Bin Laden compound was a command center: U.S. official

Yahoo ^ | 5/7/11 | David Alexander - Reuters

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The compound in Pakistan where U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden was an active command center from which he directed al Qaeda, a senior intelligence official said on Saturday as he released videos showing bin Laden watching himself on tape and rehearsing speeches.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said information carted away from the compound by U.S. forces following Monday's raid represented the largest trove of intelligence ever obtained from a single terrorism suspect.

"This compound in Abbottabad was an active command and control center for al Qaeda's top leader and it's clear ... that he was not just a strategic thinker for the group," the official said. "He was active in operational planning and in driving tactical decisions."

The official released five video clips of bin Laden taken from the compound, most of them showing the al Qaeda leader, his beard dyed black, evidently rehearsing the videotaped speeches he occasionally distributed to his followers.

One video segment, however, showed a gray-bearded bin Laden in a more casual setting wrapped in a blanket and apparently wearing a ski cap while watching videotapes of himself. The official said the personal nature of the videos was further evidence that the man killed in the raid was bin Laden.

[CurlyDave]

“an active command and control center” — with no phones and internet?

Having a courier take letters back and forth, that takes days and bring back a response in another few days, then another instruction back in several days again... Sure, that makes a lot of sense for “an active command and control center”...

In a setting where attacks on soft (i.e. undefended) targets take months to years to be planned, practiced, and finally implemented it is not at all incongruous that the highest command level, responsible for target selection and financing, could have slow communications. Especially if it lead to very good security.

Look at the 9/11 attacks. OBL did not have day-to-day command responsibility, that rested with disposable underlings. He selected the targets, and periodically released money to the operational organization. If the status reports he read were a week old, so what? These were not modern military operations where speed is required.

Suppose he decides to attack a rail system. The date will be a year or more in the future. Why does he need daily reports? A monthly report is all he needs, if that. All he needs in the way of feedback is funding requests and some idea of when the plot will mature, so he doesn't launch a conflicting operation.

The danger lies in the sick mind that thinks this stuff up, the ability to finance it, and the group of followers who take his orders with religious fervor.

[af_vet_rr]

Some news reports have referred to information on “safe houses” among the intel. That kind of intel needs to be used immediately, before it becomes widely known. Why did Obama announce it worldwide on TV within hours of the raid, destroying any intel that had a short shelf-life?

Most likely because they didn't get a lot of that kind of intel that they are leading everybody to believe, or they haven't had time to act on the serious stuff that is probably encrypted. The CIA is using the opportunity to flush Al Qaeda operatives out into the open as they move to other locations, thinking they have been compromised. Our drones, satellites, and signals people probably saw a definite spike in activity that they were able to easily track as a result.

It's a very old tactic to be honest so it's not something that's been thought up recently. It's still effective, because you have a lot of people who think they have been compromised, and given the cowardly nature of the operations they engage in, many probably don't have the nerve to hang around and see if they were actually compromised.

The drone attacks in Yemen and Pakistan this week are probably either the results of Al Qaeda operatives being flushed out into the open and not the results of any hard intelligence that was learned, or they were already planned before the Bin Laden raid and then were carried out within the following days to make Al Qaeda operatives think that people were compromised by Bin Laden.

The beauty of all of this is that Al Qaeda operatives genuinely don't know if they've been compromised or not. When Panetta briefed members of Congress and they began running their mouths, that was probably planned. The "leaks" from "intelligence officials" about what all was picked up during the raid were also probably planned to get airtime. Al Qaeda simply doesn't know whether those members of Congress or anonymous "intelligence officials" are speaking the truth or lies, and they have no way of knowing who exactly has been compromised, especially given that we probably were tracking the couriers who would have visited a lot of places.

I complained elsewhere that Saxy Chambliss was running his mouth and talking way too much about the SEALs and their operation and what all came out of it, but he talked directly to Panetta multiple times this week, and so in retrospect everything he said was probably cleared by Panetta. But Al Qaeda can't be certain that people like him were speaking with Panetta's approval or whether he was telling the truth about what all happened and was recovered. It would not be the first time that members of Congress or their staff deliberately leaked misinformation.

[Americanexpat]

Might of been a command center but it was definately a pig sty.

[Americanexpat]

Yeah, that struck me as weird too. Whatever value the intel had is being pissed away. The bad guys will just change their operations and go deeper underground. I think all this is to prop up Zero.

[Americanexpat]

There appeared to be several antennas on the roof in the one shot I saw. Knowing our penchant for using drones to hit targets I am surprised he did not have bomb proof a safe room.

[mewykwistmas]

Not saying it was a command center or not, but having phones or using email to contact would the dumbest move. We own that field through NSA.

I read that his courier even traveled 90 minutes to make phone calls to lose the location.

[shalom aleichem]

Does anyone doubt anymore that our government actively lies to us? I don’t mean they keep secrets. They deliberately and routinely lie to us. Not sure how long this has been going on. But the Dems sure started accusing Bush of it, “lied us into war”, etc. Maybe they stuck to that because they knew that it was common for Bubba and possibly other Presidents to lie, lie, lie. Of course the media thinks it is cute. Call it “spin”. Media lies are also evident and obvious. “Command center” my a$$!

[Calvin Locke]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2716367/posts

[tobyhill]

If that was a command center then there is no way that someone in Pakistani ISI or Military didn't know.

[ecomcon]

They live like teenagers. The leader of the Muslim Ummah lives like a teenager. Mwhahaha.

Pathetic loser with his goodwill furniture. Beats a cave, I guess.

[BradyLS]

I just don't understand why the intelligence community is crowing about "the largest intelligence collection ever"...Telling AQ we got good stuff is just insane.

That's the difference between Obama and common sense.

Obama shows the intelligence and hides the body.

Common sense says to show the body and hide the intelligence.

[bigdaddy45]

Good analysis. I find it fascinating that just because Obama is president most here seem to have lost all confidence in our military and intelligence professionals. Their leadership sucks. The true professionals know what they are doing.

[livius]

That was then, this is now. Things have changed a lot in 40+ years, and he knew it.

Supposedly his minions used to drive 90 minutes before even making a phone call from a “disposable” phone. None of this technology was around back in the 60s and 70s.

That said, I think he was essentially sick, useless and under a sort of house arrest by the Pakis. Other than releasing the occasional hallucinatory video supporting Dem candidates, he had done nothing for the last few years. His time was up.

[Meet the New Boss]

That explanation doesn’t fit the timeline. We know it was about 4 pm east coast time when the helicopters arrived at the compound in Abbottabad, based on the coffee shop guy who live blogged the sound of a helicopter overhead.

Allow four hours to clear the compound and return to Bagram AB, and you’re at 8 pm east coast time. The first thing the guys would do when they got back is carefully inventory the loot and debrief, before even starting to work on the contents of any information databases retrieved.

Yet Obama had already decided he was going to speak sometime before 10 pm east coast time. So they would not have even known what they had, in order to know for certain that they had squat and therefore to go ahead with a bluff strategy to try to flush the bad guys out.

Give me six more hours in the timeline and I MIGHT buy your explanation.

With the facts we have, this can only be incompetence or worse on the part of Obama. He wanted so much to dance in the end zone and spike the ball in the face of the Bush administration, when what he should have done is run a few running plays to take some time off the clock before holding a press conference to announce the touchdown.

[Tenniel2]

Indeed. What’s the bandwidth of a kid in sneakers with a backpack full of thumbdrives?

[Slump Tester]

LOL - Where’s his other hand?

[dixiechick2000]

Bumping all of your posts, Krankor.

Bush said he wasn’t worried about OBL. I thnk that, now, we know why he wasn’t worried.

Anybody who feels the need to dye his beard...

[gnawbone]

I’m not convinced he was even alive .... well, alive after he was dead from when he was originally alive .... or something like that.

I’ll have to check back with Alex Jones, he seems to know that chain of events </sarc>

Also, if we wanted to kill Bin Laden for 9/11 then why when we elected a far left loon did “we” not kill Bush/Cheney since, according to left wing loons, it was an inside job. BHO might want to enlist the help of someone with experience in finding “real killers” to sort out whether it was OBL or Bush

(did OJ ever find the real killer? he promised ...)

</sarc - again>(it’s early and I haven’t finished my coffee yet, so, pardon me)

[FDNYRHEROES]

A “command center” with no phone service, no internet, no TV?

Like Robinson Carusoe, it was primitive as could be...

[FDNYRHEROES]

kept him barely afloat

ooooh, the irony...