Posted on 05/02/2011 3:14:56 AM PDT by CutePuppy
U.S. forces finally found al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden not in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan's border, but in a million-dollar compound in an upscale suburb of Pakistan's capital, with his youngest wife, U.S. officials said early on Monday.
They 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 Sept. 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.
"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 Abbotabad, a town about 35 miles (60 km) north of Islamabad, that is relatively affluent and home to many retired members of Pakistan's military.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Great job by JSOC, but unfortunately doesn't do much for the WOT, now being fueled in the MEA through inaction in the name of "democracy" (when it's convenient) or plain 180-degree-wrong bull-headed actions (in the name of "humanitarian efforts") by "Chief Leader from Behind".
I am surprised OBL didn’t escape through a tunnel.
That would be my biggest concern going in.
Those people tunnel like crazy.
Detainees at Gitmo gave this information?
Wow, proof that Waterboarding actually works! Or maybe they just turned on a 24-hour long tape of Hillary speeches and cackles.
That’s the reason why it took HUMINT and not just SIGINT and Predators/G-Hawks with missiles. HUMINT also was decisive in capturing Saddam in Iraq.
Bump.
Dirka, Dirka Boys!
And what did we do to Afghanistan for harboring him?
PISSED me off to hear we “treated the body under full Islamic custom” and “buried him at sea”. Hope that means the Seals pissed on his corpse and they tossed him over the fantail with the rest of the trash....
OBL hasn’t been seen for years and all of a sudden he exposes himself in in a high profile compound and then is quickly buried at sea? Something doesn’t smell right in Denmark.
Like we believe that this will convince them that we're not bad people after all.
What it really shows them is that we are afraid of them.
Hopefully, it's all video-recorded.
From Pakistan was not told about bin Laden operation - AFP, 2011 May 02
"We shared this intelligence on the compound with no other country, including Pakistan," the official told reporters on condition of anonymity. The need to maintain the complete secrecy of the operation was cited as the chief reason. ..... < snip > Obama said he had directed helicopter-borne US armed forces to launch an attack against a heavily fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Sunday acting on a lead that first emerged last August. ..... < snip > ..... "Pakistan has long understood we are at war with AQ (Al-Qaeda), the US had the legal and moral obligation to act on the information it had," the official noted. ..... < snip > WASHINGTON - The United States did not notify Pakistani allies about its operation against Osama bin Laden, a senior US administration official said Monday.
I sincerely hope that Elvis and Amelia weren’t hurt in the attack...
Buried at sea? Who made the decision to do that and why? That really ticks me off!
Yep..smells like old rancid road kill my dog buried in the yard for later.
They had to have told Pakistan they were doing SOMETHING. But they didn’t have to mention Bin Laden.
I would think the decision of what to do with the body is something they discussed & planned a long time ago.
Our Government did it to prevent his family from burying him and creating a shrine around the burial site. (Fox is reporting this)
OBL’s oldest and closest brother already is making demands that government turn OBL’s body over to them so that “he can be buried with his own”. (this was on CNN this morning)
that THE government (sorry... been up all night)
There are many rich Saudis, including some princes, who might have supported bin Laden financially, but the “official” Saudi government had no love lost for Osama (who for a long time wanted and called for overthrow of Saudi regime).
It’s tough to really “know bin Laden’s location” when he was often on the move and often warned by ISI when suspicions arose about his location getting “hot” on the intelligence radar. That’s why discovering and tracking courier(s) would be the best way to discover new location.
Whoever was killed there at the time of this attack didn’t get the advanced notice.
How many times had Osama visited Obama at the White House?
Ted Kennedy had the following comment:
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