To our Navy Seals, and our military…
US officials have confirmed that Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda’s top leader, was killed during a raid by US forces in Pakistan today.
President Barack Obama said Osama bin Laden was killed by “a small team of Americans” during a raid on a safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan. “After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body,” Obama said. No US personnel were killed during the operation. According to CNN, “senior US officials” have said the operation was conducted by US NAVY SEALs inserted by multiple helicopters, one of which crashed due to mechanical failure. At least 3 other people, including one of bin Laden’s sons, were also killed in the firefight.
The US zeroed in on bin Laden’s location after receiving intelligence in August 2010 that he was “hiding in a compound deep inside Pakistan,” Obama said.
And from President Bush:
Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001. I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude. 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.
And a great comment from Daniel Pipes…this is a great day for America, but the war isn’t over:
Bin Laden was just one part of al-Qaeda, which is just a part of the Islamic-terrorist effort, which is just a part of the Islamist movement — so the announcement of his death tonight by the U.S. government makes little operational difference. The war on terror has not fundamentally changed, much less been won.
But because bin Laden symbolized Islamic terror, his taunting presence via video and audio recordings for nearly ten years after 9/11 energized his allies and frustrated his enemies. Conversely, his execution by U.S. forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan, gives Americans pride in their country, encourages the security and intelligence organizations, and is a body blow to Islamists.
Krauthammer on Fox News at 10:15pm PST (interviewed via phone with Bret Baier):
It’s a great day, and it’s a great moment for America, and I think the principal effect, and there will be many, but the most important is to demonstrate the reach, the power and the efficiency of the United States Military.
That I think is going to reverberate around the world.
We have suffered over the last decade or so, and longer…we were attacked in 1998 by al-Qaeda for the first time in a major way, and after a indecisive war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it looks like we are losing, or at least sliding backwards with the operation in Libya, and I think the world had this fantasy that the United States didn’t have the power, did not have the efficiency, it did not have the might.
The way the world saw us right after Iraq, the Gulf War, the war in 1991 where there was this awe about what America could do, and this tells the world, that it could take a decade, you could be hiding anywhere in the world, we will stay on the trail, we will find you, and we will kill you.
And it’s like the Entebbe raid the Israeli’s pulled off in 1976 where they reached all the way into Uganda and extracted all the hostages and killed the hostage takers, the demonstrations of strength is the most important effect.
…it reinforces the symbolism here because al-Qaeda attacked all those different countries but the only one that could do, the only one that had the power, the reach, the global scope, the wherewithal to do it is the United States, and in a way acting in the name of the world in a way only we can do, which is how we have been seen since the fall of the soviet union, early on in that period, again after the gulf way, as the only one who could do it easily and with great triumph, lately people have been thinking America has slipped, I think this is a great restoration of that image.
UPDATE
CNN Reporting that GITMO detainees provided intel on #osama bin laden’s whereabouts.
Now that makes me happy Obama failed in shutting down that prison, as he promised.
Guess Gitmo served a purpose after all.
UPDATE
Unconfirmed pictures of the dead maggot, it’s graphic. Totally unconfirmed.
UPDATE
Getting word that the photo is a fake, not surprising but who knows.
UPDATE
Yup, its a fake.
UPDATE
More information on the operation:
U.S. officials did not share with foreign governments any details about the operation before it took place, a senior administration official said, including with Pakistan, whose leaders were informed after the raid. Only a “very small number” of people within the U.S. government knew about it, the senior official said.
The operation, according to senior officials who briefed reporters early Monday morning, hinged almost entirely on the hunt for a single man: a courier operating out of Pakistan who had been trusted by bin Laden for years.
Using information from detainees in U.S. custody, U.S. analysts and operatives spent years figuring out the courier’s identity, concluding that he was a former protege of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-declared mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who is being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The courier “in particular had our constant attention,” the official said.
Detainees “identified this man as one of the few al-Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden, indicated he might be living with or protecting bin Laden,” the official said. But for years, the United States was unable to track him down or uncover his real name, which did not happen until four years ago. Two years ago, U.S. officials narrowed down the region in Pakistan where the courier was working, senior administration officials said..
…Then, in August, U.S. officials found the compound that turned out to be bin Laden’s hiding spot. It was described as an extraordinary place, custom-made for him, with 12- to 18-foot security walls, multiple interior walls dividing the property and massive privacy walls blocking even a third-story balcony. Despite being valued at $1 million, the property had no Internet or phone service, the official said.
“When we saw the compound . . . we were shocked by what we saw,” the official told reporters, describing it as “an extraordinarily unique compound,” built perhaps in 2005 and expressly for bin Laden. “Everything we saw . . . was perfectly consistent with what our experts expected bin Laden’s hideout to look like.”
Thank’s to those who interrogated and/or waterboarded the scumbag at Gitmo four years ago that gave this information up.
UPDATE
That a Guantanamo detainee began giving up details on the courier in 2006-2007, I googled “Al Qaeda high ranking captured” and looked for that time range.
Here’s the first one that popped up. A high ranking Al Qaeda who was in Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans.Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.
The date of that post is April 27th, 2007, almost exactly four years ago.
UPDATE
From Sarah Palin:
Americans tonight are united in celebration and gratitude. God bless all the brave men and women in our military and our intelligence services who contributed to carrying out the successful mission to bring bin Laden to justice and who laid the groundwork over the years to make this victory possible. It’s a testament to the hard work and dedication of these brave Americans who relentlessly hunted down our enemy.
This is a victory for the American people, for the victims who were heartlessly murdered on September 11 and in Al Qaeda’s other numerous attacks, and for all the peace-loving people of the world.
May God bless our troops and our intelligence services, and God bless America!
UPDATE
You have to be kidding me!
Asked how bin Laden’s body will be treated, a senior administration official told reporters on a conference call that “we are ensuring that is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition.”
The official, who refused to be identified, said the matter is “something that we take very seriously, and so, therefore, this is being handled in an appropriate manner.”
Peter Bergen, a national security analyst, predicted on CNN that bin Laden’s face will be shown because of visual evidence that must be displayed. He also noted that Islamic law calls for bodies to be buried within 24 hours of death.
“In Islam, the body has to be buried in 24 hours,” Bergen said. “That will happen.”
What a disgrace
UPDATE
Two of bin Laden’s wives, 4 of his kids captured during operation – Al Arabiya via NBC News
UPDATE
Israeli officials: BL assassination proves efficiency of targeted killings
UPDATE
The United States is conducting DNA testing on slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and used facial recognition techniques to help identify him, a U.S. official said on Monday.
Bin Laden was identified by the assault force that killed him in a firefight in Pakistan in which he resisted and was shot in the head, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Results of the DNA tests should be available in the next few days, the official told Reuters.
The strike force was on the ground for less than 40 minutes and the operation was watched real-time by CIA Director Leon Panetta and other intelligence officials in a conference room at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, the official said.
“When word came in that the operation was a success, CIA officials in the conference room had a rather large applause,” the official said.
UPDATE
Pathetic
U.S. official: bin Laden’s body has already been disposed of – buried at sea.
If at sea as reported, Bin Laden was given a burial that over a thousand 9/11 victims didn’t get.
UPDATE
See author page
I paraphrase Mark Steyn when he says that we live in a sick world where the left did everything to hobble George W Bush and now bask in the glory of having his policies fulfilled. Take a bow Olbermann, you king sized hypocrit.
MATA, thank’s for the politico link, it was a very good read, and I realyse too how the military by blowing it up as they had suggested before would have been less dangerous for their own lives,
They achieve a very dangerous MISSION, and put all their lives on the line for it to be like what OBAMA wanted to be, just remember the unpredictable that has happened made it a double danger for the lives,
to be lost. I strongly like to remind the COMMANDER in the WHITE HOUSE to keep in mind,
on further MISSIONS TO ARRANGE HIS STRATEGY TO PRIORITYSE THE MILITARY’S LIVES IN
ALL THE EXECUTING OF HIS STRATEGYS AND EXECUTIVE ORDERS AND LAWS THAT INCLUDE THE ENABLERS OF ANY MISSIONS; I SHALL REMIND HIM THAT THE MILITARYS WHO ARE DOING A VERY DIFFICULT WAR DU TO HIS DIFFICULT RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, THOSE MILITARYS ARE OF OUTMOST VALUES TO BE KEPT ALIVE AS A FIRST PRIORITY OF WAR STRATEGY, IMPLIMENTATION,
AND I REMIND ALSO THAT THEY ARE NOT EXPANDEBLE IN ANY WAY YOU CAN FIGURE A MISSION
IN THE FUTURE.
Great job SEALs!
I’m glad we disposed of the body properly. We don’t hang them from bridges and drag them behind cars like the islamist terrorists. We’re better than that and we proved it once again.
I have to commend our Navy SEALs heartily.
I have only known two SEALs in all my years.
Both were incredible men.
It takes a man who has his priorities in place to be able to pull the trigger and take out a human shield to get to his target.
In Osama’s case his own wives were positioned in front of him and one died as a human shield.
Our SEALs did a great job.
Everyone is screaming at the top of their lungs how wonderful the military is and correctly so. BUT it was just 3 weeks ago that the democrats in congress and the president had the military shitting their pants because of the threatened budget battle and they were not going to get paid.
I would like to see every one call congress and demand that no matter what happens in the budget battle that their pay happens before that of the president or congress. They walk the talk, they lay down their lives for us. We need to do battle here at home for them.
Coldwarrior57, yes you are absolutly right, they should cut their own paycheck before they cut the MILITARYS, BECAUSE THE MILITARYS ARE MORE NEEDED and important for the NATION THAN THE GOVERNMENT IS,
BYE
@Esdraelon: You can be sure that these SEALS extracted DNA and photos before they disposed of the trash- and I am sure they gathered up all that they could carry from the compound, in terms of documents, photos, etc.- so THERE’S the beef.
You apparently are just impatient, not having seen all the evidence. It has been only two days, and the the public’s right to know is limited when it comes to national security, or hadn’t you heard “Loose lips sink ships”?
Now, the national security and CIA are figuring out what they can now reveal, and what they cannot.
Your “right to know” doesn’t include everything (or you would be the president)-