Posted on 04/04/2009 11:46:19 AM PDT by RobinMasters
Osama bin Laden’s passion for falcon hunting may have come close to doing him in two years ago, when an American falconer working with a Tajik smuggler and a team of former special forces operators planned to kidnap the fugitive terrorist during a hunt in northeastern Iran, according to one of the people involved in the scheme.
The plan was scuttled when FBI officials in Boston threatened to arrest members of the snatch team for violating the Neutrality Act — even though the State Department has been running a “Rewards for Justice” program offering private citizens up to $25 million for information leading to bin Laden’s capture or arrest, says Alan Parrot, who was in on the plot.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Proof that the left hand is working totally independent of the right. In this case the end justified the means IMO.
Bin Laden is clearly hiding in Iran. He is far safer there than on the Paki/Afghan border where the US can conduct military operations.
I seem to recall a similar story during the Clinton administration. Bin Ladin was out falconing and Clinton said no to an airstrike because some Saudi big whigs were traveling with Bin Ladin. I say you blow up anybody near him. Damn why dont they just ice this guy whenever they get a chance?
I think we need to know the name of the person that called OFF this op...put them in the press, let us know who these traitorous folks are.
O-Bama husseins buddy is in Iran (or at least visits)
His WHOLE family are “guests” of the Iran regime-
His Son-(second in command) regulary exhorts “Jihad”
proclamations against Israel and the West.
First mistake he could not read the Dam thing it should have been in ransom note Font.. Second MISTAKE was telling the US traitor controled Government anything until he was captured and out of Iran.
Agreed this will be looked at again!
A Salifists hiding in a country run by apostates, interesting.
Maybe TPTB don’t really want Bin Laden captured or killed. They need someone to demonize, for us to focus on so we don’t discover their agenda.
I always thought NewsMax was reputable. Can this be true?
I have never bought into conspiracy theories.
no, but the basement of the Whitehouse is more believable..... who do think pushes TOTUS'S buttons?
dang the proof readin' skillz
Did Bin Laden Find Safe Haven in Iran ?
I lean in that direction.
That country is stable compared to Afghanistan and if he was smart then he would have had a bolt hole already arranged there.
Keep the distractions going by his minions in the tribal areas and you have a complete plan of action.
Good point I will send this thread link.
It would perfect for OBL if the U. S. military is convinced he is in Pakistan/Afghanistan while he is safely hidden in Iran. If I were OBL, I certainly wouldn't be anywhere where the U. S. could fly Pedators at will. OBL has to know that one little information leak which reveals his location and all the bodyguards in the world won't protect him against the missiles on those eyes-in-the-sky.
Not to hard to connect the dots here. U.S. knows where OBL is and has been monitoring his communications for years.
These intercepts have prevented attacks on U.S. interests through the Bush terms
Only out-of-the-loop wanna-bees like Rat candidates for president say “getting OBL” will be our focus if elected.
IOW, bin Laden is more valuable to us alive than dead.
“I read this entire piece and I am still shaking my head. Don’t know whether to believe it or not. If it’s true nothing we do will matter until we purge the govt. of traitors.”
Yes, purging is necessary! And it could be that the traitors in government just forgot to tell us that Bin Laden is nothing but a pile of dust in the sands of Afganistan due to a daisey cutter back in 2003. Remember how Ben Laden was such a camera/video hog? There was a video of him out about every two weeks. I think it was about December of 2003 there were no more videos. I wonder why.
~~What do we have to do, fund our own private mercenaries
to get him ? Insanity ........ PING!
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The report does not say.
Coincidentally, the Clinton administration National Security Council advisor, Richard Clarke, had just returned to the United States from consultations with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, chief of staff of the U.A.E. armed forces, regarding a proposed sale of F-16s to the Gulf state as well as counter-terrorism issues, according to the report.
Clarke revealed to the 9/11 Commission that during a one-on-one meeting with Sheikh Mohammad, the sheikh had “vehemently denied rumors that high-level U.A.E. officials were in Afghanistan” hunting with bin Laden.
Clarke said the failure to strike bin Laden was a CIA decision.
The proposed air strike was called off four days later “after consultations with [CIA] Director [George] Tenet because the intelligence was dubious,” Clarke told the Commission. But the CIA contested Clarke’s assertions, as did former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Hugh Shelton.
And according to Alan Parrot, an Arabist and falconry expert who became close to Sheikh Mohammad’s father, U.A.E. leader Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, there was never any question that bin Laden was present at the luxury hunting camp in southern Afghanistan along with top U.A.E. officials.
“Osama bin Laden’s hunting partner was none other than Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, and a full brother of the sheikh who signed the F-16 deal,” Parrot told NewsMax.
Sheikh Hamdan stayed in Afghanistan for three full weeks during the 1999 hunt, Parrot said, while supplies were ferried back and forth to the luxury camp by a U.A.E. Ministry of Defense C-130 cargo aircraft.
Falconry camps are a favorite pastime of the Arab world’s elites – a place where leaders meet, and business deals are conducted. For bin Laden and his al-Qaida, falconry provided a similar networking opportunity.
“The falcon camps were al-Qaida’s board room,” Parrot said. “This is where bin Laden went to meet with political leaders and money men” from Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.
Parrot works for the Union for the Conservation of Raptors (www.savethefalcons.org), and has provided legally acquired wild falcons to many top Arab leaders.
Parrot’s conservationist group has been working for 20 years to save endangered falcons, preserve their habitat, and expose illegal trafficking. “We stumbled upon bin Laden’s activities during our field work in Central Asia, when we saw the world’s worst criminals coming into these camps and photographed them.”
According to Parrot, bin Laden often stayed for four weeks at a time in the camps, while the Gulf royals hunted in Toyota Land Cruisers and feasted in million-dollar air-conditioned tents the size of palaces. “The falcon camps were more important to al-Qaida than the military training camps,” Parrot said.
After the U.S. air strike was called off, bin Laden and the U.A.E. royals continued hunting, apparently oblivious to the potential danger. Then on March 7, 1999, Richard Clarke called Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed again, to “express his concerns about possible associations between Emirati officials and bin Laden,” the 9/11 Commission report states.
It is not clear if Clarke ever mentioned that U.S. intelligence had evidence that U.A.E. officials were in fact with bin Laden in Afghanistan – but after the call the group that included bin Laden and his U.A.E. friends quickly dispersed and the camps were dismantled.
Gary Schroen, the first CIA operations officer to enter Afghanistan after 9/11 to plan the U.S.-led war against al-Qaida, complained bitterly to the Commission that Clarke’s actions had scuttled a good opportunity to kill bin Laden before 9/11.
Clarke claims the CIA had signed off on the “tip-off” call to U.A.E. armed forces chief Sheikh Mohammad.
However, former CIA official John Mayer III told the Commission it was “almost impossible” for the CIA to have approved Clarke’s move.
“When the former bin Laden unit chief found out about Clarke’s call, he questioned CIA officials, who denied having given such a clearance,” the report states. “Imagery confirmed that less than a week after Clarke’s phone call the camp was hurriedly dismantled, and the site was deserted.”
Asked by NewsMax to comment on his reported “tip-off” to the U.A.E. sheikh, Clarke said, “I’m not going to get into that. What I said to the 9/11 Commission is what I said to the 9/11 Commission.”
If the U.A.E. had been tipped off to a pending U.S. military strike, one motive had been the Clinton administration’s desire to save the deal to sell F-16s to the U.A.E.
Had Sheikh Hamdan or other U.A.E. officials been killed during a U.S. air strike on bin Laden, it could have seriously damaged the $6.4 billion F-16 deal, the details of which were still being negotiated with the U.A.E.
The deal to sell 80 jets to the U.A.E., signed in 1998 but stalled for another two years, was described by Lockheed sources as the company’s “largest single F-16 sale outside of Israel.”
Lockheed describes the jets on its Web site as “the latest and most advanced version” of the F-16. The U.A.E. was “the lead customer” for the upgraded F-16, Lockheed says. But getting the U.A.E. to buy the U.S. jets proved an arduous task that took more than a decade to finalize.
Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed, chief arms purchaser for the Arab sheikhdom, openly courted the French and threatened repeatedly to purchase Dassault Aviation Mirage 2000 jets if the U.S. wouldn’t give the U.A.E. access to the very latest radar and avionics package.
“The U.A.E. wanted on-board equipment that was more advanced than what we had sold the Israeli Air Force,” a former U.S. official with first-hand knowledge of the negotiations told NewsMax.
“In the end, the Israelis agreed to allow the deal to go through, if the U.A.E. footed the bill for development costs” of key modifications, which are now being shared with Israel.
A Lockheed spokesman in Washington, D.C., Hal Rhoven, told NewsMax he could not comment by phone on “any story relating to the U.A.E.”
The commercial contract between Lockheed and the U.A.E. was finalized in March 2000, one year after Richard Clarke’s “tip-off” call may have allowed the U.A.E. to dismantle the luxury hunting camp in Afghanistan and hastily fly its officials out of harm’s way.
Congress cleared the deal just three months later.
The first Block 60 “Desert Falcon” aircraft were delivered in May 2005, and include an APG-80 agile beam radar, an internalized forward-looking infrared targeting system, a new cockpit, internal electronic counter measures, enhanced-performance F110-GE-132 engine, and conformal fuel tanks, according to GlobalSecurity.org.
New evidence continues to emerge that a golden opportunity to kill bin Laden had been missed.
In late February 2006, the Pentagon released several thousand pages of documents relating to the interrogation of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Among them was a time line of the interrogation of Detainee number 063, identified as Mohammad al-Qatani.
“Al-Qatani was Osama bin Laden’s falconer,” Parrot said. “In the transcript, he states clearly that he received orders and material assistance from persons in the U.A.E. to go to Afghanistan to smuggle falcons.”
The FBI has identified al-Qatani as the 20th hijacker, who was turned away by immigration officials in Orlando, Fla., while 9/11 terrorist Mohamed al-Atta was waiting to pick him up in the airport parking lot.
After his failure to link up with the other 9/11 hijackers, al-Qatani returned to Afghanistan and was eventually picked up by U.S. forces while attempting to flee from Tora Bora in November 2001.
Parrot believes al-Qatani was present at the hunting camp near Kandahar at the same time top U.A.E. sheikhs were hunting, and that he helped bring in cars and other supplies from the U.A.E. to bin Laden and the sheikhs at the camp, in exchange for falcons.
The recently released interrogation log, stamped “Secret ORCON,” states that al-Qatani “visited a place near Kandahar where people from the Gulf states would meet to hunt falcons ... When asked how he knew about this meeting location of Gulf state personnel, he stated ‘Z’ from U.A.E. had told him about this meeting place.”
The log does not identify “Z,” but Parrot believes it could be a reference to the U.A.E. president, Sheikh Zayed, an avid falconer.
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/4/11/124637.shtml?s=lh
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Somebody please tell me why our govt refuses to capture him ????
(2006) The Saudi-Osama Connection
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=6d2276bf-0a2d-4e46-b212-8b9e08c51a1f
________________________________
Falconry and al-Qaeda
al-Qaeda’s ‘Board Room’:
- the Saudi / UAE Royal Falconry Camps -
The “9/11 Commission Report” reports on the UAE “Desert Camp” , corroborating U.C.R.’s dossier on sheikhs and princes who are today’s political leaders representing Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, hosting Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri as V.I.P. guests in royal falconry hunting camps across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan.
The full story is yet to be told about the ‘Money Camps’ , where al-Qaeda’s leaders arrive each Fall, Winter, and Spring to hunt with falcons – as V.I.P. guests of our allies from the Arabian Gulf, who supply al-Qaeda’s leaders with cars, cash, weapons, and medical care during month-long falconry hunting forays.
_ _ _ _ _ _
CLICK HERE to read about
“Intel Summit Touches on Saddam tapes, al-Qaeda Falconry Camps”
http://www.savethefalcons.org/cns_news_intelligence_summit.asp
_ _ _ _ _ _
The Union for the Conservation of Raptors presented breaking news on Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the U.A.E. Minister of Defense and Ruler of Dubai, as being responsible for U.A.E. government-owned C-130 military transport aircraft sent into the falconry hunting camps that host al-Qaeda’s leaders as V.I.P. guests - including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri - during month-long hunts.
Dubai is the same Emirate that seeks to control U.S. border-ports, in a deal that is rumored to be driven by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia .
U.C.R. was first to present breaking news on the actions of Richard Clarke, which preserved the lives of Osama bin Laden and his host, the U.A.E. Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed, when U.A.E. leaders spent one month entertaining and falcon hunting with al-Qaeda terrorists.
After Richard Clarke ‘tipped off’ Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and aborted a CIA-planned bombing of that falconry camp, Mr. Clarke consumated a U.S. $ 6.4 billion contract-sale of eighty F-16 jets that were purchased by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the full-brother of Sheikh Hamdan.
Rest here:
http://www.savethefalcons.org/content.aspx?content_id=11§ion_id=1
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Words fail !!!
“Somebody please tell me why our govt refuses to capture him ????”
The dates tell you the answer to your question. Who was president in 1999 and 2000?
Excellent!
Also stories/incidents like this make it near impossible or highly unlikely to get secret intel from people like Parrot. They just won't take the chance of dealing with us. And why should they?
Stories like this just leave you speechless! You wonder where to go after this.
Stories like this just leave you speechless! You wonder where to go after this.
~~~~~~~~
The islands.
Looks like they do not want to Kill or capture him,I wonder if this is an inside Joke around the Intelligence circle,We need to weed out the Limp Wrists and put put real men back in charge.That is if we ever wish to sleep well EVER Again. These people are Worthless.
“Excellent!”
Links to this thread sent.
You must mean the islands South of Me!
“I hate to bring it up but GW should have purged State,cia and other agencies DIA of all the low lifes still left. Too late now it will only get worse.”
Ditto!
;)
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