Killing of Osama bin Laden: Difference between revisions

Coordinates: 34°10′9″N 73°14′33″E / 34.16917°N 73.24250°E / 34.16917; 73.24250
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[[ar:مقتل أسامة بن لادن]]
[[ar:مقتل أسامة بن لادن]]

Revision as of 21:42, 2 May 2011

Death of Osama bin Laden
Part of the War on Terrorism
Killing of Osama bin Laden is located in Pakistan
Abbottābad
Abbottābad
Islamabad
Islamabad

Map of Pakistan showing Abbottābad (green), where bin Laden was killed, and the capital, Islamabad (red). Abbottābad is 32 miles (51 km) north of Islamabad.
Date01:00:00, May 2, 2011 (PKT) (2011-05-02T01:00:00PKT)
20:00:00, May 1, 2011 (UTC) (2011-05-01T20:00:00UTC)
Location
Kakul Road, Bilal Town, Abbottābad, Pakistan
Result U.S. victory
Osama bin Laden, one bin Laden wife, and one bin Laden son killed
Pakistani forces arrest four other bin Laden children and two wives[1]
Belligerents

United States United States

al-Qaeda
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan
Commanders and leaders
Barack Obama Osama bin Laden 
Strength
20 to 25 helicopter-borne United States Navy SEALs of the Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six) at least 22 bin Laden supporters; possibly more
Casualties and losses
At least 1 helicopter [2] Osama bin Laden
1 bin Laden wife
1 bin Laden son
1 bin Laden courier
1 brother of courier

The death of Osama bin Laden occurred on May 2, 2011, around 01:00 Pakistan Standard Time (May 1, 20:00 UTC, 15:00 EST/12:00 PST), in a raid by United States special forces troops on his residence in Pakistan. His death was officially announced by U.S. President Barack Obama on May 2 at 3:35 UTC.[3]

United States Armed Forces shot and killed bin Laden in a firefight at the start of the 40-minute operation,[4] in Abbottābad,[5] a town 32 miles (51 km) north of the Pakistani capital Islamabad; they then seized his body before burying it at sea.[6][7][8] The compound is located at 34°10′9″N 73°14′33″E / 34.16917°N 73.24250°E / 34.16917; 73.24250,[9] 2.5 miles (4 km) northeast of the center of Abbottabad and three-quarters of a mile (1.3 km) southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA).[10][11][12][13] The operation was carried out by members of the U.S. Navy SEAL DEVGRU unit[14] under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command forces in Pakistan working with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

A trail of evidence that originated from al-Qaeda detainees led to the careful monitoring of a compound suspected to be bin Laden's Pakistani residence. Eventually, U.S. military forces were sent across the border of Afghanistan to launch the attack.[15]

The body was recovered by the U.S. military and kept in its possession.[15][16] Both ABC News and the Associated Press have reported that the body has been identified by DNA testing,[15][17] using tissue and blood samples taken from his sister who died of brain cancer.[18] However, Reuters reports that DNA test results will be available in the next few days and that bin Laden's body was identified using facial recognition techniques.[19]

The killing of bin Laden was celebrated in the United States and welcomed by the United Nations,[20] NATO, the European Union and a large number of countries as a positive and significant turning point for global security and the War on Terror.

Locating Osama bin Laden

View of Abbottābad, Pakistan

American intelligence officials discovered the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden by tracking one of his couriers. Information was collected from Guantánamo Bay detainees, who gave intelligence officers the courier's pseudonym and said that he was a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In 2007, U.S. officials discovered the courier's real name and, in 2009, that he lived in Abbottābad, Pakistan.[21] Using satellite photos and intelligence reports, the CIA surmised the inhabitants of the mansion. In September, the CIA concluded that the compound was "custom built to hide someone of significance" and that bin Laden's residence there was very likely.[22][23] Officials surmised that he was living there with his youngest wife.[23]

Built in 2005, the million-dollar three-story[24] mansion was located 2.5 miles (4 km) northeast of the city center.[22] Larger than nearby houses, it was surrounded by 12-to-18-foot (3.7-5.5 m)[23] concrete walls topped with barbed wire.[22] There were two security gates and the third-floor balcony had a seven-foot-high (2.1 m) privacy wall.[24] There was no Internet or telephone service coming in the compound. Its residents burned their trash, unlike their neighbors, who simply set it out for collection. The compound is located at 34°10′09″N 73°14′33″E / 34.169275°N 73.242588°E / 34.169275; 73.242588,[25] about three-quarters of a mile (1.3 km) southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA).[26][27]

President Obama met with his security advisors on March 14, 2011, in the first of five security meetings over six weeks. On April 29, at 8:20 a.m., Obama convened with Thomas Donilon, John O. Brennan, and other security advisers in the Diplomatic Room, where he authorized a raid of the Abbottābad compound. The government of Pakistan was not informed of this decision.[22]

CIA director Leon Panetta issued a thank you memo that also credited the National Security Agency and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for contributing to the intelligence-gathering that made the raid possible. Per the National Journal, "NSA figured out, somehow, that there was no telephone or Internet service in the compound."[28]

Raid

Military logistics

Osama bin Laden's hideout

The raid was carried out jointly by 20 to 25 helicopter-borne DEVGRU United States Navy SEALs under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command in cooperation with the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Additional personnel on the mission included "tactical signals, intelligence collectors, and navigators using highly classified hyperspectral imagers."[28]

The SEALs stormed the compound at approximately 1 a.m. local time (20:00, May 1 UTC)[29] and engaged bin Laden's men in a firefight.[30] Bin Laden hid behind a woman during the firefight, allegedly his wife; a second wife in the house apparently called him by name during the raid, inadvertently assisting in his identification by U.S. armed forces on the ground.[31][32] The raid lasted about 40 minutes, most of which was spent scrubbing the compound for information.[33] A U.S. national security official told the Reuters news agency that "'This was a kill operation,'...making clear there was no desire to try to capture bin Laden alive in Pakistan."[34]

The SEALs flew into Pakistan from Afghanistan and were transported to the compound in modified MH-60 helicopters that took off from Ghazi Airbase.[28][35] The helicopters were provided by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.[36] The raid was scheduled for a time with little moon luminosity so the helicopters could enter Pakistan "low to the ground and undetected".[37] One of the helicopters that the SEALs used to breach the mansion walls suffered a mechanical breakdown and could not fly the team out. It was consequently blown up to prevent classified equipment from falling into enemy hands.[23] The SEAL team choppers were supported by multiple other aircraft, including fixed-wing fighter jets and drones. Per CNN, "The Air Force also had a full team of combat search-and-rescue helicopters including MH-53 Pave Low and HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters."[38] The team that conducted the raid landed back in Afghanistan at around 5:45 p.m ET (9:45 UTC).[36]

During the month leading up to the raid, SEALs trained on a one-acre replica of Osama's compound, practicing rappelling down into from helicopters among other tactical approaches. [39][40][36] The replica was built at Camp Alpha, "a segregated section of Bagram Air Base."[41] The helicopter raid by SEALs was chosen from a variety of attack plans, including one that would have used two B-2 bombers to drop 2,000-pound (910 kg) bombs on the compound.[37]

Rules of engagement

According to White House Homeland Security Adviser John O. Brennan, "If we had the opportunity to take bin Laden alive, if he didn't present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that."[42] However, another U.S. national security official told the Reuters news agency that "'This was a kill operation,'...making clear there was no desire to try to capture bin Laden alive in Pakistan."[43]

Casualties

Osama bin Laden was shot in the head.[44] The National Journal reported that he was "done in by a double tap—boom, boom—to the left side of his face."[28] Three other men present at the compound were also reportedly killed in the operation, including bin Laden's adult son Khaled, the courier and the courier's brother.[45] Also killed was a woman—reportedly one of bin Laden's wives—whom he used as a human shield.[46][47] Two other women were injured.[48] Approximately 22 people in total were either killed or captured at the compound.[28]

Diplomatic cooperation

According to Obama administration officials, U.S. officials did not share information about the raid with the government of Pakistan before the operation[49] but did notify Pakistan after its successful completion.[50] According to the Pakistani foreign ministry, the operation was conducted entirely by the U.S. forces,[51] however, Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officials stated that they were also present at what they called a joint operation.[27] The reasons for not alerting Pakistan remain unclear; however, the United States most likely wanted to avoid a leak from the less-secure Pakistani government. American officials long contended that Pakistan has not addressed terrorism strongly enough[52]; informing the Pakistani authorities may have risked a tip-off to bin Laden's forces, allowing him to escape[53][54].

However, according to ABC News, "at the end of the operation, Pakistan's military scrambled fighter jets looking for the U.S. helicopters."[36]

Local accounts of raid

Details of the raid, observed from a distance, were tweeted by a resident of Abbottābad, who did not know what was happening.[55][56][57] Karachi's Geo News described a helicopter crash and "heavy firing" on the evening of May 1 "near the PMA Kakul Road".[58]

The UK Telegraph quoted a resident of the area who said, "We saw four helicopters at around 2 a.m. We were told to switch off lights of our homes and stay inside."[59]

Burial at sea

According to a U.S. official on May 2, bin Laden's body was handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition[60] and was buried at sea less than a day after his death.[61][62][63][64] This took place aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, the flagship of Carrier Strike Group One, operating in the northern Arabian Sea.[65]

However, burial at sea is not a preferred form of burial under Islamic tradition,[66] and some Islamic clerics criticized the decision.[67][68]

The advantage to the United States of a burial at sea is that the burial site is not readily identified or accessed, thus preventing a burial site from becoming a "terrorist shrine".[69] The Guardian has questioned whether bin Laden's grave would have been a shrine, a concept rejected by Wahhabism. It also quotes a U.S. official explaining the difficulty of finding a country that would accept the burial of bin Laden in its soil.[70]

United States Presidential address

President Obama's address

Late in the evening of May 1, 2011, major American news organizations were informed that the president would give an important speech on an undisclosed subject related to national security. Rumors initially spread wildly about the subject,[71] until it was revealed that Obama was to announce the death of Osama bin Laden. At 11:35 p.m. EDT (May 2, 2011, 3:35 UTC), President Barack Obama confirmed this and said that bin Laden had been killed by "a small team of Americans".[72] He explained how the killing of bin Laden was achieved after following up on a lead from August 2010, what his role was in the series of events, and what the death of bin Laden meant on a symbolic and practical level.[73]

Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound, in Abbottābad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.

— President Barack Obama, May 1, 2011[74]

Aftermath

An unnamed Pakistani government official confirmed to Agence France-Presse on May 2 that bin Laden was killed in the operation.[75] The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan issued a statement on May 2 denying that bin Laden had been killed.[76] Hours later, Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said that if bin Laden had, in fact, been killed, it was, "a great victory for us because martyrdom is the aim of all of us" and vowed to take revenge on Pakistan and the United States.[77]

Reactions

Americans celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden in front of the White House

Within minutes of the official announcement, large crowds spontaneously gathered outside the White House, Ground Zero, the Pentagon and in New York's Times Square to celebrate.[8] In Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit with a large Muslim and Arab population, a small crowd gathered outside the City Hall in celebration, many of them being of Middle Eastern descent.[78] From the beginning to the end of Obama's speech, 5,000 tweets per second were sent on microblogging platform Twitter.[79] Fans attending a nationally televised Major League Baseball game between two National League East rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets, at Citizens Bank Park initiated U-S-A! cheers in response to the news.[80] Mahmud Ezzat, the deputy leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, said that, with bin Laden dead, western forces should now pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan; authorities in Iran made similar comments.[81] The Hamas administration of the Gaza Strip condemned the killing of an "Arab holy warrior".[82]

Allegations against Pakistan

Numerous allegations were made that the government of Pakistan was involved in shielding bin Laden.[27][83] Aspects of the incident that have fueled the allegations include the proximity of bin Laden's heavily fortified compound to the Pakistan Military Academy, that the United States did not notify the Pakistani authorities before the operation, and the alleged double standards of Pakistan regarding the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.[83][84][85][86]

Pakistani-born British MP Khalid Mahmood stated that he was "flabbergasted and shocked" after he learned that bin Laden was living in a city with thousands of Pakistani troops, reviving questions about alleged links between al-Qaeda and elements in Pakistan's security forces.[26] Senator Lindsey Graham questioned, "How could [bin Laden] be in such a compound without being noticed?", raising suspicions that Pakistan was either uncommitted in the fight against Islamist militants or was actively sheltering them while pledging to fight them.[87] A Pakistani intelligence official said that they had passed on raw phone tap data to U.S. that led to the operation but had failed to analyze this data themselves.[88]

U.S. government files leaked by Wikileaks disclosed that American diplomats were told that Pakistani security services were tipping off bin Laden every time U.S. forces approached. ISI also helped smuggle al-Qaeda militants into Afghanistan to fight NATO troops. According to the leaked files, in December 2009, the Government of Tajikistan had told U.S. officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden's whereabouts.[89]

U.S. senator Joe Lieberman chairman of Homeland security committee said "This is going to be a time of real pressure on Pakistan to basically prove to us that they didn’t know that bin Laden was there".[90]

Earlier death reports

December 2001 Quoting an unnamed Taliban official, the Pakistan Observer reported that Bin Laden died of untreated lung complications and was buried in an unmarked grave in Tora Bora on December 15.[91] This report was picked up by Fox News in the United States on December 26.[92] Also on December 26, the Egyptian newspaper AlWafd - Daily carried a short obituary by a prominent official of the Afghan Taliban, who was allegedly present at the funeral, stating Bin Laden had been buried on or about December 13:[93]

"(Osama bin Laden) suffered serious complications and died a natural, quiet death. He was buried in Tora Bora, a funeral attended by 30 Al Qaeda fighters, close members of his family and friends from the Taliban. By the Wahhabi tradition, no mark was left on the grave"

A videotape was released on December 27 showing a gaunt, unwell Bin Laden, prompting an unnamed White House aide to comment that it could have been made shortly before his death.[91] On CNN, Dr Sanjay Gupta commented that Bin Laden's left arm never moved during the video, suggesting a recent stroke and possibly a symptom of kidney failure.[94] According to Pakistani President Musharraf, Bin Laden required two dialysis machines, which also suggests kidney failure.[95] "I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a... kidney patient," Musharraf said.[95] If Bin Laden suffered kidney failure, he would require a sterile environment, electricity, and continuous attention by a team of specialists, Gupta said.[94] In April 2002, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stated, "We have heard neither hide nor hair of him since, oh, about December in terms of anything hard."[96] FBI Counterterrorism chief Dale Watson and President Karzai of Afghanistan also expressed the opinion that Bin Laden probably died at this time.[97][98]

Late 2005 CIA disbands "Bin Laden Issue Station" codenamed "Alec Station", the CIA's bin Laden tracking unit, 1996–2005[99]

September 2006: On September 23, 2006, the French newspaper L'Est Républicain quoted a report from the French secret service (Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure, DGSE) stating that Osama bin Laden had died in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, after contracting a case of typhoid fever that paralyzed his lower limbs.[100] According to the newspaper, Saudi security services first heard of bin Laden's alleged death on September 4, 2006.[101][102][103] The alleged death was reported by the Saudi Arabian secret service to its government, which reported it to the French secret service. The French defense minister Michèle Alliot-Marie expressed her regret that the report had been published while French President Jacques Chirac declared that bin Laden's death had not been confirmed.[104] American authorities also cannot confirm reports of bin Laden's death,[105] with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying only, "No comment, and no knowledge."[106] Later, CNN's Nic Robertson said that he had received confirmation from an anonymous Saudi source that the Saudi intelligence community has known for a while that bin Laden has a water-borne illness, but that he had heard no reports that it was specifically typhoid or that he had died.[107]

November 2007: In an interview with political interviewer David Frost taken on November 2, 2007, the Pakistani politician and Pakistan Peoples Party leader Benazir Bhutto claimed that bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh. During her answer to a question pertaining to the identities of those who had previously attempted her own assassination, Bhutto named Sheikh as a possible suspect while referring to him as "the man who murdered Osama bin Laden." Despite the weight of such a statement, neither Bhutto nor Frost attempted to clarify it during the remainder of the interview.[108] Omar Chatriwala, a journalist for Al Jazeera English, claims that he chose not to pursue the story at the time because he believes Bhutto misspoke, meaning to say Sheikh murdered Daniel Pearl and not Osama Bin Laden.[109] The BBC drew criticism when it rebroadcast the Frost/Bhutto interview on its website, but edited out Bhutto's statement regarding Osama Bin Laden. Later the BBC apologized and replaced the edited version with the complete interview.[110] In October 2007, Bhutto stated in an interview that she would cooperate with the American military in targeting Osama bin Laden.[111]

April 2009: During an interview with the Telegraph, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari raised the prospect that Osama bin Laden could be dead after he said that intelligence officials could find "no trace" of the al-Qaeda chief. Mr Zardari's predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, similarly suggested that the Saudi terror chief could be dead. Additionally, Pakistan's intelligence agencies also believed bin Laden possibly to be dead.[112]

See also

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References

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External links

Osama bin Laden dead, report U.S. officials at Wikinews

34°10′9″N 73°14′33″E / 34.16917°N 73.24250°E / 34.16917; 73.24250