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| Osama bin Laden |
Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin Awaḍ bin Lādin; March 9, 1957 – May 2, 2011 was the founder of the al-Qaeda organization, responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family.
Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden and his organization have been major targets of the War on Terror, which totally has resulted in between 80,000 and 1.2 million civilian deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia between 2001 and 2007.
On May 1, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama authorized a raid on bin Laden's suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan. The operation was successfully carried out by U.S. Navy SEALs, with intelligence support from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). During the 40-minute raid, bin Laden was fatally shot in the head. After intelligence searches of the compound were conducted, his body was taken into custody and genetic and facial recognition tests were performed. After positive identification, and within 24 hours of his death, bin Laden's body was taken out to sea for burial.
Mujahideen in Afghanistan
After leaving college in 1979 bin Laden joined Abdullah Azzam to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and lived for a time in Peshawar. From 1979 through 1989 under U.S. Presidents Carter and Reagan, the United States Central Intelligence Agency provided overt and covert financial aid, arms and training to Osama's Islamic Jihad Mujahideen through Operation Cyclone, and the Reagan Doctrine. President Reagan often praised the Mujahideen as Afghanistan's "Freedom Fighters."
By 1984, with Azzam, bin Laden established Maktab al-Khadamat, which funneled money, arms and Muslim fighters from around the Arabic world into the Afghan war. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters. Osama established a camp in Afghanistan and with other volunteers fought the Soviets.
It was during his time in Peshawar that he began wearing camouflage-print jackets and carrying a captured Soviet assault rifle, which urban legends claimed he had obtained by killing a Russian soldier with his bare hands.
Obama administration
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said in December 2009 that officials had had no reliable information on Bin Laden's whereabouts for years. One week later, General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said in December 2009 that al-Qaeda will not be defeated unless its leader, Osama Bin Laden, is captured or killed. Testifying to the U.S. Congress, he said bin Laden had become an "iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world", and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. "I don't think that we can finally defeat al-Qaeda until he's captured or killed", McChrystal said of Bin Laden. "Killing or capturing bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large."
In April 2011, Obama approved an operation to capture bin Laden. On May 1, 2011 (23:30 EDT), Obama released a statement saying that American forces had killed bin Laden.
Activities and whereabouts after the September 11 attacks
Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush stated that he now hoped to "kill or capture" Bin Laden. Subsequently, Bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Since that time, numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally-verified videos demonstrating Bin Laden's continued survival as recently as August 2007. Most recently, U.S. Army General Stanley A. McChrystal had emphasized the continued importance of the capture or killing of bin Laden, thus clearly indicating that the US high command continued to believe that Bin Laden was probably still alive. Some of the conflicting reports regarding both his continued whereabouts and previous mistaken claims about his death have included the following:
Many claims as to the location of Osama bin Laden were made in the wake of 9/11, although none were ever definitively proven and some placed Osama in different locations during overlapping time periods. After military offensives in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 failed to uncover his whereabouts, Pakistan was regularly identified as his suspected hiding place.
A December 11, 2005, letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicates that bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, "Atiyah" instructs Zarqawi to "send messengers from your end to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership ... I am now on a visit to them and I am writing you this letter as I am with them..." Al-Rahman also indicates that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are "weak" and "have many of their own problems." The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post.
In 2009, a research team led by Thomas W. Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as bin Laden's likely hideouts.
In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. According to the report, author Rohan Gunaratna states that captured Al Qaeda leaders have confirmed that Chitral is where bin Laden is hiding.
In the first week of December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that Bin Laden was in Afghanistan in 2009. The detainee said that in January or February (of 2009) he met a trusted contact who had seen Bin Laden about 15 to 20 days earlier in Afghanistan. However, on December 6, 2009. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the U.S. had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of Bin Laden in years. Pakistan's Prime Minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
On February 2, 2010, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban would sever ties with extremists and expel Osama bin Laden. This condition was announced as the Afghan president Karzai arrived in the kingdom for an official visit, for a discussion of a possible Saudi role in his plan to reintegrate Taliban militants.
On June 7, 2010, the Kuwaiti Al Siyassa reported that Bin Laden was hiding in the mountainous town of Savzevar, in north eastern Iran. The Australian newspaper online published the claim on June 9.
On October 18, 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that bin Laden was "alive and well and living comfortably" in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the United States.
On April 16, 2011, a leaked Al Jazeera report claimed that bin Laden had been captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Death
On May 1, 2011, in Washington, D.C. (May 2, Pakistan Standard Time), U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed by "a small team of Americans" acting under Obama's direct orders, in a covert operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, about 50 km (31 mi) north of Islamabad. It had been believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas,[154] but he was actually found 100 miles (160 km) away in a million-dollar three-story mansion in Abbottabad at 34°10′9.67″N 73°14′33.60″E. Bin Laden's mansion was located 0.75 miles (1.21 km) southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy (Pakistan's "West Point"). Google Earth maps show that the compound was not present in 2001, but was present on images taken in 2005.
U.S. officials reported that a team of 20–25 U.S. Navy SEALs from the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six), under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command and working with the CIA, stormed bin Laden's compound in two helicopters. Bin Laden, three other men, and a woman were killed in a firefight in which U.S. forces did not experience any injuries or casualties. In his broadcast announcement President Obama said that U.S. forces "took care to avoid civilian casualties." Among the others killed were one of bin Laden's sons, a man described as a courier, and the courier's brother. Four years of surveillance of the courier led to the intelligence which made the raid possible. It was reported that the courier was the owner of the compound where the assault took place. John Brennan, the White House anti-terrorism chief, said that the woman that was killed was one of bin Laden's four wives and was being used as a human shield at the time. Two other women, who were also used as shields, were injured during the raid. According to one U.S. official the attack was carried out without the knowledge or consent of Pakistani authorities. In contrast, agents of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) said it was a joint operation.
In the firefight, bin Laden was shot twice, once above his left eye, blowing away a part of his skull, and once in his chest.
DNA from bin Laden's body, compared with DNA samples on record from his dead sister's brain confirmed bin Laden's identity the following day according to assertions to ABC News by unnamed sources. The 193 cm long body was recovered by the U.S. military and was in its custody until his body was buried in the North Arabian Sea from the USS Carl Vinson, within 24 hours of his death in accord with Islamic traditions. One U.S. official stated that, "finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult." MSNBC reported, "There also was speculation about worry that a grave site could have become a rallying point for militants.
The U.S. State Department issued a "worldwide caution" for Americans following bin Laden's death and U.S diplomatic facilities everywhere were placed on high alert, a senior U.S official said. Crowds gathered outside the White House and in New York City's Times Square to celebrate bin Laden's death. Chittral News, a Pakistani news site, claimed that some people were dismayed that Pakistan has lost its sovereignty.
Pakistan hiding Osama bin Laden
Critics have accused Pakistan's military and security establishment of protecting bin Laden. For example Mosharraf Zaidi, a leading Pakistani columnist stated “It seems deeply improbable that Bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state,” This issue is expected to worsen US ties with Pakistan. The bin Laden was killed in what some suggest was his residence for at least three years. It was an expensive compound, probably built for him and less than 100 kilometres' drive from the capital.
Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari has denied that his country's security forces may have sheltered Osama bin Laden. Pakistan's US envoy, ambassador Husain Haqqani, promises a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services failed to find bin Laden in a fortified compound, just a few hours drive from Islamabad, and stated that "Obviously bin Laden did have a support system, the issue is was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan or within the society of Pakistan?"