Email |  Print | RSS | Comment |  

 Email |  Print

Mon, May 02, 2011 | IsraelNationalNews | by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

A salesman watches television coverage announcing the killing of Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden at a TV shop in Kabul, Afghanistan Monday, May 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq)

Osama bin Laden Killed by U.S. Forces in Pakistan

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, has been killed. Bin Laden was located at a compound in Abbottabad^[1] (Pakistan), less than two hours’ drive from Islamabad, which was monitored and when the time was determined to be right, a small American team led a helicopter raid on bin Laden’s large compound, killing the Al Qaida leader in a fire fight and capturing his body. Senior Pakistani security officials said the operation, carried out at around 1:30 a.m., involved both helicopters and ground troops. Read INN’s news report below:

A U.S. helicopter landed on the roof of Osama Bin Laden’s mansion in Pakistan shortly after midnight Saturday, and Navy SEAL fighters burst out.

They surrounded the mansion’s 12-14-foot thick walls and killed Terrorist No. 1 in a 40-minute firefight. He was shot in the head. None of the American fighters were killed, but it was not disclosed if anyone was wounded.

SEAL (Sea, Air and Land) teams from three other helicopters participated in the raid on the multi-million dollar mansion of Bin Laden. Unconfirmed reports say his son also was killed in the operation, which was kept secret from Pakistan’s government because of the high probability of the presence of double agents.

One of the helicopters developed a technical malfunction after the operation, and American forces blew it up so nothing would fall into the hands of other terrorists.

Bin Laden’s presence in the mansion gave lie to the assumption that he had been hiding out in a cave in Afghanistan, which he may have done in the past.

In addition to the thick surrounding walls, other indications that the mansion was a hideout were the high windows and few access points.

Approximately two dozen Navy Seals participated in the secret operation, carried out between 1:30 and 2:30 a.m.

Besides Bin Laden, the U.S. soldiers killed two of his couriers, his son and a woman who was used to shield him, and captured two people. As reported earlier, Bin Laden’s body is in the hands of American officials and his identity has been confirmed through DNA testing.

The United States said it is “ensuring it [the body] is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition. It’s something we take seriously and therefore it’s being handled in an appropriate manner.”

Picture of Osama bin Laden after being killed during a firefight with U.S. forces. (AP/ still image from Pakistani TV)

Ten Years and Forty Minutes

Although the operation was over in just 40 minutes, it actually began in 2001, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. American investigators gathered information on Bin Laden’s couriers, one of whom was considered the most likely person to follow in order to find the head of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network.

The investigators discovered the courier’s name in 2007, and the area in Pakistan where he operated was identified in 2009. Bin Laden’s luxurious home was pinpointed last August on the outskirts of Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Obama administration officials told MSNBC that its “best information was that Bin Laden was there with his youngest wife. Our analysts looked at this from every angle. No other candidate fit the bill as well as Bin Laden did… The bottom line of our analysis was that we had high confidence that the compound held a high-value terrorist target. There was a strong probability that it was Bin Laden.”

This information was shared “with no other country. Only a very small group of people inside our own government knew of this operation in advance.”

Note:

[1] Abbottabad is a popular summer resort, located in a valley surrounded by green hills near Pakistani Kashmir. Islamist militants, particularly those fighting in Indian-controlled Kashmir, used to have training camps near the town.