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

[Jan Klimkowski]

I have zero doubt that Hollywood extravaganza The Execution of Osama Bin Laden will be as ridiculous as The Saving of Jessica Lynch...

[Peter Lemkin]

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (AP) Pakistan was more than halfway done Sunday demolishing the three-story compound where Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. commandos last May, erasing a concrete reminder of a painful and embarrassing chapter in the country's history.

Rings of police kept spectators and journalists away from the compound, which the government began tearing down Saturday night under powerful flood lights without providing prior notice. Three mechanized backhoes ripped into the building, and large trucks carried away the debris, according to an Associated Press reporter who was able to get close enough to see the work.

Pakistan was outraged by the covert American raid in the northwestern town of Abbottabad because it was not told about it beforehand a decision the U.S. explained was driven by concerns that someone in the government might tip off bin Laden.

The terror leader's death was cheered across the globe, but many Pakistanis were angry that the U.S. violated its territory and that its troops were powerless to stop American soldiers from attacking a compound located next to the country's elite military academy.

The backhoes heavy machines with strong crane-like digging arms have torn down the tall boundary walls around bin Laden's compound and have destroyed more than half of the main building, where the al-Qaida chief lived for years with his wives and children.

Army soldiers who were guarding the compound Saturday night handed authority over to the police in the morning and left. Work continued Sunday morning but halted around midday for unknown reasons.

Pakistani officials have declined to say why they decided to begin demolition.

Residents of the normally sleepy town of Abbottabad were divided on what the government should do with the compound in the aftermath of the raid. Some thought it should be destroyed, but others believed it should be turned into a tourist attraction to help the town earn money. There was always the danger, however, that it could also draw al-Qaida supporters.

American officials said they buried bin Laden's body at sea to avoid giving his followers a burial place that could become a makeshift shrine.

Many U.S. officials expressed disbelief that bin Laden could have lived in Abbottabad for around six years without the Pakistani government knowing. But the U.S. has not found any evidence that senior Pakistani officials knew of the al-Qaida chief's whereabouts.

The U.S. Navy SEALs who attacked bin Laden's compound on May 2 infiltrated by helicopter from neighboring Afghanistan. The raid, which lasted around 40 minutes, was a serious blow to the already troubled U.S.-Pakistan relationship.

Pakistan responded by kicking out more than 100 U.S. troops training Pakistanis in counterterrorism operations and reduced the level of intelligence cooperation.

Some members of Congress called on the U.S. to cut of the billions of dollars of military and civilian aid to Pakistan unless Islamabad explained bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad and boosted cooperation on the Afghan war. The aid has continued, although at a somewhat lower level.

[Charles Drago]

Rumor has it that "Gary Mack" Dunkel will be named head of "The Second Floor," a new "museum" to be built on the site of the Bin Laded "killing."

And that the compound will be renamed "There Was Never A CIA-Bin Laden Deal-y Plaza."

[Jan Klimkowski]

The rumour I heard was that Walt Disney was about to open a theme park named SEALWorld.

Here's the soundtrack:

[Jan Klimkowski]

Alternately, here's a far more honest soundtrack.

The essence of Full Metal Jacket cut to Paint It Black:

[Magda Hassan]

Did Private Spy Shop Get US Intel From Bin Laden Raid?

Emails released by WikiLeaks suggest Stratfor may have gained access to highly sensitive material gathered from Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound.

By David Corn
| Mon Feb. 27, 2012 11:49 AM PST





Wikimedia Commons
On May 1, 2011, not only did US special forces kill Osama bin Laden, they collected a treasure trove of intelligence from his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistanmaterial that would be of tremendous value to analysts, both in and out of government. Less than two weeks later, Fred Burton, the vice president for intelligence of Stratfor, a private US intelligence firm, was telling colleagues within the secretive company that he could get his hands on the Abbottabad booty. If so, that would be quite a coup for Stratfor, which peddles expensive intelligence reports on economic, security, and geopolitical matters to private clients, such as major corporations, around the world.
"I can get access to the materials seized from the OBL safe house," writes Stratfor's vice president for intelligence.
This week, WikiLeaks published 214 internal Stratfor emails that it was provided by Anonymous, the online activist collective that hacked into Stratfor's servers and swiped 5 million emails. In one of those messages, sent by Burton to a "Secure List" of Stratfor colleagues on May 12, 2011, he noted,

I can get access to the materials seized from the OBL safe house.
What are the top (not 45) questions we want addressed.

Within minutes, Sean Noonan, a tactical analyst at Stratfor, wrote back:

1 specific operational plans
2 communications with franchise groups (like AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula])
3. connections to anyone associated with the Pakistani state.

This sort of informationwhat Al Qaeda was planning and with whom it was workingcould certainly be sold to Stratfor's clients for a good price. And this email raises a question: Has Stratfor, which maintains various contracts with the Defense Department and other federal agencies, penetrated the US intelligence establishment for its own benefit? ("Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questioning about them," Stratfor said in a statement on Monday; the company did not respond to a message from Mother Jones.)
The next day, Burton wrote back to Noonan:

More on # 3 --
Several /in ISI and Pak Mil, less than 12.
More on this later.

Burton seemed to be suggesting that the intelligence obtained at the compound indicated that less than a dozen officials working with Pakistani intelligence and military were somehow connected to bin Laden. He didn't cite any specific materials or documents.
Noonan was excited. He emailed back: "awesome. Please see what you can find out about what kind of department they are in, or area they cover." Another Stratfor employee, Kamran Bokhari, replied to Burton's note: "No surprises here. We will never find out their departments but their ranks would be very telling."
In response, Burton gave the impression that he might indeed be able to learn more of what was in the cache of OBL intelligence. He emailed, "I may be able to get that, let me ask." And hours later he sent this email.

Same response as before:
Mid to senior level ISI and Pak Mil with one retired Pak Mil General that had knowledge of the OBL arrangements and safe house.
Names unk [unknown] to me and not provided.
Specific ranks unk to me and not provided.
But, I get a very clear sense we (US intel) know names and ranks. I also do not know if we have passed this info to the GOP. [Government of Pakistan]
If I was in command, I would not pass the info to the GOP, because we can't trust them. I would piece meal the names off and bury in a list of other non-related names for internal ISI traces in a non-alerting fashion, to see what the Pakis tell us.
I may also trade one or two names for the captured tail rudder.

Burton seemed to have informalor unofficial accessto this information. (He didn't describe it in these emails.) And the final line about trading a captured tail rudderfrom the helicopter disabled (and then blown up) at the compound?for the identities of Pakistani military or intelligence officials connected to bin Laden is, to say the least, intriguing.
The released emails do not indicate whether Burton truly possessed significant access to the bin Laden materialand what he had to do to obtain such access. But as a former deputy chief of the State Department's counterterrorism division, he could be expected to have contacts within the US intelligence community that could feed him information of this sort.
Burton, who has not responded to an email query, might not be the best spy. In a 2008 "Internal Use Only" email to Stratfor colleagues, sent out after the presidential election, he claimed to have sources with information on Democratic "Dirty Tricks," noting,

The hunt is on for the sleezy Russian money into O-mans coffers. A smoking gun has already been found. Will get more on this when the time is right. My source was too giddy to continue. Can you say Clinton and ChiCom funny money? This also becomes a matter of how and when to out.

The Russian-money-to-Obama story never materialized, but perhaps Burton was better connected concerning the OBL raid. The emails he sent on this matter ought to cause intelligence watchers to wonder whether Stratfor has burrowed into US intelligence and sensitive information has been compromisedand whether Burton and his cloak-and-dagger colleagues exploit their ties to US spies for their own good.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/...aden-intel

[Magda Hassan]

WikiLeaks emails suggest Bin Laden corpse brought to America'

2 hours ago 2,448 Views [/url]


The now-famous picture of Barack Obama and others in the White House situation room, watching details of the raid that caught and killed Osama bin Laden.

Image: The White House

INTERNAL EMAILS in a major global intelligence firm, published by WikiLeaks, suggest that Osama bin Laden's body may have been brought to America after he was killed by US Navy Seals.
The emails, from the intelligence firm Stratfor which offered services to major international corporations, are being published by the whistleblowing site having been obtained in an attack on Stratfor's servers by the Anonymous movement.
In one email, sent by Stratfor's vice-president for intelligence Fred Burton and timestamped just hours after Barack Obama announced details of the Pakistani raid that killed bin Laden Burton [url=http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/1094322_-alpha-obl-.html]declares:

Reportedly, we took the body with us. Thank goodness.

Another, 25 minutes later with the subject Body bound for Dover, DE on CIA plane' adds: "Than [sic] onward to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Bethesda".
Dover, DE' refers to Dover in Delaware, the site of a major air force base around 175km from Washington.
In another email sent an hour later, Burton who is considered a leading expert on terrorism and security, and who previously served as the second-in-command at the Department of State's counterterrorism division - adds:

If body dumped at sea, which I doubt, the touch is very Adolph Eichman [sic] like. The Tribe did the same thing with the Nazi's ashes.We would want to photograph, DNA, fingerprint, etc.
His body is a crime scene and I don't see the FBI nor DOJ letting that happen.

Adolf Eichmann was a leading organiser of the Holocaust who later fled to Argentina on a fake passport until he was captured by Mossad and brought to trial in Israel. He was executed and cremated and his ashes spread at sea, so that there could be no memorial to him.
In response to that email, the company's CEO George Friedman a child of Holocaust survivors wrote:

Eichmann was seen alive for many months on trial before being sentenced to death and executed. No one wanted a monument to him so they cremated him. But i dont know anyone who claimed he wasnt eicjhman.No comparison with suddenly burying him at sea without any chance to view him which i doubt happened.

Some seven hours later, Burton responded again:

Body is Dover bound, should be here by now

While it is not clear whether Burton is relying on any internal military source, or merely making an educated guess and while it should be noted that the email exchanges begin with the word reportedly' the emails, if true, would undermine the US claim that bin Laden's body was buried at sea within hours of his death.
Previous emails from the Stratfor cache, which WikiLeaks says is made up of some five million emails, suggest that the Pakistani intelligence forces were aware of bin Laden's presence in the country a charge Pakistan has consistently denied.
The compound in which bin Laden lived and was killed, just outside Abbottabad, was torn down earlier this week.
http://www.thejournal.ie/wikileaks-email...1-Mar2012/

[Jan Klimkowski]

Wonder what Skull and Bones will do with the Baphomet - the head of this random old geezer shot in Pakistan.

Will they lose his brain?

Or will they plunder the secret tomb as a fratboy initiation prank - as per Geronimo?

[Magda Hassan]

Abbottabad commission findings contradict US version: report

DAWN.COM8 hours ago

The compound in Abbottabad where the former al Qaeda chief was killed in a US forces raid on May 2, 2011.File Photo

ISLAMABAD: A member of the high-level Pakistani Abbottabad commission tasked with detailing the May 2 incidents in Abbottabad that resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden, has completed recording his findings, according to a BBC Urdu report published on Thursday.
The findings are based on statements from bin Laden's family, his neighbours, and the government officials who entered the area after the raid, said the report.
Questioning the American position on the raid, the details contradict, and are different from, the version of events described by the US. The findings will also be the first official version of the events from the Pakistani side.
A major question raised in the report is the finding that only a single bullet-casing and bullet-mark was found from the room which was allegedly filled with more than half a dozen armed companions of the former al Qaeda chief.
The bullet mark was found on a wall in bin Laden's bedroom, the same room where he was killed. The mark is so high on the wall that it appears as if the man firing bullet was on his knees. The commission's experts have concluded that this bullet caused bin Laden's death, and possibly hit the wall after tearing through a part of his skull, adds the BBC report.
Other than this, no other bullet-casing or bullet-marks were found from the compound. However, the commission's members found more than a dozen Klashnikov rifles some less than a yard away from the dead bodies, adds the report.
The report raises the question that why did bin Laden's companions not fire a single bullet at the US Marines, because the American version of events states that not a single soldier was hit. Now if no soldier was hit, and not even a single shot had gone astray which was proved by the absence of bullet casings and marks then why did Osama's companions not fire a single bullet, the commission findings inquire.
http://www.dawn.com/2012/03/15/abbottaba...eport.html

[Peter Lemkin]

Would like to see this report in readable English - the summary above is obviously a rough and fast translation from the Urdu and not very clear; however,

Questioning the American position on the raid, the details contradict, and are different from, the version of events described by the US

quelle surprise! America lying - I'm shocked, shocked~!