that the operation was carried out without informing it in advance.

"He was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now he is gone," Zardari wrote, without offering further defense against accusations his security services should have known where bin Laden was hiding.

"Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world."

Facing pressure to produce absolute confirmation of bin Laden's demise, White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said the United States was considering whether to release photographs and video taken during the raid as proof that bin Laden had died in the raid.

The Afghan Taliban on Tuesday challenged the truth of bin Laden's death, saying Washington had not provided "acceptable evidence to back up their claim" that he had been killed. They also said aides to bin Laden had not confirmed or denied his death.

(Reporting by Reuters bureau worldwide; Writing by Dean Yates and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by John Chalmers and Jackie Frank)

Pakistan denies sheltering bin Laden amid U.S. doubts, 3.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-obama-statement-idUSTRE74107920110503

Zawahri:

From suburban doctor

to chief of al Qaeda?

CAIRO | Tue May 3, 2011
1:10pm EDT
Reuters
By Tom Pfeiffer and Marwa Awad

CAIRO (Reuters) - The man most likely to take the helm of al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden did not emerge from the crowded slums of Egypt's sprawling capital or develop his militant ideas in any religious college or seminary.

Instead, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri was raised in Cairo's leafy Maadi suburb amid the comfortable villas that are popular with expatriates from the Western nations he rails against. He studied at Cairo University and qualified as a doctor.

The son of a pharmacology professor was not unique in his generation. Many educated youngsters were outraged at the treatment of Islamists in the 1960s when Egypt veered toward a Soviet-style one-party state under socialist Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Thousands of people suspected of subversion were thrown into prison after show trials. One of the young Zawahri's heroes, Muslim Brotherhood luminary Sayyid Qutb, was executed in 1966 on charges of trying to overthrow the state.

"Zawahri is one of the many victims of the Nasser regime who had deep political grievances and a feeling of shame at Egypt's defeat by Israel in 1967. He grew up a radical," said Khalil al-Anani, an expert in Islamist movements at Durham University.

He rose to be al Qaeda's No. 2, making him a prime candidate to lead the network after Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight with U.S. forces at his Pakistan hideout on Monday, almost 10 years after the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Born in 1951 to a prominent Cairo family, Zawahri was a grandson of the grand imam of Al Azhar, one of the most important mosques in the Muslim world.

As he studied for a masters in surgery in the 1970s, Zawahri was active in a movement that later became Islamic Jihad, which aimed to expel the government and establish an Islamic state.

People who know Zawahri disagree over whether he was destined by temperament for militancy or pushed into it as a protest against state oppression of Egyptian Islamists.

A heavy-handed Egyptian security policy designed to weaken Islamism nudged its members further toward violent action, as young men rounded up in state security sweeps revolted against what they saw as unfair treatment.

Zawahri was one of hundreds tried for links to the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat, Nasser's successor. He served a three-year jail term for illegal arms possession, but was acquitted of the main charges.

CHANGED MAN

"Zawahri was not given a chance to be part of politics," said his lawyer Nizar Ghorab.

"He lived during a time of great suppression of those who had religious ideas and wanted to change the political scene of oppression under Nasser and Sadat."

People who studied with Zawahri at Cairo University's Faculty of Medicine in the 1970s describe a lively young man who went to the cinema, listened to music and joked with friends.

"When he came out of prison he was a completely different person," said one doctor who studied with Zawahri and declined to be named.

Others say that what tipped Zawahri into political violence was Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and Sadat's peace treaty with Israel the same year.

"There was an evolution in his mentality," said Anani. "People like Zawahri saw no way to achieve their goals except to changing the regime by force."

Zawahri's nephew Abdel Rahman al-Zawahri, 26, an accountant, said: "I do not think that what drove my uncle to choose the path he chose resulted from his years in prison or the torture he experienced. He is a thinker and he had an idea and ideology."

On his release, Zawahri went to Pakistan where he worked with the Red Crescent treating Islamist mujahideen guerrillas wounded in Afghanistan, which Russia had invaded in 1979.

"In his childhood and as a young man he was cheerful and had a sense of humor," said Zawahri's uncle, Mahfouz Azzam. "His years spent along the border as a war surgeon during the war in Afghanistan changed his views about how change and resistance can happen."

"KNOWN AND RESPECTED" ZAWAHRI FAMILY

Taking over the leadership of Jihad in Egypt in 1993, Zawahri was a key figure in a violent campaign in the mid-1990s to set up a purist Islamic state there, in which more than 1,200 Egyptians died.

In 1999, an Egyptian military court sentenced Zawahri to death in absentia. By then he had swapped his comfortable suburban background for the Spartan life of a holy warrior.

John Brennan, counter-terrorism adviser to President Barack Obama, said on Tuesday that Zawahri, who was al Qaeda's chief organiser under bin Laden, was believed to be living in Pakistan or Afghanistan, and was still being hunted.

A doorman in the street in Cairo's Maadi district where Zawahri's brother lives said the Zawahri family owns a hotel in the neighborhood. The family is "known and respected," he said. "They are always cheerful and sociable and very generous."

Starbucks and Costa coffee shops have become popular haunts for residents of Maadi. The shops cater for the many Americans and other expatriates who live there, selling imported Oreo biscuits, Dr Pepper drinks and microwave popcorn packets.

Many of the U.S. expatriates work for American oil companies or at the U.S. embassy, the largest permanently staffed U.S. mission and testimony to U.S. ties and a $1.3 billion-a-year military aid program agreed after the peace deal with Israel.

Sadat signed the peace deal and his successor Hosni Mubarak built on the alliance during three decades in office that came to an end on February 11 this year in a popular uprising.

Al Qaeda, which had inveighed against Western-backed Arab autocrats, was nowhere in sight in those protests. Instead the rallies were led by youths, many with a broadly secular agenda and who used Twitter and Facebook to rally the crowds.

Zawahri's sister was among those who massed in Cairo's central Tahrir Square.

"The peaceful revolutions in the Arab world are a huge defeat for Al Qaeda and its ideas," said Durham analyst Anani.

Zawahri: From suburban doctor to chief of al Qaeda?, R, 3.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-binladen-zawahri-idUSTRE7424ZK20110503

Analysis:

Core Qaeda priority is survival,

not succession

LONDON | Tue May 3, 2011
11:43am EDT
Reuters
By William Maclean, Security Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - Evading capture will be the overwhelming priority for al Qaeda's central leadership in the Afghan-Pakistan border area after the U.S. seized potentially vital intelligence during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The delicate task of agreeing a replacement for the group's founder and inspirational figurehead, let alone avenging his death, are challenges that may have to wait.

If and when the 20 or so core commanders feel their physical security has been adequately safeguarded, the group can start to assess bin Laden's loss, agree on a new chief and renew ties to the group's allies and affiliates.

The view, from their perspective, will be bleak: Even before bin Laden's death, mainly peaceful revolts against Arab despots had made al Qaeda's path of violence seem ever more irrelevant.

"Al Qaeda Central will continue, zombie-like, to wreak havoc, but it will never be the same," wrote Thomas Hegghammer, a scholar at the Norwegian Defense Research Estalsihgment.

"Bin Laden ... was the driving force of the organization and much has died with him."

And avenging his death, in the short term, will be a job best delegated to the tiny but passionate global community of al Qaeda sympathizers, counter-terrorism experts say.

But the immediate task will simply be to protect life and liberty, assessing what new dangers have been created by the seizure of intelligence during the raid on bin Laden's house.

QAEDA WILL INCITE REVENGE BY OTHERS

In Washington, a U.S. national security source confirmed forensic specialists were among the U.S. forces who killed bin Laden and large amounts of intelligence was collected.

Leah Farrall, a former senior counter-terrorism analyst with the Australian Federal Police, said security would dominate the thinking of al Qaeda's south Asia-based core in the short term.

"Its leadership will go to ground and close ranks while they try to protect themselves and ascertain the degree of damage to their communications channels and other elements of operational security," she wrote in a blog.

"Al Qaeda is unlikely to waste operatives on hasty retaliation. It will incite others to do so, but its own efforts will come later."

U.S. officials said their forces were led to the three-storey building north of Islamabad after more than four years tracking one of bin Laden's most trusted couriers, who was identified by men captured after the September 11 attacks.

The courier is likely to have made contacts with the online experts who distribute al Qaeda's statements to the world, according to U.S. militant propaganda expert Laura Mansfield.

Those contacts may in turn have allowed U.S. spies to track other messengers in contact with other al Qaeda leaders like bin Laden's deputy, the veteran Egyptian militant Ayman al-Zawahri.

"Al Qaeda core will be even more careful after this," said Richard Barrett, a United Nations official who monitors al Qaeda and the Taliban.

"If couriers led the U.S. to bin Laden, that leaves few if any safe ways to maintain contact the with outside world.

At the same time, wrote Barrett, al Qaeda knew it had to show relevance at a period of great change in the Arab world.

"The timing is not good for them. They will also need to ensure that they are not left behind by some deal-making with the Pakistanis, or even with the Afghans/US in Afghanistan."

Even when the situation stabilizes and al Qaeda operatives have managed to shore up their security, the task of agreeing on a successor will strain al Qaeda's internal politics.

PERSONAL ARGUMENTATIVE

Zawahri is widely expected to assume the leadership, at last on an interim basis, but he is handicapped by a reputation for inflexibility and small-mindedness and is not widely popular.

Author Steve Coll wrote on a New York magazine website that Zawahri had a history of alienating colleagues. "Bin Laden was a gentle and strong communicator, if somewhat incoherent in his thinking. Zawahiri is dogmatic and argumentative, he wrote.

The London-based intelligence consultancy Exclusive Analysis forecast "a self-destructive battle for succession" within al-Qaeda, which has never had to manage a succession in its top leadership since it was founded in about 1988.

It said the group's audacious Yemen-based affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was the best placed ally to take over strategic leadership and attack planning after mounting bold and technically sophisticated plots against the West.

Jarrett Brachman, a leading U.S. analyst on al Qaeda who advises the U.S. government, agreed Bin Laden's death offered an opening now for several men to rise to prominence.

"There are two younger Libyans - Attiyatallah and Abu Yahya al-Libi - who have been positioning themselves to assume the reins. Will the Libyans defer to Zawahiri?" Other potential candidates include Saif al-Adel, an Egyptian former al Qaeda military commander, and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the Yemeni AQAP leader and former personal secretary to bin Laden.

Barrett suggested Zawahri was not leader material. "I think Ayman al-Zawhiri will take over the reins in the short term," he told Reuters. "But I doubt anyone has confidence in his leadership skills, and I imagine others will want the fame, and the gory glory, of running the movement."

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenbal; Editing by Matthew Jones)

Analysis: Core Qaeda priority is survival, not succession, R, 3.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-binladen-qaeda-idUSTRE7424HM20110503

U.S. may release

photos of bin Laden burial at sea

WASHINGTON | Tue May 3, 2011
11:07am EDT
Reuters
By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States may release later on Tuesday photos of Osama bin Laden's burial at sea but no final decision has been made, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Obama administration has been weighing whether to make public photos of bin Laden's corpse as proof that he had been killed during a raid by U.S. forces on his mansion hide-out in Pakistan.

The al Qaeda leader's body was flown out of the country, brought to a U.S. aircraft carrier, given Islamic funeral rites and slipped into the north Arabian Sea in a weighted body bag on Monday.

There is also video of the burial ceremony, a second U.S. official said.

The first U.S. official did not offer details about the decision-making process ahead of the possible release of photos on Tuesday.

But President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser acknowledged earlier on Tuesday that the Obama administration was weighing the pros and cons of releasing photographic evidence.

"There is not a question at this point I think in anybody's mind that bin Laden is dead, and so I know there are some people who are interested in having that visual proof. This is something we are taking into account," John Brennan told National Public Radio.

"But what we don't want to do is to release anything that might be either misunderstood or that would cause other problems."

"We're looking at these issues and we'll make the right decisions."

Releasing photos of the burial at sea could be less controversial than images of bin Laden's corpse. His shrouded body was placed in a weighted bag and eased into the north Arabian Sea, the U.S. military said.

Still, some analysts warned that objections from some Muslim clerics to the sea burial could stoke anti-American sentiment. The clerics questioned whether the United States followed proper Islamic tradition, saying Muslims should not be buried at sea unless they died during a voyage.

(Additional reporting by Paul Simao; Editing by Paul Simao)

U.S. may release photos of bin Laden burial at sea, R, 3.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-binladen-burial-photos-idUSTRE7423LE20110503

Obama aides

were divided on bin Laden raid

WASHINGTON | Tue May 3, 2011 3:32am EDT
3:32am EDT
Reuters
By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama held a crucial meeting last week in which his advisers debated three options for dealing with top-secret information about a luxury compound in Pakistan where they thought Osama bin Laden might be hiding.

At a two-hour meeting in the ultra-secure White House Situation Room, the team discussed the pros and cons of a raid on the compound by a small group of elite U.S. forces, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The two other alternatives were to conduct a strike or to wait for information that might lend greater clarity on whether the al Qaeda leader was indeed holed up at the fortress-like compound outside of Islamabad, the official said.

Obama's advisers were split at the Thursday meeting and the president took a night to think about the decision, the official said.

On Friday morning, just before leaving to visit tornado-hit Alabama, Obama revealed to a small group of aides that he had decided in favor of an immediate raid, the official said.

"It's a go," Obama told his advisers, as he ordered the operation that led to killing of the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Information about the Abbotabad compound had surfaced last August but it was not until March that U.S. officials felt convinced enough of bin Laden's potential presence there that they began to develop a list of options.

U.S. intelligence analysts had been monitoring the complex, observing that there was a million-dollar home there owned by someone with no apparent source of income. There also appeared to be a family living there, including a man who never left the compound, according to the official.

NO ONE KNEW FOR SURE

The family seemed to fit a profile of bin Laden's family. Still, right up until the end, no one in the Obama administration, including the U.S. president, knew for sure.

The discussions over what to do took place over a period of weeks in meetings that were so closely held, no photographers were present and the sessions were not given titles, the official said.

Because the person who was believed to be bin Laden seemed always to remain at the compound, that removed some of the pressure to act immediately on the suspicions.

Still, Obama and his aides feared delaying action too long would increase the risk that word of the surveillance might leak out and their target might flee, the official said.

The timing of Obama's Friday order of the raid was driven in part by that concern. Also playing a role in the timing was the fact that the U.S. Navy SEAL team had carried out a number of rehearsals of the operation and was deemed ready to move ahead by its commander.

On Sunday afternoon, Obama convened a meeting at the White House where the mood was "tense" and "anxiety-ridden" as the group monitored the unfolding operation on a screen, the official said.

Those present included Secretary of State of Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan.

"We got him, guys," Obama said in reaction to the news of bin Laden's death.

Obama aides were divided on bin Laden raid, R, 3.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-binladen-usa-decision-idUSTRE7420VV20110503

In Arab World,

Bin Laden’s Confused Legacy

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By ANTHONY SHADID
and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The words were not uncommon in angry Arab capitals a decade ago. Osama bin Laden was hero, sheik, even leader to some. After his death Monday, a man who once vowed to liberate the Arab world was reduced to a footnote in the revolutions and uprisings remaking a region that he and his men had struggled to understand.

Predictably, the reactions ran the gamut Monday — from anger in the most conservative locales of Lebanon to jubilation among Shiite Muslims in Iraq, thousands of whom fell victim to carnage committed in the name of his organization. Some vowed revenge; others expressed disbelief that the man killed was in fact Bin Laden.

But most remarkable perhaps was the sense in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere that Bin Laden was an echo of a bygone time of ossifying divides between West and East, American omnipotence and Arab weakness, dictatorship and powerlessness. In an Arab world where tumult this year has begun to refigure that political arithmetic, it often seemed that the only people in the region citing Bin Laden’s name lately were the mouthpieces of strongmen like the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and the former Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, evoking his threat as a way to justify clinging to power.

For a man who bore some responsibility for two wars and deepening American involvement from North Africa to Yemen and Iraq, some say his death served as an epitaph for another era. Many in the Arab world, where three-fifths of the population is under 30, recall the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, as a childhood memory, if that.

“The Arab world is busy with its own big events, revolutions everywhere,” said Diaa Rashwan, deputy director of the Ahram Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization in Cairo. “Maybe before Tunisia his death might have been a big deal, but not anymore.”

Or, as Farah Murad, a 20-year-old student at the German University in Cairo, said of the attacks, “I have a vague recollection, but it was so long ago.”

The United States’ pursuit of Bin Laden has long prompted suspicions in an Arab world that remains deeply skeptical of America’s support for Arab dictators and its unstinting alliance with Israel.

Doubts emerged Monday over the timing of his killing. Some suggested that his whereabouts were long known and that his killing came in the interests of some party — be it the Obama administration, Pakistan or others.

In many quarters, there were calls for revenge and anger at his death, most publicly by Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister who heads the Hamas government in Gaza, who called him “a Muslim and Arab warrior.” Others insisted that the battle Bin Laden symbolized between the United States and militant Islamists would go on, and indeed, his organization had always been diffuse enough to survive his death.

“Mr. Obama said, ‘Justice has been achieved,’ ” said Bilal al-Baroudi, a Sunni Muslim preacher in the conservative Lebanese city of Tripoli. “Let’s see how.”

He added: “We dislike the reactions and the celebrations in the United States. What is this great victory? What is the great thing that they achieved? Bin Laden is not the end, and the door remains shut between us and the United States.”

Even then, the denunciations of the killing were often nuanced.

Marwan Shehadeh, an Islamist activist and researcher in Jordan, argued that Arabs would see Bin Laden’s death through the lens of their antipathy to American policies — interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and support for Israel — without regard to his views. “Osama bin Laden is a popular charismatic figure for many people,” he said. “They consider Osama bin Laden a model for fighting American hegemony.”

At the same time, Mr. Shehadeh argued that in the Muslim world, Bin Laden’s death might come to symbolize a different kind of revolution — the shift from violence toward other forms of political engagement, buoyed by the hope for change that the Arab Spring represents.

As if underlining the notion of a watershed, the Muslim Brotherhood said that with Bin Laden’s death, “the United States should leave Iraq and Afghanistan.”

In Libya, where Colonel Qaddafi has relentlessly called his foes acolytes of Bin Laden, whatever sympathies might have existed seemed to evaporate in the churning of a homegrown revolt. Eswahil Hassan, a doctor in the eastern Libyan city of Darnah, one of Libya’s more pious cities and a place that felt the weight of Colonel Qaddafi’s repression, said the news of the killing hardly caused a ripple Monday morning.

On word of it, he said he and a friend at the hospital had talked about the troubles Bin Laden had caused for Libyans, who suddenly had to prove that they did not belong to Al Qaeda. The friend was happy to see Bin Laden gone, Dr. Hassan said.

“To hell with him,” he quoted his friend as saying.

In Misurata, Libya, a rebel stronghold under siege by government forces, a group of armed rebels similarly expressed satisfaction at Bin Laden’s death, saying they hoped it would allow the United States to divert more military resources to their fight.

Citing reports of the gunfight that had killed the Qaeda leader, they said he had been shot twice in the head.

“Now for Qaddafi, two in the head,” said Ali Ahmed al-Ash.

“No,” said his friend, Mohammed bin Zeer. “For Qaddafi, three.”

Bin Laden’s death will inevitably be seen as another signpost in the hesitant evolution of political Islam’s relationship with the Arab state. In 2001, Bin Laden was often seen as a symbol of an embattled religion, the very personification of people’s frustrations at a faith seemingly overwhelmed by a Western power. A corollary was the Islamist activists’ own repression within the Arab world; many have noted that Ayman al-Zawahri, Bin Laden’s deputy, was radicalized in the jails of authoritarian Egypt.

A sense of helplessness, be it in Cairo’s poorest neighborhoods or the most traditional quarters of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, appeared to underline his support, particularly for a movement that eschewed rigorous ideology for a fetishized violence that served as an end in itself.

“After the cold war was over and America was the only power, he was the only one counter-balancing America,” said Islam Lotfy, an activist and leader of the youth wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest mainstream Islamic group.

Though still tentative, the Arab uprisings, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia, have introduced the beginnings of a new politics, one in which Islamist currents may have a stake. While anger remains over American policy and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, attention has largely turned inward, as activists deliberate what kind of state will emerge.

“The problem now is not how you can destroy something, how you can resist something, it’s how can you build something new — a new state, a new authority, a new relationship between the public and leadership, a new civil society,” said Radwan Sayyid, a professor of Islamic studies at the Lebanese University in Beirut.

Anthony Shadid reported from Beirut, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo. Reporting was contributed by Mona El-Naggar from Cairo, Nada Bakri and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Kareem Fahim from Benghazi, Libya, and C. J. Chivers from Misurata, Libya.

In Arab World, Bin Laden’s Confused Legacy, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/middleeast/03arab.html

A Coda to 9/11:

Cheers and Reflections

May 2, 2011
The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Bin Laden Killed by U.S. Forces in Pakistan, Obama Says, Declaring Justice Has Been Done” (front page, May 2):

The amazing news that Osama bin Laden is dead transcends the often petty nature of our domestic politics. Just as in World War II, good has overcome evil. A particular thanks must go out to all those who have worked so hard over the past 10 years to make Osama bin Laden’s death a reality.

This is a great time for our country and for the world.

STEVEN M. CLAYTON
Pittsburgh, May 2, 2011

To the Editor:

Re “President’s Vow Fulfilled” (news analysis, front page, May 2):

Yes, President Obama kept his word, and we will never again have to witness new videos of Osama bin Laden gloating or threatening our freedom. It has been a painful 10 years since we were attacked — with the ever present reminders of that day in the absence of our loved ones. The symbol of that vicious attack is now dead.

While I feel like celebrating, I also want to honor and remember the many brave men and women who lost their lives in the pursuit of our enemies. My heartfelt thanks to them and to President Obama for persevering.

BONNIE GREENE LE VAR
Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., May 2, 2011

The writer is the sister of Donald F. Greene, a passenger on United Flight 93.

To the Editor:

In his speech on Sunday, President Obama reasserted a commonly heard refrain: that Bin Laden’s death is a stroke of justice for those murdered in Al Qaeda’s heinous attacks. We should ask ourselves if justice for those killed on Sept. 11 and in our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq can be achieved by a killing, or if it can even be achieved at all.

It pains me to see our idea of justice perverted into an expectation of reciprocal murder. Our “revenge” will never restore our dead to their loved ones, and it will never heal the suffering caused by their loss.

I hope that we will re-examine our commitment to those whom we’ve lost and find justice instead in combating hatred and violence wherever they are found. We owe it to the memory of our lost loved ones, and we owe it to ourselves.

BENJAMIN REYNOLDS
Alexandria, Va., May 2, 2011

To the Editor:

News of the death of Osama bin Laden is cause for great happiness and great pause. A man responsible for nearly 3,000 deaths has been killed. Justice has been served.

Yet the families and friends of the victims of 9/11, more so than others, will forever have to deal with the loss of the loving embrace of their loved ones. Therefore, they must know that their struggle is ours, and even while we rejoice in this news, we do not forget their struggle. We are, as President Obama noted, “united as one American family.”

SARDAR ANEES AHMAD
Chairman
Muslim Writers Guild of America
Waterloo, N.Y., May 2, 2011

To the Editor:

While the unseemly chest thumping over the death of Osama bin Laden demonstrates that the vengeful blood lust of the American people is alive and well, such gruesome triumphalism seems particularly overblown in light of the fact that it took the United States government, with its enormous resources, nearly 10 years and billions of dollars to locate and kill one man.

Even more significantly, unless and until the United States and its Western allies fundamentally change their policies and stop trying to impose their will and their values on other nations and cultures, they will continue to generate the hatred and resentment that give rise to terrorism.

Osama bin Laden’s death alone will not put the genie back in the bottle.

JOHN S. KOPPEL
Bethesda, Md., May 2, 2011

To the Editor:

We need to congratulate and thank President Obama, the Central Intelligence Agency and particularly all the military people involved in the Navy Seal mission that finally meted out justice to Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden’s death brings some closure to the families and friends who were lost on 9/11, and, as former president George W. Bush stated, sends a clear message to all terrorist groups that the United States will not rest until all those involved in the 9/11 attacks are killed or brought to justice.

As we are joyful and thankful, we now need to be even more vigilant than ever. Those still running Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups will surely seek revenge in order to establish Bin Laden as a martyr.

The other lesson from this episode is that Pakistan, our so-called ally, cannot be trusted. The Pakistani intelligence service must have known that Bin Laden was hiding in plain sight right near a military academy and did nothing whatsoever about it.

HENRY A. LOWENSTEIN
New York, May 2, 2011

To the Editor:

Re “Amid Cheers, a Message: ‘They Will Be Caught’ ” (front page, May 2):

Press photos of Americans drunk with glee over the killing of Osama bin Laden recall images from long ago of parents hoisting children onto their shoulders for a clearer view of a public execution. This mindless merriment, based on hatred, fear and foolish indifference to the rage it inspires outside the United States, echoes the mindless viciousness of terrorists.

If we become them, what “way of life” will we have left to protect?

CANDIDA PUGH
Evanston, Ill., May 2, 2011

To the Editor:

With his remarkable success in pursuing and bringing Osama bin Laden to his end, President Obama has once again demonstrated the virtues of patience and persistence in fighting the threats to our security and well-being, at home and abroad.

Like Poe’s purloined letter, what was sought was hidden right before our eyes — or rather, before the eyes of the Pakistani intelligence agencies.

VEENA DAS
Baltimore, May 2, 2011

To the Editor:

As a witness to the World Trade Center attacks, I felt a sense of closure upon hearing of the death of Osama bin Laden. But I do not share the surge of patriotism in light of the execution of an accused killer without due process of law.

I hope that President Obama, a former constitutional law professor, will explain what authorized our government to summarily execute a suspected killer, even one who had confessed and was so universally reviled.

DIANE GOLDSTEIN TEMKIN
New York, May 2, 2011

The writer is a civil rights lawyer.

To the Editor:

It is a complicated thing to witness the celebrations of the death of Osama bin Laden. The feverish chants and flag waving duplicate the enthusiasm after bloodshed that our political and military leaders have condemned in foreign lands.

With the deepest sympathy for our innocent dead, isn’t it time to begin to recognize that there are also innocent dead abroad? The number of civilian dead and wounded in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the occupied Palestinian territories far outnumbers what we have experienced.

Unexamined enthusiasm, it seems, blinds all people similarly. It is time for sober reflection.

W. KING MOTT
Glen Rock, N.J., May 2, 2011

The writer is an associate professor of political science and gender studies at Seton Hall University.

To the Editor:

My 15-year-old son shook me awake after 11 p.m. on Sunday to tell me the news: “Osama bin Laden is dead!” This same boy barely remembers the 9/11 attacks, but still grasped the significance of Bin Laden’s death.

Ground zero is our backyard, and we talk often about that awful shimmering day, and all that it has wrought for America. Knowing that the man who caused such suffering is dead brings both solace and melancholy, but most of all a sense of relief.

LINDA FLANAGAN
Summit, N.J., May 2, 2011

A Coda to 9/11: Cheers and Reflections, R, 2.5.2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/opinion/l03binladen.html

A Mix of Emotion

Stored for a Decade

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By DAN BARRY

Finally, the sworn enemy of this American generation had been cornered and killed by our determined special forces over there, ending a decade-long hunt for the villain who had altered our way of life. Here, it seemed, was our moment to plant a celebratory kiss on a nurse or soldier in Times Square, to chant “U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.” until dawn — to see the faint outline of a better tomorrow.

But the pent-up emotions released by the news of a successfully deadly firefight in Pakistan, some 6,900 miles from Manhattan, proved as complicated as these times. They ranged from jingoistic bursts of boast to halting expressions of dread; from joyous shouts for the strike of a winning goal to somber reflections about that dish best served cold, vengeance.

“Bittersweet,” is how Todd Polk, an Army major who has completed two tours in Afghanistan, described the news of Osama bin Laden’s demise. Speaking by telephone from the Army’s National Training Center, in Southern California, he said he was glad that the last thing Bin Laden saw “was an American face.”

A great day, no doubt. But, he added, the grind of war continues.

“It’s a morale boost,” Major Polk said, before beginning another day training soldiers for combat. “But it’s not V-E Day.”

Osama bin Laden had become Public Enemy No. 1 and Only, responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11 that killed more than 2,900 people and provided government justification for sending a million American soldiers to war. At the same time, he was just one man, a thin, bearded ascetic killed by a gunshot to the head and now buried at sea.

His death may represent exacted justice, but it does not provide resolution. No sense of war’s end; no sense that the hovering threat of terrorism will lift anytime soon.

In the first hours, at least, it did seem like another Victory in Europe Day in the offing, particularly in certain corners of New York City. Sunday night’s reports of Bin Laden’s death sent hundreds cheering into the streets that surround the World Trade Center site. That many of them were children when the towers fell may have explained some of their joy; the bad man who loomed over their formative years had been vanquished, and so they raised voices, flags and cans of beer.

By midmorning, though, the numbers and the enthusiasm had waned. No nurses and soldiers in photogenic embrace. Only Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s solemn words — “Yesterday, Osama bin Laden found out that America keeps its commitments” — and the announcement of an increased police presence in the city’s subways.

In other places around the country that figured prominently in the 9/11 narrative, there were fewer fist bumps and woo-hoo chants than thoughtful pauses to place the development in sobering context.

In Boston, at Logan International Airport, the ceaseless morning hustle for departure gates and exit doors continued, just as it did nearly a decade ago, when Bin Laden-directed hijackers boarded the two jetliners that they would crash into the twin towers. Travelers who stepped outside the hurrying scrum to consider Bin Laden’s death generally expressed a happiness tinged with trepidation.

Luis Jimenez, 53, had just returned from California after engaging in a rite of passage so familiar in American culture: visiting colleges with his daughter, Paola, a soccer-playing high school junior. Before continuing on to their home in Moultonborough, N.H., he said he felt shock, elation and relief at the news of Bin Laden’s death.

“I think justice has been done,” he said, though he added, “I do worry a little about what might happen next.”

In Shanksville, Pa., where a plane crashed in a field after some passengers and crew members thwarted the plans of its Bin Laden-directed hijackers to hit either the White House or the Capitol, visitors placed small tokens — flowers, small American flags and newspapers heralding Bin Laden’s death — along the chain-link fence of the temporary memorial marking the crash site.

Michael Barham, who described himself as a military veteran from Phoenix who had served in Afghanistan, said that he was in Pittsburgh for a trade show, but that he had driven to Shanksville with his father on Monday morning because “this was the place we had to be today.”

“I’m very glad to see him dead,” Mr. Barham said of Bin Laden. “My only wish is that I could have been the one to do it.”

And in Washington, D.C., not far from where Bin Laden-directed hijackers crashed a plane into the Pentagon, dozens gathered outside the White House late Sunday night to sing in praise of the United States. But by Monday morning, the singing had stopped, with small groups of tourists snapping photographs and enjoying the moment, while news photographers and television crews waited for signs of celebration worthy of recording. Any honking of cars in the nation’s capital signaled impatience, not celebration.

Here was Katie Russell, 25, rushing to work at the National Geographic Channel and calling the news “pretty awesome.” But here, too, was Chris Halley, 42, a labor union employee, allowing that justice had been served, but adding that nothing had been changed.

“There’s always going to be another cockroach popping up,” Mr. Halley said, offering an assessment sure to vex military officials who spent nearly half a generation looking for Bin Laden.

Indeed, in chilly, cloudy Dearborn, Mich., where a third of the nearly 100,000 residents are of Middle Eastern descent, there seemed to be little doubt that the protracted hunt for Bin Laden, capped by his death, was a good and just development.

Mohammed Al-Fulah, who moved to the United States from Iraq 27 years ago and now works in his family’s restaurant, took a break from his lunch on a park bench to say he found nothing unseemly in the sporadic public celebrations of Bin Laden’s death.

“Why not?” he asked, stretching out his arms. “The man was a blood murderer. Why shouldn’t everybody be happy? It is a good day. A very good day.”

Madiha Ridha, an Iraqi émigré who works at a Dearborn clothing store that caters to Arab-American women, agreed. “We thank God they catch him,” she said. “It has been a long time. We are very happy.

“What he did in New York we will never forget,” she added, shaking her head. “He is not a human being.”

But the chatter on Facebook and Twitter reflected a virtual back-and-forth conversation about the propriety of celebrating a man’s death — no matter that thousands of Americans were killed at his command.

“A lot of people are rejoicing about it on Facebook,” said Kirk Barron, 22, a student at Columbia College, in Chicago. “A lot of people don’t necessarily know what they’re talking about. All they know is that a bad guy is killed. It’s a form of patriotism. It’s like you’re rooting for your favorite sports team.”

Mr. Barron, who was in grammar school when Sept. 11 attacks took place, admitted that he was having a hard time trying to figure out how he felt about the killing of Bin Laden. “I’m pretty spiritual, so I don’t want to celebrate a person’s death,” he said. “He was a bad guy, so it’s good that he was stopped. Then, I question whether his supporters will retaliate.”

These were the themes that intrigued students in William Lamme’s history classes at Kelly High School, in Chicago. They wanted to know more about Bin Laden, more about Al Qaeda — more about distant events still shaping current events.

“The students wanted to know if this somehow represented an end to things — which in my opinion, unfortunately, it does not,” Mr. Lamme said. “The movement has become much bigger. We talked about how important this person’s death would be for a movement that has gotten so big. A lot of the students said that they thought it was symbolic and important.”

Meanwhile, in Knoxville, Tenn., a business manager named Donald Fitzgibbon, 40, spent part of Monday cleaning up the damage from last week’s violent storms, which had broken his office’s skylights, torn the siding off his house and ruined two of his cars.

At first Mr. Fitzgibbon was happy to hear that Bin Laden had been killed. He has a deeper interest than most in this development: Nearly two years ago, his son, Pvt. Patrick Fitzgibbon, 19 years old and a few months out of Army boot camp, stepped on a buried mine in southern Afghanistan, killing him and another soldier.

But the more Mr. Fitzgibbon thought about Bin Laden’s death, the less he felt like rejoicing; to do so, he said, “makes me no better than him.”

Here was the truth of the matter. A person cannot blow a hole in the side of Lower Manhattan, send planes crashing in Pennsylvania and Virginia, kill more than 2,900 Americans — and not pay the price. At the same time, at least for Donald Fitzgibbon, Bin Laden’s death neither justified the war nor gave meaning to the tragic loss of Patrick Fitzgibbon and thousands of other soldiers.

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” Mr. Fitzgibbon said. “It don’t always work that way.”

Reporting was contributed by Mary Chapman from Dearborn, Mich.; James Dao from New York; Emma G. Fitzsimmons from Chicago; Abby Goodnough from Boston; Daniel Lovering from Shanksville, Pa.; Sabrina Tavernise from Washington; Dan Frosch from Santa Fe, N.M.; and Jennifer Medina from Los Angeles.

A Mix of Emotion Stored for a Decade, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/us/03mood.html

Even Before Al Qaeda Lost Its Founder,

It May Have Lost Some of Its Allure

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By SCOTT SHANE and ROBERT F. WORTH

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda and the movement it has spawned are unlikely to be immediately handicapped by the killing of Osama bin Laden, who by most accounts has long been removed from managing terrorist operations and whose popularity with Muslims worldwide has plummeted in recent years.

But the death of the founder and spiritual leader of the global terrorist network, coming amid Arab pro-democracy uprisings that had already raised questions about Al Qaeda’s relevance, may further undercut the appeal of the violent extremism Bin Laden stood for.

“His killing is an amazing accomplishment, and it’s very important symbolically,” said Audrey Kurth Cronin, who studies terrorism at the National War College and wrote a book on how terrorist movements end. “But as far as Al Qaeda is concerned, Bin Laden’s practical importance is nothing like it was at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks.”

A former jihadist who fought alongside Bin Laden in Afghanistan, Mohammad Omar Abdel Rahman, said the Qaeda founder had not really led the group for the last 10 years. “He was always a symbol,” said Mr. Abdel Rahman, 38, the eldest son of an Egyptian sheik imprisoned for his role in plotting to attack New York City landmarks. “But as a movement, he was unable to lead and manage as he was being pursued so closely.”

Of Bin Laden’s death, he said, “People will feel it in their heart, but as far as action goes, it will have no impact.”

It remained to be seen whether more operations against Al Qaeda would follow the assault on Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan on Monday, or if the computer hard drives seized by the Navy Seal team that killed him could generate more leads on the whereabouts of Qaeda operatives still at large.

But as evidence of Bin Laden’s diminished status, when Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, gave a speech last week on Al Qaeda, his 4,000-word text did not so much as mention the terrorist leader.

If the impact of Bin Laden’s removal is limited, that is in part because of his success in creating a decentralized global movement in which loosely coordinated groups are often linked by little more than a shared ideology. Affiliates of the old core of Al Qaeda are based in Yemen, North Africa and Somalia and have taken on a far more prominent role in recent years in plotting violence, including attacks aimed at the United States and Europe.

Counterterrorism officials now are watching to see whether groups such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, consisting mostly of Saudis and Yemenis, are distracted by the power struggle at home or move to fill the media vacuum left by Bin Laden’s death. The American-born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, now hiding in Yemen, could take on greater prominence as a result of Bin Laden’s departure from the scene.

The coming days and weeks will be a tense time for counterterrorism officials, who will be on the lookout for new attacks designed by Ayman al-Zawahri, Bin Laden’s deputy, and his other followers to demonstrate their continuing potency.

A classified document from the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention center describes a reported Qaeda plan to detonate a nuclear weapon if and when Bin Laden were captured or killed. American officials believe the group has no such weapon, but they are concerned that news of Bin Laden’s death could be a pre-arranged signal for setting a plot in motion.

“The question is how quickly Zawahri and the remnants can try to prove their relevance with new operations,” said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University. “Their incentive is all the greater now.”

Their incentive is greater, too, because the group’s popularity has been dwindling. Even as the United States carried out its decade-long hunt for Bin Laden, his support among Muslims in many countries has tumbled, often after terrorists killed Muslim civilians. In Pakistan, for instance, a Pew Research survey shows that confidence in Bin Laden fell from 46 percent in 2003 to 18 percent last year. The drop in Jordan was from 56 percent in 2003 to 13 percent this year, and in Lebanon from 19 percent to 1 percent.

The turmoil among Bin Laden’s followers was evident in interviews and in Web postings.

“It is a sad moment and also a happy moment,” said Omar Bakri Muhammad, a radical religious leader who was exiled from Britain and spoke by telephone from Lebanon. “Sad because the ummah” — the global community of Muslims — “was in need of such a charismatic leader. Happy moment because he died as a martyr; he was not humiliated and fought until the last moment.”

Some militants expressed doubt about Bin Laden’s death, citing what they called doctored photographs of his corpse — evidently fakes — that shot around the Web on Monday. But most conceded that the news was true and tried to shift focus to the organization that he helped build.

Mr. Abdel Rahman, the son of the blind Egyptian sheik who is serving a life sentence in the United States, said Bin Laden’s courage and charisma would continue to inspire others.

“The United States killed him, but left everything there that he was fighting for,” he said. “Those who follow his ideology may feel more hatred for America now.”

Bin Laden’s sympathizers spoke out in Western countries too. Anjem Choudary, the leader of an extremist Islamic group in Britain, Muslims Against Crusades, said on Monday that he believes “that the passing away of the Sheik Osama bin Laden will signal a new phase — I believe that his followers have a point to prove now, and the intensity of the struggle will increase.”

In Afghanistan, a member of the Taliban’s ruling council, reached by phone, voiced skepticism about Bin Laden’s death, while insisting that it would not matter anyway. Like some other jihadists, he noted that Bin Laden’s death came in the midst of Arab uprisings that had already raised questions about the influence of Al Qaeda.

“At this moment, the mujahedeen are silent to see what the leadership will announce,” the council member said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “But after the time of silence there will be a time of payback.”

Reporting was contributed by Souad Mekhennet from Casablanca, Morocco; Mona el-Naggar, from Cairo; Eric Schmitt from Brussels; and Ravi Somaiya from London.

Even Before Al Qaeda Lost Its Founder, It May Have Lost Some of Its Allure, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/03qaeda.html

Killing Adds to Debate

About U.S. Strategy and Timetable

in Afghanistan

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By MARK LANDLER,
THOM SHANKER and ALISSA J. RUBIN

WASHINGTON — The killing of Osama bin Laden deep in Pakistan is sure to fuel the debate over the Obama administration’s strategy in Afghanistan, where 100,000 troops are still fighting a war to destroy Al Qaeda. And the raid, conducted without the cooperation or even advance knowledge of Pakistan, raised fresh doubts about the lengthy American effort to turn it into a trustworthy partner in the hunt for terrorists.

As President Obama approaches a critical period in deciding how many troops to pull out of Afghanistan — and how fast — the deadly raid on Al Qaeda’s leader called into question many of the administration’s basic assumptions about how to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for Islamic terrorists.

On Monday, administration officials insisted that their commitments to Afghanistan and Pakistan would be undiminished by the death of Bin Laden. But they said privately that the pressure would mount on Mr. Obama to withdraw troops more quickly.

John O. Brennan, Mr. Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, said Pakistan would remain a critical partner in the fight against terrorism, regardless of what he conceded were questions about whether its government provided support to Bin Laden and disagreements about counterterrorism strategy. And he said the large NATO troop presence in Afghanistan was still necessary to prevent that country from again becoming a “launching point” for Al Qaeda.

But officials in the State Department and Pentagon, as well as key lawmakers, said Bin Laden’s death was bound to alter the debate about a costly war soon to enter its second decade. Those questions will be even more pointed, on the eve of an election year and amid growing alarm about the federal budget deficit.

“Every question has to be on the table in terms of where this is going,” said Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who will hold hearings on the policy this week. “What this does is initiate a possibility for re-evaluating what kind of transition we need in Afghanistan.”

Pentagon officials said they were preparing for calls for a more rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan. Critics of the war are expected to trumpet the death of Bin Laden as such a crippling blow to Al Qaeda that the movement, while remaining dangerous, is no longer an existential threat to the United States. Even before Bin Laden’s death, there was a camp within the administration and the Democratic Party — as well some voices among Republicans — calling for a rapid winding down of American involvement.

Pentagon officials acknowledged that NATO nations, many of whom already are reluctant to remain in Afghanistan, also may argue that Bin Laden’s death allows them to withdraw more rapidly than planned.

“I hope people are going to feel, on a bipartisan basis, that when you move the ball this far it’s crazy to walk off the field,” one senior administration official said. Officials who favor retaining a large troop presence said that while this was a significant victory, the security gains in Afghanistan remained fragile.

When Mr. Obama ordered an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in 2009 with a goal of disrupting, dismantling and defeating Al Qaeda, it included a broader counterinsurgency campaign to protect the population, rebuild the economy and shore up the fragile central government. This broader campaign, which goes far beyond a focused fight against Al Qaeda, is based on the goal of assuring that Afghanistan would never again become a safe haven for the terror organization.

The administration, officials said, was already moving away from this counterinsurgency strategy, toward one with more limited objectives for Afghanistan and a goal of political reconciliation with the Taliban, which once offered Al Qaeda sanctuary there. Drone strikes and nighttime raids, of the kind that killed Bin Laden, would figure even more prominently in such a strategy, officials said.

But reconciling with the Taliban will require an active role by Pakistan, which provides a haven for Taliban leaders. The strains between the United States and Pakistan could make that process more difficult. And Bin Laden’s death near Islamabad has rekindled suspicions in Afghanistan. On Monday, Afghan officials were withering in their criticism of Pakistan as the locus of terrorism.

“Pakistan is the problem, and the West has to pay attention,” said Amrullah Saleh, the former intelligence director of Afghanistan, who resigned last summer. Though jubilant at the death of Bin Laden, he said it was time for the United States to “wake up to the fact that Pakistan is a hostile state exporting terror.”

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan was more diplomatic but said Bin Laden’s death should speed the end of the war.

“We said that the fight against terrorism is not in bombing women and children of Afghanistan,” Mr. Karzai said to a meeting of Afghan district leaders on Monday. “The fight against terrorism is in its sanctuaries, in its training bases and in its financing centers, not in Afghanistan, and now it’s proved that we were right.”

Mr. Obama has set a deadline of July for beginning a withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. As the White House begins to debate how many troops should leave and how quickly, Pentagon officials and military officers said they expected additional pressure to reassess the strategy and accelerate a withdrawal.

Officials pointed to one unexpected benefit of the raid: American allies in the Persian Gulf believe that Iran may be chastened, however temporarily, by evidence of a forceful operation by the United States to protect its national security interests — and one that required violating the sovereignty of another nation.

Although Mr. Brennan acknowledged questions about Pakistan’s trustworthiness, the administration sought to keep relations calm. Mr. Obama called President Asif Ali Zardari. The administration’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, arrived in Islamabad on Monday for previously scheduled three-way talks between the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan. A previously scheduled conference between top-level American and Pakistan defense officials convened Monday at the Pentagon, and will continue Tuesday. Still, the next few days and weeks could prove bumpy, American and Pakistani officials said, as the two side try to rebuild trust.

“Pakistan is a huge country with lots of people, some of whom unfortunately sympathize with the goals of terrorists,” said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington. “But their presence in the country should not be interpreted as, in any way, state complicity.”

Mark Landler and Thom Shanker reported from Washington, and Alissa J. Rubin from Kabul, Afghanistan.

Killing Adds to Debate About U.S. Strategy and Timetable in Afghanistan, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/03policy.html

Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI,
HELENE COOPER and PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON — For years, the agonizing search for Osama bin Laden kept coming up empty. Then last July, Pakistanis working for the Central Intelligence Agency drove up behind a white Suzuki navigating the bustling streets near Peshawar, Pakistan, and wrote down the car’s license plate.

The man in the car was Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, and over the next month C.I.A. operatives would track him throughout central Pakistan. Ultimately, administration officials said, he led them to a sprawling compound at the end of a long dirt road and surrounded by tall security fences in a wealthy hamlet 35 miles from the Pakistani capital.

On a moonless night eight months later, 79 American commandos in four helicopters descended on the compound, the officials said. Shots rang out. A helicopter stalled and would not take off. Pakistani authorities, kept in the dark by their allies in Washington, scrambled forces as the American commandos rushed to finish their mission and leave before a confrontation. Of the five dead, one was a tall, bearded man with a bloodied face and a bullet in his head. A member of the Navy Seals snapped his picture with a camera and uploaded it to analysts who fed it into a facial recognition program.

And just like that, history’s most expansive, expensive and exasperating manhunt was over. The inert frame of Osama bin Laden, America’s enemy No. 1, was placed in a helicopter for burial at sea, never to be seen or feared again. A nation that spent a decade tormented by its failure to catch the man responsible for nearly 3,000 fiery deaths in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, at long last had its sense of finality, at least in this one difficult chapter.

For an intelligence community that had endured searing criticism for a string of intelligence failures over the past decade, Bin Laden’s killing brought a measure of redemption. For a military that has slogged through two, and now three vexing wars in Muslim countries, it provided an unalloyed success. And for a president whose national security leadership has come under question, it proved an affirming moment that will enter the history books.

The raid was the culmination of years of painstaking intelligence work, including the interrogation of C.I.A. detainees in secret prisons in Eastern Europe, where sometimes what was not said was as useful as what was. Intelligence agencies eavesdropped on telephone calls and e-mails of the courier’s Arab family in a Persian Gulf state and pored over satellite images of the compound in Abbottabad to determine a “pattern of life” that might decide whether the operation would be worth the risk.

As more than a dozen White House, intelligence and Pentagon officials described the operation on Monday, the past few weeks were a nerve-racking amalgamation of what-ifs and negative scenarios. “There wasn’t a meeting when someone didn’t mention ‘Black Hawk Down,’ ” a senior administration official said, referring to the disastrous 1993 battle in Somalia in which two American helicopters were shot down and some of their crew killed in action. The failed mission to rescue hostages in Iran in 1980 also loomed large.

Administration officials split over whether to launch the operation, whether to wait and continue monitoring until they were more sure that Bin Laden was really there, or whether to go for a less risky bombing assault. In the end, President Obama opted against a bombing that could do so much damage it might be uncertain whether Bin Laden was really hit and chose to send in commandos. A “fight your way out” option was built into the plan, with two helicopters following the two main assault copters as backup in case of trouble.

On Sunday afternoon, as the helicopters raced over Pakistani territory, the president and his advisers gathered in the Situation Room of the White House to monitor the operation as it unfolded. Much of the time was spent in silence. Mr. Obama looked “stone faced,” one aide said. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. fingered his rosary beads. “The minutes passed like days,” recalled John O. Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief.

The code name for Bin Laden was “Geronimo.” The president and his advisers watched Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director, on a video screen, narrating from his agency’s headquarters across the Potomac River what was happening in faraway Pakistan.

“They’ve reached the target,” he said.

Minutes passed.

“We have a visual on Geronimo,” he said.

A few minutes later: “Geronimo EKIA.”

Enemy Killed In Action. There was silence in the Situation Room.

Finally, the president spoke up.

“We got him.”

Filling in the Gaps

Years before the Sept. 11 attacks transformed Bin Laden into the world’s most feared terrorist, the C.I.A. had begun compiling a detailed dossier about the major players inside his global terror network.

It wasn’t until after 2002, when the agency began rounding up Qaeda operatives — and subjecting them to hours of brutal interrogation sessions in secret overseas prisons — that they finally began filling in the gaps about the foot soldiers, couriers and money men Bin Laden relied on.

Prisoners in American custody told stories of a trusted courier. When the Americans ran the man’s pseudonym past two top-level detainees — the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed; and Al Qaeda’s operational chief, Abu Faraj al-Libi — the men claimed never to have heard his name. That raised suspicions among interrogators that the two detainees were lying and that the courier probably was an important figure.

As the hunt for Bin Laden continued, the spy agency was being buffeted on other fronts: the botched intelligence assessments about weapons of mass destruction leading up to the Iraq War, and the intense criticism for using waterboarding and other extreme interrogation methods that critics said amounted to torture.

By 2005, many inside the C.I.A. had reached the conclusion that the Bin Laden hunt had grown cold, and the agency’s top clandestine officer ordered an overhaul of the agency’s counterterrorism operations. The result was Operation Cannonball, a bureaucratic reshuffling that placed more C.I.A. case officers on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

With more agents in the field, the C.I.A. finally got the courier’s family name. With that, they turned to one of their greatest investigative tools — the National Security Agency began intercepting telephone calls and e-mail messages between the man’s family and anyone inside Pakistan. From there they got his full name.

Last July, Pakistani agents working for the C.I.A. spotted him driving his vehicle near Peshawar. When, after weeks of surveillance, he drove to the sprawling compound in Abbottabad, American intelligence operatives felt they were onto something big, perhaps even Bin Laden himself. It was hardly the spartan cave in the mountains that many had envisioned as his hiding place. Rather, it was a three-story house ringed by 12-foot-high concrete walls, topped with barbed wire and protected by two security fences. He was, said Mr. Brennan, the White House official, “hiding in plain sight.”

Back in Washington, Mr. Panetta met with Mr. Obama and his most senior national security aides, including Mr. Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. The meeting was considered so secret that White House officials didn’t even list the topic in their alerts to each other.

That day, Mr. Panetta spoke at length about Bin Laden and his presumed hiding place.

“It was electric,” an administration official who attended the meeting said. “For so long, we’d been trying to get a handle on this guy. And all of a sudden, it was like, wow, there he is.”

There was guesswork about whether Bin Laden was indeed inside the house. What followed was weeks of tense meetings between Mr. Panetta and his subordinates about what to do next.

While Mr. Panetta advocated an aggressive strategy to confirm Bin Laden’s presence, some C.I.A. clandestine officers worried that the most promising lead in years might be blown if bodyguards suspected the compound was being watched and spirited the Qaeda leader out of the area.

For weeks last fall, spy satellites took detailed photographs, and the N.S.A. worked to scoop up any communications coming from the house. It wasn’t easy: the compound had neither a phone line nor Internet access. Those inside were so concerned about security that they burned their trash rather than put it on the street for collection.

In February, Mr. Panetta called Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, commander of the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, to C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., to give him details about the compound and to begin planning a military strike.

Admiral McRaven, a veteran of the covert world who had written a book on American Special Operations, spent weeks working with the C.I.A. on the operation, and came up with three options: a helicopter assault using American commandos, a strike with B-2 bombers that would obliterate the compound, or a joint raid with Pakistani intelligence operatives who would be told about the mission hours before the launch.

Weighing the Options

On March 14, Mr. Panetta took the options to the White House. C.I.A. officials had been taking satellite photos, establishing what Mr. Panetta described as the habits of people living at the compound. By now evidence was mounting that Bin Laden was there.

The discussions about what to do took place as American relations with Pakistan were severely strained over the arrest of Raymond A. Davis, the C.I.A. contractor imprisoned for shooting two Pakistanis on a crowded street in Lahore in January. Some of Mr. Obama’s top aides worried that any military assault to capture or kill Bin Laden might provoke an angry response from Pakistan’s government, and that Mr. Davis could end up dead in his jail cell. Mr. Davis was ultimately released on March 16, giving a freer hand to his colleagues.

On March 22, the president asked his advisers their opinions on the options.

Mr. Gates was skeptical about a helicopter assault, calling it risky, and instructed military officials to look into aerial bombardment using smart bombs. But a few days later, the officials returned with the news that it would take some 32 bombs of 2,000 pounds each. And how could the American officials be certain that they had killed Bin Laden?

“It would have created a giant crater, and it wouldn’t have given us a body,” said one American intelligence official.

A helicopter assault emerged as the favored option. The Navy Seals team that would hit the ground began holding dry runs at training facilities on both American coasts, which were made up to resemble the compound. But they were not told who their target might be until later.

Last Thursday, the day after the president released his long-form birth certificate — such “silliness,” he told reporters, was distracting the country from more important things — Mr. Obama met again with his top national security officials.

Mr. Panetta told the group that the C.I.A. had “red-teamed” the case — shared their intelligence with other analysts who weren’t involved to see if they agreed that Bin Laden was probably in Abbottabad. They did. It was time to decide.

Around the table, the group went over and over the negative scenarios. There were long periods of silence, one aide said. And then, finally, Mr. Obama spoke: “I’m not going to tell you what my decision is now — I’m going to go back and think about it some more.” But he added, “I’m going to make a decision soon.”

Sixteen hours later, he had made up his mind. Early the next morning, four top aides were summoned to the White House Diplomatic Room. Before they could brief the president, he cut them off. “It’s a go,” he said. The earliest the operation could take place was Saturday, but officials cautioned that cloud cover in the area meant that Sunday was much more likely.

The next day, Mr. Obama took a break from rehearsing for the White House Correspondents Dinner that night to call Admiral McRaven, to wish him luck.

On Sunday, White House officials canceled all West Wing tours so unsuspecting tourists and visiting celebrities wouldn’t accidentally run into all the high-level national security officials holed up in the Situation Room all afternoon monitoring the feeds they were getting from Mr. Panetta. A staffer went to Costco and came back with a mix of provisions — turkey pita wraps, cold shrimp, potato chips, soda.

At 2:05 p.m., Mr. Panetta sketched out the operation to the group for a final time. Within an hour, the C.I.A. director began his narration, via video from Langley. “They’ve crossed into Pakistan,” he said.

Across the Border

The commando team had raced into the Pakistani night from a base in Jalalabad, just across the border in Afghanistan. The goal was to get in and get out before Pakistani authorities detected the breach of their territory by what were to them unknown forces and reacted with possibly violent results.

In Pakistan, it was just past midnight on Monday morning, and the Americans were counting on the element of surprise. As the first of the helicopters swooped in at low altitudes, neighbors heard a loud blast and gunshots. A woman who lives two miles away said she thought it was a terrorist attack on a Pakistani military installation. Her husband said no one had any clue Bin Laden was hiding in the quiet, affluent area. “It’s the closest you can be to Britain,” he said of their neighborhood.

The Seal team stormed into the compound — the raid awakened the group inside, one American intelligence official said — and a firefight broke out. One man held an unidentified woman living there as a shield while firing at the Americans. Both were killed. Two more men died as well, and two women were wounded. American authorities later determined that one of the slain men was Bin Laden’s son, Hamza, and the other two were the courier and his brother.

The commandos found Bin Laden on the third floor, wearing the local loose-fitting tunic and pants known as a shalwar kameez, and officials said he resisted before he was shot above the left eye near the end of the 40-minute raid. The American government gave few details about his final moments. “Whether or not he got off any rounds, I frankly don’t know,” said Mr. Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief. But a senior Pentagon official, briefing on the condition of anonymity, said it was clear Bin Laden “was killed by U.S. bullets.”

American officials insisted they would have taken Bin Laden into custody if he did not resist, although they considered that likelihood remote. “If we had the opportunity to take Bin Laden alive, if he didn’t present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that,” Mr. Brennan said.

One of Bin Laden’s wives identified his body, American officials said. A picture taken by a Seals commando and processed through facial recognition software suggested a 95 percent certainty that it was Bin Laden. Later, DNA tests comparing samples with relatives found a 99.9 percent match.

But the Americans faced other problems. One of their helicopters stalled and could not take off. Rather than let it fall into the wrong hands, the commandos moved the women and children to a secure area and blew up the malfunctioning helicopter.

By that point, though, the Pakistani military was scrambling forces in response to the incursion into Pakistani territory. “They had no idea about who might have been on there,” Mr. Brennan said. “Thankfully, there was no engagement with Pakistani forces.”

As they took off at 1:10 a.m. local time, taking a trove of documents and computer hard drives from the house, the Americans left behind the women and children. A Pakistani official said nine children, from 2 to 12 years old, are now in Pakistani custody.

The Obama administration had already determined it would follow Islamic tradition of burial within 24 hours to avoid offending devout Muslims, yet concluded Bin Laden would have to be buried at sea, since no country would be willing to take the body. Moreover, they did not want to create a shrine for his followers.

So the Qaeda leader’s body was washed and placed in a white sheet in keeping with tradition. On the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, it was placed in a weighted bag as an officer read prepared religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker, according to the senior Pentagon official.

The body then was placed on a prepared flat board and eased into the sea. Only a small group of people watching from one of the large elevator platforms that move aircraft up to the flight deck were witness to the end of America’s most wanted fugitive.

Reporting was contributed by Elisabeth Bumiller, Charlie Savage and Steven Lee Myers from Washington, Adam Ellick from New York, and Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/03intel.html

Pakistan says

not part of U.S. operation

to kill bin Laden

WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan
Mon May 2, 2011
11:22pm EDT
Reuters
By Mark Hosenball and Kamran Haider

WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's president acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that his security forces were left out of a U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden, but he did little to dispel questions over how the al Qaeda leader could live in comfort near Islamabad.

The revelation bin Laden had been holed up in a compound in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, possibly for years, has threatened to worsen U.S. ties with nuclear-armed Pakistan.

"He was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now he is gone," Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, without offering further defense against accusations his security services should have known where bin Laden was hiding.

"Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world."

It was the first public comment by any Pakistani civilian or military leader on the raid by a secret U.S. assault team on bin Laden's compound on Sunday night.

Irate U.S. lawmakers wondered how it was possible for bin Laden to live in a populated area near a military training academy without anyone of authority knowing about it or sanctioning his presence.

They said it was time to review the billions in aid the United States provides Pakistan.

"Our government is in fiscal distress. To make contributions to a country that isn't going to be fully supportive is a problem for many," said Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein.

The White House acknowledged there was good reason for U.S. lawmakers, already doubtful of Pakistan's cooperation against al Qaeda, to demand to know whether bin Laden had been "hiding in plain sight" and to raise questions about U.S. aid to Islamabad.

For years, Pakistan had said it did not know bin Laden's whereabouts, vowing that if Washington had actionable intelligence, its military and security agencies would act.

The body of the world's most powerful symbol of Islamist militancy was buried at sea after he was shot in the head and chest by U.S. special forces who were dropped inside his sprawling compound by Blackhawk helicopters.

Bin Laden, 54, was given a sea burial after Muslim funeral rites on a U.S. aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson. His shrouded body was placed in a weighted bag and eased into the north Arabian Sea, the U.S. military said.

Analysts warned that objections from some Muslim clerics to the sea burial could stoke anti-American sentiment. The clerics questioned whether the United States followed proper Islamic tradition, saying Muslims should not be buried at sea unless they died during a voyage.

WARNINGS OF REVENGE

The United States also issued security warnings to Americans worldwide. CIA Director Leon Panetta said al Qaeda would "almost certainly" try to avenge bin Laden's death.

Vows to avenge bin Laden's death appeared quickly in Islamist militant forums, a key means by which al Qaeda leaders have passed on information. "God's revenge on you, you Roman dog, God's revenge on you crusaders," one forum member wrote.

Bin Laden's death had initially boosted the dollar and shares on a perception that his killing reduced global security risks.

But Asian shares dipped on Tuesday and the dollar struggled to pull away from a three-year low, as the financial risk taking faded and investors refocused attention on the fragile state of the world economy.

Bin Laden's hideaway, built in 2005, was about eight times larger than other homes nearby. With its 12-18 foot (3.7-5.5 meter) walls topped with barbed wire, internal walls for extra privacy, and access controlled through two security gates, it looked like a strongman's compound.

White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said it was "inconceivable that bin Laden did not have a support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for an extended period of time."

President Barack Obama was given a standing ovation by Democratic and Republican lawmakers at a White House dinner.

He told the group the operation was a reminder that "there is pride in what this nation stands for and what we can achieve that runs far deeper than party, far deeper than politics."

But the euphoria that drew flag-waving crowds to "Ground Zero" of the September 11, 2001, attack in New York was tempered by calls for vigilance against retaliation by his followers.

Obama planned to travel to New York on Thursday to visit Ground Zero and meet families of September 11 victims.

The Obama administration was weighing whether to release a photo of bin Laden's body as proof that he had been killed. There is also a video of the sea burial but it was not clear if it would be released, a U.S. official said.

NIGHT RAID NEAR ISLAMABAD

Americans clamored for details about the secret U.S. military mission.

A small U.S. strike team, dropped by helicopter to bin Laden's hide-out near the Pakistani capital Islamabad under the cover of night, shot the al Qaeda leader to death with a bullet to the head. He did not return fire.

Bin Laden's wife, originally thought killed, was only wounded. Another woman was killed in the raid, along with one of bin Laden's sons, in the tense 40 minutes of fighting. She had not been used as a human shield as first thought.

Television pictures from inside the house showed bloodstains smeared across a floor next to a large bed.

Obama and his staff followed the raid minute-by-minute via a live video feed in the White House situation room, and there was relief when the commandos, including members of the Navy's elite Seals unit, stormed the compound.

"We got him," the president said, according to Brennan, after the mission was accomplished.

National Journal said U.S. authorities used intelligence about the compound to build a replica of it and use it for trial runs in early April.

Mindful of possible suspicion in the Muslim world, a U.S. official said DNA testing showed a "virtually 100 percent" match with the al Qaeda leader. His DNA was matched with that of several relatives, a U.S. official said.

Under bin Laden, al Qaeda militants struck targets from Indonesia to the European capitals of Madrid and London.

But it was the September 11 attacks, in which al Qaeda militants used hijacked planes to strike at economic and military symbols of American might and killed nearly 3,000 people, that helped bin Laden achieve global infamy.

Obama, whose popularity has suffered from continuing U.S. economic woes, will likely see a short-term bounce in his approval ratings. At the same time, he may face more pressure from Americans to speed the planned withdrawal this July of some U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

However, bin Laden's death is unlikely to have any impact on the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are facing record violence by a resurgent Taliban.

Many analysts see bin Laden's death as largely symbolic since he was no longer believed to have been issuing operational orders to the many autonomous al Qaeda affiliates.

In Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's native land, there was a mood of disbelief and sorrow among many. The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas mourned bin Laden as an "Arab holy warrior."

But many in the Arab world felt his death was long overdue. For many Arabs, inspired by the popular upheavals in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere over the past few months, the news of bin Laden's death had less significance than it once might have.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Jeff Mason, Caren Bohan,

Patricia Zengerle, Arshad Mohammed, Alister Bull, Missy Ryan, Mark Hosenball, Richard Cowan, Andrew Quinn, Tabassum Zakaria, Joanne Allen and David Morgan in Washington and Chris Allbritton in Islamabad; Writing by Dean Yates; Editing by John Chalmers)

Pakistan says not part of U.S. operation to kill bin Laden, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-obama-statement-idUSTRE74107920110503

The Long-Awaited News

May 2, 2011
The New York Times

The news that Osama bin Laden had been tracked and killed by American forces filled us, and all Americans, with a great sense of relief. But our reaction was strongly tinged with sadness. Nearly a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the horror has not faded, nor has the knowledge of how profoundly our lives were changed.

Even as we now breathe a bit more easily, we must also remember that the fight against extremists is far from over. Al Qaeda may strike back, or other groups may try to assert their rising power. The reports of how Bin Laden’s lair in Pakistan was discovered and breached, the years of intelligence-gathering and the intensive planning for this raid, are all a reminder of just how hard this work is and how much vigilance and persistence matter.

Leadership matters enormously, and President Obama has shown that he is a strong and measured leader. His declaration on Sunday night that “justice has been done” was devoid of triumphalism. His vow that the country will “remain vigilant at home and abroad” was an important reminder that the danger has not passed. His affirmation that the “United States is not and never will be at war with Islam” sent an essential message to the Muslim world, where hopes for democracy are rising but old hatreds, and leaders who exploit them, are still powerful.

Mr. Obama rightly affirmed that this country will be “relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies” — but “true to the values that make us who we are.” Maintaining that balance is never easy, and this administration has strayed, but not as often or as damagingly as the Bush team did. Much will be made of the fact that the original tip came from detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. There is no evidence that good intelligence like this was the result of secret detentions or abuse and torture. Everything suggests the opposite.

The full story has yet to be told, but a few things struck us from the early reporting. The president’s decision to order a raid on the compound — the only way to gather proof of Bin Laden’s death — rather than destroying it from the air, showed guts. The memory of President Jimmy Carter’s failed hostage rescue mission in Iran had to have been on the mind of everyone in the White House.

On Sunday night, Mr. Obama gave Pakistan faint praise for some unspecified cooperation, but the facts are damning: The most hunted man in the world was living in a $1 million compound, an hour’s drive from Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, and close to both a military training academy and a large military base.

On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was doing the diplomatic thing, we suppose, by talking about how the United States is committed to its partnership with Pakistan. We hope that she and the president are a lot tougher in private with Pakistani officials and doing some very hard thinking about how they will manage this relationship.

After this, how can anyone keep a straight face — or keep from screaming — when Pakistani officials claim they have no idea where the Taliban’s Mullah Muhammad Omar or dozens of other extremist leaders are hiding?

Mr. Obama made only passing mention of the war in Afghanistan, which was ordered to root out Al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts. After President George W. Bush turned his sights on Iraq, the effort faltered badly. President Obama’s “surge” is showing some progress. The Taliban have been pushed back from Kandahar, but they are not close to being defeated. Afghans are alienated and disgusted by the Karzai government’s corruption and incompetence.

Bin Laden’s death should be a warning to Taliban leaders and fighters that the United States is not giving up. The Obama administration should capitalize on that message of strength and seriously explore whether there is a political deal to be cut with the Taliban: one that doesn’t send Afghan women and girls back to the Dark Ages or reopen the country to Al Qaeda. But also one that helps bring a decade of American fighting closer to an end.

Bin Laden’s death is an extraordinary moment for Americans and all who have lost loved ones in horrifying, pointless acts of terrorism. As fresh as those wounds still are, though, we were struck by how irrelevant Bin Laden has become in the streets of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain and Syria, where people are struggling for freedom.

Mr. Obama should use this moment to clearly state American support for all in the Muslim world who are yearning for peaceful, democratic change. Their victory will be the true defeat of Bin Laden.

The Long-Awaited News, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/opinion/03tue1.html

What Drives History

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By DAVID BROOKS

Osama Bin Laden’s mother was about 15 at the time of his birth. Nicknamed “The Slave” inside the family, she was soon discarded and sent off to be married to a middle manager in the Bin Laden construction firm.

Osama revered the father he rarely got to see and adored his mother. As a teenager, he “would lie at her feet and caress her,” a family friend told Steve Coll, for his definitive biography “The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century.”

Like many people who go on to alter history, for good and evil, Bin Laden lost his father when he was about 9. The family patriarch was killed in a plane crash caused by an American pilot in the Saudi province of Asir. (Five of the Sept. 11 hijackers would come from that province. His brother was later killed in a plane crash on American soil.)

Osama was an extremely shy child, Coll writes. He was an outsider in his new family but also the golden goose. His allowance and inheritance was the source of his family’s wealth.

He lived a suburban existence and was sent to an elite school, wearing a blue blazer and being taught by European teachers. As a boy he watched “Bonanza” and became infatuated by another American show called “Fury,” about a troubled orphaned boy who goes off to a ranch and tames wild horses. He was a mediocre student but religiously devout. He made it to university, but didn’t last long. He married his first cousin when she was 14 and went into the family business.

I repeat these personal facts because we have a tendency to see history as driven by deep historical forces. And sometimes it is. But sometimes it is driven by completely inexplicable individuals, who combine qualities you would think could never go together, who lead in ways that violate every rule of leadership, who are able to perpetrate enormous evils even though they themselves seem completely pathetic.

Analysts spend their lives trying to anticipate future threats and understand underlying forces. But nobody could have possibly anticipated Bin Laden’s life and the giant effect it would have. The whole episode makes you despair about making predictions.

As a family man, Bin Laden was interested in sex, cars and work but was otherwise devout. He did not permit photography in his presence. He banned “Sesame Street,” Tabasco sauce and straws from his home. He covered his eyes if an unveiled woman entered the room. He liked to watch the news, but he had his children stand by the set and turn down the volume whenever music came on.

As Coll emphasized in an interview on Monday, this sort of devoutness, while not everybody’s cup of tea, was utterly orthodox in his society. He was not a rebel as a young man.

After the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, he organized jihadi tourism: helping young, idealistic Arab fighters who wanted to spend some time fighting the invaders. He was not a fighter himself, more of a courier and organizer, though after he survived one Soviet bombardment, he began to fashion a self-glorifying mythology.

He was still painfully shy but returned with an enormous sense of entitlement. In 1990, he wanted to run the Saudi response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He also thought he should run the family business. After he was shot down for both roles, the radicalism grew.

We think of terrorism leaders as hard and intimidating. Bin Laden was gentle and soft, with a flaccid handshake. Yet his soldiers have told researchers such as Peter Bergen, the author of “The Longest War,” that meeting him was a deeply spiritual experience. They would tell stories of his ability to avoid giving offense and forgive transgressors.

We think of terrorists as trying to build cells and organizations, but Bin Laden created an anti-organization — an open-source set of networks with some top-down control but much decentralization and a willingness to embrace all recruits, regardless of race, sect or nationality.

We think of war fighters as using violence to seize property and power, but Bin Laden seemed to regard murder as a subdivision of brand management. It was a way to inspire the fund-raising networks, dominate the news and manipulate meaning.

In short, Osama Bin Laden seemed to live in an ethereal, postmodern world of symbols and signifiers and also a cruel murderous world of rage and humiliation. Even the most brilliant intelligence analyst could not anticipate such an odd premodern and postglobalized creature, or could imagine that such a creature would gain such power.

I just wish there were a democratic Bin Laden, that amid all the Arab hunger for dignity and freedom there was another inexplicable person with the ability to frame narratives and propel action — for good, not evil.

So far, there doesn’t seem to be, which is tragic because individuals matter.

What Drives History, NYT, 2.5.2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/opinion/03brooks.html

4 Questions He Leaves Behind

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By JOE NOCERA

To give the devil his awful due, Osama bin Laden was the greatest terrorist of the modern age. He took what had been disparate, disorganized terrorist groups and reshaped them into a disciplined and immensely ambitious organization, Al Qaeda, with the singular goal of waging jihad on the West in general and the United States in particular. Its terrorist prowess was never more evident than on that horrible day of Sept. 11, 2001.

Now that Bin Laden is dead, the most pressing question we need to ask is: Will his death make a difference? It is, of course, symbolically important that the United States hunted down the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks. And it will have political ramifications for President Obama, which I leave to others to debate.

But the thing that matters most right now is whether the world today is safer than it was on Sunday, when Bin Laden was still among the living. Though it is not an easy question to answer, it seems to me that there are four areas where it ought to be asked:

THE ARAB SPRING The commentariat was quick to note the delicious irony that Bin Laden’s death coincided with the citizen uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere. The Arab Spring has shown that millions of Muslims have zero interest in the hard-line theocracy favored by Al Qaeda. What they yearn for instead is freedom and democracy. Bin Laden’s death merely put an exclamation point on the fact that his influence in the region had diminished considerably in the decade since 9/11.

But Lawrence Wright, the author of “The Looming Tower,” a Pulitzer-Prize winning book about Al Qaeda, goes a step further. He’s convinced that Bin Laden’s death could help prevent the Arab Spring from sputtering out.

“As long as he was around, he created an alternative narrative,” said Wright. “When the moment comes that the democratic movement falters — and there always is such a moment — Al Qaeda could say: We told you so. The fact that he is gone makes it more likely for the Arab Spring to complete its reformation cycle.”

THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN Ever since he came into office, President Obama has insisted that our presence in Afghanistan was directly related to the ongoing threat from Al Qaeda. Ten years in, though, the war has no end in sight and dwindling public support. Liberal groups like the Brave New Foundation are already saying that Bin Laden’s death has “ended the rationale” for the war.

It’s not just liberals, either. James Lindsay, a senior vice president of that establishment bulwark Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that the president could use Bin Laden’s death to say that America’s “goal has been achieved” — and use it as an excuse to wind down the war. Whether the president will take such a step is unclear. But it’s now at least feasible.

TERRORISM ITSELF Michael Nacht, a former Defense Department official who now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, believes that Bin Laden’s death will diminish the terrorist threat to the United States. Nacht compared terrorism in the Bin Laden era to a “fatal disease.” Now, he says, it’s more like a chronic illness: “It can still cause you trouble, but it’s not a mortal theat.”

But this may turn out to be wishful thinking. The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that at the time of the 9/11 attacks, Al Qaeda had maybe 200 members; today, it is vaster and “more far-reaching than before the U.S. sought to take it down.” Independent offshoots have sprung up in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. New terrorist leaders include Nasir al-Wahishi, who leads Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric who has been involved in several terrorist plots, including the attempt to blow up a plane on Christmas Day in 2009. Although America does a much better job of rooting out planned attacks, the threat remains very real, with or without Bin Laden.

RELATIONS WITH THE MUSLIM WORLD Let’s face it: Much of the Muslim world today is deeply distrustful of anything America does. For this, certainly, a good portion of the blame goes to the misguided invasion of Iraq and its aftermath — which, in turn, was a response to 9/11 and Bin Laden. In that sense, America played right into Bin Laden’s hands.

The clock can’t be turned back just because he’s dead. The distrust remains strong. A friend who recently returned from Turkey — a Muslim country that is ostensibly a close ally — told me that the Turkish media were united in their virulent opposition to NATO’s actions in Libya, even though those actions were intended to prevent a cruel dictator from killing his own people.

“The image of Westerners dropping bombs on Muslims is very hard for Muslims to accept,” he said.

One hopes that this is not Bin Laden’s enduring legacy. But that’s something only we can fix.

4 Questions He Leaves Behind, NYT, 2.5.2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/opinion/03nocera.html

The End of the Jihadist Dream

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By ALI H. SOUFAN

TO the Qaeda members I interrogated at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere in the aftermath of 9/11, Osama bin Laden was never just the founder and leader of the group, but also an idea. He embodied the belief that their version of Islam was correct, that terrorism was the right weapon, and that they would ultimately be victorious. Bin Laden’s death did not kill that idea, but did deal it a mortal blow.

The immediate reaction of Al Qaeda members to Bin Laden’s death will be to celebrate his martyrdom. The group’s ideology champions death for the cause: Songs are composed, videos made and training camps named in honor of dead fighters. Bin Laden’s deputies will try to energize people by turning him into a Che Guevara-like figure for Al Qaeda — a more effective propaganda tool dead than alive.

But it won’t take long for Al Qaeda to begin wishing that Bin Laden wasn’t dead. He not only was the embodiment of Al Qaeda’s ideology, but also was central to the group’s fund-raising and recruiting successes. Without him, Al Qaeda will find itself short on cash — and members.

Bin Laden’s fund-raising (especially through his connections to fellow wealthy Saudis) and his personal story (his decision to give up a life of luxury and ease to fight in a holy war) had brought him to prominence during the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan and later secured his position as Al Qaeda’s leader.

He further cultivated that image by trying to model his ascetic life on that of the Prophet Muhammad — by dressing similarly and encouraging his followers to ascribe divine powers to him. Bin Laden regularly hinted at this when discussing Al Qaeda’s strikes against America and his ability to withstand Washington’s wrath.

Not only has Al Qaeda lost its best recruiter and fund-raiser, but no one in the organization can come close to filling that void. Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, who will probably try to take over, is a divisive figure. His personality and leadership style alienate many, he lacks Bin Laden’s charisma and connections and his Egyptian nationality is a major mark against him.

Indeed, one of the earliest things I discovered from interrogating Qaeda members in Afghanistan and Yemen as well as Guantánamo was the group’s internal divisions; the most severe is the rivalry between the Egyptians and members hailing from the Arabian Peninsula. (Even soccer games pit Egyptians against Persian Gulf Arabs.) While Egyptians typically travel to the Gulf to work for Arabs there, in Al Qaeda, Egyptians have traditionally held most of the senior positions.

It was only the knowledge that they were ultimately following Bin Laden — a Saudi of Yemeni origin, and therefore one of their own — that kept non-Egyptian members in line. Now, unless a non-Egyptian takes over, the group is likely to splinter into subgroups. Someone like Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American who is a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is a likely rival to Mr. Zawahri.

Bin Laden was adept at convincing smaller, regional terrorist groups that allying with Al Qaeda and focusing on America were the best ways to topple corrupt regimes at home. But many of his supporters grew increasingly distressed by Al Qaeda’s attacks in the last few years — which have killed mostly Muslims — and came to realize that Bin Laden had no long-term political program aside from nihilism and death.

The Arab Spring, during which ordinary people in countries like Tunisia and Egypt overthrew their governments, proved that contrary to Al Qaeda’s narrative, hated rulers could be toppled peacefully without attacking America. Indeed, protesters in many cases saw Washington supporting their efforts, further undermining Al Qaeda’s claims.

But we cannot rest on our laurels. Most of Al Qaeda’s leadership council members are still at large, and they command their own followers. They will try to carry out operations to prove Al Qaeda’s continuing relevance. And with Al Qaeda on the decline, regional groups that had aligned themselves with the network may return to operating independently, making them harder to monitor and hence deadlier.

Investigations, intelligence and military successes are only half the battle. The other half is in the arena of ideas, and countering the rhetoric and methods that extremists use to recruit. We can keep killing and arresting terrorists, but if new ones are recruited, our war will never end.

Our greatest tool, we must remember, is America itself. We have suffered a great deal at the hands of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and we will never forget those killed in attacks like the 1998 bombings on United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the 2000 attack on the Navy destroyer Cole, 9/11 and the service members killed since then in the war against Al Qaeda.

Many terrorists whom I interrogated told me they expected America to ultimately fold. What they didn’t understand is that as powerful as the Bin Laden idea was to them, America’s values and liberties are even greater to us. Effectively conveying this will bury the Bin Laden idea with him.

Ali H. Soufan, an F.B.I. special agent from 1997 to 2005, interrogated Qaeda detainees at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere.

The End of the Jihadist Dream, NYT, 2.5.2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/opinion/03Soufan.html

Bin Laden’s Dead. Al Qaeda’s Not.

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By RICHARD A. CLARKE

Washington

THE United States needed to eliminate Osama bin Laden to fulfill our sense of justice and, to a lesser extent, to end the myth of his invincibility. But dropping Bin Laden’s corpse in the sea does not end the terrorist threat, nor does it remove the ideological motivation of Al Qaeda’s supporters.

Often forgotten amid the ugly violence of Al Qaeda’s attacks was that the terrorists’ declared goal was to replace existing governments in the Muslim world with religiously pure Islamist states and eventually restore an Islamic caliphate. High on Al Qaeda’s list of targets was Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak. The protesters of Tahrir Square succeeded in removing him without terrorism and without Al Qaeda.

Thus, even before Bin Laden’s death, analysts had begun to argue that Al Qaeda was rapidly becoming irrelevant. With Bin Laden’s death, it is even more tempting to think that the era of Al Qaeda is over.

But such rejoicing would be premature. To many Islamist ideologues, the Arab Spring simply represents the removal of obstacles that stood in the way of establishing the caliphate. Their goal has not changed, nor has their willingness to use terrorism.

In the months ahead, Bin Laden’s death may encourage Al Qaeda to stage an attack to counter the impression that it is out of business. The more significant threat, however, will come from Al Qaeda’s local affiliates. Bin Laden and his deputies designed Al Qaeda as a network of affiliated groups that could operate largely independently to attack America, Europe and secular governments in the Middle East in order to establish fundamentalist regimes. Once in place, the network no longer needed Bin Laden and, in fact, has been proceeding with minimal direction from him for several years.

The affiliates that Bin Laden helped to create, including Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Al Shabab in Somalia, are still recruiting and financing terrorists and training them for attacks. Neither the events of Tahrir Square nor the raid on Bin Laden’s hideout is likely to significantly diminish the appeal of Islamist extremism to those who have been receptive to it.

In many Muslim societies, there remains a radical stratum born of a sense of victimization by the West, fueled by inefficient and corrupt governments, and carried forward by an enormous youth population. Al Qaeda was and is simply a pressure valve, an early form of connective social media that allowed young, militant jihadists fed up with the West and their own governments to organize and vent their anger.

Believing that their religion requires them to act violently against nonbelievers in the West and impure, apostate Muslim elites, the Islamist extremists will not be stopped by the elimination of Al Qaeda’s leader or even by the eradication of Al Qaeda itself. They will continue their struggle, refusing to renounce violence or accept more democratic, less corrupt regimes as a substitute for the caliphate.

Just because we do not always know the identities of their leaders or see a named and hierarchical organization does not mean that Islamist extremists are not working hard to seize the fruits of the Arab Spring. The challenge for the United States is not merely to take advantage of the intelligence gained in the Pakistan raid to further erode Al Qaeda, but to assist moderate Muslims in creating a counterweight to violent extremism, with both an appealingly articulated ideology and an effective organizational structure.

The government that was overthrown in Egypt was corrupt and feckless, as are the regimes now under siege in Libya, Syria and Yemen, but the groups poised to take advantage of the upheaval in those countries include many who share Bin Laden’s vision for repressive religious rule. Similar situations exist in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Moderate, tolerant and even some secular groups exist, but they often do not have a comprehensive alternative vision, know how to communicate it or have the organizational skills to promote it. American and European experts can assist them in building politically viable organizations, but to succeed these new groups must be homegrown and tap into the Arab and Islamic traditions that speak to many Muslim youth.

Moreover, without investment to create jobs, new governments in these countries will fail under the weight of youth unemployment. Unless corruption is replaced with efficiency, investment will either not materialize or be wasted.

Without alternative movements with vision, appeal, and the ability to deliver change, existing organized extremist groups will fill the void. And despite his death, Bin Laden’s goal may yet be achieved.

Richard A. Clarke, the counterterrorism coordinator at the National Security Council from 1993 to 2001, is the author of “Against All Enemies:
Inside America’s War on Terror.”

Bin Laden’s Dead. Al Qaeda’s Not., NYT, 2.5.2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/opinion/03clarke.html

Bin Laden kill

may reopen CIA interrogation debate

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
11:04pm EDT
Reuters
By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The possibility that U.S. spies located Osama bin Laden with help from detainees who'd been subjected to "enhanced interrogation" techniques seems certain to reopen the debate over practices that many have equated with torture, security experts said on Monday.

One of the key sources for initial information about an al Qaeda "courier" who led U.S. authorities to bin Laden's Pakistani hide-out was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al Qaeda operative said to have masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks, a former U.S. national security official said.

KSM, as he was known to U.S. officials, was subjected to "waterboarding" 183 times, the U.S. government has acknowledged.

But it was not until later, after waterboarding was suspended because it and other harsh techniques became heatedly debated, that Mohammed told interrogators about the existence of a courier particularly close to bin Laden, a fragmentary tip that touched off a years-long manhunt that ended in bin Laden's death at the hands of U.S. special forces on Sunday.

And at the time the information surfaced, the CIA had already abandoned some of its most controversial interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, in which water is poured over the face of an interrogation subject to simulate drowning, current and former U.S. officials told Reuters.

But the possibility that detainees who at some point were subjected to physical coercion later gave up information leading to bin Laden's discovery is sparking discussion among intelligence experts as to whether he could have been found without them.

SUSPENSION OF TECHNIQUES

"It will reignite a debate that hasn't gone away about the morality and ethicacy of certain techniques," said Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Waterboarding" and other physically-coercive interrogation techniques used on detained militants, including depriving them of sleep, making them pose in uncomfortable positions, and slamming them into walls, were authorized by President George W. Bush in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

The tactics were used on detainees held by the CIA at secret prisons outside the United States.

In 2004, the CIA suspended these techniques. Subsequent revelations about agency practices led to charges the United States had engaged in torture.

Veterans of the Bush administration were quick to claim credit for the torture-like techniques, which President Barack Obama banned soon after taking office in 2009.

Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's deputy defense secretary, said the successful operation against bin Laden showed the value of the Bush administration's interrogation policies.

"I think it ... rested heavily on some of those controversial policies," Wolfowitz told reporters in a phone briefing by the conservative American Enterprise Institute, where he's a visiting scholar.

"This would not have been possible if we were releasing terrorists willy-nilly and not keeping them for the information they had, some of which often may not look that important, like the pseudonym of a driver, until it turns out that he's really a critical person," Wolfowitz said.

ROLE IN BIN LADEN CAPTURE?

But former U.S. officials told Reuters of a sequence of events that raises questions about whether the enhanced interrogation means played a significant role in bin Laden's capture.

A former U.S. counter-terrorism official who was briefed on detainee information about bin Laden and his entourage said, for instance, the CIA stopped using harsh interrogation methods on KSM after 2003.

But the first key intelligence reports identifying the al Qaeda courier reached U.S. counter-terrorism officials in 2004, according to a former U.S. national security official with direct personal knowledge.

The official said that for three years after the CIA stopped subjecting him to coercive measures, KSM continued to talk extensively. It was during this period, the official said, that he believes KSM gave up information about the courier.

A second former U.S. official said that while he did not remember which detainee gave up the key tip about the courier, he confirmed that the information came in 2004, after the CIA had abandoned waterboarding but before it had completely stopped the use of physically stressful techniques.

This official, and two other current intelligence officials, said that in their view the main objective of the enhanced interrogation techniques was to break down resistance of detainees.

"You didn't use the techniques if they started talking," one of the officials said.

Obama Administration officials confirmed the sequence of events -- U.S. intelligence did not learn the identity of the courier until after the CIA interrogation program was terminated.

Administration officials also said it was not until August 2010 that U.S. authorities learned the location of the fortified mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where U.S. special forces troops killed bin Laden during a commando raid on Sunday.

(This story was corrected in the fourth paragraph to say

Mohammed divulged existence of courier rather than the name of the courier)

(Additional reporting by David Alexander; editing by Warren Strobel and Philip Barbara)

Bin Laden kill may reopen CIA interrogation debate, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/03/us-binladen-interrogations-idUSTRE7417SQ20110503

Victims' families

relieved at bin Laden death

PARIS/MADRID | Mon May 2, 2011
1:26pm EDT
By Vicky Buffery and Teresa Larraz

PARIS/MADRID (Reuters) - For survivors of militant attacks and relatives of those killed and wounded, the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden brought a sense of relief, and even some joy, after years of pain and grief.

Americans poured on to the street to celebrate bin Laden's death at the hands of U.S. forces and people around the world expressed relief that the mastermind behind a series of high-profile attacks was dead.

"For me, this man symbolized evil, and all the misery that I've been through for ten years. To know this symbol is gone is a great relief for me," said Bruno Dellinger, a French businessman who survived the collapse of New York's Twin Towers after al Qaeda hijackers flew planes into them on September 11, 2001.

Dellinger, who was on the 47th floor of the North Tower when the planes struck, told French RTL radio he felt a "burst of joy" at bin Laden's death.

He said he had always believed U.S. secret services would track down the man behind September 11 and a series of other plots.

Bin Laden was shot in the head by U.S. forces who stormed his luxury compound in Pakistan after a decade-long manhunt during which he continually evaded capture.

The news, announced by President Barack Obama early on Monday, brought thousands on to the streets of New York and Washington to celebrate, including relatives of people killed in the worst militant attacks in U.S. history.

"I never figured I'd be excited about someone's death. It's been a long time coming," said firefighter Michael Carroll, 27, whose father, also a fireman, died in the September 11 attacks.

"It's finally here. It feels good," he said while celebrating at Ground Zero in New York, the site of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers destroyed in the attack.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in an attack that shocked the world and sparked a hunt for the plot's architect.

Obama said bin Laden's death brought justice to the American people. Survivors of September 11, and of other al Qaeda attacks in Europe, spoke of a weight being lifted from their shoulders.

"YANKS DESERVE PRAISE"

Bin Laden had been in hiding since he eluded U.S. forces and Afghan militia in an assault on the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan in 2001, and had continued to taunt the West and direct militant Islamist activities from his hideout.

Relatives of the victims of subsequent al Qaeda attacks, such as suicide bombings on London's transport system in July 2005, also hailed bin Laden's killing.

"I am very happy, and very well done to the Yanks, they deserve their praise," Sean Cassidy, whose 22-year-old son Ciaran was killed in the London bombings, was quoted as saying on the BBC's website.

In Spain, Angeles Pedraza, whose daughter was killed in a train bomb attack in Madrid on March 11, 2004 , said on state television: "One should never be happy over the death of a human being, but I will not be true to myself if I don't tell you I am enormously happy at the death of Osama bin Laden."

Al Qaeda first struck in east Africa in 1998, killing hundreds of people, mostly Africans, in suicide bombing at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

"Kenyans are happy and thank the U.S. people, the Pakistani people and everybody else who managed to kill Osama," Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga told Reuters.

Amid the euphoria, however, some world leaders and security experts noted the threat of terrorism hanging over the West was far from over and called for vigilance for possible retaliation.

Some victims' relatives also expressed caution about what bin Laden's death might mean.

John Falding, whose partner Anat Rosenberg was killed by a suicide bomber on a bus in Tavistock Square, London, told the BBC: "There are plenty more willing to fill his shoes -- all those fanatical organizations have their young pretenders."

Watching the flag-waving on television in New York, Donna Marsh O'Connor, who lost her pregnant daughter in the September 11 attack, said she, too, saw little reason to celebrate.

"Osama bin Laden is dead, and so is my daughter," she told Reuters. "His death didn't bring her back. We are not a family which celebrates death, no matter who it is."

(Additional reporting by Alexandria Sage in Paris; Avril Ormbsy in London and Mark Egan, Basil Batz and Daniel Trotta in New York; Writing by Vicky Buffery; Editing by Catherine Bremer and Andrew Dobbie)

Victims' families relieved at bin Laden death, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-victims-idUSTRE7415HM20110502

Obama Calls World ‘Safer’

After Pakistan Raid

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
and ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON — Calling it a “good day for America,” President Obama said Monday that the death of Osama bin Laden had made the world “a better place,” as new details emerged about the daring overnight raid in Pakistan that killed him.

“The world is safer,” Mr. Obama said as he appeared at a White House ceremony bestowing the Medal of Honor to two soldiers killed in the Korean War. “It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden.”

Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda and the most hunted man in the world, was buried at sea a few hours after his death, in the North Arabian Sea, put overboard from the American aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in what was clearly an effort to prevent his grave becoming a shrine to his followers.

His body was washed in accordance with Islamic custom, placed in a white sheet and then inside a weighted bag, a senior defense official said. A military officer read religious rites — translated into Arabic — and then the body was placed on a board, tipped up and “eased into the sea,” the official said.

Bin Laden died near the end of what officials described as an intense, 40-minute firefight that began 12 hours earlier when a team including helicopter-borne Navy Seals raided a heavily fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. He had been living for years in relative comfort with his family on the second and third floors of a home inside the compound, located at the end of a narrow dirt road in Abbottabad, a city an hour’s drive north of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.

He was killed along with a son and two other men who put up resistance during the raid, ending any hope of arrest and prosecution. A woman identified as one of his wives who was used as a human shield protecting Bin Laden during the raid was also killed, but several other women and children survived and are in Pakistani custody, officials said.

President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, said that the raid had been intended to capture Mr. Bin Laden, though those who planned it assumed he would resist. “If we had the opportunity to take him alive, we would have done that,” he said.

American intelligence officials said that the team removed a large trove of documents and materials and that the C.I.A. was just beginning to go through it.

Another of Bin Laden’s wives who was living in the compound with him identified his body after the fighting stopped, and officials said the Central Intelligence Agency analysis matched “virtually 100 percent” his DNA with that of several members of his family.

The reaction in Washington the day after was ebullient. Mr. Obama recalled the sense of unity and purpose that immediately followed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon nearly a decade ago. “Today we are reminded that as a nation there’s nothing we can’t do when we put our shoulders to the wheel, when we remember the sense of unity that defines us as Americans,” he said.

There were words of caution, too. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised Pakistan for its cooperation in fighting Al Qaeda, even as some analysts and officials voiced disbelief that Bin Laden could have lived where he did without the knowledge of Pakistani officials.

“Continued cooperation will be just as important in the days ahead,” she said, “because even as we mark this milestone, we should not forget that the battle to stop Al Qaeda and its syndicate of terror will not end with the death of Bin Laden.”

The raid, months in the planning, came after intelligence officials learned the identity of one of Bin Laden’s couriers and traced him to the hideout.

Last night, an official said that “detainees” had identified a few years ago the nickname of one courier who “in particular had our constant attention.” He described the courier as, among other things, a “trusted assistant” of Abu Faraj al-Libi, who was the No. 3 figure in Al Qaeda until his capture in 2005. Officials later figured out the real name for that courier, which in turn eventually allowed them to trace him to the compound in Abbottabad.

One of the Guantánamo detainee assessment files disclosed recently to WikiLeaks and obtained independently by The New York Times may provide a clue about the origins of the intelligence that led to the breakthrough.

That document, an assessment for Mr. Libi, who was transferred from a secret C.I.A. prison to Guantánamo in September 2006, discusses his interactions with a courier for Bin Laden — identified by the initials UBL — in Pakistan. Footnotes to those sentences cite what appear to be C.I.A. accounts of interrogations of Mr. Libi in 2005 and 2006.

“In July 2003, detainee received a letter from UBL’s designated courier, Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan, requesting detainee take on the responsibility of collecting donations, organizing travel, and distributing funds to families in Pakistan,” the assessment says. “UBL stated detainee would be the official messenger between UBL and others in Pakistan.

The file then immediately connects Mr. Libi’s activities at that time to Abbottabad, stating: “In mid-2003, detainee moved his family to Abbottabad, PK and worked between Abbottabad and Peshawar.”

A footnote to that section also includes an analyst’s note that in May 2005 Mr. Libi stated that “he was responsible for facilitation within the settled areas of Pakistan, communication with UBL and external links. He was responsible for communicating with al-Qaida members abroad and obtaining funds and personnel from those al-Qaida members.”

Bin Laden’s demise is a defining moment in the American-led fight against terrorism, a symbolic stroke affirming the relentlessness of the pursuit of those who attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001. What remains to be seen, however, is whether it galvanizes Bin Laden’s followers by turning him into a martyr or serves as a turning of the page in the war in Afghanistan and gives further impetus to Mr. Obama to bring American troops home.

How much his death will affect Al Qaeda itself remains unclear. For years, as they failed to find him, American leaders have said that he was more symbolically important than operationally significant because he was on the run and hindered in any meaningful leadership role. Yet he remained the most potent face of terrorism around the world, and some of those who played down his role in recent years nonetheless celebrated his death.

Given Bin Laden’s status among radicals, the American government braced for possible retaliation. A senior Pentagon official said late Sunday that military bases in the United States and around the world were ordered to a higher state of readiness. The State Department issued a worldwide travel warning, urging Americans in volatile areas “to limit their travel outside of their homes and hotels and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations.”

The strike could deepen tensions with Pakistan, which has periodically bristled at American counterterrorism efforts even as Bin Laden evidently found safe refuge on its territory for nearly a decade. Since taking office, Mr. Obama has ordered significantly more drone strikes on suspected terrorist targets in Pakistan, stirring public anger there and prompting the Pakistani government to protest.

When the end came for Bin Laden, he was found not in the remote tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border where he has long been presumed to be sheltered, but in a massive compound about an hour’s drive north from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. He was hiding in the medium-sized city of Abbottabad, home to a large Pakistani military base and a military academy of the Pakistani Army.

The compound, only about a third of a mile from the academy, is at the end of a narrow dirt road and is roughly eight times larger than other homes in the area, but had no telephone or Internet connections. When American operatives converged on the house on Sunday, Bin Laden “resisted the assault force” and was killed in the middle of an intense gun battle, a senior administration official said, but details were still sketchy early Monday morning.

The official said that military and intelligence officials first learned last summer that a “high-value target” was being protected in the compound and began working on a plan for going in to get him. Beginning in March, Mr. Obama presided over five national security meetings at the White House to go over plans for the operation and on Friday morning, just before leaving Washington to tour tornado damage in Alabama, gave the final order for members of the Navy Seals and C.I.A. operatives to strike.

Mr. Obama called it a “targeted operation,” although officials said one helicopter was lost because of a mechanical failure and had to be destroyed to keep it from falling into hostile hands.

In addition to Bin Laden, three men were killed during the 40-minute raid, one believed to be his son and the other two his couriers, according to an American official who briefed reporters under White House ground rules forbidding further identification. A woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, the official said, and two others wounded.

“No Americans were harmed,” Mr. Obama said. “They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.” Muslim tradition requires burial within 24 hours, but by doing it at sea, American authorities presumably were trying to avoid creating a shrine for his followers.

The whereabouts of Ayman al-Zawahri, Zawahri Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, were unclear.

Bin Laden’s death came nearly 10 years after Qaeda terrorists hijacked four American passenger jets, crashing three of them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. The fourth hijacked jet, United Flight 93, crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside after passengers fought the militants.

“This is important news for us, and for the world,” said Gordon Felt, president of the group, Families of Flight 93. “It cannot ease our pain, or bring back our loved ones. It does bring a measure of comfort that the mastermind of the September 11th tragedy and the face of global terror can no longer spread his evil.”

The mostly young people who celebrated in the streets of New York and Washington saw it as a historic moment, one that for many of them culminated a worldwide manhunt that started when they were children.

Some climbed trees and lampposts directly in front of the White House to cheer and wave flags. Cigars and noisemakers were common. One group started singing, “Osama, Osama, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.”

Maureen Hasson, 22, a recent college graduate working for the Justice Department, came down to Lafayette Square in a fuchsia party dress and flip-flops. “This is full circle for our generation,” she said. “Just look around at the average age here. We were all in middle school when the terrorists struck. We all vividly remember 9/11 and this is the close of that chapter.”

Sam Sherman, 18, a freshman at George Washington University originally from New York, also rushed down to the White House. “The feeling you can’t even imagine, the feeling in the air. It’s crazy,” he said. “I have friends with parents dead because of Osama bin Laden’s plan, O.K. So when I heard this news, I was coming down to celebrate.”

Mr. Obama said Pakistan had helped develop the intelligence that led to Bin Laden, but an American official said the Pakistani government was not informed about the strike in advance. “We shared our intelligence on this compound with no other country, including Pakistan,” the official said.

Mr. Obama recalled his statements in the 2008 presidential campaign when he vowed to order American forces to strike inside Pakistan if necessary even without Islamabad’s permission. “That is what we’ve done,” he said. “But it’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to Bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding.”

Relations with Pakistan had fallen in recent weeks to their lowest point in years. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, publicly criticized the Pakistani military two weeks ago for failing to act against extremists allied to Al Qaeda who shelter in the tribal areas of North Waziristan. Last week, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, head of the Pakistani Army, said Pakistan had broken the back of terrorism on its territory, prompting skepticism in Washington.

Mr. Obama called President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan to tell him about the strike after it was set in motion, and his advisers called their Pakistani counterparts. “They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations,” Mr. Obama said.

The city of Abbottabad where Bin Laden was found has had other known Al Qaeda presence in the past. A senior Indonesian militant, Umar Patek, was arrested there earlier this year. Mr. Patek was protected by a Qaeda operative, a clerk who worked undercover at the main post office, a signal that Al Qaeda may have had other operations in the area.

The Pakistani military cordoned off the roads and alleys leading to the compound Monday. But residents of the middle-class area who were reached by phone said they had not been suspicious about the residents of the house, despite its size and the fact that very few people ever seemed to leave the compound.

As the operation’s start approached, many American officials at the United States consulate in Peshawar, the capital of the northwest area of Pakistan, were told suddenly to depart last Friday, leaving behind only a core group of essential staff. The American officials said they had been told to leave because of fears of kidnapping but were not tipped off to the operation.

Analysts said Bin Laden’s death amounted to a double blow for Al Qaeda, after its sermons of anti-Western violence seemed to be rendered irrelevant by the wave of political upheaval rolling through the Arab world.

“It comes at a time when Al Qaeda’s narrative is already very much in doubt in the Arab world,” said Martin S. Indyk, vice president and director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “Its narrative was that violence was the way to redeem Arab honor and dignity. But Osama bin Laden and his violence didn’t succeed in unseating anybody.”

Al Qaeda sympathizers reacted with disbelief, anger and in some cases talk of retribution. On a Web site considered an outlet for Qaeda messages, forum administrators deleted posts by users announcing Bin Laden’s death and demanded that members wait until the news was confirmed by Qaeda sources, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that monitors radicals.

Even so, SITE said, sympathizers on the forum posted messages calling Bin Laden a martyr and suggesting retaliation. “America will reap the same if the news is true and false,” said one message. “The lions will remain lions and will continue moving in the footsteps of Usama,” said another, using an alternate spelling of Bin Laden’s name.

In the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy organization, said it welcomed Bin Laden’s death. “As we have stated repeatedly since the 9/11 terror attacks, Bin Laden never represented Muslims or Islam,” the group said in a statement. “In fact, in addition to the killing of thousands of Americans, he and Al Qaeda caused the deaths of countless Muslims worldwide.”

Mr. Obama called to inform his predecessor, George W. Bush, who started the war against Al Qaeda after Sept. 11, yet was frustrated in his efforts to capture Bin Laden “dead or alive,” as he once put it. Mr. Bush released a statement saying, “this momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.”

“The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done,” he added.

Mr. Obama used similar language and warned that the war against terrorists had not ended. “We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies,” he said. “We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to Al Qaeda’s terror, justice has been done.”

The president was careful to add that, as Mr. Bush did during his presidency, the United States is not at war with Islam. “Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims,” Mr. Obama said. “Indeed, Al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”

Reporting was contributed by Charlie Savage, Elisabeth Goodridge, Scott Shane,
Ben Werschkul, Mark Landler and Michael Shear from Washington; Jane Perlez from Sydney, Australia; Pir Zubair Shah from New York; and Salman Masood from Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Obama Calls World ‘Safer’ After Pakistan Raid, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/osama-bin-laden-dead.html

Inconceivable

Osama had no support in Pakistan:

White House

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
2:17pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top White House official said it was "inconceivable" Osama bin Laden had not had a support system to help him inside Pakistan, but he declined to speculate if there had been any official Pakistani aid.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama's top counter terrorism adviser, also told reporters that the U.S. commandos on the raid had been ready to take the al Qaeda leader alive if that had been possible.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Alister Bull, editing by Sandra Maler)

Inconceivable Osama had no support in Pakistan: White House, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-whitehouse-idUSTRE74162520110502

Fear of retaliation

tempers euphoria over bin Laden

PARIS | Mon May 2, 2011
1:52pm EDT
Reuters
By Catherine Bremer

PARIS (Reuters) - Euphoria over the killing of September 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was tempered in the West on Monday by fears of retaliation, and world leaders and security experts urged renewed vigilance against attacks.

Americans celebrated on the streets and U.S. markets rallied on hopes bin Laden's death could ease the threats hanging over much of the developed world -- but even President Barack Obama said that terrorist attacks would continue to be a concern.

Interpol predicted a heightened risk and called for extra vigilance in case followers sought revenge for the killing of the man who became the global face of terror, even if he no longer had tactical control of al Qaeda actions.

Members of militant Islamist forums vowed to avenge bin Laden's death and CIA Director Leon Panetta said al Qaeda would "almost certainly" attempt some form of retaliation.

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the killing as a coup in the fight against terrorism, but both he and Foreign Minister Alain Juppe warned it did not spell al Qaeda's demise.

British Prime Minster David Cameron also said the West would have to be "particularly vigilant" in the weeks ahead.

As he announced bin Laden's death, Obama said: "There's no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad."

"The scourge of terrorism has undergone a historic defeat, but this is not the end of al Qaeda," Sarkozy said, after U.S. forces swooped on a luxury compound where bin Laden was hiding out and killed him, along with four others.

Some security experts fear the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks could further incite al Qaeda supporters.

"Whilst we in the West might have the satisfaction of justice having been dealt to a terrorist, many will still see Osama bin Laden as a martyr. Make no mistake: violent jihadists will react to this," Julian Lindley-French of London's Chatham House think-tank told Reuters Insider television.

Roland Jacquard, head of the International Terrorism Observatory in Paris, said the United States would be targeted.

"The way in which he was killed, by a military commando, shows this will have important consequences for the future. It will be a call for Jihad, he will remain a very real-life martyr for the rest of the organization," Jacquard told RTL radio.

Islamic militants prayed the news of bin Laden's death was false, or else vowed revenge in comments on online forums.

"Oh God, please make this news not true... God curse you Obama," said one message on an Arabic language forum. "Oh Americans... it is still legal for us to cut your necks."

A man identified as a prominent member of the jihadist internet community by monitoring group SITE said revenge would be taken for the death of "the Sheikh of Islam."

"Osama may be killed but his message of Jihad will never die. Brothers and sisters, wait and see, his death will be a blessing in disguise," said a poster on another Islamist forum.

Experts fear the only blow to al Qaeda will be psychological.

CONSTANT ALERT

In Washington, a crowd gathered outside the White House as Obama announced the conclusion of a decade-long manhunt, singing patriotic songs and chanting slogans.

The killing was hailed by George W. Bush, who was president when al Qaeda hijackers slammed airliners into the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center.

"The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done," Bush said. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he hoped the news would bring closure to those who lost loved ones on September 11.

The dollar and stocks strengthened and oil, gold and silver prices all fell as markets received an immediate boost from the news. But investors said the trend would likely be short-lived.

The United States and much of Europe is on constant alert for an attack by al Qaeda or affiliated extremist organization.

France will stay on the same "red alert" level after bin Laden's death that it has been on since the 2005 London bombings but could tighten security in certain areas.

France has been extra vigilant since bin Laden slammed its attitude toward Muslims in October, and Juppe on Monday warned French citizens to be careful if traveling in North Africa.

The United States warned its citizens worldwide of "enhanced potential for anti-American violence," advising them to avoid mass gatherings and travel, and Australia issued a similar warning. Iraq's army and police went on high alert, but Spain said it was not increasing its security alert.

Japan said it would step up patrols around its military bases to guard against revenge attacks, and in countries with big Muslim populations, some foreign schools, embassies and other potential targets put extra security measures in place.

India, whose ties with neighboring Pakistan are strained, voiced concern that bin Laden was found at a luxury compound just 60 km (35 miles) from the Pakistani capital Islamabad, saying this suggested terrorists could find sanctuary there.

"Osama bin Laden's death doesn't mean we can relax now and assume the danger is past," Wolfgang Ischinger, head of the Munich Security Conference, told German radio.

"I expect al Qaeda will try to get revenge against the Americans and the Pakistan government... Even if a 'battle' has been won, the 'war' is far from over."

(Additional reporting by Chris Allbritton in Islamabad; Vicky Buffery and Alexandria Sage in Paris; Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin and staff in London, Washington, Tokyo, Baghdad and Dubai; editing by Andrew Roche)

Fear of retaliation tempers euphoria over bin Laden, R, 2.5/2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-reaction-idUSTRE7415VM20110502

Islamic leader

condemns bin Laden sea burial

CAIRO | Mon May 2, 2011
1:31pm EDT
Reuters

CAIRO (Reuters) - The head of Egypt's prestigious seat of Sunni Muslim learning, al-Azhar, condemned U.S. troops' disposal of the body of Osama bin Laden at sea Monday as an affront to religious and human values.

Muslims set great store by interment in permanent graves on land and accept burial at sea only in cases where the body cannot be preserved intact aboard ship until it reaches shore.

"The Grand Imam, Dr Ahmed El-Tayeb, the sheikh of Al-Azhar condemned the reports, if true, of the throwing of the body of Osama bin Laden into the sea," according to a statement released by al-Azhar, which is respected around the world by many Sunni Muslims as a seat of religious learning.

The procedure "contradicts all the religious values and human norms," it said: "The Grand Imam asserted that it is forbidden in Islam to deform the dead, regardless of their beliefs. One honors the dead by burying them."

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said bin Laden's body was dropped into the sea from the deck of an aircraft carrier after troops killed the al Qaeda leader in Pakistan. One said this was done to prevent his grave becoming a shrine. Another said Islamic customs had been respected.

A prominent Egyptian Islamist lawyer also condemned the U.S. move and said bin Laden should have been buried in his native Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally and home to Islam's holiest sites.

"Isn't it enough that they killed him and displayed their joy to the world?" Montasser al-Zayat told Al Jazeera television. "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a moral obligation to demand that it bury Osama on its land."

(Reporting by Sami Aboudi; editing by Alastair Macdonald)

Islamic leader condemns bin Laden sea burial, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-burial-muslims-idUSTRE7415RC20110502

DNA test on bin Laden

show 100 percent match to family

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
1:12pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - DNA tests on the body of Osama bin Laden showed a virtual 100 percent match to relatives, and a woman believed to be his wife also identified him by name, a senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters on Monday.

The United States was now reviewing a large cache of materials seized at the compound in Pakistan where U.S. forces killed bin Laden, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to reporters.

"Those materials are currently being exploited and analyzed and a task force is being set up at CIA ... given the volume of materials collected at the raid site," the official said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart, Editing by Sandra Maler)

DNA test on bin Laden show 100 percent match to family, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-dna-results-idUSTRE7414PK20110502

U.S. commandos knew bin Laden

likely would die

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
1:10pm EDT
Reuters
By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. special forces set out to kill Osama bin Laden and dump his body in the sea to make it harder for the al Qaeda founder to become a martyr, U.S. national security officials told Reuters on Monday.

"This was a kill operation," one of the officials said.

"If he had waved a white flag of surrender, he would have been taken alive," the official added. But the operating assumption among the U.S. raiders was that bin Laden would put up a fight -- which he did.

Bin Laden "participated" in a firefight between the U.S. commandos and residents of the fortified mansion near the Pakistani capital Islamabad where he had been hiding, the official said.

The official would not explicitly say whether bin Laden fired on the Americans, but confirmed that during the course of the 40-minute operation the U.S. team shot bin Laden in the head.

Three other men and a woman, who U.S. officials said was used as a human shield, lay dead after the raid, but no Americans were killed.

A senior Obama administration official said the commandos knew that bin Laden probably would be killed rather than captured.

"U.S. forces are never in a position to kill if there is a way to accept surrender consistent with the ROE (rules of engagement). That said, I think there was broad recognition that it was likely to end in a kill," the administration official said.

The operation was carried out by a team of about 15 special forces operatives -- most, if not all, U.S. Navy Seals, according to U.S. officials familiar with the details. They indicated the team was based in Afghanistan.

One official said it included forensic specialists whose job was to collect evidence proving that bin Laden was caught in the raid and intelligence that might be useful in tracking down other al Qaeda leaders or foiling ongoing plots.

It was done so that bin Laden's dead body would not become a symbol of veneration or inspiration for would-be militants, U.S. officials said.

"You wouldn't want to leave him so that his body could become a shrine," one of the officials said.

CIA WAS CONFIDENT

U.S. officials said the key information that eventually led to bin Laden's trail came from questioning of militants detained by U.S. forces following the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

Captured militants, including some held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, told intelligence officials of a particular al Qaeda "courier" whom they had heard was close to bin Laden.

They also mentioned two captured al Qaeda operations chiefs, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, widely believed to have masterminded the attacks.

Initially U.S. intelligence did not know either the name or whereabouts of the courier. But officials said that about four years ago, U.S. agencies learned the individual's name.

Two years ago, U.S. intelligence received credible information indicating that the courier and his brother, another suspected militant operative, were operating somewhere near Islamabad.

Then, last August, the U.S. pinpointed the compound in Abbotabad where intelligence indicated the two brothers, their families, and a third large family were living.

It was located in a ritzy neighborhood at the end of a dirt road, not far from one of Pakistan's principal military academy. Other residents of the area included retired Pakistani military officers.

Working with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which analyzes pictures from spy satellites and aircraft, and the National Security Agency, which conducts electronic eavesdropping, the CIA concluded that the compound was built with unusual security features -- including high-walls topped with barbed-wire -- and that its inhabitants appeared to take unusual security precautions.

By earlier this year, the CIA believed that it had "high confidence" that a "high-value" al Qaeda target was at the Abbotabad compound, and a strong probability that this target was bin Laden.

But one official said the agency was never "100 percent certain" that bin Laden was the one who was hiding out.

(Additional reporting by Alister Bull; Editing by Warren Strobel and Paul Simao)

U.S. commandos knew bin Laden likely would die, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-kill-idUSTRE74151S20110502

Text of President Obama's

statement to U.S. people

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
12:47am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Sunday that the mastermind of the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people has been killed in Pakistan by U.S.-led forces.

Following is the text of Obama's statement to America:

Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children.

It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory. Hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky.

The Twin Towers collapsing to the ground. Black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon. The wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.

And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table.

Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child's embrace.

Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.

On September 11th, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbors a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other and our love of community and country.

On that day, no matter where we came from, what god we prayed to or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family. We were also united in our resolve, to protect our nation and to -- to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice.

We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda, an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda, to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.

Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we've made great strides in that effort. We've disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defense.

In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.

Yet, Osama bin Laden avoided capture and escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continued to operate from along that border and operate through its affiliates across the world.

And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda. Even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle and defeat his network.

Then last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain. And it took many months to run this thread to ground.

I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside Pakistan.

And finally, 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 Abad Abad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans 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.

For over two decades, bin Laden has been al Qaeda's leader and symbol and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies.

The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al Qaeda.

And his death does not mark the end of our effort. There's no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.

As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. I've made clear just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11 that our war is not against Islam. Bin laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries including our own.

So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity. Over the years, I've repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we've done.

But it's important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding. Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.

Tonight I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.

The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens. After nearly 10 years of service, struggle and sacrifice, we know well the costs of war.

These efforts weigh on me every time I, as commander in chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one or look into the eyes of a service member who's been gravely wounded.

So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are.

And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda's terror, justice has been done.

Tonight we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who've worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work nor know their names, but tonight they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.

We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day.

Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11, that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.

And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today's achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.

The cause of securing our country is not complete, but tonight we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history. Whether it's the pursuit of prosperity for our people or the struggle for equality for all our citizens, our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.

Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

(World Desk Americas)

Text of President Obama's statement to U.S. people, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-obama-binladen-text-idUSTRE74110D20110502

Bin Laden's body buried at sea: report

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
12:12pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The body of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was taken to Afghanistan after he was killed in Pakistan and was later buried at sea, the New York Times reported on Monday.

Bin Laden's body buried at sea: report, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-burial-idUSTRE7411YA20110502

DNA "very confident match" to bin Laden:

official

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
11:16am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Initial DNA results show a "very confident match" to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, a U.S. official said on Monday.

The test showed "high confirmation" that it was bin Laden killed in the raid in Pakistan, the official said.

(Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Sandra Maler)

DNA "very confident match" to bin Laden: official R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-dna-results-idUSTRE7414PK20110502

In Pakistan, an embarrassed silence on killing of bin Laden

ISLAMABAD | Mon May 2, 2011
11:10am EDT
Reuters
By Chris Allbritton and Rebecca Conway

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan faced enormous embarrassment on Monday after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Special Forces, raising questions over whether its military and intelligence were too incompetent to catch him themselves or knew all along where he was hiding.

The killing of the world's most-wanted man in a house just a few hundred meters from Pakistan's version of the West Point military academy will only fuel suspicions that the country has been playing a double-game over Islamist militants and al Qaeda.

Analysts say it would be a stretch to believe Pakistan's spy agency did not know bin Laden was living in a town just a couple of hours up the road from Islamabad: if it did know, the country was essentially caught red-handed shielding him from capture.

"There will be a lot of tension between Washington and Islamabad because bin Laden seems to have been living here close to Islamabad," said Imtiaz Gul, a Pakistani security analyst. "This is a serious blow to the credibility of Pakistan."

SNARED BEHIND PAKISTAN'S BACK

Washington has in the past accused Pakistan of maintaining ties to militants targeting U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Relations soured further in recent months over U.S. drone attacks and CIA activities in the country that have fueled anti-American sentiment.

For years, however, Pakistan had maintained it did not know bin Laden's whereabouts, vowing that if Washington had actionable intelligence, its military and security agencies would act on it.

In October 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced dismay that bin Laden and other prominent militants had not yet been caught and suggested Pakistani complicity, telling newspaper editors in Lahore she found it "hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to."

Neither Pakistan's spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), nor its military spokesmen returned repeated calls for comment on Monday. Adding to the silence, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani have said nothing publicly about the operation.

Bin Laden was killed in a dramatic night-time raid by U.S. helicopters on his hideout in Abbottabad, home to Pakistan's main military academy.

President Barack Obama, speaking in a hastily announced late-night news conference, said cooperation from Pakistan had helped lead U.S. forces to bin Laden. But American and Pakistani sources familiar with details of the operation said U.S. forces had snared bin Laden virtually behind Pakistan's back.

That the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States was not hiding in mountains along the border but in relative comfort in a town hosting the main military school and home to scores of officers will bolster those who have long argued that Pakistan has been playing a duplicitous hand.

"The evidence suggests it was done totally by the Americans, and the Pakistan military, they have been informed at the 11th hour," said Hassan Askari Rizvi, an independent political analyst.

"There is distrust between the two intelligence agencies and ... this is very similar to what the Americans did when they fired missiles on Osama's training camps in August 1998."

At that time, the United States gave Islamabad just 90 minutes' notice that it would retaliate for two embassy bombings in Africa because it was worried Pakistan would tip off the Afghan Taliban, who in turn could have warned bin Laden. "This operation was conducted by the U.S. forces in accordance with the U.S. policy of hunting down Osama wherever he was supposed to be," said Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan High Commissioner to Britain, speaking to Sky News. "They successfully eliminated him and subsequently they informed the president of Pakistan this morning of the event."

BACKLASH POSSIBLE IN PAKISTAN

Just how much the Pakistani military knew of the raid on bin Laden's mansion hideout is not clear.

For one thing, analysts say, it would have been difficult for the U.S. Special Forces to act without some logistical military assistance on the ground.

It is also possible that Pakistan allowed the operation to go ahead as part of a deal with Washington on its stake in the endgame in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are due to start withdrawing in July after nearly 10 years of war.

But the government and security agencies had one strong reason for staying silent and letting Washington take the credit for the raid: fear of a public backlash for working so closely with the United States to nab a man who has in the past been popular in Pakistan.

Hours after the assault, about 200 Islamists held a rally in the city of Quetta in the southwestern province of Baluchistan to condemn the killing of bin Laden. The protesters, from a small Islamist party, chanted "down with America," and "Long live Osama bin Laden."

"He was a great holy warrior," said Mufti Kifayatullah, a lawmaker from Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, a hardline Islamic group, said while speaking in the provincial assembly in Peshawar. "Osama was the name of an ideology and an ideology does not die with the death of a person. Today was the blackest day in the history of Pakistan."

Popular news anchors with alleged ties to the spy agencies referred on air to bin Laden as a "shaheed," or martyr.

And Imran Khan, the cricketer-turned-populist-politician, said Washington should immediately end the war in Afghanistan because Pakistan would pay the price for bin Laden's death.

"There will be a backlash from supporters of Osama bin Laden, who will think Pakistan has a role in it, and secondly there will be a pressure from America because of the very fact that he (Laden) was found in Pakistan," he told Geo TV.

(Additional reporting by Myra MacDonald in London, Augustine Anthony, Zeeshan Haider and Kamran Haider in Islamabad, Gul Yousufzai in Quetta and Faris Ali in Peshawar; Editing by John Chalmers)

In Pakistan, an embarrassed silence on killing of bin Laden, R, 2.5.2011,
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Taliban cannot win,

should spurn al Qaeda: Clinton

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
10:41am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden shows that the Taliban cannot defeat the United States in Afghanistan and that it should abandon its ties to al Qaeda, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday.

Clinton spoke after it was announced that bin Laden had been killed in a U.S. helicopter raid on a mansion near the Pakistani capital Islamabad, ending a long worldwide hunt for the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Bin Laden was for years sheltered by the Taliban in Afghanistan, leading to a U.S. invasion that toppled the Taliban regime there in late 2001 and ushering in a nearly decade-long war between U.S.-led forces and the Islamist group.

"In Afghanistan we will continue taking the fight to al Qaeda and their Taliban allies while working to support the Afghan people as they build a stronger government and begin to take responsibility for their own security," Clinton said.

"Our message to the Taliban remains the same, but today it may have even greater resonance: you cannot wait us out, you cannot defeat us, but you can make the choice to abandon al Qaeda and participate in a peaceful political process," she added in brief remarks at the State Department.

(Reporting by Andrew Quinn and Arshad Mohammed: Editing by Paul Simao)

Taliban cannot win, should spurn al Qaeda: Clinton, NYT, 2.5.2011,
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World on alert after U.S. kills bin Laden

WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD
Pakistan | Mon May 2, 2011
11:05am EDT
By Mark Hosenball and Kamran Haider

WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. assault on his Pakistani compound on Monday, then quickly buried at sea, in a dramatic end to the long manhunt for the al Qaeda leader who had become the most powerful symbol of global terrorism.

World leaders hailed bin Laden's death but the euphoria was tempered by fears of retaliation and warnings of renewed vigilance against attacks.

The death of bin Laden, who achieved near-mythic status for his ability to elude capture under three U.S. presidents, closes a bitter chapter in the fight against al Qaeda, but it does not eliminate the threat of further attacks.

The September 11, 2001, attacks, in which al Qaeda militants used hijacked planes to strike at economic and military symbols of American might, spawned two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, inflicted damage on U.S. ties with the Muslim world that have yet to be repaired, and redefined security for air travelers.

A small U.S. strike team, dropped by helicopter to bin Laden's compound near the Pakistani capital Islamabad under the cover of night, shot dead the al Qaeda leader in a firefight, U.S. officials said.

"This was a kill operation," one security official told Reuters, but added: "If he had waved a white flag of surrender he would have been taken alive."

The revelation that bin Laden was living in a three-story residence in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, and not as many had speculated, in the country's lawless western border regions, is a huge embarrassment to Pakistan, whose relations with Washington have frayed under the Obama administration.

President Barack Obama, whose popularity suffered from continuing U.S. economic woes, will likely see a short-term bounce in his approval ratings. At the same time, he is likely to face mounting pressure from Americans to speed up the planned withdrawal this July of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

However, Bin Laden's death is unlikely to have any impact on the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are facing record violence by a resurgent Taliban.

Many analysts see bin Laden's death as largely symbolic since he was no longer believed to have been issuing operational orders to the many autonomous al Qaeda affiliates around the world.

Financial markets were more optimistic. The dollar and stocks rose, while oil and gold fell, on the view bin Laden's death reduced global security risks.

WARNINGS OF AL QAEDA REVENGE

Fearful of revenge attacks, the United States swiftly issued security warnings to Americans worldwide.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said al Qaeda would "almost certainly" try to avenge bin Laden's death.

"Though Bin Laden is dead, al Qaeda is not. The terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge him, and we must -- and will -- remain vigilant and resolute," Panetta said.

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the killing as a coup in the fight against terrorism, but he, too, warned it did not spell al Qaeda's demise.

British Prime Minster David Cameron said the West would have to be "particularly vigilant" in the weeks ahead.

U.S. officials said bin Laden was found in a million-dollar compound in Abbottabad, 35 miles north of Islamabad. After 40 minutes of fighting, bin Laden, three other men and a woman, who U.S. officials said was used as a human shield, lay dead.

A source familiar with the operation said bin Laden was shot in the head after the U.S. military team, which included members of the Navy's elite Seals unit, stormed the compound.

Television pictures from inside the house showed bloodstains smeared across a floor next to a large bed.

BURIED AT SEA

Two officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said bin Laden was buried at sea. A third official said this was done to prevent a gravesite on land becoming a shrine for followers.

It was the biggest national security victory for the president since he took office in early 2009 and will make it difficult for Republicans to portray Democrats as weak on security as he seeks re-election in 2012.

In sharp contrast to the celebrations in America, on the streets of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's native land, there was a mood of disbelief and sorrow among many. The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas mourned bin Laden as an "Arab holy warrior."

But many in the Arab world felt his death was long overdue. For many Arabs, inspired by the popular upheavals in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere over the past few months, the news of bin Laden's death had less significance than it once might have.

PAKISTAN TOLD AFTER RAID

The operation could complicate relations with Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the battle against militancy and the war in Afghanistan. Those ties have already been damaged over U.S. drone strikes in the west of the country and the six-week imprisonment of a CIA contractor earlier this year.

Pakistani authorities were told the details of the raid only after it had taken place, highlighting the lack of trust between Washington and Islamabad.

"For some time there will be a lot of tension between Washington and Islamabad because bin Laden seems to have been living here close to Islamabad," said Imtiaz Gul, a Pakistani security analyst.

Bin Laden was finally found after U.S. forces discovered in August 2010 that one of his most trusted couriers lived in an unusual and high-security building in Pakistan that had few outward facing windows and no Internet or telephone access.

"After midnight, a large number of commandos encircled the compound. Three helicopters were hovering overhead," said Nasir Khan, a resident of the town.

"All of a sudden there was firing toward the helicopters from the ground," said Khan, who watched the dramatic scene unfold from his rooftop.

Thousands of cheering and flag-waving people converged on the White House after Obama made his televised announcement. Similar celebrations erupted at New York's Ground Zero, site of the World Trade Center twin towers destroyed on September 11.

"I never figured I'd be excited about someone's death. It's been a long time coming," said firefighter Michael Carroll, 27, whose firefighter father died in the September 11 attacks.

Former President George W. Bush, whose eight-year presidency was defined by the September 11 attacks after he launched a global "war on terror" to root out Islamic militants, called the operation a "momentous achievement".

The United States is conducting DNA testing on bin Laden and used facial recognition techniques to help identify him, the official said.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Patricia Zengerle, Arshad Mohammed, Alister Bull, Missy Ryan, Mark Hosenball, Richard Cowan, Kristin Roberts, Andrew Quinn, Tabassum Zakaria, Joanne Allen and David Morgan in Washington and Chris Allbritton in Islamabad; Writing by Ross Colvin; editing by Jackie Frank)

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Pakistan's Musharraf:

Bin Laden death "positive step"

DUBAI | Mon May 2, 2011
10:44am EDT
Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) - Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf said on Monday that news of Osama bin Laden's death was a "positive step" even as he criticized the United States for launching the raid within his country's borders.

Calling it a victory for the people of Pakistan, Musharraf said he also expected some short-term instability due to acts of revenge.

"It's a very positive step and it will have positive long-term implications," Musharraf told Reuters in Dubai, where he has a home. "Today we won a battle, but the war against terror will continue."

Bin Laden died early on Monday in Abbottabad, a tony enclave north of Islamabad, after U.S. Navy Seals were sent in to kill the leader of the militant group that orchestrated the September 11 attacks and had eluded capture for nearly a decade.

Musharraf said, however, that the operation infringed on Pakistan's sovereignty: "It's a violation to have crossed Pakistan's borders."

(Reporting by Amena Bakr; writing by Reed Stevenson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Pakistan's Musharraf: Bin Laden death "positive step", R, 2.5.2011,
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Captured on Twitter:

Raid against Osama bin Laden

DUBAI/ABBOTTABAD | Mon May 2, 2011
10:34am EDT
Reuters
By Reed Stevenson and Kamran Haider

DUBAI/ABBOTTABAD (Reuters) - In the early hours of Monday, Sohaib Athar reported on Twitter that a loud bang had rattled his windows in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, adding that he hoped it wasn't "the start of something nasty.

A few hours later Athar posted another tweet: "Uh oh, now I'm the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it."

In the age of Twitter, perhaps it's no surprise that the first signs of the U.S. operation that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were noticed by an IT consultant awake late at night.

Athar, a resident of Abbottabad where bin Laden was holed up in a fortified mansion, first noticed the sound of a helicopter and thought it unusual enough to post via his Twitter account.

"I was awake, working on my computer when I heard a sound of helicopter. It was rare here. It hovered for about six minutes and then there was a big blast and power gone," Athar, 34, said in an interview with Reuters.

"I tweeted it because it was something unusual in the city," said Athar, adding that he moved from Lahore to the city a year and a half ago to avoid "bomb blasts and terrorist attacks."

After liveblogging and speculating for several hours over what happened, it dawned on Athar and those following him that they were witnessing the end of a worldwide manhunt for the man held responsible for orchestrating the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected," said one of Athar's followers.

Seven hours after Athar's first tweet, President Barack Obama announced bin Laden's death in an operation by U.S. forces where one helicopter was lost.

Twitter, launched five years after the 2001 attacks, is used by an estimated 200 million people per day, serving as an internet platform for users to broadcast, track and share short messages of no more 140 characters in length.

Athar's tweets, initially peppered with jokes ("Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood") eventually turned to exasperation as his email inbox, Skype and Twitter accounts were flooded by those trying to reach him ("Ok, I give up. I can't read all the @ mentions so I'll stop trying").

The number of people following Athar, whose Twitter handle is "ReallyVirtual," ballooned to nearly 33,000 later on Monday, from several hundred before.

Athar also runs a coffee shop in the center of Abbottabad, across from the Army Burn Hall College school in the same neighborhood as bin Laden's mansion. He fears that his new hometown, a relatively affluent enclave about 35 miles north of Islamabad, could now come under attack.

"They can attack military installation and this city has more targets than anywhere else," Athar said.

Separately, in the United States, the first indication that bin Laden had been found and killed came from a another tweet by Keith Urbahn, who says on his Twitter profile that he is chief of staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn," Urbahn tweeted more than an hour before Obama's speech.

(Editing by David Stamp and Ralph Boulton)

Captured on Twitter: Raid against Osama bin Laden, 2.5.2011,
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CIA:

al Qaeda will "almost certainly" try

to avenge bin Laden

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
10:33am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA Director Leon Panetta on Monday said al Qaeda would "almost certainly" try to avenge the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden.

"Though Bin Laden is dead, al-Qaeda is not. The terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge him, and we must -- and will -- remain vigilant and resolute," Panetta said.

(Reporting by Ross Colvin, Editing by Paul Simao)

CIA: al Qaeda will "almost certainly" try to avenge bin Laden, R, 2.5.2011,
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World leaders hail bin Laden death

but fear revenge

PARIS | Mon May 2, 2011
10:16am EDT
Reuters
By Catherine Bremer

PARIS (Reuters) - Euphoria over the killing of September 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden was tempered in the West Monday by fears of retaliation, and world leaders and security experts urged renewed vigilance against attacks.

Americans celebrated on the streets and U.S. markets rallied on hopes bin Laden's death could ease the threats hanging over much of the developed world -- but even President Barack Obama said that terrorist attacks would continue to be a concern.

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed the killing as a coup in the fight against terrorism, but both he and Foreign Minister Alain Juppe warned it did not spell al Qaeda's demise.

British Prime Minster David Cameron also said the West would have to be "particularly vigilant" in the weeks ahead.

As he announced bin Laden's death, Obama said: "There's no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad."

Some security experts fear the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks could further incite al Qaeda supporters.

"Whilst we in the West might have the satisfaction of justice having been dealt to a terrorist, many will still see Osama bin Laden as a martyr. Make no mistake: violent jihadists will react to this," Julian Lindley-French of London's Chatham House think-tank told Reuters Insider television.

Roland Jacquard, head of the International Terrorism Observatory in Paris, said the United States would be targeted.

"The way in which he was killed, by a military commando, shows this will have important consequences for the future. It will be a call for Jihad, he will remain a very real-life martyr for the rest of the organization," Jacquard told RTL radio.

Already Monday, Islamic militants hinted at revenge.

"Oh God, please make this news not true... God curse you Obama," said one message on an Arabic language forum. "Oh Americans... it is still legal for us to cut your necks."

"Osama may be killed but his message of Jihad will never die. Brothers and sisters, wait and see, his death will be a blessing in disguise," said a poster on another Islamist forum.

CONSTANT ALERT

In Washington, a crowd gathered outside the White House as Obama announced the conclusion of a decade-long manhunt, singing patriotic songs and chanting slogans.

The killing was hailed by George W. Bush, who was president when al Qaeda hijackers slammed airliners into the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center.

"The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done," Bush said. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he hoped the news would bring closure to those who lost loved ones on September 11.

The dollar and stocks strengthened and oil, gold and silver prices all fell as markets received an immediate boost from the news.

The United States and much of Europe is on constant alert for an attack by al Qaeda or affiliated extremist organization.

France has been on red alert, the third-highest level in a four-step scale, since suicide bomb attacks in London in 2005 and has been especially vigilant since bin Laden criticised criticizedthe country's attitude toward Muslims last October.

The United States warned its citizens worldwide of "enhanced potential for anti-American violence," advising them to avoid mass gatherings and travel, and Australia issued a similar warning. Iraq's army and police went on high alert.

Japan said it would step up patrols around its military bases to guard against revenge attacks, and in countries with big Muslim populations, some foreign schools, embassies and other potential targets put extra security measures in place.

India, whose ties with neighboring Pakistan are strained, voiced concern that bin Laden was found at a luxury compound just 60 km (35 miles) from the Pakistani capital Islamabad, saying this suggested terrorists could find sanctuary there.

"Osama bin Laden's death doesn't mean we can relax now and assume the danger is past," Wolfgang Ischinger, head of the Munich Security Conference, told German radio.

"I expect al Qaeda will try to get revenge against the Americans and the Pakistan government... Even if a 'battle' has been won, the 'war' is far from over."

World leaders hail bin Laden death but fear revenge, R, 2.5.2011,
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U.S. believes Osama bin Laden son

also killed in raid

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
8:58am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States believes that three adults besides Osama bin Laden were killed in Sunday's raid in Pakistan and that one of the dead was an adult son of bin Laden, a senior Obama administration official said.

An official also said bin Laden's death puts al Qaeda on a path of decline that will be difficult to reverse.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Alister Bull, editing by Mohammad Zargham)

U.S. believes Osama bin Laden son also killed in raid, 2.5.2011,
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Saudi hopes bin Laden death

will aid terror fight

RIYADH | Mon May 2, 2011
8:35am EDT
Reuters

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia, the country of Osama bin Laden's birth, hopes his killing will help the international fight against terrorism and stamp out the "misguided thought" behind it, the Saudi state news agency said Monday.

"An official source expressed the hope of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia that the elimination of the leader of the terrorist al Qaeda organization would be a step toward supporting international efforts aimed at fighting terrorism," the news agency said.

It added that Riyadh hoped that bin Laden's demise would also help break up al Qaeda cells and eliminate the "misguided thought" it said was drives militancy.

Bin Laden was killed in a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan Monday, ending a nearly 10-year worldwide manhunt for the leader of the global Islamist militant network that orchestrated the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The Saudi comments broke a near-silence that officials of Gulf Arab states had maintained after news emerged of bin Laden's death.

Yemen, bin Laden's ancestral Arabian Peninsula homeland, echoed Saudi sentiments, calling his killing a "monumental milestone in the ongoing global war against terrorism" in a statement issued by its embassy in Washington.

A Yemeni official, speaking on condition of anonymity, previously said Sanaa hoped the killing would "root out terrorism throughout the world."

Earlier, Saudi Arabia's official news agency had merely noted that the United States and Pakistan had announced bin Laden had been killed in a U.S. military operation in Pakistan, but gave no clue to Riyadh's thinking.

The foreign ministers of Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, at a meeting of Gulf foreign ministers in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, all declined to comment on bin Laden's death.

(Additional reporting by Mahmoud Habboush; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; editing by Joseph Logan and Mark Heinrich)

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Bin Laden killing

brings anger, relief in Arab world

BEIRUT | Mon May 2, 2011
7:31am EDT
Reuters
By Samia Nakhoul

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Those who revered him prayed the news was not true but many in the Arab world felt the death of Osama bin Laden was long overdue.

Some said the killing of the Saudi-born al Qaeda founder in Pakistan was scarcely relevant any more, now that secular uprisings have begun toppling corrupt Arab autocrats who had resisted violent Islamist efforts to weaken their grip on power.

"Oh God, please make this news not true ... God curse you, Obama," said a message on a Jihadist forum in some of the first Islamist reaction to the al Qaeda leader's death. Oh Americans ... it is still legal for us to cut your necks."

For some in the Middle East, bin Laden has been seen as the only Muslim leader to take the fight against Western dominance to the heart of the enemy -- in the form of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.

On the streets of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's native land which stripped him of his citizenship after September 11, there was a mood of disbelief and sorrow among many.

"I feel that it is a lie," said one Saudi in Riyadh. He did not want to be named. "I don't trust the U.S. government or the media. They just want to be done with his story. It would be a sad thing if he really did die. I love him and in my eyes he is a hero and a jihadist."

Officials in the country of his birth maintained near silence at the news of bin Laden's death. The state news agency merely noted that Washington and Pakistan had announced it.

Other Gulf Arab states also eschewed comment.

"HARMED ISLAM"

Another strand of opinion believes that bin Laden and al Qaeda brought catastrophe on their Muslim world as the United States retaliated with two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the word "Islam" became associated with "terrorism."

"The damage bin Laden had caused Islam is beyond appalling and a collective shame," said another Saudi, Mahmoud Sabbagh, on Twitter.

Another, anonymous, Saudi said: "He might have had a noble idea to elevate Islam but his implementation was wrong and caused more harm than good. I believe his death will calm people down and may dry up the wells of terrorism."

In Yemen, bin Laden's ancestral home and the base for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been behind recent foiled anti-American attacks, some believed his death would cause his group to lose heart.

"Al Qaeda is finished without bin Laden. Al Qaeda members will not be able to continue," said Ali Mubarak, a Yemeni man in his 50s as he sipped tea in a cafe in Sanaa.

For many Arabs, inspired by the popular upheavals of the past few months, the news of Osama bin Laden's death had less significance than it once might have.

"The death of Osama is coming at a very interesting time. The perfect time, when Al Qaeda is in eclipse and the sentiments of freedom are rising," said Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi commentator and independent analyst.

Recalling the mass demonstrations on Cairo's Tahrir Square, he added: "The people at Tahrir Square had shut down the ideas and concepts of bin Laden."

Egyptian Thanaa Al-Atroushy said: "Though I am surprised, I don't think such news will affect anything in any way. He is a man of al Qaeda, who are known to have weird beliefs to justify killing the innocent like those of September 11."

RISK OF RETALIATION

But while some hoped his death may terminate al Qaeda, many others believe that al Qaeda franchises across the world would continue campaigns against the United States.

"I am not happy at the news. Osama was seeking justice. He was taking revenge on the Americans and what they did to Arabs, his death to me is martyrdom, I see him a martyr," added Egyptian Sameh Bakry, a Suez Canal employee.

Omar Bakri, a Lebanese Sunni cleric, mourned bin Laden as a martyr: "His martyrdom will give momentum to a large generation of believers and jihadists.

"Al Qaeda is not a political party, it is a jihadist movement. Al Qaeda does not end with the death of a leader. Bin Laden was first the generation of the Qaeda and now there is a second, third, fourth and fifth generation."

In Iraq, ravaged by nearly a decade of violence in the battle between bin Laden and the West, some were cautious about the circumstances in which Washington announced his death.

"This is the end of this play. The play about the character of bin Laden that was fabricated by Americans to deform the image of Islam and Muslims," said Ali Hussain.

"How can you can convince me that all these years American could not kill or even reach him. Americans knew bin Laden suffered from health problems. Maybe he was approaching his death and they wanted to exploit it."

In non-Arab Iran, a sworn enemy of the United States, some ordinary people were also skeptical of Washington's account: "Are we sure that he has been killed?" said Tehran shopkeeper Ali Asghar Sedaghat. "Or is it another game of the Americans?"

(Additional reporting by Middle East bureau)

Bin Laden killing brings anger, relief in Arab world, R, 2.5.2011,
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Bin Laden was found

at luxury Pakistan compound

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
6:44am EDT
Reuters
By Patricia Zengerle and Alister Bull

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. forces finally found al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden not in a mountain cave on Afghanistan's border, but with his youngest wife in a million-dollar compound in a summer resort just over an hour's drive from Pakistan's capital, U.S. officials said.

A small U.S. team conducted a night-time helicopter raid on the compound early on Monday. After 40 minutes of fighting, bin Laden and an adult son, one unidentified woman and two men were dead, the officials said.

U.S. forces were led to the fortress-like three-story building after more than four years tracking one of bin Laden's most trusted couriers, whom U.S. officials said was identified by men captured after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden. They indicated he might be living with or protected by bin Laden," a senior administration official said in a briefing for reporters.

Bin Laden was finally found -- more than 9-1/2 years after the 2001 attacks on the United States -- after authorities discovered in August 2010 that the courier lived with his brother and their families in an unusual and extremely high-security building, officials said.

They said the courier and his brother were among those killed in the raid.

"When we saw the compound where the brothers lived, we were shocked by what we saw: an extraordinarily unique compound," a senior administration official said.

"The bottom line of our collection and our analysis was that we had high confidence that the compound harbored a high-value terrorist target. The experts who worked this issue for years assessed that there was a strong probability that the terrorist who was hiding there was Osama bin Laden," another administration official said.

The home is in Abbottabad, a town about 35 miles north of Islamabad, that is relatively affluent and home to many retired members of Pakistan's military.

It was a far cry from the popular notion of bin Laden hiding in some mountain cave on the rugged and inaccessible Afghan-Pakistan border -- an image often evoked by officials up to and including former President George W. Bush.

The building, about eight times the size of other nearby houses, sat on a large plot of land that was relatively secluded when it was built in 2005. When it was constructed, it was on the outskirts of Abbottabad's center, at the end of a dirt road, but some other homes have been built nearby in the six years since it went up, officials said.

WALLS TOPPED WITH BARBED WIRE

Intense security measures included 12- to 18-foot outer walls topped with barbed wire and internal walls that sectioned off different parts of the compound, officials said. Two security gates restricted access, and residents burned their trash, rather than leaving it for collection as did their neighbors, officials said.

Few windows of the three-story home faced the outside of the compound, and a terrace had a seven-foot (2.1 meter) privacy wall, officials said.

"It is also noteworthy that the property is valued at approximately $1 million but has no telephone or Internet service connected to it," an administration official said. "The brothers had no explainable source of wealth."

U.S. analysts realized that a third family lived there in addition to the two brothers, and the age and makeup of the third family matched those of the relatives -- including his youngest wife -- they believed would be living with bin Laden.

"Everything we saw, the extremely elaborate operational security, the brothers' background and their behavior and the location of the compound itself was perfectly consistent with what our experts expected bin Laden's hide-out to look like," another Obama administration official said.

Abbottabad is a popular summer resort, located in a valley surrounded by green hills near Pakistani Kashmir. Islamist militants, particularly those fighting in Indian-controlled Kashmir, used to have training camps near the town.

(Editing by Mary Milliken, Will Dunham and Mark Trevelyan)

Bin Laden was found at luxury Pakistan compound, R, 2.5.2011,
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Threat remains

after bin Laden killed by U.S. forces

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
6:43am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama warned Americans on Sunday night to remain vigilant even after the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and while there are no known credible threats, the risk of attacks remains.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI have not issued any warning of a credible or imminent threat in the wake of news that bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, but security will likely be ramped up to guard against possible retaliation.

"There is no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad," Obama said in a late-night televised statement announcing that U.S. forces had killed bin Laden.

DHS and FBI officials had no immediate comment about the risk of attacks or any new threats.

While bin Laden was seen as the leader of al Qaeda, because he was in hiding from U.S. forces he was reduced more to a figurehead, experts said. Meanwhile affiliates of his militant group have taken the lead in launching attacks.

Most attacks against U.S. interests have been by a Yemeni affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The group has claimed responsibility for trying in October to send bombs packed in toner cartridges aboard cargo planes bound for the United States. They were intercepted and failed to detonate.

AQAP also backed an attempt on Christmas Day 2009 by a Nigerian man who tried but failed to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear while aboard a U.S. commercial flight as it approached Detroit from Amsterdam.

"This doesn't end the terrorist threat to the United States, but it's the end of a key chapter to the War of Terror," said Juan Zarate, who served as deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism during George W. Bush's presidency.

"There may be a spike of threats initially, and there are other elements of the al Qaeda network who remain dangerous," said Zarate, now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky and James Vicini, editing by Philip Barbara)

Threat remains after bin Laden killed by U.S. forces, R, 2.5.2011,
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Joy erupts on U.S. streets

with killing of bin Laden

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK | Mon May 2, 2011
6:33am EDT
Reuters
By JoAnne Allen and Basil Katz

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thousands of people poured into the streets outside the White House and in New York City early on Monday, waving U.S. flags, cheering and honking horns to celebrate al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's death.

Almost 10 years after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people, residents found joy, comfort and closure with the death of the mastermind of the plot. For many, it was a historic, long-overdue moment.

"I never figured I'd be excited about someone's death. It's been a long time coming," firefighter Michael Carroll, 27, whose firefighter father died in the September 11 attacks, said in New York. "It's finally here. ... it feels good."

At Ground Zero, site of the World Trade Center Twin Towers toppled by al Qaeda militants flying hijacked planes, thousands sang the U.S. national anthem, popped champagne, drank from beer bottles and threw rolls of toilet paper into the air. Another big crowd gathered in New York's Times Square.

"With all the gloom and doom around us, we all needed this. Evil has been ripped from the world," said Guy Madsen, 49, a salesman from Clifton, New Jersey, who drove to Lower Manhattan with his 14-year-old son.

Many in Times Square recalled the thousands of New Yorkers who perished on a clear September Tuesday almost a decade ago. Some people held pictures of loved ones who died.

In Washington, people gathering outside the White House soon after the first reports that bin Laden had been slain in Pakistan by U.S. forces and even before President Barack Obama announced the news. The boisterous crowd swelled into the thousands and chanted "USA, USA, USA."

'OH MY GOD'

"We had to be there to celebrate with everybody else. I'm very happy with the outcome of today's news," said Stephen Kelley, a Gulf War veteran and former U.S. Marine, who said he rushed to the White House after his wife told him the news.

College students, who were just children when the attacks took place, turned out in huge numbers, like Jennifer Raymond, 18, wrapped in a huge U.S. flag outside the White House.

"We were all in our dorm rooms and everyone's Facebook was blowing up," Raymond said. "It's like 'Oh my God, Osama bin Laden's dead.' Everyone in the dorm was screaming. Everyone decided to come to the White House."

The celebration may well have been the biggest crowd to gather spontaneously outside the White House since Obama's election in November 2008.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement: "New Yorkers have waited nearly 10 years for this news. It is my hope that it will bring some closure and comfort to all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001."

Firefighters hold a special place in New Yorkers' memories of September 11, as hundreds died in the collapse of the Twin Towers while racing up flights of stairs to rescue trapped people on upper floors.

"This is a tremendous moment, and hopefully it will bring us together, it doesn't matter if you're Muslim or Christian or whatever," said Patrice McLeod, a firefighter dressed in uniform. "We'll never give up."

It was also a night to remember the 100,000 or so U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan. Elaine Coronado, 51, whose brother served a year in Afghanistan, said that joining the crowd outside the White House was a way of showing her support to U.S. military families.

Donna Marsh O'Connor, who lost her pregnant daughter in the 2001 attacks and is active in the group September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, watched events unfold on television.

"Osama bin Laden is dead, and so is my daughter," she told Reuters. "His death didn't bring her back. We are not a family which celebrates death, no matter who it is."

(Additional reporting by Zachary Goelman, Mark Egan and Daniel Trotta in New York, and Toby Zakaria in Washington; writing by Mary Milliken; editing by Will Dunham)

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Heat on Pakistan

as bin Laden killed near capital

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan | Mon May 2, 2011
6:25am EDT
Reuters
By Kamran Haider

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan declared the killing of Osama bin Laden a "major setback" to global terrorism, but it will inevitably come under pressure to explain how the al Qaeda leader was holed up in a mansion near a military facility.

Bin Laden was killed in a dramatic night-time raid by U.S. helicopters and troops on his hideout in Abbottabad, home to Pakistan's main military academy and less then two hours' drive from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

"Osama bin Laden's death illustrates the resolve of the international community, including Pakistan, to fight and eliminate terrorism," the government said in a statement. "It constitutes a major setback to terrorist organisations around the world."

However, it was not clear whether the Pakistan military was involved in the operation and there was no official comment from the government for several hours, raising the possibility that Islamabad was taken by surprise.

That bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, was not hiding in mountains along the border but in relative comfort in a town hosting the main military academy and home to scores of retired and serving officers will bolster those who have long argued that Pakistan has been playing a duplicitous hand.

Just 10 days ago, Pakistan's army chief addressed cadets at that very academy, saying the country's military had broken the back of militants linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Washington has in the past accused Pakistan of maintaining ties to militants targeting U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Relations have soured in recent months over U.S. drone attacks and CIA activities in the country.

Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency, the ISI, has long been suspected of links to the Haqqani network, cultivated during the 1980s when Jalaluddin Haqqani was a feared battlefield commander against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's arch-rival, India, was quick to comment, saying the news underlined its "concern that terrorists belonging to different organisations find sanctuary in Pakistan".

"For some time there will be a lot of tension between Washington and Islamabad because bin Laden seems to have been living here close to Islamabad," said Imtiaz Gul, a Pakistani security analyst.

"If the ISI had known, then somebody within the ISI must have leaked this information," Gul said. "Pakistan will have to do a lot of damage control because the Americans have been reporting he is in Pakistan ... this is a serious blow to the credibility of Pakistan."

FLAMES, GUNSHOTS, A BLAST

Abbottabad is a popular summer resort, located in a valley surrounded by green hills near Pakistani Kashmir. Islamist militants, particularly those fighting in Indian-controlled Kashmir, used to have training camps near the town.

A Reuters reporter in the town on Monday said bin Laden's single-storey residence stood fourth in a row of about a dozen houses, a satellite perched on the roof above a walled compound. A helicopter covered by a sheet sat in a nearby field.

Mohammad Idrees, who lives around 400 meters from the house, said local residents were woken in the night by the sound of a big explosion.

"We rushed to the rooftop and saw flames near that house. We also heard some gunshots," Idrees said. "Soon after the blast, we saw military vehicles rushing to the site of the blast."

Another resident, Nasir Khan, said that commandos had encircled the compound as three helicopters hovered overhead.

"All of a sudden there was firing toward the helicopters from the ground," said Khan, who had watched the drama unfold from his rooftop. "There was intense firing and then I saw one of the helicopters crash."

Amir Haider Khan Hoti, chief minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the province where Abbottabad is located, told reporters in Karachi that Pakistan had been kept in the dark on the raid.

"We were not in the loop," he said. "(We) were not informed, there was an explosion around 1:15 a.m., and when following the explosion, police reached there, the area was already cordoned off."

Local media reported a helicopter crashed in Abbottabad on Sunday night, killing one and wounding two. Initial reports were that it was a Pakistani helicopter, but Pakistan has limited night-flying capabilities for its choppers and other reports and witnesses said it was a U.S. helicopter that had suffered mechanical failure and was ditched.

Witnesses reported gunshots and heavy firing before one of two low-flying helicopters crashed near the academy.

Around Pakistan, reaction was mixed. Muhammad Ibrahim, who is in his early 60s, said in Peshawar the killing of bin Laden would have no affect on most people's lives.

"If Osama is dead or alive it will not make any change in our life. This dirty game will continue," he said.

Muhammad Tahir Khan, working as a telephone operator in a private organization, said that killing bin Laden was good news.

"He Osama is responsible for violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," he said.

Sohaib Athar, whose profile says he is an IT consultant taking a break from the ratrace by hiding in the mountains, sent out a stream of live updates on Twitter about the movement of helicopters and blasts without realizing it was a raid on the world's most hunted man.

Some of his early tweets were: "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1 a.m. (rare event); Go away helicopter - before I take out my giant swatter."

Then he reported his window rattling and a bang. "I hope it's not the start of something nasty," he tweeted.

Soon after there were blasts. There were two helicopters, one of them had gone down, Athar wrote.

When he learnt it was bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, he tweeted: "ISI has confirmed it << Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood."

(Additional reporting by Rebecca Conway, Zeeshan Haider, Augustine Anthony, Faisal Mehmood and Chris Allbritton; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Analysis:

Arab revolts turned bin Laden

into bloody footnote

BEIRUT | Mon May 2, 2011
5:37am EDT
Reuters
By Alistair Lyon, Special Correspondent

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden, slain by U.S. forces in Pakistan on Sunday, seems curiously irrelevant in an Arab world fired by popular revolt against oppressive leaders.

"Bin Laden is just a bad memory," said Nadim Houry, of Human Rights Watch, in Beirut. "The region has moved way beyond that, with massive broad-based upheavals that are game-changers."

The al Qaeda leader's bloody attacks, especially those of September 11, 2001, once resonated among some Arabs who saw them as grim vengeance for perceived indignities heaped upon them by the United States, Israel and their own American-backed leaders.

Bin Laden had dreamed that his global Islamist jihad would inspire Muslims to overthrow pro-Western governments, notably in Saudi Arabia, the homeland which revoked his citizenship.

He espoused jihad largely in anger at what he viewed as the occupation of Muslim lands by foreign "infidel" forces -- the Russians in Afghanistan, the Americans in Saudi Arabia in the 1990 Gulf crisis, or the Israelis in Palestine.

But al Qaeda's indiscriminate violence never galvanized Arab masses, while his networks came under severe pressure from Arab governments helping Western counter-terrorism efforts.

"Bin Laden's brand of defiance in the early days probably excited some imaginations, but the senseless acts of violence destroyed any appeal he had," Houry said.

Nowhere was this change of heart more marked than in Iraq, where anger at Muslim casualties inflicted by al Qaeda suicide bombings -- and the Shi'ite sectarian backlash they provoked -- eventually drove Sunni tribesmen to ally with the Americans.

Popular sympathy for al Qaeda also evaporated in Saudi Arabia after a series of indiscriminate attacks in 2003-06.

If the ideological appeal of bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, who advocated the restoration of an Islamic caliphate, was already fading, the pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world have further diminished it.

"At some stage Arab public opinion looked on bin Laden as a hope to end this kind of discrimination, the West's way of dealing with Muslim and Arab nations, but now these nations are saying, we will do the change ourselves, we don't need anyone to speak on our behalf," said Mahjoob Zweiri, of Qatar University.

He said bin Laden's killing would affect only a few who still believe in his path of maximizing pain on the West.

ARABS CHOOSE OWN PATH

"The majority of Muslim and Arab nations have their own choice. They are moving toward modern civil societies," Zweiri argued. "People believe in gradual change, civil change, they don't want violence, even against the leaders who crushed them."

Peaceful Arab protests have already toppled autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia and are threatening the leaders of Yemen and Syria, while a popular revolt against Libya's Muammar Gaddafi has turned into a civil war with Western military intervention.

These dramas appear to have shocked al Qaeda almost into silence. Even its most active branch, the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has mounted no big attacks during months of popular unrest against President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Martin Indyk, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, described bin Laden's death as "a body blow" to al Qaeda at a time when its ideology was already being undercut by the popular revolutions in the Arab world.

"Their narrative is that violence and terrorism is the way to redeem Arab dignity and rights. What the people in the streets across the Arab world are doing is redeeming their rights and their dignity through peaceful, non-violent protests -- the exact opposite of what al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden have been preaching," said Indyk, now at the Brookings Institution.

"He hasn't managed to overthrow any government, and they are overthrowing one after the other. I would say that the combination of the two puts al Qaeda in real crisis."

Bin Laden may have become a marginal figure in the Arab world, but the discontent he tapped into still exists.

"The underlying reasons why people turn to these kinds of violent, criminal, terroristic movements are still there," said Beirut-based commentator Rami Khouri, alluding to the "anger and humiliation of people who feel that Western countries, their own Arab leaders or Israel treat them with disdain."

Nevertheless, he predicted a continued slide in al Qaeda's fortunes, particularly as U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq and later from Afghanistan remove potent sources of resentment.

"The Arab spring is certainly a sign that the overwhelming majority of Arabs, as we have known all along, repudiated bin Laden," Khouri said. "He and Zawahri tried desperately to get traction among the Arab masses, but it just never worked.

"People who followed him would be those who would form little secret cells and go off to Afghanistan, but the vast majority of people rejected his message.

"What Arabs want is what they are fighting for now, which is more human rights, dignity and democratic government."

(Editing by Jon Boyle)

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Afghans describe bin Laden

as al Qaeda's "No 1 martyr"

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan | Mon May 2, 2011
5:37am EDT
Reuters

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghans in the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan described Osama bin Laden as al Qaeda's "number one martyr" after the leader of the hardline group was killed in neighboring Pakistan.

Bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, hijacked airliner attacks on the United States, was killed in a gunfight with U.S. forces in a luxurious palace north of the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Sunday, officials said.

"Now he is the number one martyr for al Qaeda because he is stronger dead than alive," one man, who asked not to be identified, said on Monday in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

"He always predicted that he would be killed by Americans. Now he will become a fire that Muslims will follow for generations," said the heavily bearded man.

Kandahar was the birthplace of the Taliban and is believed to be where al Qaeda hatched the plan to attack U.S. cities almost 10 years ago.

The Taliban were toppled by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in the months after the September 11 attacks but the war has dragged on since, hitting its most violent levels in 2010.

"Bin Laden's death doesn't matter because al Qaeda is more than him and it's a big idea now," another Kandahar man said.

Some Afghan officials also said bin Laden's influence would continue and believed the militant network would try to avenge his death.

"His death will bring about positive changes for the moment but for the future, it will intensify fighting in Afghanistan because al Qaeda will seek revenge," Ahmad Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, told Reuters.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced late on Sunday in Washington that bin Laden had been killed.

Ahmad Wali Karzai is also the head of Kandahar's provincial council and is one of the most powerful men in southern Afghanistan.

Kandahar was the spiritual seat of power for reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar before the group's leaders were driven across the border into Pakistan.

While al Qaeda's influence in Afghanistan has waned, the Taliban-led insurgency has grown. Violence in Afghanistan hit its worst levels in 2010 since the Taliban were ousted, despite the presence of almost 150,000 foreign troops.

The Taliban announced at the weekend the start of a new "spring offensive" that would target foreign and Afghan troops as well as Afghan government officials.

(Reporting by Ismail Sameem in KANDAHAR and Hamid Shalizi in KABUL;
Writing by Jonathon Burch; Editing by Paul Tait and Miral Fahmy)

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Dollar up, oil down

after news bin Laden killed

LONDON | Mon May 2, 2011
5:22am EDT
Reuters
By Jeremy Gaunt,
European Investment Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - The killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces prompted investors on Monday to strip some of the risk premium underpinning world asset prices, lifting the dollar, boosting stocks and weakening commodities.

Oil, gold and silver prices all fell as reaction to the death of the West's most wanted man swept across thinly traded financial markets.

But investors warned that this kind of reaction to major news is often only temporary.

"Markets across the globe received a bit of a boost ... as news broke that U.S. forces had killed Osama bin Laden. However, like many euphoric bounces, they are often short-lived, especially given the possibility for reprisal attacks from extremists," said Ben Potter, market strategist at IG Index.

There were holidays in many countries -- including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Britain -- so trading was limited.

Nonetheless, the initial reaction was a boost for U.S. assets and a modest fillip for equities.

The dollar rebounded from a three-year low against a basket of currencies .DXY, where it had languished as a result of perceptions that the U.S. Federal Reserve is in no hurry to tighten monetary policy.

The dollar was up a quarter of a percent, off its daily highs. The announcement of bin Laden's death triggered short-covering demand for the dollar after the dollar index .DXY had hit its weakest since mid-2008.

Longer term, however, analysts said the news would have only a limited impact on the dollar because interest rates, not geopolitical events, are the overriding driver.

"Risk as a driver of the FX market has been much less than it has been ... The main trend is relative dollar weakness due to monetary policy," said Kasper Kirkegaard, currency strategist at Danske Bank in Copenhagen.

Dollar-sensitive oil and gold fell, dipping by as much as two percent at some point. U.S. crude was down close to 1.6 percent, earlier hitting a session low of $112.01, retreating from a 31-month peak of $114.18 set on Friday.

Silver tumbled 10 percent, its steepest fall since late 2008, hit by the dollar, increased margins for futures trading and a technical overhang after a 170 percent rally over the last 12 months to a record high last week.

STOCKS GAIN

European shares .FTEU3, minus Britain's usual contribution, rose a quarter of a percent, lifting MSCI's all-country world stock index by 0.2 percent.

U.S. stock index futures added to gains, Japan's Nikkei average .N225 rose 1.4 percent on the day, while U.S. Treasury prices fell.

U.S. Treasury yields pushed higher across the curve with the 10-year rising to 3.308 percent from a six-week trough of 3.273 percent.

"By lowering national security risks overall, this is likely to bolster equity markets and lower U.S. Treasury prices in a reverse flight to quality movement," said Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer at PIMCO, which oversees $1.2 trillion in assets.

"Oil markets are likely to be the most volatile given their higher sensitivity to the tug of war between lower risk overall and the possibility of isolated disturbances in some parts of the Middle East and central Asia," he said.

(Additional reporting by Ian Chua, Harpreet Bhal and Naomi Tajitsu;

Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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Islamists:

bin Laden death

will not mute Jihad call

DUBAI | Mon May 2, 2011
5:06am EDT
Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) - Members of militant Islamist forums said on Monday they prayed the news of Osama bin Laden's death was not true and hinted at retaliation if it was.

They were reacting to word from Washington that the al Qaeda leader was killed in a shootout with U.S. forces on Sunday.

"Oh God, please make this news not true... God curse you Obama," said one message on an Arabic language forum. "Oh Americans... it is still legal for us to cut your necks."

U.S. forces killed bin Laden in a raid on his hideout in Pakistan, President Barack Obama said, ending a nearly 10-year worldwide hunt for the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

His killing, in a mansion outside of the Pakistani city of Islamabad, dealt a symbolic blow to the global militant network, although Islamist forum posters said the strike would not change their commitment to fighting Western powers.

"Osama may be killed but his message of Jihad will never die. Brothers and sisters, wait and see, his death will be a blessing in disguise," said a poster on another Islamist forum.

Another forum member pointed to the irony of bin Laden's location, contrasting with long-time rumors that he was hiding in caves. "So after 10 years of hiding in mountains, he ends up getting killed in a mansion outside of Islamabad. Interesting."

But the prevailing sentiment was one of grief.

A poster on the Arabic-language Ansar forum said, "God's revenge on you, you Roman dog, God's revenge on you crusaders... this is a tragedy brothers, a tragedy."

ONLINE COMMUNICATIONS

Online forums for militant Islamists have been the key means of passing messages from bin Laden and his second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, as well as al Qaeda's regional branches, such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen.

"Forums play a role in communications and ideas for al Qaeda followers, similar to the way Facebook and Twitter were used by democracy protesters in the Arab revolutions of 2011. It's a powerful medium," said Theodore Karasik, a Dubai-based security analyst for the INEGMA group.

Militants also commonly use the forums to pass tips for making explosives, discuss methods of attacks or voice their opinions on world events in relation to Islamist views.

Many argued on Monday they could not believe the news of Osama bin Laden's death until it was confirmed online by al Qaeda's official news outlet, al-Fajr.

"Everyone try to be calm and pray and wait for a response from our brothers at al-Fajr center to learn the accuracy of the news," a message on Ansar news said.

Others doubted the authenticity of photos circulating on the Internet depicting the face of bin Laden after his death. They argued previous pictures of him alive looked older, and his beard greyer, than the picture which some claimed were of his corpse.

But on the Islamic Awakening forum, some suggested bin Laden's death should be accepted and a new leader found.

"Why can't people admit he was killed? He is a human being, not a prophet. Another man will replace his shoes, it's easy."

Others ridiculed the celebrations playing out in the United States, where crowds cheered and waved flags outside the White House and at New York's "Ground Zero," site of the World Trade Center twin towers felled by hijacked airliners on September 11, 2001.

"Please let them celebrate, they are celebrating their own end," said Abu Aziza on the Islamic Awakening forum. "Oh Allah destroy this nation for their hatred and enmity toward your deen (religion)."

Islamists: bin Laden death will not mute Jihad call, R, 2.5.2011,
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The Most Wanted Face of Terrorism

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By KATE ZERNIKE
and MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN

Osama bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan on Sunday, was a son of the Saudi elite whose radical, violent campaign to recreate a seventh-century Muslim empire redefined the threat of terrorism for the 21st century.

With the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, bin Laden was elevated to the realm of evil in the American imagination once reserved for dictators like Hitler and Stalin. He was a new national enemy, his face on wanted posters, gloating on videotape, taunting the United States and Western civilization.

“Do you want bin Laden dead?” a reporter asked President George W. Bush six days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I want him — I want justice,” the president answered. “And there’s an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’ ”

It took nearly a decade before that quest finally ended in Pakistan with the death of bin Laden during a confrontation with American forces who attacked a compound where officials said he had been hiding.

The manhunt was punctuated by a December 2001 battle at an Afghan mountain redoubt called Tora Bora, near the border of Pakistan, where bin Laden and his allies were hiding. Despite days of pounding by American bombers, bin Laden escaped. For more than nine years afterward, he remained an elusive, shadowy figure frustratingly beyond the grasp of his pursuers and thought to be hiding somewhere in Pakistan and plotting new attacks.

Long before, he had become a hero in much of the Islamic world, as much a myth as a man — what a longtime officer of the C.I.A. called “the North Star” of global terrorism. He had united disparate militant groups, from Egypt to Chechnya, from Yemen to the Philippines, under the banner of his Al Qaeda organization and his ideal of a borderless brotherhood of radical Islam.

Terrorism before bin Laden was often state-sponsored, but he was a terrorist who had sponsored a state. For five years, 1996 to 2001, he paid for the protection of the Taliban, then the rulers of Afghanistan. He bought the time and the freedom to make his group, Al Qaeda — which means “the base” — a multinational enterprise to export terror around the globe.

For years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the name of Al Qaeda and the fame of bin Laden spread like a 21st-century political plague. Groups calling themselves Al Qaeda, or acting in the name of its cause, attacked American troops in Iraq, bombed tourist spots in Bali and blew up passenger trains in Spain.

To this day, the precise reach of his power remains unknown: how many members Al Qaeda could truly count on, how many countries its cells had penetrated, and whether, as bin Laden boasted, he sought to arm Al Qaeda with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

He waged holy war with distinctly modern methods. He sent fatwas — religious decrees — by fax and declared war on Americans in an e-mail beamed by satellite around the world. Al Qaeda members kept bomb-making manuals on CD-ROM and communicated with encrypted memos on laptops, leading one American official to declare that bin Laden possessed better communication technology than the United States. He railed against globalization, even as his agents in Europe and North America took advantage of a globalized world to carry out their attacks, insinuating themselves into the very Western culture he despised.

He styled himself a Muslim ascetic, a billionaire’s son who gave up a life of privilege for the cause. But he was media savvy and acutely image conscious; before a CNN crew that interviewed him in 1997 was allowed to leave, his media advisers insisted on editing out unflattering shots. He summoned reporters to a cave in Afghanistan when he needed to get his message out, but like the most controlling of C.E.O.’s, he insisted on receiving written questions in advance.

His reedy voice seemed to belie the warrior image he cultivated, a man whose constant companion was a Kalashnikov rifle that he boasted he had taken from a Russian soldier he had killed. The world’s most threatening terrorist, he was also known to submit to frequent dressings down by his mother. While he built his reputation on his combat experience against Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s, even some of his supporters question whether he had actually fought.

And though he claimed to follow the purest form of Islam, many scholars insisted that he was glossing over the faith’s edicts against killing innocents and civilians. Islam draws boundaries on where and why holy war can be waged; bin Laden declared the entire world fair territory.

Yet it was the United States, bin Laden insisted, that was guilty of a double standard.

“It wants to occupy our countries, steal our resources, impose agents on us to rule us and then wants us to agree to all this,” he told CNN in the 1997 interview. “If we refuse to do so, it says we are terrorists. When Palestinian children throw stones against the Israeli occupation, the U.S. says they are terrorists. Whereas when Israel bombed the United Nations building in Lebanon while it was full of children and women, the U.S. stopped any plan to condemn Israel. At the same time that they condemn any Muslim who calls for his rights, they receive the top official of the Irish Republican Army at the White House as a political leader. Wherever we look, we find the U.S. as the leader of terrorism and crime in the world.”

The Turning Point

For bin Laden, as for the United States, the turning point came in 1989, with the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan.

For the United States, which had supported the Afghan resistance with billions of dollars in arms and ammunition, that defeat marked the beginning of the end of the cold war and the birth of a new world order.

Bin Laden, who had supported the resistance with money, construction equipment and housing, saw the retreat of the Soviets as an affirmation of Muslim power and an opportunity to recreate Islamic political power and topple infidel governments through jihad, or holy war.

He declared to an interviewer, “I am confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America.”

In its place, he built his own legend, modeling himself after the Prophet Muhammad, who in the seventh century led the Muslim people to rout the infidels, or nonbelievers, from North Africa and the Middle East. As the Koran had been revealed to Muhammad amid intense persecution, Bin Laden saw his own expulsions during the 1990s — from Saudi Arabia and then Sudan — as affirmation of himself as a chosen one.

In his vision, he would be the “emir,” or prince, in a restoration of the khalifa, a political empire extending from Afghanistan across the globe. “These countries belong to Islam,” he told the same interviewer in 1998, “not the rulers.”

Al Qaeda became the infrastructure for his dream. Under it, bin Laden created a web of businesses — some legitimate, some less so — to obtain and move the weapons, chemicals and money he needed. He created training camps for his foot soldiers, a media office to spread his word, even “shuras,” or councils, to approve his military plans and his fatwas.

Through the 90s, Al Qaeda evolved into a far-flung and loosely connected network of symbiotic relationships: bin Laden gave affiliated terrorist groups money, training and expertise; they gave him operational cover and a furthering of his cause. Perhaps the most important of those alliances was with the Taliban, who rose to power in Afghanistan largely on the strength of bin Laden’s aid, and in turn provided him refuge and a launching pad for holy war.

Long before Sept. 11, though the evidentiary trails were often thin, American officials considered Bin Laden at least in part responsible for the killing of American soldiers in Somalia and in Saudi Arabia; the first attack on the World Trade Center, in 1993; the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia; and a foiled plot to hijack a dozen jets, crash a plane into C.I.A. headquarters and kill President Bill Clinton.

In 1996, the officials described Bin Laden as “one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremism in the world.” But he was thought at the time to be primarily a financier of terrorism, not someone capable of orchestrating international terrorist plots. Yet when the United States put out a list of the most wanted terrorists in 1997, neither Bin Laden nor Al Qaeda was on it.

Bin Laden, however, demanded to be noticed. In February 1998, he declared it the duty of every Muslim to “kill Americans wherever they are found.” After the bombings of two American Embassies in East Africa in August 1998, President Clinton declared bin Laden “Public Enemy No. 1.”

The C.I.A. spent much of the next three years hunting bin Laden. The goal was to capture him with recruited Afghan agents or to kill him with a precision-guided missile, according to the 2004 report of the 9/11 commission and the memoirs of George J. Tenet, director of Central Intelligence from July 1997 to July 2004.

The intelligence was never good enough to pull the trigger. By the summer of 2001, the C.I.A. was convinced that Al Qaeda was on the verge of a spectacular attack. But no one knew where or when it would come.

The Early Life

By accounts of people close to the family, Osama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden was born in 1957, the seventh son and 17th child among 50 or more of his father’s children.

His father, Muhammad bin Awad bin Laden, had emigrated to what would soon become Saudi Arabia in 1931 from the family’s ancestral village in a conservative province of Southern Yemen. He found work in Jidda as a porter to the pilgrims on their way to the holy city of Mecca, and years later, when he would own the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia, he displayed his porter’s bag in the main reception room of his palace as a reminder of his humble origins.

According to family friends, the bin Laden family’s rise began with a risk — when the father offered to build a palace for King Saud in the 1950s for far less than the lowest bid. By the 1960s he had ingratiated himself so well with the Saudi royal family that King Faisal decreed that all construction projects be awarded to the Bin Laden group. When the Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem was set on fire by a deranged tourist in 1969, the senior bin Laden was chosen to rebuild it. Soon afterward, he was chosen to refurbish the mosques at Mecca and Medina as well. In interviews years later, Osama bin Laden would recall proudly that his father had sometimes prayed in all three holy places in one day.

His father was a devout Muslim who welcomed pilgrims and clergy into his home. He required all his children to work for the family company, meaning that Osama spent summers working on road projects. The elder bin Laden died in a plane crash when Osama was 10. The siblings each inherited millions — the precise amount was a matter of some debate — and led a life of near-royalty. Osama — the name means “young lion” — grew up playing with Saudi princes and had his own stable of horses by age 15.

But some people close to the family paint a portrait of bin Laden as a misfit. His mother, the last of his father’s four wives, was from Syria, the only one of the wives not from Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden senior had met her on a vacation, and Osama was their only child. Within the family, she was said to be known as “the slave” and Osama, “the slave child.”

Within the Saudi elite, it was rare to have both parents born outside the kingdom. In a profile of Osama bin Laden in The New Yorker, Mary Anne Weaver quoted a family friend who suggested that he had felt alienated in a culture that so obsessed over lineage, saying: “It must have been difficult for him, Osama was almost a double outsider. His paternal roots are in Yemen, and within the family, his mother was a double outsider as well — she was neither Saudi nor Yemeni but Syrian.”

According to one of his brothers, Osama was the only one of the bin Laden children who never traveled abroad to study. A biography of bin Laden, provided to the PBS television program “Frontline” by an unidentified family friend, asserted that bin Laden never traveled outside the Middle East.

That lack of exposure to Western culture would prove a crucial distinction; the other siblings went on to lead lives that would not be unfamiliar to most Americans. They took over the family business, estimated to be worth billion, distributing Snapple drinks, Volkswagen cars and Disney products across the Middle East. On Sept. 11, 2001, several bin Laden siblings were living in the United States.

Bin Laden had been educated — and, indeed, steeped, as many Saudi children are — in Wahhabism, the puritanical, ardently anti-Western strain of Islam. Even years later, he so despised the Saudi ruling family’s coziness with Western nations that he refused to refer to Saudi Arabia by its modern name, instead calling it “the Country of the Two Holy Places.”

Newspapers have quoted anonymous sources — particularly, an unidentified Lebanese barber — about a wild period of drinking and womanizing in bin Laden’s life. But by most accounts he was devout and quiet, marrying a relative, the first of his four wives, at age 17.

Soon afterward, he began earning a degree at King Abdul-Aziz University in Jidda. It was there that he shaped his future militancy. He became involved with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group of Islamic radicals who believed that much of the Muslim world, including the leaders of Saudi Arabia, lived as infidels, in violation of the true meaning of the Koran.

And he fell under the influence of two Islamic scholars: Muhammad Quttub and Abdullah Azzam, whose ideas would become the underpinnings for Al Qaeda. Mr. Azzam became a mentor to the young Bin Laden. Jihad was the responsibility of all Muslims, he taught, until the lands once held by Islam were reclaimed. His motto: “Jihad and the rifle alone: no negotiations, no conferences and no dialogue.”

The Middle East was becoming increasingly unsettled in 1979, when bin Laden was at the university. In Iran, Shiite Muslims mounted an Islamic revolution that overthrew the shah and began to make the United States a target. Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty. And as the year ended, Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan.

Bin Laden arrived in Pakistan on the border of Afghanistan within two weeks of the occupation. He said later that he had been asked to go by Saudi officials, who were eager to support the resistance movement. In his book “Taliban,” the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid said that the Saudis had originally hoped that a member of the royal family might serve as an inspirational leader in Afghanistan but that they settled on bin Laden as the next closest thing when no princes volunteered.

He traveled like a visiting diplomat more than a soldier, meeting with leaders and observing the refugees coming into Peshawar, Pakistan. As the family friend says, it “was an exploratory rather than an action trip.” He would return twice a year for the next few years, in between finishing his degree and lobbying family members to support the Afghan mujahedeen.

Bin Laden began traveling beyond the border into Afghanistan in 1982, bringing with him construction machinery and recruits. In 1984, he and Mr. Azzam began setting up guest houses in Peshawar, which served as the first stop for holy warriors on their way to Afghanistan. With the money they had raised in Saudi Arabia, they established the Office of Services, which branched out across the world to recruit young jihadists.

The men came to be known as the Afghan Arabs, though they came from all over the world, and their numbers were estimated as high as 20,000. By 1986, bin Laden had begun setting up training camps for them as well, and was paying roughly $25,000 a month to subsidize them.

To young would-be recruits across the Arab world, bin Laden’s was an attractive story: the rich young man who had become a warrior. His own descriptions of the battles he had seen, how he lost the fear of death and slept in the face of artillery fire, were brushstrokes of an almost divine figure.

But intelligence sources insist that bin Laden actually saw combat only once, in a weeklong barrage by the Soviets at Jaji, where the Arab Afghans had dug themselves into caves using Bin Laden’s construction equipment.

“Afghanistan, the jihad, was one terrific photo op for a lot of people,” Milton Bearden, the C.I.A. officer who described bin Laden as “the North Star,” said in an interview on “Frontline,” adding, “There’s a lot of fiction in there.”

Still, Jaji became a kind of touchstone in the Bin Laden myth. Stories sent back from the battle to Arab newspaper readers, and photographs of bin Laden in combat gear, burnished his image.

The flood of young men following him to Afghanistan prompted the founding of Al Qaeda. The genesis was essentially bureaucratic; Bin Laden wanted a way to track the men so he could tell their families what had happened to them. The documentation Al Qaeda provided became a primitive database of young jihadists.

Afghanistan also brought Bin Laden into contact with leaders of other militant Islamic groups, including Ayman al-Zawahri, the bespectacled doctor who would later appear at Bin Laden’s side in televised messages from the caves of Afghanistan. Ultimately Dr. Zawahri’s group, Egyptian Jihad, and others would merge with Al Qaeda, making it an umbrella for various terrorist groups.

The Movement

Through the looking glass of Sept. 11, it seemed ironic that the Americans and Osama bin Laden had fought on the same side against the Soviets in Afghanistan — as if the Americans had somehow created the Bin Laden monster by providing arms and cash to the Arabs. The complex at Tora Bora where Al Qaeda members hid had been created with the help of the C.I.A. as a base for the Afghans fighting the Soviets.

Bin Laden himself described the fight in Afghanistan this way: “There I received volunteers who came from the Saudi kingdom and from all over the Arab and Muslim countries. I set up my first camp where these volunteers were trained by Pakistani and American officers. The weapons were supplied by the Americans, the money by the Saudis.”

In truth, however, the American contact was not directly with bin Laden; both worked through the middlemen of the Pakistani intelligence service.

In the revisionism of the bin Laden myth, his defenders would later say that he had not worked with the Americans but that he had only tolerated them as a means to his end. As proof, they insisted he had made anti-American statements as early as 1980.

Bin Laden would say in retrospect that he was always aware who his enemies were.

“For us, the idea was not to get involved more than necessary in the fight against the Russians, which was the business of the Americans, but rather to show our solidarity with our Islamist brothers,” he told a French journalist in 1995. “I discovered that it was not enough to fight in Afghanistan, but that we had to fight on all fronts against Communism or Western oppression. The urgent thing was Communism, but the next target was America.”

Afghanistan had infused the movement with new confidence.

“Most of what we benefited from was that the myth of the superpower was destroyed not only in my mind but also in the minds of all Muslims,” bin Laden later told an interviewer. “Slumber and fatigue vanished, and so was the terror which the U.S. would use in its media by attributing itself superpower status, or which the Soviet Union used by attributing itself as a superpower.”

He returned to Saudi Arabia, welcomed as a hero, and took up the family business. But Saudi royals grew increasingly wary of him as he became more outspoken against the government.

The breaking point — for Bin Laden and for the Saudis — came when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Bin Laden volunteered to the Saudis that the men and equipment he had used in Afghanistan could defend the kingdom. He was “shocked,” a family friend said, to learn that the Americans — the enemy, in his mind — would defend it instead. To him, it was the height of American arrogance.

The United States, he told an interviewer later, “has started to look at itself as a master of this world and established what it calls the new world order.”

The Saudi government restricted him to Jidda, fearing that his outspokenness would offend the Americans. Bin Laden fled to Sudan, which was offering itself as a sort of haven for terrorists, and there he began setting up legitimate businesses that would help finance Al Qaeda. He also built his reserves, in 1992, paying for about 500 mujahedeen who had been expelled from Pakistan to come work for him.

The Terrorism

It was during that time that it is believed he honed his resolve against the United States.

Within Al Qaeda, he argued that the organization should put aside its differences with Shiite terrorist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the better to concentrate on the common enemy: the United States. He called for attacks against American forces in the Saudi peninsula and in the Horn of Africa.

On Dec. 29, 1992, a bomb exploded in a hotel in Aden, Yemen, where American troops had been staying while on their way to Somalia. The troops had already left, and the bomb killed two Austrian tourists. American intelligence officials later came to believe that that was the first bin Laden attack.

On Feb. 26, 1993, a bomb exploded in a truck driven into the underground garage at the World Trade Center, killing six people. Bin Laden later praised Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of the bombing. In October of that year in Somalia, 18 American troops were killed — some of their bodies dragged through the streets — while on a peacekeeping mission; bin Laden was almost giddy about the deaths.

“After leaving Afghanistan, the Muslim fighters headed for Somalia and prepared for a long battle, thinking that the Americans were “like the Russians,” he told an interviewer.

“The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized more than before that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat,” he said. “And America forgot all the hoopla and media propaganda about being the world leader and the leader of the new world order, and after a few blows, they forgot about this title and left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat.”

By 1994, bin Laden had established new training camps in Sudan, but he became a man without a country. The Saudi government froze his assets and revoked his citizenship. His family, which had become rich on its relations to the royals, denounced him publicly after he was caught smuggling weapons from Yemen.

This only seemed to make him more zealous. He sent an open letter to King Fahd, outlining the sins of the Saudi government and calling for a campaign of guerrilla attacks to drive Americans from Saudi Arabia. Three months later, in November 1995, a truck bomb exploded at a Saudi National Guard training center operated by the United States in Riyadh, killing seven people. That year, Belgian investigators found a kind of how-to manual for terrorists on a CD-ROM. The preface dedicated it to Bin Laden, the hero of the holy war.

The next May, when the men accused of the Riyadh bombing were beheaded in Riyadh’s main square, they were forced to read a confession in which they acknowledged the connection to bin Laden. The next month, June 1996, a truck bomb destroyed Khobar Towers, an American military residence in Dhahran. It killed 19 soldiers.

Bin Laden fled to Afghanistan that summer after Sudan expelled him under pressure from the Americans and Saudis, and he forged an alliance with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of the Taliban. In August 1996, from the Afghan mountain stronghold of Tora Bora, bin Laden issued his “Declaration of War Against the Americans Who Occupy the Land of the Two Holy Mosques.”

“Muslims burn with anger at America,” it read. The presence of American forces in the Persian Gulf states “will provoke the people of the country and induces aggression on their religion, feelings, and prides and pushes them to take up armed struggle against the invaders occupying the land.”

The imbalance of power between American forces and Muslim forces demanded a new kind of fighting, he wrote, “in other words, to initiate a guerrilla war, where sons of the nation, not the military forces, take part in it.”

That same month in New York City, a federal grand jury began meeting to consider charges against bin Laden. Disputes arose among prosecutors and American law enforcement and intelligence officers about which attacks against American interests could truly be attributed to bin Laden — whether in fact he had, as an indictment eventually charged, trained and paid the men who killed the Americans in Somalia.

His foot soldiers, in testimony, offered differing pictures of bin Laden’s actual involvement. In some cases he could be as aloof as any boss with thousands of employees. Yet one of the men convicted of the bombings of the embassies said that bin Laden had been so involved that he was the one who had pointed at surveillance photos to direct where the truck bomb should be driven.

Bin Laden was becoming more emboldened, summoning Western reporters to his hideouts in Afghanistan to relay his message: He would wage war against the United States and its allies if Washington did not remove its troops from the gulf region.

“So we tell the Americans as a people,” he told ABC News, “and we tell the mothers of soldiers and American mothers in general that if they value their lives and the lives of their children, to find a nationalistic government that will look after their interests and not the interests of the Jews. The continuation of tyranny will bring the fight to America, as Ramzi Yousef and others did. This is my message to the American people: to look for a serious government that looks out for their interests and does not attack others, their lands, or their honor.”

In February 1998, he issued the edict calling for attacks on Americans anywhere in the world, declaring it an “individual duty” for all Muslims.

In June, the grand jury convened two years earlier issued its indictment, charging bin Laden with conspiracy to attack the United States abroad, for heading Al Qaeda and for financing terrorist activities around the world.

On Aug. 7, the eighth anniversary of the United States’ order sending troops into the gulf region, two bombs exploded simultaneously at the American Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Nairobi bomb killed 213 people and wounded 4,500; the bomb in Dar es Salaam killed 11 and wounded 85.

The United States retaliated two weeks later with strikes against suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, which officials contended— erroneously, it turned out — was producing chemical weapons for Al Qaeda.

Bin Laden had trapped the United States in an escalating spiral of tension, where any defensive or retaliatory actions would affirm the evils he said had provoked the attacks in the first place. In an interview with Time magazine that December, he brushed aside President Clinton’s threats against him, and referred to himself in the third person, as if recognizing or encouraging the notion that he had become larger than life.

“To call us Enemy No. 1 or Enemy No. 2 does not hurt us,” he said. “Osama bin Laden is confident that the Islamic nation will carry out its duty.”

In January 1999, the United States government issued a superseding indictment that affirmed the power Bin Laden had sought all along, declaring Al Qaeda an international terrorist organization in a conspiracy to kill American citizens.

The Aftermath

After the attacks of Sept. 11, bin Laden did what had become routine: He took to Arab television. He appeared, in his statement to the world, to be at the top of his powers. President Bush had declared that the nations of the world were either with the Americans or against them on terrorism; bin Laden held up a mirror image, declaring the world divided between infidels and believers.

Bin Laden had never before claimed or accepted responsibility for terrorist attacks. In a videotape found in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar weeks after the attacks, he firmly took responsibility for — and reveled in — the horror of Sept. 11.

“We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower,” he said. “We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all.”

In the videotape, showing him talking to followers nearly two months after the attacks, Bin Laden smiles, hungers to hear more approval, and notes proudly that the attacks let loose a surge of interest in Islam around the world.

He explained that the hijackers on the planes — “the brothers who conducted the operation” — did not know what the mission would be until just before they boarded the planes. They knew only that they were going to the United States on a martyrdom mission.

Bin Laden had long eluded the allied forces in pursuit of him, moving, it was said, under cover of night with his wives and children, apparently between mountain caves. Yet he was determined that if he had to die, he, too, would die a martyr’s death.

His greatest hope, he told supporters, was that if he died at the hands of the Americans, the Muslim world would rise up and defeat the nation that had killed him.

Michael T. Kaufman, a principal writer of this article,
died in 2010.

Tim Weiner contributed reporting.

The Most Wanted Face of Terrorism, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/02osama-bin-laden-obituary.html

President’s Vow Fulfilled

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s announcement late Sunday that Osama bin Laden had been killed delivered not only a long-awaited prize to the United States, but also a significant victory for Mr. Obama, whose foreign policy has been the subject of persistent criticism by his rivals.

In the 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Obama bluntly declared, “We will kill Bin Laden.” But as time passed, Bin Laden’s name had gradually fallen from presidential speeches and from political discourse, raising concern from critics that his administration was not sufficiently focused on the fight against terrorism.

In delivering the news from the East Room of the White House, as jubilant crowds gathered outside waving American flags and cheering in celebration, Mr. Obama did not address his critics or gloat about his trophy. He instead used the moment to remember the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to issue a new call to the nation for unity.

“Let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed,” Mr. Obama said. “We are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to.”

The development is almost certainly one of the most significant and defining moments yet in his presidency. It allows Mr. Obama to claim the biggest national security victory in a decade — something that eluded President George W. Bush for nearly eight years — and instantly burnishes his foreign policy credentials at a time when he has been questioned on his decisions on the Middle East.

Mr. Obama called Mr. Bush on Sunday evening to tell him that Bin Laden had been killed. Shortly after Mr. Obama’s announcement at the White House, Mr. Bush issued a statement congratulating his successor, saying, “No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.”

The killing of Bin Laden comes as the Obama administration faces questions about its strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The president revealed few details of the operation in his address on Sunday evening, but aides said he would address it more in the coming days, perhaps through another national address or in interviews.

Mr. Obama has been facing some of the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, largely because of domestic concerns over high gas prices and the rising federal debt. It remains an open question what lasting effect Bin Laden’s death will have on how Mr. Obama is seen by the American people, but it gives him an unmistakable advantage on national security heading into the 2012 presidential campaign.

“I don’t care about the politics,” said Ari Fleischer, who was the White House press secretary in Mr. Bush’s first term. “This is great news for our country.”

The reaction was swift on Sunday evening, with Democrats and Republicans alike hailing the moment. Some of Mr. Obama’s rivals praised him, including Tim Pawlenty, a Republican and former governor of Minnesota.

“I want to congratulate America’s armed forces and President Obama for a job well done,” said Mr. Pawlenty, a frequent critic of the president’s policies. “Let history show that the perseverance of the U.S. military and the American people never wavered.”

It remains unlikely, though, that the national security victory will significantly rewrite the political dynamic for the president. The 2012 election is still likely to turn in large part on the economy, with unemployment and gas prices holding significant sway.

But as Mr. Obama delivered his remarks and the crowds continued to gather outside the White House, there was little question that his presidency had forever been changed by snaring Bin Laden. The search for him has played out over Mr. Obama’s maturation as a national political figure in the last decade.

“Today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country,” Mr. Obama said, “and the determination of the American people.”

President’s Vow Fulfilled, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/us/politics/osama-bin-laden-a-prize-and-a-victory.html

Factbox: al Qaeda's affiliate groups

Mon May 2, 2011
4:22am EDT
Reuters

(Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan on Sunday, President Barack Obama announced.

Here are some details on Al Qaeda's main affiliate groups in the Arabian peninsula, Iraq and North Africa.

* AL QAEDA IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA (AQAP)

-- Al Qaeda's Yemeni and Saudi wings merged in 2009 into a new group, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen. They announced this three years after a counter-terrorism drive halted an al Qaeda campaign in Saudi Arabia.

-- AQAP's Yemeni leader, Nasser al-Wahayshi, was once a close associate of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whose father was born in Yemen, a neighbor of top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

-- Yemen's foreign minister has said 300 AQAP militants might be in the country.

-- Nearly a year before the September 11, 2001 attacks, al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole warship in October 2000 when it was docked in the southern Yemen port of Aden, killing 17 U.S. sailors.

-- AQAP claimed responsibility for an attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner on December 25, 2009, and said it provided the explosive device used in the failed attack. The suspected bomber, a young Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had visited Yemen and been in contact with militants there.

-- AQAP staged several attacks in Yemen in 2010, among them a suicide bombing in April aimed at the British ambassador, who was not injured.

-- The group also claimed responsibility for a foiled plot to send two air freight packages containing bombs to the United States in October 2010. The bombs were found on planes in Britain and Dubai. Last November AQAP vowed to "bleed" U.S. resources with small-scale attacks that are inexpensive but cost billions for the West to guard against.

* AL QAEDA IN THE ISLAMIC MAGHREB (AQIM)

-- Led by Algerian militant Abdelmalek Droukdel, AQIM burst onto the public stage in January 2007, a product of the rebranding of fighters previously known as Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

-- The Salafists had waged war against Algeria's security forces but in late 2006 they sought to adopt a broader jihadi ideology by allying themselves with al Qaeda.

-- AQIM scored initial high-profile successes with attacks on the government, security services and the United Nations office in Algiers in 2007. Since 2008, attacks have tailed off as security forces broke up AQIM cells in Algeria.

-- Although concrete intelligence is scant, analysts say there are a few hundred fighters who operate in the vast desert region of northeastern Mauritania, and northern Mali and Niger. AQIM's most high-profile activity is the kidnapping of Westerners, many of whom have been ransomed for large sums.

-- AQIM has claimed responsibility for the abduction of two Frenchmen found dead after a failed rescue attempt in Niger last January and it is also holding other French nationals kidnapped in Niger in September 2010. A tape, released on Islamist forums late last month, showed pictures of each of the hostages.

* AL QAEDA IN IRAQ (AQI):

-- The group was founded in October 2004 when Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi pledged his faith to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

-- An Egyptian called Abu Ayyab al-Masri but also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir is said to have assumed the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq after Zarqawi was killed in 2006.

-- In October 2006, the al Qaeda-led Mujahideen Shura Council said it had set up the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an umbrella group of Sunni militant affiliates and tribal leaders led by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. In April 2007 it named a 10-man "cabinet," including Masri as its war minister.

-- Fewer foreign volunteers have made it into Iraq to fight with al Qaeda against the U.S.-backed government but the group has switched to fewer albeit more deadly attacks.

-- Militants linked to al Qaeda claimed bombings in Baghdad on December 8, 2009 near a courthouse, a judge training center, a Finance Ministry building and a police checkpoint in southern Baghdad. At least 112 people were killed and hundreds wounded. -- On April 18, 2010 Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were killed in a raid in a rural area northwest of Baghdad by Iraqi and U.S. forces.

-- A month later the ISI said its governing council had selected Abu Baker al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Qurashi as its caliph, or head, and Abu Abdullah al-Hassani al-Qurashi as his deputy and first minister, replacing al-Baghdadi and al-Masri.

-- Last October gunmen linked to the Iraqi al Qaeda group seized hostages at a Catholic church in Baghdad during Sunday mass. Around 52 hostages and police were killed in the incident, which ended when security forces raided the church to free around 100 Iraqi Catholic hostages.

Sources: Reuters/Janes's World Insurgency and Terrorism

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit, editing by Mark Heinrich)

Factbox: al Qaeda's affiliate groups, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-groups-idUSTRE74123E20110502

Analysis:

bin Laden leaves a scattered,

diffuse al Qaeda

WASHINGTON/LONDON | Mon May 2, 2011
4:22am EDT
By Phil Stewart and William Maclean

WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - The killing of Osama bin Laden will deal a big psychological blow to al Qaeda but may have little practical impact on an increasingly decentralized group that has operated tactically without him for years.

Nearly a decade after the September 11, 2001 attacks, al Qaeda has fragmented into a globally-scattered network of autonomous groups in which bin Laden served as an inspirational figure from the core group's traditional Pakistan-Afghanistan base.

Counter-terrorism specialists describe a constantly mutating movement that is harder to hunt than in its turn of the century heyday because it is increasingly diffuse -- a multi-ethnic, regionally dispersed and online-influenced hybrid of activists.

While this network remains a threat, the core al Qaeda leadership has been weakened by years of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan. It has not staged a successful attack in the West since London bombings that killed 52 people in 2005.

Al Qaeda has also been hurt ideologically by uprisings in the Arab world by ordinary people seeking democracy and human rights -- notions anathema to bin Laden, who once said democracy was akin to idolatry as it placed man's desires above God's.

The arm of al Qaeda that now poses the biggest threat to the United States is its affiliate in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), according to U.S. officials. Other al Qaeda-linked groups have grown in ambition and lethality.

"As a matter of leadership of terrorist operations, bin Laden has really not been the main story for some time," said Paul Pillar, a former senior U.S. intelligence official.

"The instigation of most operations has been at the periphery not the center -- and by periphery I'm including groups like AQAP but also smaller entities as well."

It was AQAP that claimed responsibility for a thwarted Christmas Day attack aboard a U.S. airliner in 2009 and an attempt last year to blow up two U.S.-bound cargo planes with toner cartridges packed with explosives.

The head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, acknowledged to Congress earlier this year that AQAP and its chief English-language preacher Anwar al-Awlaki posed the biggest risk to the United States.

Al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who left the country in 2001 and joined al Qaeda in Yemen, also communicated with a U.S. Army major who in November 2009 allegedly went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas that killed 13 and wounded 32.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a failed bombing in New York City's Times Square a year ago.

DEAD OR ALIVE

"I don't think there's any real military significance (to bin Laden's death)," said Arturo Munoz, a security analyst at RAND Corporation.

"The significance is political and psychological and psychologically and politically, there's a huge significance."

"Bin Laden's death is a significant victory for the United States. But it is more symbolic than concrete," said Fawaz Gerges, an al Qaeda expert at the London School of Economics.

"The world had already moved beyond bin Laden and al Qaeda. Operationally al Qaeda's command and control had been crippled and their top leaders had either been arrested or killed.

"More importantly, al Qaeda has lost the struggle for hearts and minds in the Arab world and elsewhere and has had trouble attracting followers and skilled recruits."

Bin Laden's ability to evade U.S. capture for nearly a decade was a huge embarrassment to the United States, a painful reminder now extinguished by his killing in a firefight in a compound north of Islamabad.

QAEDA NEEDS "A MIRACLE" TO RECOVER

Some analysts say that bin Laden's memory may now inspire followers, who will now see him as a martyr, to take revenge.

And the extensive online forums, chat rooms and websites operated by al Qaeda sympathizers will ensure his role as the group's motivator-in-chief will endure.

"As a symbol, as a source of ideology, bin Laden can continue to play those roles dead as well as alive," Pillar said.

But his departure will add to pressure on morale throughout the network, despite al Qaeda's glorification of martyrdom and a perception that bin Laden died an honorable death in battle.

Gerges said it would "take a miracle" for al Qaeda to recover ideologically and operationally from bin Laden's death.

Thomas Hegghammer, a specialist on militancy at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, said that over the long term his loss would deepen the group's disarray.

"It is bad for al Qaeda and the jihadi movements. Bin Laden was a symbol of al Qaeda's longevity and its defiance of the West. Now that symbol is gone."

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Analysis: bin Laden leaves a scattered, diffuse al Qaeda, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-qaeda-idUSTRE7411ZS20110502

U.S. Special Forces led bin Laden operation:

source

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
2:56am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Special Forces led the operation that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, a U.S. source said on Sunday.

(Reporting by Steve Holland; editing by Philip Barbara)

U.S. Special Forces led bin Laden operation: source, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-obama-binladen-specialforces-idUSTRE7410HS20110502

Osama bin Laden:

9/11 author who defied Bush, Obama

LONDON | Mon May 2, 2011
2:52am EDT
Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - Challenging the might of the "infidel" United States, Osama bin Laden masterminded the deadliest militant attacks in history and then built a global network of allies to wage a "holy war" intended to outlive him.

The man behind the suicide hijack attacks of September 11, 2001, and who U.S. officials said late on Sunday was dead, was the nemesis of former President George W. Bush, who pledged to take him "dead or alive" and whose two terms were dominated by a "war on terror" against his al Qaeda network.

Bin Laden also assailed Bush's successor, Barack Obama, dismissing a new beginning with Muslims he offered in a 2009 speech as sowing "seeds for hatred and revenge against America."

Widely assumed to be hiding in Pakistan -- whether in a mountain cave or a bustling city -- bin Laden was believed to be largely bereft of operational control, under threat from U.S. drone strikes and struggling with disenchantment among former supporters alienated by suicide attacks in Iraq in 2004-06.

But even as political and security pressures grew on him in 2009-2101, the Saudi-born militant appeared to hit upon a strategy of smaller, more easily-organized attacks, carried out by globally-scattered hubs of sympathizers and affiliate groups. Al Qaeda sprouted new offshoots in Yemen, Iraq and North Africa and directed or inspired attacks from Bali to Britain to the United States, where a Nigerian Islamist made a botched attempt to down an airliner over Detroit on Dec 25, 2009. While remaining the potent figurehead of al Qaeda, bin Laden turned its core leadership from an organization that executed complex team-based attacks into a propaganda hub that cultivated affiliated groups to organize and strike on their own. With his long grey beard and wistful expression, bin Laden became one of the most instantly recognizable people on the planet, his gaunt face staring out from propaganda videos and framed on a U.S. website offering a $25 million bounty.

Officials say U.S. authorities have recovered bin Laden's body, ending the largest manhunt in history involving thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and tens of thousands of Pakistani soldiers in the rugged mountains along the border.

Whether reviled as a terrorist and mass murderer or hailed as the champion of oppressed Muslims fighting injustice and humiliation, bin Laden changed the course of history.

ASYMMETRIC WARFARE

The United States and its allies rewrote their security doctrines, struggling to adjust from Cold War-style confrontation between states to a new brand of transnational "asymmetric warfare" against small cells of Islamist militants. Al Qaeda's weapons were not tanks, submarines and aircraft carriers but the everyday tools of globalization and 21st century technology -- among them the Internet, which it eagerly exploited for propaganda, training and recruitment.

But, by his own account, not even bin Laden anticipated the full impact of using 19 suicide hijackers to turn passenger aircraft into guided missiles and slam them into buildings that symbolized U.S. financial and military power. Nearly 3,000 people died when two planes struck New York's World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon in Washington and a fourth crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania after passengers rushed the hijackers. "Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs," bin Laden said in a statement a month after the September 11 attacks, urging Muslims to rise up and join a global battle between "the camp of the faithful and the camp of the infidels." In video and audio messages over the next seven years, the al Qaeda leader goaded Washington and its allies. His diatribes lurched across a range of topics, from the war in Iraq to U.S. politics, the subprime mortgage crisis and even climate change. A gap of nearly three years in his output of video messages revived speculation he might be gravely ill with a kidney problem or even have died, but bin Laden was back on screen in September 2007, telling Americans their country was vulnerable despite its economic and military power. MILLIONAIRE FATHER Born in Saudi Arabia in 1957, one of more than 50 children of millionaire businessman Mohamed bin Laden, he lost his father while still a boy -- killed in a plane crash, apparently due to an error by his American pilot. Osama's first marriage, to a Syrian cousin, came at the age of 17, and he is reported to have at least 23 children from at least five wives. Part of a family that made its fortune in the oil-funded Saudi construction boom, bin Laden was a shy boy and an average student, who took a degree in civil engineering. He went to Pakistan soon after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and raised funds at home before making his way to the Afghan front lines and developing militant training camps. According to some accounts, he helped form al Qaeda ("The Base") in the dying days of the Soviet occupation. A book by U.S. writer Steve Coll, "The Bin Ladens," suggested the death in 1988 of his extrovert half-brother Salem -- again in a plane crash -- was an important factor in Osama's radicalization. Bin Laden condemned the presence in Saudi Arabia of U.S. troops sent to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait after the 1990 invasion, and remained convinced that the Muslim world was the victim of international terrorism engineered by America. He called for a jihad against the United States, which had spent billions of dollars bankrolling the Afghan resistance in which he had fought.

TRAIL OF ATTACKS

Al Qaeda embarked on a trail of attacks, beginning with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six and first raised the specter of Islamist extremism spreading to the United States. Bin Laden was the prime suspect in bombings of U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996 as well as attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 224. In October 2000, suicide bombers rammed into the USS Cole warship in Yemen, killing 17 sailors, and al Qaeda was blamed. Disowned by his family and stripped of Saudi citizenship, bin Laden had moved first to Sudan in 1991 and later resurfaced in Afghanistan before the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996. With his wealth, largesse and shared radical Muslim ideology, bin Laden soon eased his way into inner Taliban circles as they imposed their rigid interpretation of Islam. From Afghanistan, bin Laden issued religious decrees against U.S. soldiers and ran training camps where militants were groomed for a global campaign of violence. Recruits were drawn from Central, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and even Europe by their common hatred of the United States, Israel and moderate Muslim governments, as well as a desire for a more fundamentalist brand of Islam. After the 1998 attacks on two of its African embassies, the United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at Afghanistan, targeting al Qaeda training camps. Bin Laden escaped unscathed. The Taliban paid a heavy price for sheltering bin Laden and his fighters, suffering a humiliating defeat after a U.S.-led invasion in the weeks after the September 11 attacks.

ESCAPE FROM TORA BORA

Al Qaeda was badly weakened, with many fighters killed or captured. Bin Laden vanished -- some reports say U.S. bombs narrowly missed him in late 2001 as he and his forces slipped out of Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains and into Pakistan. But the start of the Iraq war in 2003 produced a fresh surge of recruits for al Qaeda due to opposition to the U.S. invasion within Muslim communities around the world, analysts say. Apparently protected by the Afghan Taliban in their northwest Pakistani strongholds, bin Laden also built ties to an array of south Asian militant groups and backed a bloody revolt by the Pakistani Taliban against the Islamabad government. Amid a reinvigorated al Qaeda propaganda push, operatives or sympathizers were blamed for attacks from Indonesia and Pakistan to Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Spain, Britain and Somalia. Tougher security in the West and killings of middle-rank Qaeda men helped weaken the group, and some followers noted critically that the last successful al Qaeda-linked strike in a Western country was the 2005 London bombings that killed 52. But Western worries about radicalization grew following a string of incidents involving U.S.-based radicals in 2009-10 including an attempt to bomb New York's Times Square. In a 2006 audio message, bin Laden alluded to the U.S. hunt for him and stated his determination to avoid capture: "I swear not to die but a free man."

(Editing by William Maclean)

Osama bin Laden: 9/11 author who defied Bush, Obama, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-idUSTRE7410D320110502

Osama bin Laden killed in shootout,

Obama says

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
1:01am EDT
Reuters
By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed Sunday in a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan and his body was recovered, President Barack Obama said on Sunday.

"Justice has been done," Obama said in a dramatic, late-night White House speech announcing the death of the elusive mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.

It is was major accomplishment for Obama and his national security team and could give him a political boost as he seeks re-election in 2012.

And it was at least a huge symbolic blow to al Qaeda, the militant organization that has staged bloody attacks in many western and Arab countries cities and has been the subject of a worldwide campaign against it.

Obama said U.S. forces led a targeted operation that killed bin Laden in Abbotabad north of Islamabad. No Americans were killed in the operation and they took care to avoid civilian casualties, he said.

In Washington, thousands of people gathered quickly outside the White House, waving American flags, cheering and chanting "USA, USA, USA." Car drivers blew their horns in celebration and people streamed to Lafayette Park across from the presidential mansion. Police vehicles with their lights flashing stood vigil.

"I'm down here to witness the history. My boyfriend is commissioning as a Marine next week. So I'm really proud of the troops," Laura Vogler, a junior at American University in Washington, said outside the White House.

Many Americans had given up hope of ever finding bin Laden after he vanished in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan in late 2001 as U.S. and allied forces invaded the country in response to the September 11 attacks.

Intelligence that originated last August provided the clues that eventually led to bin Laden's trail, the president said. A U.S. official said Obama gave the final order to pursue the operation last Friday morning.

"The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda and a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of men, women and children," Obama said.

A crowd gathered in Lafayette Park outside the White House erupted in jubilation at the news. Hundreds of people waved flags, hugged and cheered.

CAPTURED DEAD

Former President George W. Bush, who famously vowed to bring bin Laden to justice "dead or alive" but never did, called the operation a "momentous achievement" after Obama called him with the news.

Martin Indyk, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, described bin Laden's death as "a body blow" to al Qaeda at a time when its ideology was already being undercut by the popular revolutions in the Arab world.

Statements of appreciation poured in from both sides of Washington's often divided political divide. Republican Senator John McCain declared, "I am overjoyed that we finally got the world's top terrorist."

Said former President Bill Clinton: "I congratulate the president, the national security team and the members of our armed forces on bringing Osama bin Laden to justice after more than a decade of murderous al Qaeda attacks."

Having the body may help convince any doubters that bin Laden is really dead.

Bin Laden had been hunted since he eluded U.S. soldiers and Afghan militia forces in a large-scale assault on the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan close to the Pakistan frontier in 2001.

The trail quickly went cold after he disappeared and many intelligence officials believed he had been hiding in Pakistan.

While in hiding, bin Laden had taunted the West and advocated his militant Islamist views in videotapes spirited from his hideaway.

Besides September 11, Washington has also linked bin Laden to a string of attacks -- including the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the warship USS Cole in Yemen.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Arshad Mohammed, Kristin Roberts and Tabassum Zakaria; Writing by Steve Holland; editing by David Storey and Philip Barbara)

Osama bin Laden killed in shootout, Obama says, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-obama-statement-idUSTRE74107920110502

In Bin Laden’s Death,

a Critical Moment for the Arab World

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER

In the early days of the Arab Spring, President Obama frequently told his aides that the movement sweeping from Cairo to Yemen — one place where Al Qaeda found its intellectual roots, the other where it has taken refuge — created what he called an “alternative narrative” for a disaffected generation.

There were no pictures of Osama bin Laden being paraded through the streets, he noted. Nor were there chants of “Death to America.” The question now is whether Bin Laden’s death at the hands of American Special Forces and the C.I.A. spurs the movement to promote democracy in the region or — a very real alternative — fuels the Islamist forces now trying to fill the new power vacuum in the Arab world.

The White House, not surprisingly, argued late Sunday evening that the killing of Bin Laden came at just the crucial moment, when the Arab world was turning its back on Al Qaeda’s ideology.

“It’s important to note that it is most fitting that Bin Laden’s death comes at a time of great movement towards freedom and democracy that is sweeping the Arab world,” one of Mr. Obama’s national security aides told reporters in a telephone call late Sunday night, after the spectacular raid on Bin Laden’s high-walled compound was over. “He stood in direct opposition to what the greatest men and women throughout the Middle East and North Africa are risking their lives for: individual rights and human dignity.”

If the Obama White House proves right in its interpretation of events, the death of Al Qaeda’s leader will represent far more than simply bringing to justice the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It would underscore the argument that Al Qaeda’s pathway to change in the Middle East — through violence — never unseated a single dictator and never brought real change. For that reason, Al Qaeda’s appeal was already fading before Bin Laden met his end.

It could also mark the beginning of a new era in which the global war on terror, as the Bush administration called it, no longer remains the raison d’être of American foreign policy, as it has been since the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001. For years, America’s relationships with the world were measured almost entirely by Washington’s judgment about whether countries were helping or impeding that war. As a candidate, Barack Obama promised to change that, even while pursuing a counterterrorism strategy — and the hunt for Bin Laden — relentlessly.

But until now, Mr. Obama’s hopes of steering America in a radically different direction amounted to more aspiration than plan. He has tried to refocus American attention toward Asia, where the country’s economic future lies, and pursue a striking agenda to vastly reduce the role of nuclear weapons around the world. But those efforts were always subsumed by the leftover issues of the “legacy wars” of Afghanistan and Iraq: the 30,000-troop “surge” in Afghanistan to keep the country from becoming a Qaeda haven again; the failed effort to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; the plunge in the testy relationship with a nuclear-armed Pakistan.

The Arab Spring added a confusing new element, as Washington sought to guide events that promised a new relationship with a region that was casting off its dictators and, perhaps, on the cusp of embracing some form of democracy. But as the more candid of Mr. Obama’s aides acknowledged, it is a movement that, at its core, is out of Washington’s control.

Now, the elimination of the central symbol of Al Qaeda offers a new opportunity for Mr. Obama to argue that the group no longer needs to be a fixation of American policy. “Until now, we’ve done a good job of disrupting Al Qaeda,” one of Mr. Obama’s top advisers said this year, as the intelligence agencies were secretly zeroing in on the luxurious compound in the suburbs of Islamabad, Pakistan, where Bin Laden was killed. “We’re still not at ‘dismantle,’ and certainly not at ‘defeat.’ ”

Today, Mr. Obama can argue he is closer to both those goals. In fact, his aides contended on Sunday evening that Bin Laden’s presumed successors, including Ayman al-Zawahri, have none of his charisma and appeal, and that his death will lead to a fracturing of the organization. The decision to bury Bin Laden’s body at sea was part of a carefully-calibrated effort to avoid having a burial place that would turn into a shrine to the Qaeda leader, a place where his adherents could declare him a martyr.

But none of that assures that the “alternative narrative” Mr. Obama frequently speaks about will take hold. With the Muslim Brotherhood showing some success in organizing for coming elections in Egypt, and extremist groups hoping to profit from the civil war in Libya and the protests in Syria, it is far from clear that the revolutions under way today will not be hijacked by groups that have a closer affinity to Al Qaeda ideology than democratic reform.

Henry Kissinger noted recently that revolutionaries “rarely survive the process of the revolution.” There is usually a “second wave” that can veer off in a different direction. Whether that second wave will follow the path laid out by the young creators of the Arab Spring, or Bin Laden’s acolytes seeking revenge, may well determine whether Mr. Obama can use Bin Laden’s death to put a coda on a grim decade.

In Bin Laden’s Death, a Critical Moment for the Arab World, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/03policy.html

Amid Cheers, a Message:

‘They Will Be Caught’

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By ELIZABETH A. HARRIS

In the midnight darkness, the crowds gathered, chanting and cheering, waving American flags, outside the front gates of the White House. In Times Square, tourists poured out of nearby hotels and into the streets early Monday morning to celebrate with strangers. And in the shadow of the World Trade Center site, as the news of Osama bin Laden’s killing by American special forces spread, a police car drove north on Church Street blaring the sound of bagpipes from open windows. Officers raised clenched fists in the air.

“I don’t know if it will make us safer, but it definitely sends a message to terrorists worldwide,” said Stacey Betsalel, standing in Times Square with her husband, exchanging high fives. “They will be caught and they will have to pay for their actions. You can’t mess with the United States for very long and get away with it.”

President Obama’s stunning announcement Sunday night about the death of the terrorist who had eluded capture for almost 10 years produced an outpouring of emotion around the world, from political figures and citizens alike.

“This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001,” said former President George W. Bush in a statement. “The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose city bore the brunt of the 9/11 attack, issued a statement saying: “The killing of Osama bin Laden does not lessen the suffering that New Yorkers and Americans experienced at his hands, but it is a critically important victory for our nation — and a tribute to the millions of men and women in our armed forces and elsewhere who have fought so hard for our nation.

“New Yorkers have waited nearly 10 years for this news. It is my hope that it will bring some closure and comfort to all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.”

Former President Bill Clinton said in a statement that this was a “profoundly important moment.” Governor Andrew M. Cuomo of New York called the killing of Bin Laden “a major step in our country’s efforts to defeat terrorism.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said it was “a resounding triumph for justice.”

The markets also reacted positively to the news Sunday night. Oil futures fell and U.S. stock futures rose. For World Trade Center survivors and the families of the dead, it was a powerful moment.

In Westchester, Harry Waizer, a survivor, paused nearly a minute before he began to speak when reached by phone.

“If this means there is one less death in the future, then I’m glad for that,” said Mr. Waizer, who was in an elevator riding to work in the north tower when the plane struck the building. He made it down the stairs, but suffered third-degree burns.

“But I just can’t find it in me to be glad one more person is dead, even if it is Osama Bin Laden.”

Asked whether he felt any closure, Mr. Waizer said, “I’ve said for years I didn’t think there would be, but I’ll probably need to think about that more, now that it actually happened.”

“You know, the dead are still dead,” he added. “So in that sense, there is no such thing as closure.”

He expected the reaction from surviving families to be varied. ”Many of them will be grateful he has finally been brought to justice,” Mr. Waizer said. “But many of them will feel that whatever the justice of this, it won’t bring back the people they lost.”

In Lower Manhattan, near the site of the World Trade Center, some people felt drawn to the spot where almost 3,000 people lost their lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

Among those gathered there to celebrate Bin Laden’s death Sunday night was Rana Rasheed, a 25-year-old student from Pakistan studying at The New School. He expressed relief and said he hoped Bin Laden’s death would reduce tensions between the United States and the Muslim world.

"The fact that he’s going to be out of the picture, that’s going to bring things back to normal," he said. "Hopefully, it will bring about more cooperation between the U.S. and Muslim countries."

By midnight, a few hundred people had gathered at the intersection of Vesey and Church streets, in front of the site. Some held candles and others held American flags. They sang “The Star Spangled Banner” and chanted ‘U-S-A! U-S-A!’ as car horns and sirens blared in the background.

That same chant was heard in Washington and elsewhere around the country.

Fans called it out at a Mets-Phillies game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia: “U-S-A! U-S-A!” In Columbus, Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch reported that more than 1,000 people came out on the Ohio State University campus to share that same call. “U-S-A! U-S-A!”

On 114th street in Manhattan, by the Columbia University campus, students spilled into the streets singing “God Bless America.”

More than two hours after President Obama’s address, a boisterous crowd of at least 1,000 people had gathered in front of the White House echoed that chorus (“U-S-A! U-S-A!”), while climbing trees, smoking cigars, and cheering loudly. A blue convertible drove by waving an enormous American flag, with “Born in the USA” by Bruce Springsteen blasting from the sound system.

The mood in Times Square was jubilant as well.

Hundreds of people stood in Times Square, using cellphones to snap pictures of the news ABC news bulletin scrolling high above Broadway. “Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden Killed,” it read.

A crowd gathered around a fire truck that had parked in the street.

“I think we need to celebrate,” said Jill Burdo, a tourist from Minneapolis who came out of her Times Square hotel room. “Who knows what tomorrow’s going to bring.”

Amid Cheers, a Message: ‘They Will Be Caught’, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/nyregion/amid-cheers-a-message-they-will-be-caught.html

Afghans Fear West

May See Death as the End

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By ALISSA J. RUBIN

KABUL, Afghanistan — In Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden was based for many years and where Al Qaeda helped to train and pay insurgents, there was relief and uncertainty about how his death would play out in the fraught regional power politics now shaping the war. While senior political figures welcomed the news of his death, they cautioned that it did not necessarily translate into an immediate military victory over the Taliban, and urged the United States and NATO not to use it as a reason to withdraw.

“The killing of Osama should not be seen as mission accomplished,” said Hanif Atmar, a former interior minister who has been a strong opponent of the Taliban. “Al Qaeda is much more than just Osama bin Laden.”

“Mission accomplished means destroy, dismantle and defeat A.Q.,” he said. “And this should not be used as a justification for premature withdrawal. On the contrary, with this effort and the results it produced, it means we must stay the course.”

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan described the killing of Bin Laden by the Americans as “punishment for his deeds” and reminded the country that his government has long urged Western countries to hunt for terrorists outside Afghanistan.

“The world should realize as we said many many times, and continue to say everyday, the fight against terrorism is not in Afghanistan’s villages, the fight against terrorism is not in the houses of poor and oppressed Afghans, the fight is not in bombing women and children,” he said. “The fight against terrorism is in its sanctuaries, in its training camps and its finance centers, not in Afghanistan and today it has been proved we were right.”

His remarks, made before an audience of district development council members in Kabul where he had a scheduled speech, reminded people that as much as Americans had been victims, Afghans were victims as well.

“Before the 9/11 event in New York City where 3,000 were killed, for many years he was killing and harassing the people of Afghanistan,” Mr. Karzai said. “After that and right up until today, the innocent people of Afghanistan die and are wounded and suffer from terrorists and their activities.”

Former members of the Taliban who are now part of the reconciliation efforts with the movement said they believed that Bin Laden’s death would drive the Taliban to make a deal to stop fighting and become a political force in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban had no immediate statement.

“This is a big blow to Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda’s followers because he was a popular and famous figure, and he was a very expert man and was planning major attacks,” said Arsala Rahmani, a former Taliban member who is now part of the High Peace Council.

“I don’t think this will affect the Taliban fight in Afghanistan in the short term, but in the long term it will because Al Qaeda helped the Taliban in fighting and other activities,” he said, adding that he thought it would drive the Taliban toward negotiations and making peace with the government “because they don’t have any other way.”

Bin Laden’s greatest enemies, including the family of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Taliban opposition leader who was killed two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, also cautioned that the fight in Afghanistan was far from over. “It is a relief for us to see a culprit who has been killed and it’s a relief for the people of Afghanistan, but it doesn’t mean it’s the end of the story,” said Ahmad Wali Massoud, his brother.

“Al Qaeda has grown much bigger than Osama himself, so we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that things will be much affected by having him gone,” he said. “For the past couple of years, when the Americans killed the main commanders of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, a younger generation took over that was even more extreme and emotional.”

Afghans, who have a tense relationship with neighboring Pakistan, said they believed that Bin Laden’s location within the country proved Pakistani officials had lied about his whereabouts, and that raised doubts about Pakistan’s support for a peace deal with the Taliban.

“Since Sept. 11, since Tora Bora, I have always said he was in Pakistan,” said Abdullah Abdullah, a leading political opposition figure. “And it was always denied, always denied and this has put an end to it, now where are the others? Zawahri? Where is Mullah Omar?” he asked, referring to the No. 2 Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, and the longtime leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Muhammad Omar. “It’s like half the job is done, but the rest is not an easy ride.”

Mr. Atmar, the former interior minister, raised similar questions. He said that the Taliban’s main sources of income now were Pakistan’s intelligence service; Al Qaeda’s global fundraising network; and the money from Afghanistan’s war economy, including from opium poppies, extortion from Western companies doing business and illegal taxation of Afghans.

How Bin Laden’s death reverberates here will depend a great deal on how Pakistan behaves and whether it now makes moves against terrorist groups linked to Al Qaeda, Mr. Atmar said.

“The provision of sanctuaries by Pakistan is something that Afghan leaders have been highlighting for the past 10 years,” Mr. Atmar said, adding that they have also questioned Pakistan’s protection and financial support of the Taliban leadership and foot soldiers who live part time in Pakistan.

“Lashkar-e-Taiba and Haqqani could not come and operate in Afghanistan without the help of the Afghan Taliban, of Al Qaeda, and that could not happen without ISI,” he said, referring to two of the most lethal insurgent groups here that work with the Taliban and to the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, Pakistan’s primary spy agency.

Afghans Fear West May See Death as the End, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/03afghanistan.html

Bin Laden Killing

Draws Praise From Allies

but Concern About Reprisals

May 2, 2011
Reuters
By ALAN COWELL

PARIS — As the United States issued a world-wide alert to American citizens following the death of Osama Bin Laden, Washington’s allies on Monday praised the operation that killed the Al Qaeda leader in Pakistan. But relief was tempered by concern about potential reprisals, not just from Al Qaeda but from like-minded groups and individuals.

In particular, the lands that had been targets of terrorism seemed most relieved at his death, sensing that it offered a kind of justice.

In Britain, which has wrestled for years with terrorism linked to training camps in Pakistan, Prime Minister David Cameron said the death of Bin Laden “will bring great relief to people across the world.” Britain has been a close ally of the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — both triggered by Al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Osama bin Laden was responsible for the worst terrorist atrocities the world has seen — for 9/11 and for so many attacks, which have cost thousands of lives, many of them British,” Mr. Cameron said in a statement, alluding to both British victims in the attacks in America and the suicide bombings of the London transit system on July 7, 2005, that killed 52 people and four bombers.

“Of course, it does not mark the end of the threat we face from extremist terrorism,” he said. “Indeed, we will have to be particularly vigilant in the weeks ahead,” he said, adding, “But above all today, we should think of the victims of the poisonous extremism that this man has been responsible for.”

“Nothing will bring back those loved ones that families have lost to terror,” Mr. Cameron said. “But at least they know the man who was responsible for these appalling acts is no more.”

In East Africa, where Al Qaeda was blamed for the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi that killed 224 people, the Kenyan prime minister, Raila Odinga, told Reuters, “Kenyans are happy and thank the U.S. people, the Pakistani people and everybody else who managed to kill Osama.”

“Osama’s death can only be positive for Kenya, but we need to have a stable government in Somalia,” Mr. Odinga said, referring to the turmoil in Kenya’s northern neighbor, where the Shabab Islamic militant group has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. While the death of Bin Laden might upset the jihadist movement there, Mr. Odinga said, “then it will regroup and continue.”

Australia, which also has troops fighting in Afghanistan, said it would continue its operations there. “Whilst Al Qaeda has been hurt today, Al Qaeda is not finished,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters. “Our war against terrorism must continue. We will continue the mission in Afghanistan.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the operation “a resounding triumph for justice, freedom and the values shared by all democratic nations fighting shoulder to shoulder in determination against terrorism,” Reuters reported. That remark offered a rare point of agreement with the Palestinian Authority, which said in a statement, “Getting rid of Osama bin Laden will benefit peace all over the world.”

News of the death of Bin Laden was the first item on Al Jazeera satellite channel based in Doha, Qatar, which quoted some terrorism experts as saying his death had symbolic importance but “may mean little for Al Qaeda’s capabilities.” It also said reaction from Al Qaeda and its sympathizers had been muted and there had been no formal comment on his death.

In Iran, the English-language state satellite broadcaster Press TV led its Web site with news of the State Department’s warning to Americans.

It quoted from the State Department’s warning, which said: “Given the uncertainty and volatility of the current situation, U.S. citizens in areas where recent events could cause anti-American violence are strongly urged to limit their travel outside of their homes and hotels and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations.”

News reports said American embassies around the world had been placed on a higher security alert, while the British foreign secretary, William Hague, said he had instructed British missions to maintain greater vigilance.

France called the killing “a major event in the struggle against terrorism.” But a statement from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said: “It is not the end of Al Qaeda.”

In Russia, where the Kremlin has long compared Al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States to attacks by North Caucasian insurgents in central Russia, a statement from the office of President Dmitri A. Medvedev called the American raid a “serious success” against international terrorism.

“Russia was among the first to face the dangers posed by global terrorism, and unfortunately, knows first-hand what Al Qaeda is,” the statement said, offering to cooperate in “a united war with global terrorism.”

Ten years ago, the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks marked a high-water mark in cooperation between Moscow and Washington. Vladimir V. Putin, then Russia’s president, offered sweeping support for American operations in Afghanistan, including help in securing bases in Central Asia. But that support curdled over the years that followed, and Mr. Putin was sharply critical of the American-led war in Iraq. That tone has crept back into political discourse in recent days, as Mr. Putin issued a series of rebukes over NATO operations in Libya.

On Monday, official statements from Russia tried to mingle congratulations with disapproval.

“This is a leap forward of the international community in combating global terrorism,” Konstantin I. Kosachev, head of the international affairs committee in Russia’s lower house of Parliament, told the Interfax news service. “In this case we are not speaking of mob law, as sometimes is the case in international practice.”

Authorities in Moscow have long contended that the insurgency that has simmered in Russia’s predominately Muslim south has been masterminded from outside the country, and have angrily rejected Western claims that Moscow’s heavy-handed counterterrorism tactics have fueled popular resistance.

One radical Islamic Web site, Caucasus Center, representing Chechen separatists in southern Russia at times been loosely aligned with Al Qaeda, tried to put a positive spin on the news of Bin Laden’s death, saying the American assault team had intended to detain Bin Laden to put him on trial, but that the terrorist leader’s resistance and death had prevented the United States from staging such “spectacle.”

“It seems Bin Laden and his son fought back against a whole detachment of American special forces, and didn’t allow the United States to play up a months-long, televised spectacle in a so-called court” the Web site said in a commentary posted on Monday.

Ellen Barry and Andrew E. Kramer contributed reporting from Moscow.
John F. Burns contributed reporting from London.

Bin Laden Killing Draws Praise From Allies but Concern About Reprisals, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/03risk.html

Bin Laden’s Death

Doesn’t Mean the End of Al Qaeda

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By ERIC SCHMITT

The death of Osama bin Laden robs Al Qaeda of its founder and spiritual leader at a time when the terrorist organization is struggling to show its relevance to the democratic protesters in the Middle East and North Africa.

Experts said Bin Laden had been a largely symbolic figure in recent years who had little if any direct role in spreading terrorism worldwide. While his death is significant, these officials said, it will not end the threat from an increasingly potent and self-reliant string of regional Qaeda affiliates in North Africa and Yemen or from a self-radicalized vanguard here at home.

“Clearly, this doesn’t end the threat from Al Qaeda and its affiliates,” said Juan Zarate, a top counterterrorism official under President George W. Bush. “But it deprives Al Qaeda of its core leader and the ideological cohesion that Bin Laden maintains.”

Obama administration officials said that despite Bin Laden’s waning influence over day-to-day operations in recent years, his capture or killing was a priority of intelligence, military and counterterrorism officials from the moment that Mr. Obama took office.

Administration officials predicted that without Bin Laden’s spiritual guidance — and his almost mystical ability to inspire followers by standing up to and evading American and allied efforts to hunt him down — Qaeda leaders’ efforts to obtain nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and to use them against the United States, will weaken.

“Bin Laden was Al Qaeda’s only commander in its 22-year history and was largely responsible for the organization’s mystique, its attraction among violent jihadists and its focus on America as a terrorist target,” a senior administration official told reporters early Monday.

The official predicted that Bin Laden’s longtime Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, “is far less charismatic and not as well respected within the organization.” He will likely have difficulty maintaining the loyalty of Bin Laden’s followers, who are largely Arabs from the Persian Gulf and who are pivotal in supplying the organization with fighters, money and ideological support, the official said.

Indeed, the Al Qaeda of today is a much different organization than the one Bin Laden presided over on Sept. 11, 2001. It is much less hierarchical and more diffuse. And Al Qaeda’s main headquarters in Pakistan has come under withering attack from the Central Intelligence Agency ‘s armed drones.

Meantime, regional affiliates have blossomed in North Africa, Iraq, East Africa and Yemen. All have been personally blessed by Bin Laden, but each has developed its own strategy, fund-raising and recruiting methods.

That was Bin Laden’s vision from the start. Al Qaeda means “the base” in Arabic. His plan was to spin off terrorist subsidiaries that could request ideological guidance or material support from time to time, but were meant to be largely self-sustaining soon after they were launched.

Michael E. Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, recently described the Qaeda affiliate in Yemen as posing the most immediate threat to the United States. It trained and deployed a young Nigerian man who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet on Dec. 25, 2009. Last October, authorities thwarted a plot by the Yemen group to blow up Chicago-bound cargo planes using printer cartridges that were packed with explosives.

Terrorist training camps set up by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in the largely ungoverned wilds of Pakistan’s tribal border areas are likely to continue to turn out dozens of militants trained in explosives and automatic weapons, just like the young Moroccan man arrested last week in Germany and accused of plotting to attack the transportation system of a major German city.

Years before Bin Laden’s death — he has been heard from only rarely in recent years, in often-scratchy audio recordings — the mantle for the Qaeda brand has been taken up increasingly by Mr. Zawahri and, more significantly, by Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who was born in New Mexico and who has American and Yemeni citizenship.

Mr. Awlaki uses idiomatic American English in his online speeches to extremists and potential recruits in the West. His followers and other radicals can learn all they need about building a crude bomb through instructions on the Internet.

American and European law enforcement officials say they worry most about Mr. Awlaki’s kind of “lone wolf” threat, which is much harder to detect than, say, the team that planned for years to attack the World Trade Center’s twin towers and the Pentagon.

It is an inauspicious time for Al Qaeda, as it seeks to exploit the fervor that has been unleashed in the democratic protests in the Middle East and North Africa. The demonstrators, however, have largely ignored Al Qaeda’s call to use violence to overthrow dictators and despots.

“Al Qaeda has been struggling on the sidelines of the Arab revolution, its popularity in Arab and Muslim countries has been declining and there are internal divisions about the direction of the movement,” Mr. Zarate said.

A senior Obama administration official echoed that sentiment, putting it this way: “Although Al Qaeda may not fragment immediately, the loss of Bin Laden puts the group on a path of decline that will be difficult to reverse.”

But even as he offered that assessment, he and other American officials warned of a possible series of attacks against the United States and Americans abroad to prove that the movement still poses a deadly threat. “Al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers may try to respond violently to avenge Bin Laden’s death,” the official said, “and other terrorist leaders may try to accelerate their efforts to strike the United States.”

Bin Laden’s Death Doesn’t Mean the End of Al Qaeda, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/03terror.html

Bin Laden’s Death

Likely to Deepen

Suspicions of Pakistan

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By JANE PERLEZ

The killing of Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan in an American operation, almost in plain sight in a medium-sized city that hosts numerous Pakistani forces, seems certain to further inflame tensions between the United States and Pakistan and raise significant questions about whether elements of the Pakistani spy agency knew the whereabouts of the leader of Al Qaeda.

The presence of Bin Laden in Pakistan, something Pakistani officials have long dismissed, goes to the heart of the lack of trust Washington has felt over the last 10 years with its contentious ally, the Pakistani military and its powerful spy partner, the Inter-Services Intelligence.

With Bin Laden’s death, perhaps the central reason for an alliance forged on the ashes of 9/11 has been removed, at a moment when relations between the countries are already at one of their lowest points as their strategic interests diverge over the shape of a post-war Afghanistan.

For nearly a decade, the United States has paid Pakistan more than $1 billion a year for counterterrorism operations whose chief aim was the killing or capture of Bin Laden, who slipped across the border from Afghanistan after the American invasion.

The circumstance of Bin Laden’s death may not only jeopardize that aid, but will also no doubt deepen suspicions that Pakistan has played a double game, and perhaps even knowingly harbored the Qaeda leader.

Bin Laden was not killed in the remote and relatively lawless tribal regions, where the United States has run a campaign of drone attacks aimed at Qaeda militants, where he was long rumored to have taken refuge, and where the reach of the Pakistani government is limited.

Rather, he was killed in Abbottabad, a city of about 500,000, in a large and highly secured compound that, a resident of the city said, sits virtually adjacent to the grounds of a military academy. In an ironic twist, the academy was visited just last month by the Pakistani military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, where he proclaimed that Pakistan had “cracked” the forces of terrorism, an assessment that was greeted with skepticism in Washington.

In addition, the city hosts numerous Pakistani forces — three different regiments, and a unit of the Army Medical Corps. According to some reports, the compound and its elaborate walls and security gates may have been built specifically for the Qaeda leader in 2005, hardly an obscure undertaking in a part of the city that the resident described as highly secure.

A Qaeda operative, Umar Patek, an Indonesian involved in the Bali bombings in 2002, was captured in a house in Abbottabad in February where he was protected by a Qaeda courier, who worked as a clerk at the city post office.

Almost instantly, the death of Bin Laden in such a place in Pakistan led to fresh recriminations from its neighbors.

“The fundamental challenge is how does the West treat Pakistan from now on?” said Amrullah Saleh, the former intelligence director for Afghanistan and a fierce foe of Pakistan.

Still, it was too soon to say whether Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad reflected Pakistani complicity or incompetence.

The capture in Pakistan of other top Qaeda operatives, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah, in the years immediately after 9/11 make it clear that Pakistan, a large country with a population relatively sympathetic to Al Qaeda, is easy to hide in, despite Pakistani denials. But those high-profile joint operations have declined in the last few years.

At the very least, Bin Laden’s death in Pakistan now will be highly embarrassing to the country’s military and intelligence establishment.

After the killing of Bin Laden became public in Pakistan, an ISI official confirmed his death but then insisted, contrary to President Obama’s statement, that he was killed in a joint United States-Pakistani operation, apparently an effort to show that Pakistan knew about the operation in advance.

On Monday, General Kayani, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, and the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, met in Islamabad but had not issued any statement more than six hours after President Obama’s announcement of Bin Laden’s death.

General Kayani appears to be less enthusiastic about the alliance with the United States because he is under pressure from his senior generals, according to Pakistani officials who keep in touch with the military. About half of the 11 corps commanders, the generals who make up the senior command, have questioned the wisdom of the alliance, according the officials. Some of the younger mid-ranking officers — majors and captains — seem to have more sympathy for the militants than for the idea of fighting them, they said.

The Pakistani government and the military have played a delicate balancing act since 9/11 between sometimes trying to overtly support the United States in its goal to get rid of Al Qaeda, and local popular Pakistani sentiment that seemed to, at the very least, tolerate the militants. A Pew poll taken in Pakistan in early 2010 showed that only 3 percent of Pakistanis believed that Al Qaeda was a threat and 68 percent held a negative view of the United States.

After a C.I.A. contractor, Raymond A. Davis, shot and killed two Pakistanis in broad daylight in January in the city of Lahore, the balance tipped against the United States in Pakistani statements and attitudes.

In the aftermath of the shooting, General Kayani asked the American military to draw down its Special Operations training contingent and asked the Americans to remove C.I.A. contractors from Pakistan, as well as C.I.A. personnel who operate the drone campaign from an air base in southern Baluchistan, an American official said. The drone strikes against militants in the tribal areas, which American officials say have been effective, will continue despite Pakistani objections, American officials say.

Another major irritant has been the failure of the Pakistani military to heed the calls of the United States to squash the Qaeda-linked militants known as the Haqqani network, which is given a free hand by the Pakistanis in North Waziristan.

Two weeks ago, moments before meeting General Kayani in Islamabad, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, publicly lambasted the Pakistani military for allowing the Haqqani network to freely cross the border from Pakistan’s tribal areas into Afghanistan and kill American and NATO soldiers.

Bin Laden was an irritant, too, now removed. American officials have speculated over the last few years whether some Pakistani officials in the spy agency knew the whereabouts of Bin Laden. When asked, many Pakistani ISI officials nearly always gave the same answer: Bin Laden was dead, or they insisted, they did not know where he was.

Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan,

and Pir Zubair Shah from New York.

Bin Laden’s Death Likely to Deepen Suspicions of Pakistan, NYT, 2.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/world/asia/03pakistan.html

Detective Work on Courier

Led to Breakthrough on Bin Laden

May 2, 2011
The New York Times
By MARK MAZZETTI
and HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — After years of dead ends and promising leads gone cold, the big break came last August.

A trusted courier of Osama bin Laden’s whom American spies had been hunting for years was finally located in a compound 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, close to one of the hubs of American counterterrorism operations. The property was so secure, so large, that American officials guessed it was built to hide someone far more important than a mere courier.

What followed was eight months of painstaking intelligence work, culminating in a helicopter assault by American military and intelligence operatives that ended in the death of Bin Laden on Sunday and concluded one of history’s most extensive and frustrating manhunts.

American officials said that Bin Laden was shot in the head after he tried to resist the assault force, and that one of his sons died with him.

For nearly a decade, American military and intelligence forces had chased the specter of Bin Laden through Pakistan and Afghanistan, once coming agonizingly close and losing him in a pitched battle at Tora Bora, in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. As Obama administration officials described it, the real breakthrough came when they finally figured out the name and location of Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, whom the Qaeda chief appeared to rely on to maintain contacts with the outside world.

Detainees at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protégé of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

American intelligence officials said Sunday night that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the general region where he operated.

Still, it was not until August when they tracked him to the compound in Abbottabad, a medium-sized city about an hour’s drive north of Islamabad, the capital.

C.I.A. analysts spent the next several weeks examining satellite photos and intelligence reports to determine who might be living at the compound, and a senior administration official said that by September the C.I.A. had determined there was a “strong possibility” that Bin Laden himself was hiding there.

It was hardly the spartan cave in the mountains where many had envisioned Bin Laden to be hiding. Rather, it was a mansion on the outskirts of the town’s center, set on an imposing hilltop and ringed by 12-foot-high concrete walls topped with barbed wire.

The property was valued at $1 million, but it had neither a telephone nor an Internet connection. Its residents were so concerned about security that they burned their trash rather putting it on the street for collection like their neighbors.

American officials believed that the compound, built in 2005, was designed for the specific purpose of hiding Bin Laden.

Months more of intelligence work would follow before American spies felt highly confident that it was indeed Bin Laden and his family who were hiding in there — and before President Obama determined that the intelligence was solid enough to begin planning a mission to go after the Qaeda leader.

On March 14, Mr. Obama held the first of what would be five national security meetings in the course of the next six weeks to go over plans for the operation.

The meetings, attended by only the president’s closest national security aides, took place as other White House officials scrambled to avert a possible government shutdown over the budget.

Four more similar meetings to discuss the plan would follow, until President Obama gathered his aides one final time last Friday.

At 8:20 that morning, Mr. Obama met with Thomas Donilon, the national security adviser; John O. Brennan, the counterterrorism adviser; and other senior aides in the Diplomatic Room at the White House. The president was traveling to Alabama later that morning to witness the damage from last week’s tornadoes. But first he had to sign off on the final plan to send intelligence operatives into the compound where the administration believed that Bin Laden was hiding.

Even after the president signed the formal orders authorizing the raid, Mr. Obama chose to keep Pakistan’s government in the dark about the operation.

“We shared our intelligence on this compound with no other country, including Pakistan,” a senior administration official said.

It is no surprise that the administration chose not to tell Pakistani officials. Even though the Pakistanis had insisted that Bin Laden was not in their country, the United States never really believed it. American diplomatic cables in recent years show constant American pressure on Pakistan to help find and kill Bin Laden.

Asked about the Qaeda leader’s whereabouts during a Congressional visit to Islamabad in September 2009, the Pakistani interior minister, Rehman Malik, replied that he “’had no clue,” but added that he did not believe that Bin Laden was in the area. Bin Laden had sent his family to Iran, so it made sense that he might have gone there himself, Mr. Malik argued. Alternatively, he might be hiding in Saudi Arabia or Yemen, or perhaps he was already dead, he added, according to a cable from the American Embassy that is among the collection obtained by WikiLeaks.

The mutual suspicions have grown worse in recent months, particularly after Raymond Davis, a C.I.A. officer, shot two men on a crowded street in Lahore in January.

On Sunday, the small team of American military and intelligence operatives poured out of helicopters for their attack on the heavily fortified compound.

American officials gave few details about the raid itself, other than to say that a firefight broke out shortly after the commandos arrived and that Bin Laden had tried to “resist the assault force.”

When the shooting had stopped, Bin Laden and three other men lay dead. One woman, whom an American official said had been used as a human shield by one of the Qaeda operatives, was also killed.

The Americans collected Bin Laden’s body and loaded it onto one of the remaining helicopters, and the assault force hastily left the scene.

Obama administration officials said that one of helicopters went down during the mission because of mechanical failure but that no Americans were injured.

It was 3:50 on Sunday afternoon when President Obama received the news that Bin Laden had tentatively been identified, most likely after a series of DNA tests.

The Qaeda leader’s body was flown to Afghanistan, the country where he made his fame fighting and killing Soviet troops during the 1980s.

From there, American officials said, the body was buried at sea.

    Detective Work on Courier Led to Breakthrough on Bin Laden, R, 2.5.2011,
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/
    02reconstruct-capture-osama-bin-laden.html

After Osama Bin Laden…

May 2, 2011
12:00 am
The New York Times
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF

President Obama has just announced that the United States killed Osama bin Laden today in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and recovered his body. It has been nine years and seven months since Osama orchestrated 9/11, but an American team finally killed him. His body is in American hands. This is revenge, but it’s also deterrence and also means that bin Laden won’t kill any more Americans. This is the single most important success the United States has had in its war against Al Qaeda.

So what does this mean? First, it is good for the United States reputation, power and influence that we finally got bin Laden. Bin Laden’s ability to escape from the U.S., and his apparent impunity, fed an image in some Islamist quarters of America as a paper tiger — and that encouraged extremists. Bin Laden himself once said that people bet on the strong horse, the horse that will win, and the killing underscores that it’s the United States that is the horse to bet on. Moreover, this sends a message that you mess with America at your peril, and that there will be consequences for a terror attack on the United States.

That said, killing bin Laden does not end Al Qaeda. Ayman al-Zawahri, the Egyptian No. 2, has long played a crucial role as Al Qaeda’s COO. And Al Qaeda is more of a loose network than a tightly structured organization, and that has become even more true in recent years. AQIM, the version of Al Qaeda in North Africa, is a real threat in countries like Mali and Mauritania, and killing bin Laden will probably have negligible consequences there. The AQIM terrorists may admire Osama and be inspired by him, but they also are believed to be largely independent of him. And Anwar al-Awlaki, the Qaeda-linked terrorist in Yemen, likewise won’t be deterred by bin Laden’s killing — Awlaki’s ability to engage in terrorism will be affected more by the upheavals now taking place in Yemen and whether that country has a strong and legitimate government that takes counter-terrorism seriously.

It’s also true that bin Laden’s killing might have mattered more in 2002 or 2003. At that time in countries like Pakistan, many ordinary people had a very high regard for bin Laden and doubted that he was centrally involved in the 9/11 attacks. Over time that view has changed: popular opinion has moved more against him, and you no longer see Osama t-shirts for sale in the markets. Some people still feel a bit of respect for his ability to outwit the United States, or they are so anti-American that they embrace anybody we don’t like, but bin Laden has been marginalized over time.

Osama’s declining image also means that he won’t be a martyr in many circles (although if Americans appear too celebratory and triumphant, dancing on his grave, that may create a sympathetic backlash for Osama). Many ordinary Pakistanis, Yemenis and Afghans will simply shrug and move on. His death won’t inspire people, the way it might have in 2002. And Al Qaeda is already going through a difficult time because it has been sidelined by the Arab Spring protests; on top of that, losing its top leader will be a major blow.

It will be fascinating to see what the Pakistani reaction is to a U.S. military operation on their soil. It seemed to me that President Obama was going out of his way to sound deferential to Pakistan — and to emphasize that Osama was an enemy of Pakistan as well as of America — precisely because he was concerned that Pakistanis might react with outrage at an American military operation.

President Obama said that he had word last August that Osama might be in a compound in Abbottabad. It took a long time to evaluate that information, and last week it was confirmed enough to order a strike. Then today there was an assault by American forces (perhaps a C.I.A. team or special forces?) and after a firefight bin Laden was killed and his body recovered. I can’t help wondering if Raymond Davis, the American who was arrested by Pakistanis after shooting people in Lahore while apparently on a C.I.A. operation, was somehow involved in this operation to confirm bin Laden’s presence, and if that wasn’t a reason for the hush-hush nature of his work. And of course this also raises questions about how Osama got to Abbottabad from Afghanistan and what if anything the Pakistanis knew. President Musharraf and others always told me and others that Osama was in Afghanistan, not Pakistan, and even suggested that he might have died. So much for Musharraf.

One question is whether the Osama killing will lead to intelligence that will help track down Zawahri and other Al Qaeda leaders or operatives, whether in Pakistan or elsewhere in the world. It might also help work out terror financing networks. Imagine the effort to go through Osama’s laptop.

Will there be a reprisal attack by Al Qaeda? Maybe. But after all Al Qaeda has already been trying to hit us. It’s not as if it has shown any restraint.

The larger challenge is whether we can press this gain and further dismantle Al Qaeda in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. If so, it may be easier to end the Afghan war by working out a deal in Afghanistan between the Karzai government and the Taliban. For while they are noxious in a thousand ways, the Taliban themselves are inward looking and not linked to foreign terrorism except through their hosting of Al Qaeda; if foreign fighters like bin Laden are out of the picture, an agreement becomes more feasible.

The United States and Afghan governments alike pretty much believe that the only way out of the problems in Afghanistan is some kind of a political deal, in which the Taliban stops fighting and joins the government, and in turn is allowed a measure of influence in Pashtun areas. That will be more feasible if bin Laden is gone — and if other foreign fighters also fade from the scene.

Of course, allowing the Taliban a role in southern Afghanistan raises all kinds of questions, not least the impact on Afghan women. The Taliban would be a catastrophe for Afghan women. On the other hand, the war is also a catastrophe for Afghan women. And there are some indications that the Taliban are willing to compromise on some elements of policy toward women, such as girls’ schooling. That would all have to be negotiated.

Finally, what does this mean for President Obama’s political prospects? I don’t think very much. November 2012 is a long way away, and the main political issue is likely to be the economy. After all, George H.W. Bush was a hero after the Gulf War victory in early 1991, and by Nov. 1992 was defeated by Bill Clinton because of the economic slowdown.

These are my quick thoughts, rushed together as President Obama speaks. So what do you think this means? Your thoughts most welcome.

After Osama Bin Laden…, R, 2.5.2011,
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/after-osama-bin-laden/

Death of a Failure

May 1, 2011
The New York Times
By ROSS DOUTHAT

For months after 9/11, people watched planes. They watched skyscrapers. They looked over their shoulders in crowded places — at baseball games, college graduations, New Year’s celebrations. They eyed bearded men on planes and trains, glanced nervously at suspicious packages in shopping malls, and listened for the lilt of Arabic in airports and bus stations. They profiled relentlessly and shamelessly, and waited for the next attack to come.

I moved to Washington, D.C., a year after the twin towers fell, and there was a touch of London during the blitz in the way that people carried themselves in those days.

My friends and neighbors rode the Metro with stiff upper lips, kept calm and carried on as they headed to work at the Pentagon or the State Department (or a minor think tank or political magazine, for that matter), and generally behaved as if even the most everyday activities were taking place in the valley of the shadow of death. We felt as if we were living with targets on our backs. We assumed that it was only a matter of time until Al Qaeda struck again.

Ten years later, we’re still waiting. There have been many plots, certainly, foiled by good intelligence work or good police work or simple grace and luck.

There have been shoe bombers and there have been underwear bombers and Times Square bombers — and others still, presumably, that were cut short before they reached the headlines.

But the wave of further violence that seemed inevitable in those fraught months after 9/11 never materialized within our borders. And what seemed like the horrifying opening offensive in a new and terrifying war stands instead as an isolated case — a passing moment when Al Qaeda seemed to rival fascism and Communism as a potential threat to our civilization, and when Osama bin Laden inspired far more fear and trembling than his actual capabilities deserved.

Now the man is dead.

This is a triumph for the United States of America, for our soldiers and intelligence operatives, and for the president as well. But it is not quite the triumph that it would have seemed if bin Laden had been captured a decade ago, because those 10 years have taught us that we didn’t need to fear him and his rabble as much as we did, temporarily but intensely, in the weeks when ground zero still smoked.

They’ve taught us, instead, that whatever blunders we make (and we have made many), however many advantages we squander (and there has been much squandering), and whatever quagmires we find ourselves lured into, our civilization is not fundamentally threatened by the utopian fantasy politics embodied by groups like Al Qaeda, or the mix of thugs, fools and pseudointellectuals who rally around their banner.

They can strike us, they can wound us, they can kill us. They can goad us into tactical errors and strategic blunders. But they are not, and never will be, an existential threat.

This was not clear immediately after 9/11. On that day, they took us by surprise. They took advantage of our society’s great strength — its openness and freedom, the welcome it gives to immigrants and the presumption of innocence it extends. And in the wake of their attack, we did not know what they were capable of, or how they might follow up their victory.

Now we know. We know because bin Laden is finally dead and gone, but in a sense we knew already.

We learned the lesson in every day that passed without an attack, in every year that turned, and in the way our eyes turned, gradually but permanently, from the skies and the sky-scrapers back to the ordinary things of life.

We learned when the planes landed safely, when the malls stayed open, when the commencements came and went, when one baseball season gave way to another.

Day after day, hour after hour, we learned that we were strong and they were weak.

One of bin Laden’s most famous quotations (there were not many in his oeuvre) compared the United States and Al Qaeda to racing horses. “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse,” he told his acolytes over table talk, “by nature, they will like the strong horse.”

In his cracked vision, America was the weak nag, and Al Qaeda the strong destrier.

But the last 10 years have taught us differently: In life as well as death, Osama bin Laden was always the weak horse.

Death of a Failure, NYT, 1.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/opinion/02douthat.html

Bin Laden Is Dead, Obama Says

May 1, 2011
The New York Times
By PETER BAKER
and HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the most devastating attack on American soil in modern times and the most hunted man in the world, was killed in a firefight with United States forces in Pakistan on Sunday, President Obama announced.

In a dramatic late-night appearance in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama declared that “justice has been done” as he disclosed that American military and C.I.A. operatives had finally cornered Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda who had eluded them for nearly a decade, and shot him to death at a compound in Pakistan.

“For over two decades, Bin Laden has been Al Qaeda’s leader and symbol,” the president said in a statement carried on television around the world. “The death of Bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat Al Qaeda. But his death does not mark the end of our effort.” He added, “We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.”

The death of Bin Laden is a defining moment in the American-led war on terrorism. What remains to be seen is whether it galvanizes his followers by turning him into a martyr, or whether the death serves as a turning of the page in the war in Afghanistan and gives further impetus to the Obama administration to bring American troops home.

Bin Laden was killed nearly 10 years after Qaeda terrorists hijacked three American passenger jets and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth hijacked jet crashed into countryside of Pennsylvania.

Late Sunday night, as the president was speaking, cheering crowds gathered outside the gates of the White House as word of Bin Laden’s death began trickling out, waving American flags, shouting in happiness and chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” In New York City, crowds sang "The Star-Spangled Banner."

“This is important news for us, and for the world,” said Gordon Felt, president of the Families of Flight 93, the airliner that crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside after passengers fought with hijackers. “It cannot ease our pain, or bring back our loved ones. It does bring a measure of comfort that the mastermind of the Sept. 11 tragedy and the face of global terror can no longer spread his evil.”

Bin Laden escaped from American troops in the mountains of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in 2001 and, although he was widely believed to be in Pakistan, American intelligence had largely lost his trail for most of the years that followed. They picked up fresh clues last August. Mr. Obama said in his national address Sunday night that it had taken months to firm up that information, and that last week he had determined that there was enough to authorize a secret operation in Pakistan.

The forces killed Bin Laden in what Mr. Obama called a “targeted operation.”

“No Americans were harmed,” the president said. “They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.”

Mr. Obama noted that the operation that had Bin Laden was carried out with the cooperation of Pakistani officials. But a senior American official and a Pakistani intelligence official said that the Pakistanis had not been informed of the operation in advance.

The fact that Bin Laden was killed deep inside Pakistan was bound once again to raise questions about just how much Pakistan is willing to work with the United States, since Pakistani officials denied for years that Mr. bin Laden was in their country. It also raised the question of whether Bin Laden’s whereabouts were known to Pakistan’s spy agency.

It was surprising that Bin Laden was killed not in Pakistan’s remote tribal area, where he had long been rumored to have taken refuge, but rather in in the city of Abbottadad, about an hour’s drive drive north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Abbottabad is home to a large Pakistani military base, a military academy of the Pakistani army, and a major hospital and other facilities that would could have served as support for Osama Bin Laden.

A senior Indonesian militant, Umar Patek, was arrested in Abbottabad this year. Mr. Patek was protected by a Qaeda operative, a postal clerk who worked under cover at the main post office, a signal that Al Qaeda may have had others in the area.

In apparent preparation for the American operation, many officials posted at the United States Consulate in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's northwest region, were told suddenly to leave on Friday, leaving behind only a core group of essential staff members.

The officials said they had been told to leave because of kidnapping fears. They said they were not told of the impending operation in nearby Abbotabad against Bin Laden.

Bin Laden's death comes as relations between the United States and Pakistan have fallen to their lowest point in memory and as differences over how to fight Al Qaeda-linked militants have become clearer.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, publicly criticized the Pakistani military two weeks ago for failing to act against extremists allied to Al Qaeda who are sheltered in the Pakistani tribal areas of North Waziristan.

The United States has supported the Pakistani military with nearly $20 billion since 9/11 for counterterrorism campaigns, but American officials have complained that the Pakistanis were unable to quell the militancy.

Last week, the head of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, said that Pakistan had broken the back of terrorism in Pakistan, a statement that was received with much skepticism by American officials.

Mr. Obama made it clear in his remarks at the White House on Sunday that the United States still faces significant national security threats despite Bin Laden's death.

“His death does not mark the end of our effort,” Mr. Obama said. “There’s no doubt that Al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.”

Reporting was contributed by Mark Mazzetti from Washington,

Jane Perlez from Australia

and Pir Zubair Shah from New York

Bin Laden Is Dead, Obama Says, NYT, 1.5.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/world/asia/osama-bin-laden-is-killed.html

Stocks rise

after news of bin Laden death;

oil slides

SYDNEY | Mon May 2, 2011
12:42am EDT
Reuters

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The dollar rebounded from three-year lows and U.S. crude slid more than 1 percent on Monday on the back of news that a U.S.-led operation killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

U.S. stock index futures added to gains, while U.S. Treasury yields rose across the curve after U.S. officials said the body of Al Qaeda's elusive leader has been recovered by U.S. authorities.

"By lowering national security risks overall, this is likely to bolster equity markets and lower US Treasury prices in a reverse flight to quality movement," said Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer at PIMCO, which oversees $1.2 trillion assets.

"Oil markets are likely to be the most volatile given their higher sensitivity to the tug of war between lower risk overall and the possibility of isolated disturbances in some parts of the Middle East and central Asia," he said.

U.S. crude fell 1.3 percent to $112.39, while U.S. stock index futures rose 0.9 percent.

U.S. Treasuries fell, pushing yields higher across the curve. The 10-year yield climbed 2.4 basis points to 3.314 percent.

Earlier, a 10 percent slide in silver highlighted worries that other overbought assets may be vulnerable to sudden sell-offs.

Financial markets in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were all shut on Monday for public holidays, a factor seen contributing to thin trading conditions that could exaggerate price action.

Japan's Nikkei average .N225 rose 1.0 percent, South Korea's KOSPI .KS11 put on 0.9 percent, but Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index slipped 0.5 percent.

MSCI's gauge of Asian stocks excluding Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS struggled to make further gains, having reached a three-year peak last week. It was up 0.08 percent at 506.62.

Silver skidded about 10 percent to a low of $42.58, well off a record high of $49.51 set on Thursday. Gold fell to $1,546 from an all-time high of $1,575.79.

"If adjustment is confined to just silver, it won't be a big deal," said Koji Fukaya, chief strategist at Credit Suisse in Tokyo.

"But if this moves spills over to other commodities, that could certainly hurt commodity currencies, such as the Australian dollar and the Canadian dollar. And we could see a rebound in the U.S. dollar."

DOLLAR DOLDRUMS

The U.S. dollar fell to a fresh three-year low against a bakset of major currencies as investors sought higher-yielding assets with the U.S. central bank in no hurry to tighten its ultra-loose monetary policy.

This has helped the high-flying Australian dollar extend gains to a fresh 29-year high above $1.1000. The euro held near a 16-month high around $1.4881 set last week.

With both the Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan maintaining ultra-loose monetary policies, investors have been seeking higher yielding assets in many fast-growing emerging markets in Asia.

This has prompted many Asian authorities to tighten policy as inflationary pressure grows. Data on Sunday showed China's policy actions to rein in prices appeared to be taking effect, with manufacturing growth slowing in April.

    Stocks rise after news of bin Laden death; oil slides, 2.5.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/
    us-markets-global-idUSTRE71H0EB20110502

U.S. issues travel alert

after Osama bin Laden killing

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
12:34am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The State Department on Sunday warned Americans worldwide of "enhanced potential for anti-American violence" following the killing
of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"Given the uncertainty and volatility of the current situation, U.S. citizens in areas where events could cause anti-American violence are strongly urged to limit their travel outside of their homes and hotels and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations," the State Department said in a statement.

(Reporting by Andrew Quinn, Editing by Will Dunham)

    U.S. issues travel alert after Osama bin Laden killing, R, 2.5.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/
    us-obama-binladen-state-idUSTRE7410V920110502

Mayor Bloomberg hopes

bin Laden death comforts victims

NEW YORK | Mon May 2, 2011
12:23am EDT
Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Sunday that he hoped the dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks that brought down the city's Twin Towers, would comfort those who lost loved ones that day.

"The killing of Osama bin Laden does not lessen the suffering that New Yorkers and Americans experienced at his hands, but it is a critically important victory for our nation -- and a tribute to the millions of men and women in our armed forces and elsewhere who have fought so hard for our nation," he said in a statement.

(Reporting by Dan Trotta, editing by Philip Barbara)

    Mayor Bloomberg hopes bin Laden death comforts victims, R, 2.5.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/
    us-obama-binladen-bloomberg-idUSTRE7410S820110502

Instant View:

Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
12:05am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed on Sunday in a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan and his body was recovered, U.S. President Barack Obama said.

After searching in vain for the al Qaeda leader since he disappeared in Afghanistan in late 2001, Obama said U.S. forces led the operation that killed the Saudi-born extremist.

U.S. stock futures rose about 0.7 percent, U.S. Treasury and gold prices slipped, while the dollar rallied on the news.

COMMENTS:

TETSU AIKAWA, DEPUTY GENERAL MANAGER OF CAPITAL MARKETS,

SHINSEI BANK, TOKYO:

"It is reasonable to expect an improvement in U.S. consumer sentiment, but that may not be enough to change the course of the U.S. economy. I don't expect the chance of less U.S. involvement in Afghanistan to lead to an improvement in U.S. public finances.

"This could increase flows into risk assets like yen and dollar carry trades. It's also possible for some European sovereigns spreads to tighten.

"Given the unrest in places like Syria and Yemen, there is still a chance of democracy spreading like dominoes through the Middle East and North Africa. In the short term this might be a cause of worry, but this is something that markets would welcome in the long term."

IMATIAZ GUL, SECURITY ANALYST, PAKISTAN:

"Obviously his (Osama bin Laden) supporters wherever they are, they would try to stage some sort of protest, but I don't really expect any sort of large protests.

"The common Pakistani is so hard-pressed right now because of the other problems and there is only a small portion of support for Osama bin Laden, because of the way this has affected the country in the last 10 years."

"For some time there will be a lot of tension between Washington and Islamabad because Bin Laden seems to have been living here close to Islamabad. If the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) had known then somebody within the ISI must have leaked this information. Pakistan will have to do a lot of damage control because the Americans have been reporting he is in Pakistan and he turns out to be in Islamabad. This is a serious blow to the credibility of Pakistan."

RODOLFO MENDOZA, PRESIDENT, PHILIPPINES INSTITUTE ON PEACE,

VIOLENCE AND TERRORISM RESEARCH, PHILIPPINES:

"It's a major tactical victory for the U.S. security community, but I expect that the disruption to al Qaeda terror operations will be temporary. I still don't see the end yet for global Islamist militancy."

"Osama bin Laden is a global symbol of Islamist extremism but there could be other militants lining up to replace him.

"He had established a wide network moving independently but with the same goal in the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan and even in Southeast Asia."

CHIP HANLON, PRESIDENT, DELTA GLOBAL ADVISORS, HUNTINGTON

BEACH, CALIFORNIA:

"I'm not sure there will be much of a market reaction. He is a figurehead and there is a feel good value in knowing he is gone. But most people think (al Qaeda deputy Ayman) al-Zawahri

has been running it for a while now.

"There some feel good value and market will like that. There will be a boost for the appropriate politicians, primarily the commander in chief. It doesn't change much about the energy situation and doesn't change much about the ongoing battle with radical Islamists.

"It's sort of like the news when we heard Saddam was caught, in the end it didn't change much fundamentally and I don't think this will either."

KEN HASEGAWA, COMMODITY DERIVATIVES SALES MANAGER, NEWEDGE,

TOKYO:

"Absent other news, the death sparked selling in oil and gold, and buying in stocks. But it has only had a passing impact and the markets will eventually return to normal.

"It's not that bin-Laden suspended the crude oil production, although he had some influence as a whole. But it does not mean that all the terrorism acts will be gone because of this."

MOHAMED EL-ERIAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND CO-CHIEF

INVESTMENT OFFICER, PIMCO:

"In reflecting the news on Bin Laden, markets will balance the durable impact of a reduction in a security risk with the possibility of isolated disturbances in some parts of the Middle East and central Asia."

"By lowering national security risks overall, this is likely to bolster equity markets and lower U.S. Treasury prices in a reverse flight to quality movement."

"Oil markets are likely to be the most volatile given their higher sensitivity to the tug of war between lower risk overall and the possibility of isolated disturbances in some parts of the Middle East and central Asia."

PETER KENNY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, KNIGHT CAPITAL GROUP JERSEY

CITY, NEW JERSEY:

"Geopolitically this will have an enormous impact on unrest in the Middle East. It won't be purely positive for markets because it could lead to further instability in the Middle East.

"It certainly will help the flagging fortunes of the current president of the United States. Generally speaking markets will have a very positive view of this and it will be well deserved.

"(U.S.) markets have evolved beyond Osama bin Laden to the extent that they have reverted back to traditional metrics of risk and it's all about earnings."

LARRY SABATO, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF

VIRGINIA (COMMENT ON TWITTER):

"This is a giant political plus for Barack Obama."

"Almost 100 percent of Obama's political enemies will cheer him for this one. Imagine the 2012 TV ad."

DAVID LENNOX, COMMODITIES AND MINING ANALYST, FAT PROPHETS,

SYDNEY:

"There is always a reaction in commodities to news of this nature. The markets will always react quickly, and in this case it is someone who has been held out as the father of all terrorism.

"But any easing we might see in oil or gold markets, in my view will be short-lived. The longer-term impact will not be substantial."

JONATHAN BARRATT, MANAGING DIRECTOR, COMMODITY BROKING

SERVICES, SYDNEY:

"It is all about erosion of risk premium. If Osama is taken out, you are going to see risk premium being wiped out from the market. It is going to bring down oil prices by $5 to $10 if people warrant that risk premium is important."

TOMOMICHI AKUTA, SENIOR ECONOMIST, MISTUBISHI UFJ RESEARCH AND CONSULTING, TOKYO: on oil markets

"This is a bear factor. I take this as a factor that would ease worries about geopolitical risks."

Instant View: Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan, R, 2.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/us-binladen-iv-idUSTRE7410IG20110502

Bush calls bin laden death

"momentous achievement"

WASHINGTON | Mon May 2, 2011
12:00am EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time of the September 11 attacks and famously said he wanted Osama bin Laden dead or alive, said on Sunday the death of the al Qaeda leader was a "momentous achievement."

"The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done," Bush said in a statement.

(Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Philip Barbara)

    Bush calls bin laden death "momentous achievement", R, 2.5.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/
    us-obama-binladen-bush-idUSTRE7410OA20110502

Factbox: Who was Osama bin Laden?

WASHINGTON | Sun May 1, 2011
11:48pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Here are some key facts about Osama bin Laden, who U.S. officials said late Sunday has been killed and his body recovered by U.S. Authorities. * Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia in 1957, one of more than 50 children of millionaire construction magnate Mohamed bin Laden. His first marriage was to a Syrian cousin at the age of 17, and he is reported to have at least 23 children from at least five wives.

* Convinced that Muslims are victims of U.S.-led terrorism, bin Laden is blamed for masterminding a series of attacks on U.S. targets in Africa and the Middle East in the 1990s. His family, which became rich from the Saudi construction boom, disowned him, and he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship. * He fought in the U.S.-funded insurgency in the 1980s against Soviet troops in Afghanistan, where he founded al Qaeda. He returned to Afghanistan in the 1990s, training Islamist militants from across the world in camps allowed to function by the ruling Taliban. * Tall, gaunt and bearded, bin Laden was unhurt by U.S. missile strikes on his Afghan camps after the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa. According to some reports, he was nearly killed by a U.S. bomb when militants were being hunted late in 2001 in the Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan. * Bin Laden approved the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States in which nearly 3,000 people died, saying later that the results had exceeded his expectations. With a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head, he then evaded the world's biggest manhunt for a decade, with tens of thousands of U.S. and Pakistani troops looking for him.

* Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in December 2009 that the United States does not know where bin Laden has been hiding and has not had any good intelligence on his whereabouts in years.

* More than 60 messages have been broadcast by bin Laden, al Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahri, and their allies since the September 11 attacks in 2001. * In a Sept, 2007 video marking the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks bin Laden said the United States was vulnerable despite its economic and military power, but he made no specific threats.

(Writing by Mark Trevelyan and David Cutler,

London Editorial Reference Unit,

Editing by William Maclean)

    Factbox: Who was Osama bin Laden?, R, 1.5.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/
    us-binladen-fb-idUSTRE7410EL20110502

Factbox:

Zawahri, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader

WASHINTON | Sun May 1, 2011
11:52pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINTON (Reuters) - Egyptian-born doctor and surgeon Ayman al-Zawahri is al Qaeda's No. 2 leader likely to succeed Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a U.S.-led operation.

Following are some key facts about Zawahri:

* Zawahri is described as the chief organizer of al Qaeda and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's closest mentor.

* Zawahri and bin Laden met in the mid-1980s when both were in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar to support mujahideen guerrillas fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.

* Born in 1951 to a prominent Cairo family, Zawahri was the son of a pharmacology professor and grandson of the grand imam of Al Azhar, one of the most important mosques in the Arab world.

* He graduated from Egypt's most prestigious medical school in 1974.

* When the militant Egyptian Islamic Jihad was founded in 1973, he joined. When members posed as soldiers and assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981, he was among 301 people arrested.

He went on trial but was cleared of involvement in Sadat's death. He did, however, spend three years in jail for possession of an unlicensed pistol.

* Zawahri has broadcast dozens of messages since the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. In the latest monitored by the SITE Intelligence Group last month, he urged Muslims to fight NATO and American forces in Libya.

* In January 2006 Zawahri blasted U.S. President George W. Bush

as a "butcher" in a video tape, saying a recent U.S. air strike targeting him had killed only innocent people. Earlier in the month, Pakistani intelligence sources said four top al Qaeda militants were believed to be killed in a U.S. air strike, which U.S. officials say was aimed at Zawahri.

    Factbox: Zawahri, al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, R, 1.5.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/
    us-zawahri-ayman-idUSTRE7410L120110502

Bin Laden body

is in U.S. custody - source

WASHINGTON | Sun May 1, 2011
11:27pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. personnel and his body is in U.S. custody, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Will Dunham)

Bin Laden body is in U.S. custody - source, R, 1.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/obama-binladen-body-idUSWNA744220110502

Bin Laden killed in mansion outside

Islamabad -US source

Sun, May 1 2011
WASHINGTON | Sun May 1, 2011
11:21pm EDT
Reuters

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a mansion outside the Pakistani capital Islamabad, a U.S. source said on Sunday.

(Reporting by Steve Holland,

editing by Will Dunham)

Bin Laden killed in mansion outside Islamabad -US source,
R,
1.5.2011,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/02/
obama-binladen-islamabad-mansion-idUSWNA743920110502

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