One year ago, an elite team of Navy Seals stormed a compound in Pakistan and shot to death the most wanted terrorist in the world. Now, a year after Osama Bin Laden’s demise, al-Qaeda is beginning to show signs of fracture.
Intelligence believes that the terror organization has been diminished and now just numbers in the few hundreds due to relentless air strikes by the U.S. and coalition forces. It is speculated that their infrastructure is now just engaging in small operations and no longer capable of large-scale attacks like the one that was carried out on 9/11.
This doesn’t mean, however, that al-Qaeda is no longer a threat. They are still capable of inflicting heavy damage; this was evident when they launched an assault on a housing compound for foreign workers in Afghanistan that claimed seven lives.
The attack started off with a car bomb that ripped the compound entrance. Militants disguised in burqas then tried to force their way into the Green Village complex through the damaged gateway. Their assault was repelled by Afghan forces, which engaged in a two hour gun battle with the insurgents.
When the smoked cleared, four civilians passing by in a car were killed. A Nepalese security guard and a student on his way to school were also among the casualties.
The attacks came just hours after President Obama made a secret visit to Kabul to deliver a message of hope and praise to the troops. A Taliban spokesman later claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying that the president was “not welcome.â€
Though it appears that al-Qaeda’s foundation is in shambles, it is clearly no time to celebrate. For the same reason that a wounded animal is more dangerous, a wounded al-Qaeda will likely act out of desperation. There will likely be more attacks to come in the near future. Vigilance is more crucial than ever.
The Obama visit to the troops is also a matter of debate as its been seen a part of the November Election campaign and an asset used by the Obama campaign. The GOP is calling it a “Play on Politics” (CNN):
Gillespie, a former aide to former President George W. Bush and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said utilizing the raid for political purposes is one of the reasons Obama has “become one of the most divisive presidents in American history.”
“He took something that was a unifying event for all Americans, and he’s managed to turn it into a divisive, partisan political attack,” Gillespie said in a separate interview on the same NBC program. “I think most Americans will see it as a sign of a desperate campaign.”
Last May, the U.S. brought to justice the world’s most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden. However, even with the head of the serpent cut off, another seems to grow in its place. With terrorism, there are plenty of evil doers willing to shed blood in the name of God.
Hafiz Mohammad Saeed is one such person. He is the founder of the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which orchestrated the Mumbai massacre back in 2008 that killed close to 200 civilians. The U.S. has placed a 10 million dollar bounty on his head for information that would lead to his conviction and prosecution.
In reply to the bounty on his head, Saeed remains defiant and mocks the U.S. by openly stating that he is in Lahore and is willing to stand trial in an American court.
A two million dollar reward is also up for grabs for anyone who can provide information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of the deputy leader of Lashkar-e-Taiba, who also happens to be Saeed’s brother-in-law.
Mark Toner, the spokesman for the State Department announced that the reward money is for information that can provide probable cause for an arrest and conviction, not Saeed’s whereabouts. Toner stressed that Saeed’s location is common knowledge as he has continuously provided press conferences through the Pakistani media.
In 2008, 10 heavily armed men took part in an assault in Mumbai, India, that claimed the lives of over 170 people, six of whom were Americans. Only one of the attackers was apprehended alive, and he named Saeed as the orchestrator. Saeed was placed under house arrest by Pakistani officials for the attacks but was later released for unspecified reasons. Until someone steps up to claim the reward, Saeed remains a free man who will continue to spew hateful and mocking rhetoric against the U.S. and anything and anyone he perceives as anti-Islamic.
A lawyer has confirmed that Osama Bin Laden’s three wives and two of his daughters have been detained and charged for illegally crossing Pakistan. The sentence for the women includes a 45 day jail sentence and a fine of 10,000 rupees each. They have been in custody ever since a U.S. Navy Seal team killed Bin Laden last May.
The widows have been held with their children in Islamabad in what has been described as a “sub-jail.†Two of the wives are from Saudi Arabia while the third and youngest wife is a citizen of Yemen. Upon their release, each woman will be deported back to their country of citizenship and be reunited with their families.
While it is unclear exactly how many children Bin Laden fathered, he is believed to have at least 10 between the three wives. Bin Laden’s wives and children were scattered across the region, and he would meet up with them during his travels.
After nearly a 10 year man hunt, Bin Laden was finally located and killed by Seal Team 6 back in May of last year. He was originally believed to be taking refuge in a cave along the Afghanistan and Pakistan border. Intelligence eventually pinpointed his location at a compound in Abbottabad.
Osama Bin Laden is believed to have a total of five wives and was living with three of them at the time of the raid. It was reported that there was some bickering among them, especially between his oldest and youngest wife. Some of his close aides were also concerned that his eldest wife was plotting to betray him, though Bin Laden brushed aside any concerns of a double-cross.
Whatever the situation was in the Bin Laden household, all that is certain is that the guy is dead and that leaves one less terrorist for the world to worry about.
Last Tuesday, Fatah and Hamas signed a preliminary unity deal with Hamas and 11 other factions in Egypt. This happened one day after Hamas mourned the eradication of Osama Bin Laden. A formal ceremony is held this Wednesday.
Khaled Mashaal, the number one leader of Hamas who has been living in Syria since his exile from Jordan last year, arrived in Egypt on Sunday as Fatah and Hamas for meeting concerning the new unity government.
Islamic Jihad as well as other terrorist organizations were present for the signing; President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, sent a representative for the preliminaries. He is scheduled to arrive for the formal signing ceremony Wednesday.
Mashaal’s deputy, Musa Abu Marzouk, told reporters:
“We won’t recognize the Zionist entity. Our rights are still usurped and it’s illogical for us to recognize the Zionist entity because that would be at the expense of our stolen lands and our people in the refugee camps…Most of the Arab countries don’t recognize Israel, and yet they continue to deal with the international community…”
Meanwhile, Hamas are not the only local yokels denouncing America’s execution of Osama bin laden. Israeli MK, Ibrahim Sarsoor, of the Arab party, Ra’am Ta’al, called the assassination a murder.
In a statement to the press he said:
“The mixing of Arab and Muslim blood into election campaigns in the U.S. and Israel is no longer uncommon…Anyone who follows the cycle of blood and elections in American-Israeli culture in the last ten years will see it clearly and without a doubt….I cannot rule out that the murder of Bin Laden was the start of Obama’s election campaign for a second term, especially in view of the fact that the Republican majority in Congress is waiting to pounce on him over his political steps on both foreign and internal affairs…The murder of Sheikh Bin Laden must cause us to pause and consider not only the event itself, but also what stands behind the action, so that we raise the hard questions whose time has come.”
The New York Times reported Hamas’ mourning of Bin Laden; but an Israeli Arab MK? well…
“The Arab nation has taken its first steps toward its second independence through the revolutions against the oppressive regimes…The West in general and the US in particular should learn the lessons as soon as possible. Even if it murders jihad leaders and spills the blood of pure innocents in Arab and Muslim countries, topples regimes and replaces them with ones more loyal to it, the US will not succeed in changing the feelings of hatred of our nation toward it, especially on the Palestinian question.”
Sound like extreme Muslimism? Vitriol, almost? Repeated attempts to block Sarsoor’s, Ra’am Ta’al, party from running in the Knesset have been blocked by the Israeli Supreme Court.
Osama bin Laden’s regime, al Qaeda has networks around Israels’ borders in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula. Al Qaeda cells based in the Gaza Strip carried out many armed attacks launched on the Gaza-Israeli border and Jewish civilian locations. For instance, the murder of Italian pro-Palestinian activist, Vittorio Arrigoni, on April 14 was an “operation” commanded by an al Qaeda operative from Jordan named, Abdul Rahman al-Briziti.
Counter-terror sources at DebkaFile revealed that Al Qaeda’s units:
“Are ensconced in the southern, central and northeastern sectors of the Gaza Strip: The southern cluster is based in the northern and southern districts of Khan Younis, a town of 220,000 inhabitants 4 kilometers east of the Mediterranean coast and 1.5 kilometers from the Israeli border…A second group more or less controls the town of Deir al Balakh, a town of 150,000 in the central region. A third is embedded in the Zaitun and Nuseyrat districts of Gaza City.”
Debkafile’s counter-terror sources reported that:
“These Al Qaeda operatives have built themselves at least six fortified villas in those three locations. Like the Abbottabad villa-fortress where Osama bin Laden was killed Sunday night by a team of US Seals, the Gaza villas have top security and dominate the surrounding skylines…The success of the American, Israeli and Egyptian agencies in foiling a major terrorist attack in Sinai was played down by Washington and Jerusalem, conduct that deserves an explanation in the new anti-al Qaeda climate.”
Hamas’ de facto head honcho, Ismayil Haniyeh, was the only Muslim leader in the world to “bluntly condemn” the United States for killing Osama bin Laden.
Ismail al-Ashqar, a Hamas lawmaker, described the long-awaited capture and execution as “state terrorism that America carries out against Muslims.â€
DebkaFile reported that:
“In private conversations, Hamas leaders confess that they really do regard the United States as the worst and most blood-stained oppressor of Middle East Arabs, aside from Israel. Despite their ideological differences, they genuinely regard Al Qaeda and its fighters as heroic mujahedin and prized allies.”
On Wednesday, May 4, Khaled Meshaal will fly into Cairo from the Hamas headquarters in Damascus to meet Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and concertize a unity pact.
Of Egypt
Meanwhile, Egyptian Finance Minister, Samir Radwan, has been quoted saying the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty, which in post Mubarak Egypt does not “obligate his country to sell natural gas to the Jewish State.”
In an interview with a local newspaper during a visit to Kuwait last Sunday, Radwan stressed that gasoline prices must be updated and adjusted to the price levels of the global market, regardless of whether the exports go to Jordan, Israel, Syria or Spain.
Of Osama Bin Laden
A Kuwaiti man called Abu Ahmad is reportedly the inadvertent source that led the United States to the al Qaeda mastermind’s hideout Last July.
The DailyBeast reported:
“CIA operatives tracked the man while he was driving a white Suzuki in Pakistan.Eventually, the courier led them right to the sprawling mansion where bin Laden had been hiding. The most recent cache of WikiLeaks files related to Guantanamo Bay turns up Ahmad’s name several times. The Kuwaiti is linked closely to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a key planner of the 9/11 attacks. It’s not clear whether he was at the compound during the raid.”
In 2003, the American government released pictures of Saddam Hussein’s dead sons Uday and Qusay Hussein, however, only after their bodies had been worked on by a mortician. The United States is debating whether to release the photos of a dead Osama bin Laden in order to squash rampant conspiracy theories. The haste with which the corpse was thrown into the sea seems strange to many inquisitive citizens.
Osama bin Laden is back in the news and on our minds – though from the latter he never REALLY departed. In a new audio message, he claims responsibility for the Christmas day airline attack.
The short recorded message was carried by the Al-Jazeera news channel. Bin Laden addressed U.S. president Barack Obama:
“The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of the September 11…America will never dream of security unless we will have it in reality in Palestine…God willing, our raids on you will continue as long as your support to the Israelis will continue.”
There was no way to confirm that the voice on the recording was actually that of bin Laden, but it resembled previous recordings claiming to be the voice of the terrorist mastermind.
The Nigerian national Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight as it approached Detroit Metro Airport, on Christmas day. The attempt was botched when the bomb he was hiding in his underwear failed to detonate. Afterward, he told federal agents that he had been trained and instructed by al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.
Analysts believe that bin Laden is concerned about Obama’s growing popularity across the Middle East, so the al-Qaida leader is focusing on the close US-Israeli relationship. This is certainly not the first time that he has mentioned the Palestinians.
Foreign Ministry spokesman, Andy David, dismissed the latest al-Qaida message and its attempt to connect Israel with attacks on the U.S:
“This is nothing new, he has said this before. Terrorists always look for absurd excuses for their despicable deeds.”
This doesn’t mean, however, that al-Qaeda is no longer a threat. They are still capable of inflicting heavy damage; this was evident when they launched an assault on a housing compound for foreign workers in Afghanistan that claimed seven lives.
Meanwhile, Hamas are not the only local yokels denouncing America’s execution of Osama bin laden. Israeli MK, Ibrahim Sarsoor, of the Arab party, Ra’am Ta’al, called the assassination a murder.
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