Bin Laden documents: Fear of drones

Security Clearance/ By Pam Benson

The dire impact of CIA drone missile strikes against suspected terrorists in Pakistan certainly did not go unnoticed by Osama bin Laden, prompting the al Qaeda leader to repeatedly warn associates to take appropriate security measures, according to documents seized during the raid on the al Qaeda leader's Pakistan compound last year.

Read:  Security Clearance's coverage of the Osama bin Laden documents

The letters written by bin Laden were among a number of documents released to the public on Thursday by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.

In an October 2010 letter to Atiyya Abdul Rahman, al Qaeda's top operational planner, bin Laden noted the experience the United States had in using drones to monitor activities in the tribal areas of Pakistan where many of al Qaeda's core members operated.

"They can distinguish between houses frequented by men at a higher rate than usual. Also, the visiting person might be tracked without him knowing," he wrote.

Drones had primarily been used for surveillance purposes in Pakistan, but in 2004, the CIA upped the ante by firing the first missile from a drone at a terrorist target in Waziristan. Hundreds of attacks have been launched since then.

In a May 2010 message to Rahman, bin Laden wrote, "I had mentioned in several previous messages ... the importance of the exit from Waziristan of the brother leaders, especially the ones that have media exposure. I stress this matter to you and that you choose distant locations to which to move them, away from aircraft, photography and bombardment while taking all security precautions."

He offered advice on where to live in Pakistan: "Kunar is more fortified due to its rougher terrain and many mountains, rivers and trees, and it can accommodate hundreds of the brothers without being spotted by the enemy. This will defend the brothers from the aircraft ..."

Bin Laden explained in an April 2011 letter to Rahman that people should live on the outskirts of cities so they will be less obvious and reduce the security dangers. For those in cities he had a particular worry: "And one of the important security issues in the cities is controlling children, by not getting out of the house except for extreme necessity like medical care, and teaching them local language; and they do not get to the yard of the house without an adult who will control the volume of their voices."

Bin Laden suggested other ways to improve security. On transportation, he warned about traveling in cars and added, "A warning to the brothers: they should not meet on the road and move in their cars because many of them got targeted while they were meeting on the road."

He recommended the timing for movement: "He should move only when the clouds are heavy."

He indicated how often they should meet: "The brother should visit you no more than once or twice a week."

Bin Laden wrote about the need to use code words and aliases and said, "Remind your deputies that all communication with others should be done through letters."

He even warned his colleagues to get rid of the bag that money might be exchanged in because the bag might have a tracking chip.

Sometimes his instructions were quite detailed. In the April 2011 letter to Rahman, bin Laden spoke about how a message to his son should be handled. "This thumb drive contains a phone number of one of our brothers contained in the message for Hamzah, so please do not copy the message for Hamzah and after Hamzah copies the phone number on paper, destroy the card for fear of compromise."

Bin Laden gave some very precise directions to Rahman in the May 2010 letter concerning the possible arrival into Pakistan of some al Qaeda members who had been held in Iran.

"They will go to the tunnel between Kuhat and Peshawar, and arrange a meeting between them and another brother," he wrote. "The meeting must be precise in timing and it will be inside the tunnel, and they will change cars inside the tunnel, so they will ride the car with the brother and they will meet instead of the car they were riding in, and the brothers who are going to drive the car must be instructed on the strict adherence to the timings."

He continued with instructions saying there should be additional car changes, the movement should happen when it is overcast, and they should get rid of everything they received from Iran, "like baggage or anything, even as small as a needle, as there are eavesdropping chips that are developed to be so small, that they can even be put inside a medical syringe."

Five days before he was killed in the Navy SEALS raid on his Abbottabad compound, bin Laden wrote to Rahman, "we with the grace of Allah have been adhering to these precautions for nine years and we haven't heard that any of the brothers were arrested after the events (a possible reference to the 9/11 attacks) while adhering to the precautions..."

Rahman, who rose to the number two position after bin Laden's death, was struck down last August by a drone missile strike in the mountains of Pakistan.

Bin Laden documents: The plotting continued

Security Clearance/ By Mike Mount

Osama bin Laden ordered suicide squads to be created in Pakistan and Afghanistan for the sole reason of tracking down President Obama and Gen. David Petraeus, who was then the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, according to a letter written by bin Laden in May of 2010.

Read: Security Clearance's coverage of the Osama bin Laden documents

The letter, released by West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, published some of the documents captured in the bin Laden raid last May. A review of the letters released publicly Thursday offer insight into the top leader's thinking and planning as he remained hidden from global view but still tried to have a hand in directing his organization, al Qaeda.

The al Qaeda leader asked his lieutenants to identify people in both countries who could keep an eye out for Obama and Petraeus and conduct suicide operations against them as they traveled in either country.

"I asked Shaykh Sa'id, Allah have mercy on his soul, to task brother Ilyas to prepare two groups - one in Pakistan and the other in the Bagram area of Afghanistan - with the mission of anticipating and spotting the visits of Obama or Petraeus to Afghanistan or Pakistan to target the aircraft of either one of them," bin Laden wrote.

He then gave a brief civics lesson on why they should not target Vice President Joe Biden: because he was in the direct chain of command and "Biden is totally unprepared for that post (the presidency), which will lead the U.S. into a crisis," he wrote.

He also said the suicide teams were not to target then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, Adm. Mike Mullen; or Richard Holbrook, who was the special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Bin Laden's reasoning for targeting only Petraeus and Obama was that they were the heads of state and of operations in Afghanistan, and without them, the path of the war would be altered.

While the plots against Petraeus and Obama seemed to be the most direct plans against U.S. targets, the letters also communicated al Qaeda's understanding of the its limitations and focus on smaller tactics that would chip away at U.S. power, ultimately crippling the U.S. and achieving the mujahedeen goal of creating an Islamic state.

Bin Laden also directed that suicide bombers not work by themselves but in pairs so one could focus on the work and the other could handle the stresses associated with setting up assassination plots.

"A minimum of two brothers should be sent for suicide operations; they should not send a single suicide brother. We have experienced this in many operations where the percentage of success was very low, due to the psychological effects that overcome the brother in such cases," bin Laden wrote.

In the order, bin Laden referenced the April 2010 suicide attack on the British ambassador in Yemen. "Regardless of the heroism of the brother and his steadfastness, the psychological factors that affect the person in such cases necessitate the presence of a companion that will support and bolster him."

In an undated letter believed to have been written by bin Laden, though it isn't signed, bin Laden simply but directly likened the U.S. to a tree and its allies and cooperating Muslim countries as the branches of the tree. He explained that al Qaeda and its affiliates made up the saw that would slowly cut down the tree, after which its branches would die.

"Our abilities and resources, however, are limited, thus we cannot do the job quickly enough. The only option we are left with is to slowly cut that tree down by using a saw. Our intention is to saw the trunk of that tree, and never to stop until that tree falls down."

"We want to saw the trunk until the wicked tree is down. God willing, once the tree is down, its branches will die thereof. You saw what happened to the Russians in Afghanistan, when the mujahedeen focused on sawing the trunk of their wicked tree. Their tree fell down, then its branches died out, from South Yemen to Eastern Europe."

In at least two of the documents, he emphasized that while in combat, mujahedeen fighters should only focus on destroying U.S. targets.

Bin Laden went on to try and explain by citing a hypothetical example: When fighters ambush a NATO convoy, they should, if possible, focus only on the trucks with U.S. troops inside and ignore the ones carrying Afghans or other nationalities.

Bin Laden said that his forces must also understand their limitations and "preserve their strength" to fight against Americans or American interests and only attack U.S. allies in the field if there are no other options.

In what seems to be a page out of corporate strategy, he warned al Qaeda branches to be more organized in terms knowing which group is operating in what country when planning to attack Americans.

"Avoid targeting conflicts between the al Qaeda branches, each mujahedeen group must be certain that it is the only al Qaeda group operating in a country where it intends to target Americans."

And in the May 2010 letter, he wrote to an operative to start coordinating with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan so al Qaeda could offer them assistance and the benefit of al Qaeda's own success operating within the United States.

"Tell them that we started planning work inside America many years ago, and gained experience in that field, and we and they are brothers so we should not fall into the error that hurts the Muslims and benefits the enemy, due to lack of coordination between us," he said in the letter.

But bin Laden also suggested tactics that focused on American targets in other countries that may not be obvious targets, but he did not discuss specifics.

"You may find it suitable to target Americans in South Africa, because it is located outside the Islamic Maghreb. Also, South Africa is not covered by the brothers who are located outside that region. The same can be said about other African countries."

The Backstory: 9/11 and the Death of Osama bin Laden

By PBS

Bin Laden in hiding: Hatching horrific plots despite crippling attacks on al-Qaida

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Did rogue spies or ’Pakistani Blackwater’ shield Osama bin Laden?

AP, file

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is seen in an image taken from a video found at his walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The first anniversary of bin Laden's killing by U.S. Navy SEALs is on Tuesday.

By Amna Nawaz, NBC News Correspondent

ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan -- A year after Osama bin Laden was found and killed in Pakistan, one key question has yet to be answered: how did the world's most wanted man manage to move and live, undetected, in this country for so long?

Journalists, analysts, and others have been working to fill in the narrative holes over the last 12 months. Leaked and strategically released nuggets of information have helped to paint a vague picture of what life was like inside the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden spent his final years, living with three of his wives, and several children and grandchildren. We've learned of the austere conditions inside the home, the restricted lifestyle led by all inside, and the discipline with which the head of al-Qaida communicated with a trusted few. But the crucial questions -- how he got to that compound in the first place and who helped him to do so -- remain unanswered.Kamran Bokhari, vice-president for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs at Stratfor, a global intelligence company, believes the idea that bin Laden moved around without a network of individuals organizing his transportation and logistics is simply not possible.  More >>

Obama Caught In Osama Killing Lies!

By TheAlexJonesChannel

The White house was forced to admit that they had lied when they said Obama and crew were watching a live feed of the killing of OBL last year. Now the same gang of liars are recycling the old situation room photo that is a admitted fraud and the complicit globalist collaborator media is not calling them on it. That lie and others are broken down in the above video. Barack Obama is now centering his 2012 campaign around the discredited bin laden raid hoax. If you buy in to this lie you should also believe in the Lock Ness Monster and WMD in Iraq.

Bin Laden's family gets jail time

Bin Laden ordered operatives to kill Obama, Petraeus

The Washington Post/ By David Ignatius

Before his death, Osama bin Laden boldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus.

“The reason for concentrating on them,” the al-Qaeda leader explained to his top lieutenant, “is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make (Vice President Joe) Biden take over the presidency. … Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour … and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan. 

Administration officials said Friday the Obama-Petraeus plot was never a serious threat.

Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri

The scheme is described in one of the documents taken from bin Laden’s compound by U.S. forces on May 2, the night he was killed. I was given an exclusive look at some of these remarkable documents by a senior administration official. They have been declassified and will be available soon to the public in their original Arabic texts and translations.

The man bin Laden hoped would carry out the attacks on Obama and Petraeus was the Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri. “Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work,” bin Laden wrote to his top lieutenant, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. A month after bin Laden’s death, Kashmiri was killed in a U.S. drone attack.

The plot to target Obama was probably bluster, since al-Qaeda apparently lacked the weapons to shoot down U.S. aircraft. But it’s a chilling reminder that even when he was embattled and in hiding, bin Laden still dreamed of pulling off another spectacular terrorist attack against the United States.

 

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U.S. knew Osama bin Laden whereabouts

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"Ala los cria y ellos se juntan"/ Pong

Deaths of SEAL Team 6 Exposed!

TheAlexJonesChannel

The Man Who Hunted Osama Bin Laden

ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON -- After Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, the White House released a photo of President Barack Obama and his Cabinet inside the Situation Room, watching the daring raid unfold.
Hidden from view, standing just outside the frame of that now-famous photograph was a career CIA analyst. In the hunt for the world's most-wanted terrorist, there may have been no one more important. His job for nearly a decade was finding the al-Qaida leader.
The analyst was the first to put in writing last summer that the CIA might have a legitimate lead on finding bin Laden. He oversaw the collection of clues that led the agency to a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. His was among the most confident voices telling Obama that bin Laden was probably behind those walls.

Read more...

5 #CIA Informants That Led To Osama Bin Laden Arrested In Pakistan

MOXNEWSd0tCOM

Pakistan arrests informants who helped find bin Laden

WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested five CIA informants who fed information to U.S. intelligence before the raid last month which killed Osama bin Laden, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

One of the detainees was reported to be a Pakistani Army major whom officials said copied license plates of cars visiting the al Qaeda leader’s compound 30 miles (50 km) northwest of Islamabad.

The fate of the CIA informants arrested in Pakistan was unclear, the newspaper reported, citing American officials.

Outgoing CIA Director Leon Panetta raised the issue of the informants’ detention during a trip to Islamabad last week where he met Pakistani military and intelligence officers, the newspaper said.

The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, Pakistan’s main military spy agency, declined to comment, but the army denied that any army major was among those arrested in connection with the May 2 raid by U.S. special forces in the garrison town of Abbottabad.

“There is no truth in NYT story with regards to involvement and arrest of army major in connection with the OBL (Osama bin Laden) incident,” military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said in a statement.

A senior Pakistani security official said some people were detained in connection with the Abbottabad raid and they were still being investigated.

More...

#GoodShit - A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF WHAT IT TOOK TO GET BIN LADEN

From  GoodShit

- Osama bin-Laden preaching

Since May 2, when U.S. special operations forces crossed the Afghan-Pakistani border and killed Osama bin Laden, international media have covered the raid from virtually every angle. The United States and Pakistan have also squared off over the U.S. violation of Pakistan’s sovereign territory and Pakistan’s possible complicity in hiding the al Qaeda leader. All this surface-level discussion, however, largely ignores almost 10 years of intelligence development in the hunt for bin Laden.

While the cross-border nighttime raid deep into Pakistan was a daring and daunting operation, the work to find the target—one person out of 180 million in a country full of insurgent groups and a population hostile to American activities on its soil—was a far greater challenge. For the other side, the challenge of hiding the world’s most wanted man from the world’s most funded intelligence apparatus created a clandestine shell game that probably involved current or former Pakistani intelligence officers as well as competing intelligence services. The details of this struggle will likely remain classified for decades.

Examining the hunt for bin Laden is also difficult, mainly because of the sensitivity of the mission and the possibility that some of the public information now available could be disinformation intended to disguise intelligence sources and methods. Successful operations can often compromise human sources and new intelligence technologies that have taken years to develop. Because of this, it is not uncommon for intelligence services to try to create a wilderness of mirrors to protect sources and methods. But using open-source reporting and human intelligence, we can assemble enough information to draw some conclusions about this complex intelligence effort and raise some key questions.

(Continued)

#Al-Qaeda No. 2 Delivers Video Eulogy to Bin Laden

New York Times By J. DAVID GOODMAN

Ayman al-Zawahri, long the second in command of Al Qaeda, delivered his first public comments Wednesday on the killing of his boss Osama bin Laden in an American raid last month, saying in a video eulogy that Bin Laden had “terrified America in his life” and “will continue to terrify it after his death.” 

Full Story...

Inside Pakistan's "Terrorist Banking" System

#Al-Qaeda Releases A Final Posthumous Recording From Osama Bin Laden

Al Qaeda just posted perhaps the final audio recording of Osama bin Laden on Islamist websites.
In the posthumous message, bin Laden praises revolts across the Arab world.
From Al Masry Al Youm:

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/posthumous-bin-laden-recording-2011-5?utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Business%20Insider%20Select&utm_campaign=BI_Select_051911#ixzz1Mq4zmsMx

#Osama Bashes Joe Biden

DailyBeast

Bin Laden reportedly didn't think the vice president was worth targeting. But Michael Tomasky points out that killing Obama and Biden would have put Nancy Pelosi in charge-and helped inflame anti-American sentiment.

Well, ho ho ha ha. Such is sometimes life for any vice president. Even Dick Cheney had to endure a few such moments, surely. But I think OBL's assessment actually betrays his (perhaps unsurprising) lack of knowledge of constitutional governance. Consider.

Pro Publica does not indicate when the above musing took place. But if it happened while bin Laden was living in Abbottabad, the odds are good that he jotted these notes down while Nancy Pelosi was the speaker of the House of Representatives, and thus third in line for the presidency. Bin Laden, given what we know of his religious views, was probably not a big believer in women's lib. Now, if I hated America and were a misogynistic religious extremist and wanted Muslims across the world to come around to my way of seeing things, I think I'd want the United States to have a female president. Women do not enjoy status equal to men in the Muslim world, to put it mildly, so I would have thought that a Great Satan led by a member of the veiled sex-and a brassy one at that-would be that much more opprobrious in the eyes of Muslims. It thus would have been a lot easier to inflame Arab world opinion against an America led by Nancy Pelosi than against one led by Barack Hussein Obama, or even by Joe Biden.more

#Bush Reacts Publicly to #Osama Bin Laden Death for First Time

By DEVIN DWYER (@devindwyer)

May 13, 2011

Former President George W. Bush made his first candid public comments on the killing of Osama bin Laden during an appearance Wednesday at a conference of hedge fund managers in Las Vegas.
"I was eating souffle at Rise Restaurant with Laura and two buddies," Bush said when asked what he was doing when he received the call from President Obama, according to an ABC News contributor who attended the event.

FULL STORY