Monday, May 02, 2011

Bin Laden Was Found at Luxury Pakistan Compound (?)

Osama bin Laden sits during an interview with ...
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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110502/ts_nm/us_binladen_compound

Osama bin Laden terkorban

WASHINGTON 2 Mei – Pemimpin rangkaian al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden maut dalam satu operasi ketenteraan diketuai Amerika Syarikat (AS) di Pakistan, sekali gus menamatkan pemburuan selama 10 tahun yang dilancarkan AS terhadap perancang serangan ke atas Pusat Dagangan Dunia di New York pada 11 September 2001.
Presiden AS, Barack Obama dalam satu pengumuman rasmi berhubung perkara tersebut berkata, Osama terbunuh dalam satu serangan tentera AS di bandar Abbottabat, kira-kira 100 kilometer di utara Islamabad.
Beliau berkata, turut maut dalam operasi selama 40 minit diketuai Agensi Perisikan Pusat (CIA) itu ialah tiga lelaki termasuk seorang anak lelakinya dan seorang wanita.
“Keadilan telah ditegakkan,” kata Obama lewat malam tadi di White House, sambil menambah kata, jenazah ketua al-Qaeda itu kini berada dalam simpanan AS dan akan disemadikan mengikut hukum Islam.
Kematian pemimpin al-Qaeda itu turut disahkan Pengarah Risikan Antara Perkhidmatan Pakistan (ISI), Leftenan Jeneral Ahmad Shuja Pasha.

DUA wajah Osama semasa hidup (kiri) dan selepas terbunuh dalam serangan ketenteraan diketuai Amerika Syarikat (AS) di bandar Abbottabat, utara Islamabad. Bagaimanapun gambar kecederaan Osama itu diragui oleh banyak pihak.

Seorang anggota al-Qaeda di Yemen yang dihubungi menerusi telefon turut mengesahkan ketua rangkaian militan itu terbunuh dan menyifatkannya sebagai ‘malapetaka’.
Beberapa jam selepas pengumuman mengenai kematian Osama dibuat, AS segera mengeluarkan amaran perjalanan kepada rakyatnya di seluruh dunia dengan menyatakan satu keganasan anti-AS mungkin tercetus.
“Jabatan Negara AS memberi amaran kepada rakyat negara ini yang berada di luar negara supaya berjaga-jaga terhadap sebarang keganasan yang mungkin berlaku,” kata jabatan tersebut dalam satu kenyataan.
Rangkaian televisyen terbesar Pakistan, Geo turut menyiarkan satu rakaman imej muka Osama yang berlumuran darah, tetapi ia masih belum disahkan. – AFP/AP/Reuters


Ayman al-Zawahri ganti Osama


ISLAMABAD - Kematian Osama bin Laden mungkin menyaksikan orang kuat kedua pergerakan itu, Ayman al-Zawahri yang juga seorang pakar bedah kelahiran Mesir dinamakan sebagai pemimpin baru menggantikan Osama memimpin rangkaian tersebut.
Zawahri sering menjadi rujukan Osama serta rangkaian al-Qaeda dan dalam setiap penampilan mesej videonya, beliau sering menggesa penduduk Islam memerangi Pertubuhan Perjanjian Atlantik Utara (NATO) dan tentera Amerika Syarikat (AS) di Libya.
FILE - In this file television image from Arab satellite station Al-Jazeera, Osama bin Laden, right, listens as his top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri speaks at an undisclosed location, in this image made from undated video tape broadcast by the station Monday April 15, 2002. A person familiar with developments said Sunday, May 1, 2011 that bin Laden is dead and the U.S. has the body.

Dilahirkan dalam keluarga kelas atasan di sebuah kawasan kediaman mewah di Kaherah, pakar bedah itu merupakan individu kedua paling dikehendaki oleh Biro Penyiasatan Persekutuan (FBI) selepas Osama.
Zawahri dan Osama berjaya meloloskan diri dalam satu operasi AS untuk menumpaskan Taliban di Afghanistan pada akhir 2001 selepas serangan 11 September yang dilancarkan al-Qaeda. – Reuters

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