[dasneycomrov]

Bin Laden Is Dead, U.S. Official Says


Osama bin Laden has been killed, a United States official said Sunday night. President Obama is expected to make an announcement on Sunday night, almost 10 years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/...official-says/

breaking on NBC it is confirmed

[GEAntonio]

YES! Not a minute too soon. There's sure to be more roaches from where he came from. Wonder how they'll change their strategies. Exhilirating!

[chadnezzrr]

^^^ Great news !
... CONGRATS !!!

[dittygari]

bravo

[GetsTan]

[arcaniagainee]

Good riddance.

[CenICrerflind]

It must be very hard for the Republicans to swallow that this came under Obama's watch!

[Andromino]

It must be very hard for the Republicans to swallow that this came under Obama's watch! I know! muah ha ha!!

[thakitt]

No need to shed tears for Bin Laden, but we should be careful of what we wish for....

My wish is that people would not celebrate...

[Fluivelip]

It seems that a lot of those celebrating tonight are folks who were jsut kids 10 years ago and have grown up with the weight of 9/11 and endless war on top of them.

Personally the news brought me a feeling of huge relief, and am surprised by the really emotional reaction I had to Obama's speech. When I first saw the news flash while watching the TV that the POTUS was going to speak late on a Sunday night it seemed that we'd hear nothing good.

I don't think this will change a heck of a lot, but perhaps the removal of the spectre of Bin Laden will bring about some cosmic alteration in the American psyche.

And wouldn't you know: Donald Trump & The Apprentice got bumped during it's last climactic minutes.

Just think: OBL AND The Donald in one fell swoop! Gotcha!!!

[WelcomeMe]

Three guesses who marks the occasion with this:

I am really surprised that Obama didn't insist he be brought to Manhattan to stand trial here in New York. Seriously.

UPDATE: The teleprompter is speaking *yawn* The teleprompter is taking credit for the killing. Every other word is I.

"We are not at war with Islam."
"He was not a Muslim Leader"
Sheesh ........ the man is insane.

[chuecfafresslds]

I was 14 when 9/11 happened and I witnessed it first hand from JC and remember that whole day vividly. I went down to our cities memorial at Grand St and the Hudson River tonight and I started to cry out of sheer joy and relief. It feels like a weight coming off. The most remarkable thing tonight was that people started walking to our memorial praying, sitting in silence, and celebrating as well. Completely organic coming together to the site of so much grief to come and in change experience joy and relief. This is a historic memorable night and I am celebrating. I lost friends that day and have lived with this grief and a world at war; this is a time for jubulation.

I feel this 10th anniversary will have much different tone with this news.

[ecosportpol_ru]

Unverified photo of the late OBL

[VardyCodarexyz]

WHERE it went down.

As noted by Andrew Sullivan:

The eighth anniversary of "Mission Accomplished." To the day.

The 66th anniversary of the anouncement of the death of Adolph Hitler. To the day.
And ...

The NYT has its obit up. It's seven pages long.

[GentlieGant]

It must be very hard for the Republicans to swallow that this came under Obama's watch!

I can't wait to hear their comments.

[sFs4aOok]

As heard earlier this evening:

"DT, BO here. Who got fired? I was otherwise detained.

Oh, and one other thing ..."

[SzefciuCba]

Unsatisfying, tiring. But I felt for a while that it would be this way. More a relief.

Strange about the Hitler anniversary. But after Hitler was dead, we made peace.

Who do we make peace with now?

No reason to celebrate.

[adactthrd]

Sadly, for those innocent people who we've so helplessly lost on that very warm & sunny but horrible day, we can never bring them back.

But at least the most evil and most hated individual in the world has been brought to justice and killed! This could help Obama win a 2nd term in office.

[Teomaderm]

Bin Laden Killing Draws Praise From Allies but Concern About Reprisals

By ALAN COWELL

PARIS — As the United States issued a world-wide alert to American citizens following the death of Osama Bin Laden, Washington’s allies on Mondaypraised the operation that killed the Al Qaeda leader in Pakistan. But relief was tempered by concern about potential reprisals, not just from Al Qaeda but from like-minded groups and individuals.
The response was most nuanced in the Middle East.

In Lebanon, some downplayed the relevance of Mr. Bin Laden at a time of great tumult in the Arab world, where events have seemed to overtake a figure whose deeds helped unleash two wars and greatly deepened American intervention in the Middle East.

“This man hasn’t shown his face, or made any statement in a long time despite the important developments that our region is witnessing right now,” said Talal Atrissi, a professor of sociology at the Lebanese University. “He has been absent for a while.”

Mr. Atrissi said Mr. Bin Laden was a polarizing figure, dividing supporters who saw his attacks as another righteous battle in a contest between West and East, and others who saw his deadly acts and their celebration as spectacles harming Islam and its image in the rest of the world.

“The division over him that we saw when he was alive will prevail after his death, though the fact the U.S. killed him could make some sympathize with him,” Mr. Atrissi said.
That same duality emerged in Cairo, capital of the most populous Arab nation, which is itself embroiled in revolutionary fervor after the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak in February.
Egyptians reading the Web site of the independent newspaper Youm 7 — or Seventh Day --- responded to the killing with mixed emotions. “I do not know if you are a fighter in the name of God or if you are a terrorist who killed many Muslims,” one reader wrote.

A few called Mr. Bin Laden a martyr. “You lived a lion and died a lion,” one wrote. “May God have mercy upon you, you hero.”

Another promised revenge. “All of America’s presidents, the current, previous and future ones, have become a target of Al Qaeda,” the posting said.

Some expressed disbelief, or looked beyond the death of one leader. “He will not be the last American enemy,” another wrote. “Yes he did a lot to them, but they are the ones who create their enemies and they will create another Bin Laden and another and another.”

Many cheered at the turn of a page in history. “It is clear that this year carries a lot of good for the Arabs,” one wrote. “Liberating our nations from dictators and terrorists means a push forward toward modernity and progress.”

n particular, some of the lands that had been victims of Al Qaeda attacks greeted the announcement by President Obama with an enthusiastic welcome — coupled with warnings that the terrorist threat he personified has metastasized and spread to unknowable numbers of others.

In East Africa, where Al Qaeda was blamed for the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi that killed 224 people, the Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, told Reuters, “Kenyans are happy and thank the U.S. people, the Pakistani people and everybody else who managed to kill Osama.”

“Osama’s death can only be positive for Kenya, but we need to have a stable government in Somalia,” Mr. Odinga said, referring to the turmoil in Kenya’s northern neighbor, where the Shabab Islamic militant group has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. While the death of Mr. Bin Laden might upset the jihadist movement there, Mr. Odinga said, “then it will regroup and continue.”

In Britain, which has wrestled for years with terrorism linked to training camps in Pakistan, Prime Minister David Cameron said the death of Mr. Bin Laden “will bring great relief to people across the world.” Britain has been a close ally of the United States in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — both triggered by Al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Osama bin Laden was responsible for the worst terrorist atrocities the world has seen - for 9/11 and for so many attacks, which have cost thousands of lives, many of them British,” Mr. Cameron said in a statement, alluding to both British victims in the attacks in America and the suicide bombings of the London transit system on July 7, 2005, that killed 52 people and four bombers.

“Of course, it does not mark the end of the threat we face from extremist terrorism,” he said. “Indeed, we will have to be particularly vigilant in the weeks ahead,” he said, adding, “But above all today, we should think of the victims of the poisonous extremism that this man has been responsible for.”

“Of course, nothing will bring back those loved ones that families have lost to terror. But at least they know the man who was responsible for these appalling acts is no more,” Mr. Cameron said.
In Australia, which also has troops fighting in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Australia will continue its operations there. “Whilst Al Qaeda has been hurt today, Al Qaeda is not finished,” she told reporters. “Our war against terrorism must continue. We will continue the mission in Afghanistan.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called the operation “a resounding triumph for justice, freedom and the values shared by all democratic nations fighting shoulder to shoulder in determination against terrorism,” Reuters reported. That remark offered a rare point of agreement with the Palestinian Authority, which said in a statement, “Getting rid of Osama bin Laden will benefit peace all over the world.”

News of the death of Mr. Bin Laden was the first item on Al Jazeera satellite channel based in Doha, Qatar, which quoted some terrorism experts as saying his death had symbolic importance but “may mean little for Al Qaeda’s capabilities.” It also said reaction from Al Qaeda and its sympathizers had been muted and there had been no formal comment on his death.

In Iran, the English-language state satellite broadcaster Press TV led its Web site with news of the State Department’s warning to Americans.

“Given the uncertainty and volatility of the current situation, U.S. citizens in areas where events could cause anti-American violence are strongly urged to limit their travel outside of their homes and hotels and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations," Press TV quoted a statement by the State Department as saying.

News reports said American embassies around the world had been placed on a higher security alert, while the British foreign secretary, William Hague, said he had instructed British missions to maintain greater vigilance.

France called the killing “a major event in the struggle against terrorism.” But a statement from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said: “It is not the end of Al Qaeda.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/wo...imes&seid=auto

[nanyaHgoc]

Bin Laden’s Death Doesn’t Mean the End of Al Qaeda

By ERIC SCHMITT

The death of Osama bin Laden robs Al Qaeda of its founder and spiritual leader at a time when the terrorist organization is struggling to show its relevance to the democratic protesters in the Middle East and North Africa.

Experts said Bin Laden had been a largely symbolic figure in recent years who had little if any direct role in spreading terrorism worldwide. While his death is significant, these officials said, it will not end the threat from an increasingly potent and self-reliant string of regional Qaeda affiliates in North Africa and Yemen or from a self-radicalized vanguard here at home.

“Clearly, this doesn’t end the threat from Al Qaeda and its affiliates,” said Juan Zarate, a top counterterrorism official under President George W. Bush. “But it deprives Al Qaeda of its core leader and the ideological cohesion that Bin Laden maintains.”

Obama administration officials said that despite Bin Laden’s waning influence over day-to-day operations in recent years, his capture or killing was a priority of intelligence, military and counterterrorism officials from the moment that Mr. Obama took office.

Administration officials predicted that without Bin Laden’s spiritual guidance — and his almost mystical ability to inspire followers by standing up to and evading American and allied efforts to hunt him down — Qaeda leaders’ efforts to obtain nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and to use them against the United States, will weaken.

“Bin Laden was Al Qaeda’s only commander in its 22-year history and was largely responsible for the organization’s mystique, its attraction among violent jihadists and its focus on America as a terrorist target,” a senior administration official told reporters early Monday.

The official predicted that Bin Laden’s longtime Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, “is far less charismatic and not as well respected within the organization.” He will likely have difficulty maintaining the loyalty of Bin Laden’s followers, who are largely Arabs from the Persian Gulf and who are pivotal in supplying the organization with fighters, money and ideological support, the official said.

Indeed, the Al Qaeda of today is a much different organization than the one Bin Laden presided over on Sept. 11, 2001. It is much less hierarchical and more diffuse. And Al Qaeda’s main headquarters in Pakistan has come under withering attack from the Central Intelligence Agency ‘s armed drones.

Meantime, regional affiliates have blossomed in North Africa, Iraq, East Africa and Yemen. All have been personally blessed by Bin Laden, but each has developed its own strategy, fund-raising and recruiting methods.

That was Bin Laden’s vision from the start. Al Qaeda means “the base” in Arabic. His plan was to spin off terrorist subsidiaries that could request ideological guidance or material support from time to time, but were meant to be largely self-sustaining soon after they were launched.

Michael E. Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, recently described the Qaeda affiliate in Yemen as posing the most immediate threat to the United States. It trained and deployed a young Nigerian man who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet on Dec. 25, 2009. Last October, authorities thwarted a plot by the Yemen group to blow up Chicago-bound cargo planes using printer cartridges that were packed with explosives.

Terrorist training camps set up by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in the largely ungoverned wilds of Pakistan’s tribal border areas are likely to continue to turn out dozens of militants trained in explosives and automatic weapons, just like the young Moroccan man arrested last week in Germany and accused of plotting to attack the transportation system of a major German city.

Years before Bin Laden’s death — he has been heard from only rarely in recent years, in often-scratchy audio recordings — the mantle for the Qaeda brand has been taken up increasingly by Mr. Zawahri and, more significantly, by Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula who was born in New Mexico and who has American and Yemeni citizenship.

Mr. Awlaki uses idiomatic American English in his online speeches to extremists and potential recruits in the West. His followers and other radicals can learn all they need about building a crude bomb through instructions on the Internet.

American and European law enforcement officials say they worry most about Mr. Awlaki’s kind of “lone wolf” threat, which is much harder to detect than, say, the team that planned for years to attack the World Trade Center’s twin towers and the Pentagon.

It is an inauspicious time for Al Qaeda, as it seeks to exploit the fervor that has been unleashed in the democratic protests in the Middle East and North Africa. The demonstrators, however, have largely ignored Al Qaeda’s call to use violence to overthrow dictators and despots.

“Al Qaeda has been struggling on the sidelines of the Arab revolution, its popularity in Arab and Muslim countries has been declining and there are internal divisions about the direction of the movement,” Mr. Zarate said.

A senior Obama administration official echoed that sentiment, putting it this way: “Although Al Qaeda may not fragment immediately, the loss of Bin Laden puts the group on a path of decline that will be difficult to reverse.”

But even as he offered that assessment, he and other American officials warned of a possible series of attacks against the United States and Americans abroad to prove that the movement still poses a deadly threat. “Al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers may try to respond violently to avenge Bin Laden’s death,” the official said, “and other terrorist leaders may try to accelerate their efforts to strike the United States.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/wo...imes&seid=auto