DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 2, 2011, 10:38 AM (GMT+02:00)
US sources report that Osama bin Laden was buried at sea to avoid creating a permanent shrine on land for jihadist terrorists to visit. Saudi Arabia was first asked to take the body and refused.
US military and intelligence sources disclose that Abbottabad, where al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was shot dead Sunday night, May 2, by a squadron of US Seals, is a Pakistani garrison town where a large military base is located. His villa was just 100 meters away from Pakistan's military academy and 120 kilometers from the capital, Islamabad and Pakistani intelligence headquarters. Far from being holed up in a remote mountain cave, he lived in comfort in a million-dollar three-storey villa with his close family around him in a semi-urban area. These disclosures indicate that the Pakistani military and its intelligence must have known who was living in the exceptionally large, heavily guarded villa in their midst and in plain sight and kept the knowledge from the Americans.
The villa compound was encircled by 12-15 meter high walls topped by 7 foot privacy wall and barbed wire accessed through two steel, electrically-operated security gates. The Pakistanis could not have missed it when it was built in 2005 and more buildings were added later.
It is also emerging that the town of Abbottabad came to the notice of US intelligence four months ago: It was there that Indonesian al-Qaida's Umar Patek was arrested in Jan. 2011. He was on the run from a $1 million US bounty on his head, for helping mastermind the 2002 suicide bombings of nightclubs in Bali that killed 202 people. It would therefore seem that Abbottabad in Pakistan's North West Frontier region provided sanctuary not only for bin Laden but also for some of his high-profile Al Qaeda operations officers.
In his announcement of the al Qaeda leader's death, President Barack Obama glossed over Pakistan's complicity in keeping him hidden because - quite simply, the Afghanistan War may have lost its main target but it is far from over and the United States needs Islamabad to bring it to a conclusion. Taliban, which denies bin Laden was killed, will do its utmost to prove it is fully capable of fighting on without him and going on to defeat the Americans, NATO and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's army.
What effect the passing of the jihadist terrorist mastermind will have on future Pakistani cooperation with the US in the Afghanistan war is still moot. Islamabad may decide to go with the Taliban rather than the United States because of its overriding fear of Indian expansion and interest in using Afghanistan to gain strategic depth by means of a controlling influence in Kabul. To this end, Pakistani leaders may throw their support behind the Taliban rather than the Americans who will eventually leave. This would confront the US-led coalition forces fight' in Afghanistan with an escalated military challenge henceforth.
DEBKAfile Special Report May 2, 2011, 7:34 AM (GMT+02:00)
The announcement that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been killed in an American operation in Abbottabad (150 north of Islamabad in Pakistan) was made early Monday, May 2, by US President Barack Obama at the White House. The first lead to his whereabouts had been received in August. Last week, Obama said, he authorized an operation on the ground to go after Bin Laden in Pakistan.
"It was a special operation carried out by a small team of Americans last night," he said.
None were harmed and care was taken not to harm civilians. "After a firefight, bin Laden was killed and the US force took possession of his body."
The US president said he had called the Pakistani president and prime minister overnight about the operation, the most significant event in the long fight on terrorism. He repeated the words of President George W. Bush: the US was not at war against Islam but a mass murderer of Muslims. America must remain vigilant, he said.
Upon hearing the news, jubilant crowds gathered around the White House and other parts of America singing, dancing and shouting USA… USA! Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton published notices of congratulation to their successor and US intelligence and military on the triumphant conclusion of the long pursuit which they initiated.
DEBKAfile's counter-terror experts note that Bin Laden's death while momentous has not terminated the threat of al Qaeda terror, whose main thrust has refocused in recent years on the Middle East and Africa, especially in places like Yemen, Somalia, Algeria and the Sahara.
For years, al Qaeda sources claimed that bin Laden had kept a special strike force ready to go into action in the West on the news of his death or capture. This report was never confirmed by intelligence information.
Washington has meanwhile issued a global alert to US embassies and citizens of enhanced terror potential in revenge for Osama bin Laden's death. Reports are coming out now that in the firefight which ended in his death some of Bin Laden's kin, possibly one of his sons, was killed as well as bodyguards.
DEBKAfile Special Report May 2, 2011, 5:58 AM (GMT+02:00)
American TV networks interrupted their broadcasts at 05:45 IST Monday, May 2, with the news that the head of Al Qaeda, the most wanted terrorist in the world and author of the 9/ll attack on America, is dead. The US is in possession of his body. There are no further details about the circumstances of his death. President Obama is to make a statement from the White House shortly.
DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report that if this is confirmed, Bin Laden had not been on the run as generally reported but must have been living in under the protection of Pakistan military intelligence. It is not clear whether US intelligence tracked him down or was finally tipped off by the Pakistanis.
There were reports before dawn Monday after large-scale American military activity in the Abbottabad region and two US military helicopters crashing or being downed there.
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