Free Republic

LIMA — It was more than just an answer to prayer. A US military mission that cornered and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was nothing short of a miracle, said Peru's President Alan Garcia, who attributed the divine intervention to newly beatified pontiff John Paul II. "His first miracle has been to rid the world of this incarnation of evil, this demon of hatred and criminality," the Peruvian leader said, referring to the Al-Qaeda leader. The late John Paul II showed uncanny timing, with his miracle falling on the very same day as a Rome ceremony beatifying him. Pope...

A newly-released email shows that 11 days after the killing of terror leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, the U.S. military's top special operations officer ordered subordinates to destroy any photographs of the al-Qaida founder's corpse or turn them over to the CIA. The email was obtained under a freedom of information request by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch. The document, released Monday by the group, shows that Adm. William McRaven, who heads the U.S. Special Operations Command, told military officers on May 13, 2011 that photos of bin Laden's remains should have been sent to the CIA or...

The body of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was not buried at sea, according to leaked emails of intelligence firm Stratfor, as revealed by WikiLeaks. Stratfor’s vice-president for intelligence, Fred Burton, believes the body was “bound for Dover, [Delaware] on [a] CIA plane” and then “onward to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Bethesda [Maryland],” an email says. The official version is that the body of Al-Qaeda’s top man, who was killed by a US raid in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, was buried at an undisclosed location at sea in a proper Muslim ceremony. "If body dumped at...

War On Terror: As in Benghazi, we still don't know the full story of the greatest single loss in Afghanistan and the largest SEAL loss ever — members of a renowned group outed by a loose-lipped vice president. It's not officially on the growing list of Obama administration scandals, but earlier this month families of Navy SEAL Team 6 members killed in a disastrous August 2011 shoot-down of a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan gathered at the National Press Club asking for answers, calling for a congressional investigation and blaming their government for the tragedy, the indifference and the secrecy that...

Internal Military Emails Reveal Details On bin Laden's Burial November 21, 2012 WASHINGTON – Internal emails among senior U.S. military officers indicate that no sailors watched Usama bin Laden's burial at sea from the USS Carl Vinson and traditional Islamic procedures were followed during the ceremony. The emails, obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, are heavily blacked out, but are the first public disclosure of government information about the Al Qaeda leader's death. The emails were released Wednesday by the Defense Department. Bin Laden was killed on May 1, 2011, by a Navy SEAL team...

The decision to raid Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and kill him was made without President Obama – and actually was kept from him until after the helicopters already were in Pakistani airspace – according to a new report from a retired major general who cites a senior intelligence source. The raid was handled by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Director of Central Intelligence Leon Panetta and others in this way because Obama had vetoed multiple earlier opportunities to attack the man behind the 9/11 terror attacks, the report said. Ads by Google Silver to Soar in 2013? Free...

Storm gathers over Pakistan "coup" memo Anita Joshua Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S. Husain Haqqani is reported to have tendered his resignation on Wednesday (American time) following allegations that he had submitted a memo on behalf of President Asif Ali Zardari to former U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen to pre-empt a possible coup in the wake of the May 2 operation against al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. However, several hours after news broke of the resignation offer made during the night (Pakistani time), there was no word from the Government on whether it had been accepted or not....

At the urging of Valerie Jarrett, President Barack Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden on three separate occasions before finally approving the May 2, 2011 Navy SEAL mission, according to an explosive new book scheduled for release August 21. The Daily Caller has seen a portion of the chapter in which the stunning revelation appears. In ”Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him,“ Richard Miniter writes that Obama canceled the “kill” mission in January 2011, again in February, and a third time in March. Obama’s close adviser Valerie Jarrett persuaded him...

Bin Laden Plotted New Attack By SIOBHAN GORMAN Osama bin Laden was working to assemble a team of militants to attack the U.S. on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, according to communications Navy SEALs seized from his Pakistani hideout when they killed the al Qaeda leader this spring. Bin Laden and his operations chief, Attiyah Abd al-Rahman, swapped views about the composition of the attack team, with bin Laden repeatedly rejecting names that Mr. Rahman suggested, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence taken from the bin Laden compound. The plans were only in the discussion phase, U.S. officials...

THE death of Osama bin Laden provoked scenes of jubilation in America. Coming in the middle of the spring, the reaction in the Middle East was mixed. We look at responses to his death in the Arab press. In al-Sharq al-Awsat, a pan-Arab newspaper, Hussein al-Shabakshy comments on the response of the general public and media to Mr bin Laden's death and the consequences for the uprisings in the Arab world: The reaction of the Arab public has been varied. Some refuse to believe he was just killed because—according to them—he was "already dead": how else could his prolonged silence...

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani authorities still have three of Osama bin Laden's wives and eight of his children in custody, nearly a week after the U.S. raid that killed the Saudi terrorist leader, and no countries have asked for their return, the government said Sunday. Pakistan gained custody of bin Laden's family members after the covert U.S. operation on May 2 that killed the al-Qaida chief and four others at his hide-out in the northwestern city of Abbottabad and further strained relations between the two nations. Their questioning could provide more information on the U.S. military operation and help reveal how...