Posted on 05/02/2011 1:12:45 PM PDT by jazusamo
(CNSNews.com) - A senior administration official providing the “details on the intelligence background” of the raid that killed al Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden said that when U.S. intelligence officials first discovered the compound in Pakistan where they believed bin Laden was living they “were shocked” by what they saw.
U.S. intelligence agencies found the compound after years of following a trail that began with information they gleaned from “post-9/11 period” al Qaeda detainees, the official said in a conference call briefing held by the White House shortly after midnight. The transcript of the briefing was posted on the White House website.
The first step on the trail was information about a courier, who had been a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11 attacks.
“Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden,” the senior administration official said. “They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden.”
After first positively identifying this courier and then ultimately discovering the unusual compound where he and his brother lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan, U.S. intelligence officials believed they may well have discovered the hiding place of Osama bin Laden.
“When we saw the compound where the brothers lived, we were shocked by what we saw--an extraordinarily unique compound,” said the senior administration official.
Here is the part of the White House transcript in which a senior administration official explains how the discovery was made:
Senior Administration Official: Thank you.
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 that was hiding there was Osama bin Laden.
What I’d like to do is walk you through the key points in that intelligence trail that led us to that conclusion.
From the time that we first recognized bin Laden as a threat, the CIA gathered leads on individuals in bin Laden’s inner circle, including his personal couriers. Detainees in the post-9/11 period flagged for us individuals who may have been providing direct support to bin Laden and his deputy, Zawahiri, after their escape from Afghanistan.
One courier in particular had our constant attention. Detainees gave us his nom de guerre or his nickname and identified him as both a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11th, and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the former number three of al Qaeda who was captured in 2005.
Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden. They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden. But for years, we were unable to identify his true name or his location.
Four years ago, we uncovered his identity, and for operational reasons, I can’t go into details about his name or how we identified him, but about two years ago, after months of persistent effort, we identified areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operated. Still we were unable to pinpoint exactly where they lived, due to extensive operational security on their part. The fact that they were being so careful reinforced our belief that we were on the right track.
Then in August 2010, we found their residence, a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a town about 35 miles north of Islamabad. The area is relatively affluent, with lots of retired military. It’s also insolated from the natural disasters and terrorist attacks that have afflicted other parts of Pakistan. When we saw the compound where the brothers lived, we were shocked by what we saw -- an extraordinarily unique compound. The compound sits on a large plot of land in an area that was relatively secluded when it was built. It is roughly eight times larger than the other homes in the area.
When the compound was built in 2005, it was on the outskirts of the town center, at the end of a narrow dirt road. In the last six years, some residential homes have been built nearby. The physical security measures of the compound are extraordinary. It has 12- to 18-foot walls topped with barbed wire. Internal wall sections -- internal walls sectioned off different portions of the compound to provide extra privacy. Access to the compound is restricted by two security gates, and the residents of the compound burn their trash, unlike their neighbors, who put the trash out for collection.
The main structure, a three-story building, has few windows facing the outside of the compound. A terrace on the third floor has a seven-foot wall privacy--has a seven-foot privacy wall.
It’s also noteworthy that the property is valued at approximately $1 million but has no telephone or Internet service connected to it. The brothers had no explainable source of wealth.
Intelligence analysts concluded that this compound was custom built to hide someone of significance. We soon learned that more people were living at the compound than the two brothers and their families. A third family lived there--one whose size and whose makeup matched the bin Laden family members that we believed most likely to be with Osama bin Laden. Our best assessment, based on a large body of reporting from multiple sources, was that bin Laden was living there with several family members, including his youngest wife.
Everything we saw--the extremely elaborate operational security, the brothers’ background and their behavior, and the location and the design of the compound itself was perfectly consistent with what our experts expected bin Laden’s hideout to look like. Keep in mind that two of bin Laden’s gatekeepers, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Faraj al-Libbi, were arrested in the settled areas of Pakistan.
Our analysts looked at this from every angle, considering carefully who other than bin Laden could be at the compound. We conducted red team exercises and other forms of alternative analysis to check our work. No other candidate fit the bill as well as bin Laden did.
So the final conclusion, from an intelligence standpoint, was twofold. We had high confidence that a high-value target was being harbored by the brothers on the compound, and we assessed that there was a strong probability that that person was Osama bin Laden.
You CAN have computer and hard drives, etc. WITHOUT internet and telephone. I'll pass on referring to you as a fool though. :)
Stunning lack of thought, isn't it?
A friend of mine happened to be in Pakistan a few years back and swears she saw Bin Laden in a government building.
They’ve been “hiding” him in plain sight for a very long time. Glad we got him!
Seems to me I’ve come across an article that suggests Zero and his puppetmaster Jarrett were dead set against this operation and Hillary and the CIA were the catalysts. The article called it a “coup”. I’ll have to see if I can locate it again. I think a FB friend directed me to it.
Reads as if this entire compound was built from the ground up to house Bin Laden. And it was constructed in the safest neighborhood in Pakistan. We had to know something was going on there ever since the construction began.
View inside Ben Laden’s ‘mansion’:
Looks like something from ‘Hoarders: buried alive’.
LOL. Did these guys sleep through 5th grade English?
The word ‘unique’ is never modified.
Statement by Trump recently:
“Why haven’t we captured Ben Laden?
Come on, how can you lose a 6 ft Arab on dialysis?
Pakistan knows where he is.
Cut off their foreign aid. They’ll cough him up”
“I wonder how young his wife was and was she hot.”
She certainly was after that white phosphorous round hit her.
No doubt the compound was built specifically for Osama. There had to be many Pakis that knew it and I imagine some in our intel had a good idea.
I’d be willing to bet that even without hard wired telephone or internet service, he probably still was hounded by telemarketers.
Obama gives billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to countries and entities that support Sharia law and/or harbor, hide and support those who want to destroy the U.S. and our allies.
http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/obamas-supplemental-bill-passes-gives-billions-to-enemies/
• $3.6 billion, matching the request, to expand and improve capabilities of the Afghan security forces
• $400 million, as requested, to build the counterinsurgency capabilities of the Pakistani security forces•
Afghanistan: $1.52 billion, $86 million above the request • West Bank and Gaza: $665 million in bilateral economic, humanitarian, and security assistance for the West Bank and Gaza
• Jordan: $250 million, $250 million above the request, including $100 million for economic and $150 million for security assistance
• Egypt: $360 million, $310 million above the request, including $50 million for economic assistance, $50 million for border security, and $260 million for security assistance
• Pakistan: $1.9 billion, $591 million above the request
• Iraq: $968 million, $336 million above the request
• Oversight: $20 million, $13 million above the request, to expand oversight capacity of the State Department, USAID, and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan to review programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq
• Lebanon: $74 million
• International Food Assistance: $500 million, $200 million above the request, for PL 480 international food assistance to alleviate suffering during the global economic crisis
• Refugee Assistance: $343 million, $50 million above the request, …including humanitarian assistance for Gaza. Funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency programs in the West Bank and Gaza is limited to $119 million (Note: Gaza = Hamas)
• Disaster Assistance: $200 million to avert famines and provide life-saving assistance during natural disasters and for internally displaced people around the world, including Somalia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, the Middle East and South Asia
• Peacekeeping: $837 million for United Nations peacekeeping operations, including an expanded mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a new mission in Chad and the Central African Republic
• Department of Justice: $17 million, matching the request, for counter-terrorism activities and to provide training and assistance for the Iraqi criminal justice system The mainstream media remains silent on this but the International News has now picked up the story http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=22164 — and then there is Obama’s $108 billion IMF bailout scheme http://michellemalkin.com/2009/05/13/obamas-100-billion-imf-bailout-scheme/ in addition to the Supplemental.
According to the Associated Press, the Obama administration will give away nearly $6 million of American tax dollars to restore 63 historic and cultural sites, including Islamic mosques and minarets, in 55 nations. See the State Department document here.
http://exchanges.state.gov/media/pdfs/office-of-policy-and-evaluations/ambassadors-fund/afcp2010list.pdf
I would say that Bush was extremely close to catching him. BO definitely couldn’t have done it without the Bush Administration.
I’m willing to bet all I have that all the branches working on the end of this maggot would dedicate the mission’s success to W.
Let’s see if zero is brave enough to insist on photo ops with these men. Doubt it.
So how is it that they have hard drives from the computers inside. I owned two computers with hard drives before I had internet. (And my first internets connected computor had a hard drive with less capacity than I have today on a $10 USB thumb drive)
bump
“in August 2010, we found their residence”
That was almost a year ago. This is May 2011.
Why now?
Good question, I wondered the same thing. It definitely shouldn’t take that long to gather intel and act on it if you’re serious about taking him down.
“Honestly, do you know who lives in all of the homes around you?”
That’s a reasonable question, but actually, though I don’t know all of them, I do know a lot. I am also rather nosy and I take a good look at my neighborhood as I walk around it for exercise. At the moment, I am weighing whether I should call in some neighbors whom I suspect of running a cock-fighting enterprise. I don’t have hard evidence but things look pretty odd there. (A lot of people have a lot of chickens, but how many have an opaque eight foot fence, concertina razor wire at the top of the fence, and judging by the number of rooster calls, a LOT of roosters instead of hens?) At any rate, I endeavor to be on top of things instead of getting caught by surprise.
I think a better question is, how aware are the police in this area of what is going on here? How aware should they be? In an area such as Abbottabad where there are a lot of military entities, how aware are they or SHOULD they be of reclusive millionaires who come in and build impregnable fortresses with 12 foot fences? I would argue that they should be as nosy as I am.
No one in the United States would tolerate the kind of police scrutiny that we’re saying should have existed in Pakistan. I’m just saying that if there were no overt crimes going on at bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad then the Pakistani police had no reason to bother anyone there. Add to this the fact that while Osama’s place did attract some attention, it is not all that remarkable for people in that part of the world to have places like that. Around here you need only go to Mexico City and you’ll see homes that make Osama’s place look downright flimsy.
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