Details of Bin Laden’s Death at Mansion Emerge, Navy SEALs’ Secret Operation, Firefight in Pakistan (video)
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on May 2, 2011
Details are emerging about the Navy SEALS’ operation that was responsible for the killing of Al Qaeda terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden was killed yesterday, following a firefight at a mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan, about an hour away from Islamabad.
God bless our troops for finally stopping this hate-driven Islamic madman from spearheading the killing of more innocent people across the world.
From FOX News, Bin Laden Killed by CIA-Led SEALs Team, Death Hailed as Blow to Al Qaeda:
Years of tracking the world’s most-wanted terrorist culminated Sunday afternoon, when a CIA-led Navy SEALs squadron of just a few dozen men stormed Usama bin Laden’s compound and killed him.
President Obama announced the results of the top-secret operation late Sunday night, calling it the most significant blow to Al Qaeda to date. Within hours, the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed more than 3,000 people was buried at sea.
Though the president offered only sparse information on the mission and the intelligence that led to it, details have since emerged about the heroic actions of the small, elite team dispatched to Pakistan by an order from the president last week.
According to officials, a 40-man Navy SEALs squadron raided bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, at 3:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. As officials described it, the raid was swift — the team was on the compound for less than 40 minutes and did not run into any local authorities during the firefight.
At the start of the operation, four U.S.-owned and operated helicopters launched from a base in Afghanistan and dropped about 24 men onto the grounds of the compound. One helicopter suffered a “hard landing” after experiencing a “flight control issue” and had to be destroyed on the site.
At first, bin Laden was asked to surrender. But a military official said he resisted. In the end, he was killed in the ensuing firefight with a bullet to the head.
No Americans were hurt or killed during the raid. Besides bin Laden, three other men were killed, one of whom is believed to be bin Laden’s 24-year-old son. One woman used as a human shield was also killed, and two other women were injured.
[...]
The State Department issued a travel alert for U.S. citizens abroad overnight, citing “the enhanced potential for anti-American violence given recent counterterrorism activity in Pakistan.”
From AFP, Osama killed with shot to head by Navy SEALs: official:
WASHINGTON — US Navy SEALs led the commando operation in Pakistan that ended the life of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden with a bullet to the head, a US official told AFP.
The SEALs, which stands for Sea, Air, Land, are elite troops used for some of the riskiest anti-terrorism missions, as well as behind-the-lines reconnaissance and unconventional warfare.
On loan to the CIA for the mission Sunday night into Monday, the SEAL team launched the assault from helicopters on a heavily fortified villa in a city near Islamabad that US intelligence had identified as bin Laden’s hideout.
“Responsibility for the raid is Leon Panetta’s; It was executed by Navy SEALs,” said the official, referring by name to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
CNN described the operation as a “kill mission” but US officials told AFP bin Laden “resisted as we expected.”
The Al-Qaeda leader’s body was buried at sea, two officials said on condition of anonymity.
“We wanted to avoid a situation where it would become a shrine,” one of the officials said.
From ABC News, Osama Bin Laden Killed By Navy SEALs in Firefight:
Osama Bin Laden was killed not by a drone strike, but up close during a firefight with U.S. troops Sunday. He was not living in a cave when he died, but in a million-dollar mansion with twelve-foot walls less than 100 miles from the Pakistani capital.
The U.S. had been monitoring the compound in Abbottabad for months after receiving a tip in August that Bin Laden might be seeking shelter there. He had long been said to be in the mountainous region along the Afghanistan, Pakistan border, hiding in a cave as the U.S. sought to kill him with drone strikes from above. Instead, he was in a house eight times larger than its neighbors, with walls more than 12 feet tall and valued at $1 million. The house had no phone or television and the residents burned their trash. The house had high windows and few points of access, and U.S. officials concluded it had been built to hide someone.
According to U.S. officials, two U.S. helicopters flew in low from Afghanistan and swept into the compound late Sunday night Pakistan time, or Sunday afternoon Washington time. Twenty to 25 U.S. Navy SEALs under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command in cooperation with the CIA stormed the compound and engaged Bin Laden and his men in a firefight, and killed Bin Laden and all those with him.
Two Bin Laden couriers were killed, as was one of Osama Bin Laden’s sons and a woman reportedly used as a shield by one of the men. Other women and children were present in the compound, according to Pakistani officials, but were not harmed. U.S. officials said that Bin Laden himself fired his weapon during the fight, and that he was asked to surrender but did not.
One of the U.S. helicopters, a CH47 Chinook, was damaged but not destroyed during the operation, and U.S. forces elected to destroy it themselves with explosives. The operation took 40 minutes, much of it spent searching the residence for intelligence.
Associated Press: World Reacts to Osama Bin Laden’s Death
Russia Today, Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan, body ‘buried at sea’
From MinnPost.com, Osama bin Laden killed by Navy SEALs: Details emerge:
BOSTON — The mission: Get Osama bin Laden.
U.S. attack helicopters crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan on Sunday and inserted an elite Navy SEALs team. Within an hour, they had surrounded a high-walled compound and shot the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Based on interviews with two national security sources, a picture is emerging of a daring and stunningly successful military operation that finally brought the leader of Al Qaeda to justice nearly 10 years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
“The death of bin Laden marks the most significant victory to date in our effort to defeat Al Qaeda,” said U.S. President Barack Obama last night, speaking from the White House.
But Obama and national security officials were quick to warn that the struggle against terrorism is far from over and that Al Qaeda will continue to try to carry out its self-declared war against America.
“His death does not mark the end of our effort … We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad,” Obama said.
[...]
The intelligence operation that tracked down bin Laden outside of the Pakistani capital was more than nine months in the making. It led to the order Sunday for an assault on a sprawling compound outside of Islamabad, where he was gunned down by Navy SEALs as part of a Joint Special Operations Command Force.
Bin Laden’s body is in U.S. custody and FBI forensic teams have confirmed that the DNA proves that it is the body of the Al Qaeda leader, national security sources confirmed.
The raid in Abbottabad, just north of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, came out of a vigorous commitment by Obama to push the CIA to make bringing bin Laden to justice the No. 1 priority.
It also came out of a dramatic increase in intelligence assets in Afghanistan and a more aggressive intelligence effort to use drone spy planes. There was also a coordinated effort with Pakistani forces to track down Al Qaeda’s leadership.
One national security source said that it is believed those intelligence assets pushed bin Laden out of the mountains along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan and deeper into Pakistan.
Osama bin Laden dead, killed by US in Pakistan
From CNN, Son of Kenyan al Qaeda victim: ‘Finally, the day has come’:
Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) — For 10 years, twice a week, Charles Muriuki has come to the same spot in downtown Nairobi to grieve and reflect. Each time, he sits on a park bench at a simple memorial and remembers his mother.
“My mom left home at 10 in the morning that day, and she never came back. Never ever,” Muriuki says.
Muriuki’s mother had gone to deposit money at a bank next to the U.S. embassy. She never reached the bank. At 10.30 on August 7, 1998, al Qaeda terrorists detonated a bomb housed in a truck at the entrance to the embassy.
The powerful blast ripped through the five-story building and partially destroyed the neighboring office tower. A few moments earlier a similar attack occurred at the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The attacks put al Qaeda on the map and Osama bin Laden on the FBI’s “most wanted” list. But, as with 9/11, the impact was felt most by the victims and their families.
Hundreds were killed in the attacks and thousands left injured. In Nairobi, most were just ordinary Kenyans going about their business.
Muriuki’s family only found his mother’s body after three days in a mortuary. She was so badly cut and drained of blood that she was barely recognizable.
Mary Muriuki was the pillar of the family. She left eight children and a husband. Shattered by loss he started to drink.
Charles Muriuki came to blame just one person for their troubles: Osama bin Laden.
“Life since then has been different and all the time I was hearing ‘Osama, Osama, Osama,’” he says. “Finally, the day has come. This should be a warning to all of them out there. Justice will always prevail.”
From Bloomberg, U.S. Faces Broad Terror Threat After Bin Laden, Analysts Say:
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh denounced the U.S. killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, while a Palestinian Authority spokesman said his death will be “good for peace.”
“This is a continuance of the U.S. policy of atrocities,” Haniyeh told reporters today in Gaza City.
Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by the U.S., European Union, and Israel, is scheduled to sign a reconciliation agreement with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of the Fatah faction this week in Cairo.
Ghassan Khatib, a spokesman for the Ramallah, West Bank- based Palestinian Authority, said the absence of bin Laden will be “good for peace and stability” around the world. Khatib spoke in a phone interview.
From Pensinsula Press, Stanford students celebrate news of Osama Bin Laden’s death:
Stanford students celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden with a bonfire at the campus’ Lake Lagunita around 11 p.m. Sunday. About 40 revelers donned stars and stripes and gathered to sing patriotic songs.
CNN reports that U.S. intelligence and special forces including Navy SEALs raided a mansion-compound and killed bin Laden in Abottabad, Pakistan. Authorities buried the al-Qaeda leader’s body at sea, according to CNN.
Outdoor parties formed throughout the nation as news of bin Laden’s death became public. Television news networks showed celebrations forming in front of the White House and in New York City before President Obama addressed the nation around 11:30 p.m. EST.
Stanford students organized bonfire party through word of mouth and social media.
Raw Footage: Stanford Students React to Death of Osama Bin Laden
From Boston Globe, Bin Laden’s legacy of terror:
Retribution finally came to Osama bin Laden at the hands of the people to whom he had done the most grievous harm. In the end it was the Americans, who had let him slip through their fingers at Tora Bora in 2001, who finally tracked and killed him in his comfortable compound in Pakistan.
Bin Laden’s legacy will be that he transformed terrorism itself, from desultory assassinations and bombing attacks to mass murder on a scale never before imagined. He has been an inspiration for tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of Muslims whose discontent and grievances he so skillfully stoked, and a nemesis for millions more who reject his version of salvation.
For more than a decade, before 9/11, back in the Clinton administration when White House terrorism expert Richard Clarke said his hair was “on fire” over worry about an imminent attack on the United States, the baleful presence of bin Laden had tormented the United States.
The simultaneous bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998, and the bombing of the USS Cole on Oct. 12, 2000, were but curtain raisers to the main act: September 11, 2001.
Although President Obama was quick to give credit to Pakistan for helping end perhaps the biggest and most concentrated manhunt in history, questions will remain about how bin Laden could have been living, not in a cave on the untamed frontier with Afghanistan, but in urban comfort so close to a Pakistani military base.
There is also the question of Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s second-in-command, who some say was the intellectual force behind bin Laden’s malignant narcissism. Can he fill the shoes of the more charismatic bin Laden?
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