Al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden 'dead'. Again.

[Magda Hassan]

Actually, it is dry Australian wit. And if we are going to be really picky, dry New Zealand wit. John Clarke is a long time resident and local institution here but born in NZ. I'm pretty sure that Bryan Dawe, his partner, is born here. More here.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Who do you believe?

Taliban who shot down Chinook helicopter killed in US air strike

General John Allen says F-16 strike killed those responsible for deaths of 38 US navy Seals and colleagues in crash

Staff and agencies guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 August 2011 16.52 BST

A US air strike has killed the Taliban militants believed to be responsible for shooting down a Chinook helicopter, killing 38 US and Afghan troops, the top commander in Afghanistan said.

Marine Corps General John Allen told a Pentagon news conference that forces learned where the insurgents had fled to and killed them in an early morning F-16 air strike on Monday.

A separate statement from Afghanistan said the strike killed Taliban leader Mullah Mohibullah and the insurgent who fired the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) that downed the Chinook helicopter. It said the two men were attempting to flee the country.

Thirty US troops most of them elite navy Seals were killed in the crash, the single deadliest incident for American troops in the Afghan war. Eight Afghans were also killed.

President Barack Obama flew to Dover Air Force Base on Tuesday to watch the arrival of the remains of those killed. The military has launched an investigation into the incident.

The Chinook was shot down while attempting to come to the aid of a team of soldiers engaged in a firefight. They were on a mission to capture a senior Taliban leader in the Tangi valley responsible for a series of attacks, including the planting of roadside bombs. Allen acknowledged that the main Taliban leader sought in the operation was still at large.

The general defended the decision to send in the elite team, saying it was deemed necessary at the time to go after "elements that were escaping" from an ongoing operation to target the Taliban leader.

"We committed a force to contain that element from getting out. And, of course, in the process of that, the aircraft was struck by an RPG and crashed," Allen told Pentagon reporters via video-conference from Kabul.

"We've run more than a couple of thousand of these night operations over the last year, and this is the only occasion where this has occurred," he said. "The fact that we lost this aircraft is not … a decision point as to whether we'll use this aircraft in the future."

While officials believe the helicopter was shot down by an RPG, Allen said the military's investigation into the crash will also review whether small-arms fire or other causes contributed to the crash.

Allen said the subsequent F-16 air strike killed the insurgents believed to be behind the attack an assertion the Taliban immediately challenged.

In Afghanistan Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said: "The person who shot down the helicopter is alive and he is in another province operating against [foreign forces]," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location

[Ed Jewett]

I haven't tried to follow every clue and nuance in this little tale, but it is very evident that there was a lot of confusion early on -- natural, given time zone differences and the distant war zone -- but the disarray that seems telling is the scramble to make sure everyone at the top gets on the same page in terms of explaining what did or did not happen. One of the elements in this and other tales is the natural and woefully erroneous and stupid assumption that a bunch of "others" who wrap towels around their head and talk funny and worship differently can't summon some gut-level, functional battlefield intelligence and strategy that can take down the more technologically-sophisticated weaponry of an advanced civilization. Was it an INSIDE JOB? Let's watch and see. Perhaps the helicopter was allowed to enter the trap knowingly... shades of Drago's Custer thesis?.

From what I see, there are people in the broader community of military networks and families -- as CD suggests -- that are already "talking" quietly about the truths of the infamous bin Laden raid, let alone the Pakistanis.

[Bernice Moore]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2...movie.html
Congressman calls for probe of Bigelow's Bin Laden movie

[Magda Hassan]

Osama bin Laden 'protected by Pakistan in return for Saudi cash'
Osama bin Laden was protected by elements of Pakistan's security apparatus in return for millions of dollars of Saudi cash, according to a controversial new account of the operation to kill the world's most wanted man.

Bin Laden had eluded capture for years (AFP)
By Rob Crilly, Islamabad12:35PM BST 10 Aug 2011
Raelynn Hillhouse, an American security analyst, claims his whereabouts were finally revealed when a Pakistani intelligence officer came forward to claim the $25m (£15 million) bounty on the al-Qaeda leader's head.
Her version, based on evidence from sources in what she calls the "intelligence community", contradicts the official account that bin Laden was tracked down through his trusted courier.
Pakistani officials have always denied that bin Laden was sheltered or that Islamabad had any knowledge of the secret mission that killed him.
But Dr Hillhouse, who is known for her links to private military contractors that work extensively with the CIA, says Pakistan gave permission for a covert mission which would then be covered up by claiming bin Laden had been killed in a drone strike.
"The [Inter-Services Intelligence] officer came forward to claim the substantial reward and to broker US citizenship for his family," she writes on her intelligence blog, The Spy Who Billed Me.

"My sources tell me that the informant claimed that the Saudis were paying off the Pakistani military and intelligence (ISI) to essentially shelter and keep bin Laden under house arrest in Abbottabad, a city with such a high concentration of military that I'm told there's no equivalent in the US." After confirming bin Laden's presence in the military town, the US approached Pakistan's military leaders securing their co-operation in return for cash and a chance to avoid public humiliation.
The theory, if true, would explain how American black hawk helicopters were then able to fly deep into Pakistan territory in May without encountering resistance.
The plan only unravelled when one of the helicopters crash-landed, blowing the cover story.
"The co-operation was why there were no troops in Abottabad," writes Dr Hillhouse. "It had always seemed very far-fetched to me that a helicopter could crash and later be destroyed in an area with such high military concentration without the Pakistanis noticing." In the immediate aftermath of the raid, some residents of Abbottabad, where bin Laden had lived for five years, said they had received mysterious visits a night earlier warning them to stay inside with their lights off.
However, a senior Pakistani security official denied that the ISI had sheltered bin Laden.
"We don't use toilet paper we wash," he said. "But toilet paper is all this theory is good for."
A spokesman for the US department of defense said: "We have no additional operational details, or comments on operational details, to make at this time."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...A.facebook

[Jan Klimkowski]

Magda - thanks for that, ahem, BELLYLAUGH from one of Spook Central's favourite conduits: the Daily Torygraph.

But Dr Hillhouse, who is known for her links to private military contractors that work extensively with the CIA, says Pakistan gave permission for a covert mission which would then be covered up by claiming bin Laden had been killed in a drone strike.

"The [Inter-Services Intelligence] officer came forward to claim the substantial reward and to broker US citizenship for his family," she writes on her intelligence blog, The Spy Who Billed Me.

This is an archetypal psyop, suggesting that Pakistanis are greedy and treacherous both in harbouring Bin Laden and then selling him out.

Who is "Dr Raelynn Hillhouse"?

Hillhouse writes a national security blog, The Spy Who Billed Me. The Spy Who Billed Me was featured in the New York Times Week in Review after the head of the private military corporation Blackwater USA granted her an exclusive interview.

Hillhouse studied in Central and Eastern Europe for over six years at various institutions including Moscow State University, Moscow Finance Institute, Humboldt University of Berlin, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (Germany) and Babes-Bolyai University (Cluj, Romania). She earned her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis[1] and her MA in Russian and East European Studies as well as her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan.

When living as a student in Europe, she claims to have engaged in the black market between East and West, running Cuban rum, smuggling jewels from the Soviet Union and laundering East Bloc currencies. She claims to have been recruited by the East German secret police, the Stasi, and by the Libyan Intelligence Service. Some sources assert that she was an American intelligence officer (McGuire, 2004; Adler, 2004), but Hillhouse denies this (Nolan, 2004).

Hillhouse's debut novel, Rift Zone (2004), is a spy thriller about a female smuggler who becomes entangled in an East German plot to stop the fall of the Berlin Wall. The American Booksellers Association Book Sense program selected it as one of the best books of 2004 and Library Journal named it one of the year's most promising debuts. Her second novel, Outsourced (2007) is a political thriller about the outsourcing of the CIA and Pentagon and the turf wars between the two agencies.

Hillhouse taught at the University of Michigan and was a professor of political science at the University of Hawaii. She is a founding member of the International Thriller Writers.

[Ed Jewett]

Actually, it is dry Australian wit. And if we are going to be really picky, dry New Zealand wit. John Clarke is a long time resident and local institution here but born in NZ. I'm pretty sure that Bryan Dawe, his partner, is born here. More here.

Even better... the fellows have been duly bookmarked. Many thanks for sharing..

[Ed Jewett]

Original Investigation:

WhoAnd WhatAre Behind The "Official History" Of The Bin Laden Raid?
By Russ Baker on Aug 17, 2011

four pages long...

http://whowhatwhy.com/2011/08/17/raidbinladen/

hat tip to another New Zealander (Kevin @ Cryptogon)

[Ed Jewett]

White House Hides Hundreds OBL Kill Day Photos August 24, 2011
http://cryptome.org/0005/wh-hides-obl.pdf

[Magda Hassan]

I'm wondering if the elusive Gadaffi might not be soon assigned the role formerly held by OBL. And his sons of course. They could get quite a few years of cat and mouse to be made out of them all.