Western Journalism: On August 6, 2011, a military helicopter— Extortion 17— carrying thirty-eight men (including twenty-five of the elite SEAL Team 6, five National Guard and Army Reserve, and eight Afghan commandos) was shot down over Taliban-controlled territory in eastern Afghanistan. They had been on a top secret mission to take out a high-value target.
It was the worst loss of life in a single day since the war in Afghanistan began. Per a 1250-page military report, it was simply the result of a “lucky shot” by Taliban soldiers perched on top of a building. Per families of those killed and military experts at a press conference held on May 9, 2013, this is a lie among a host of other lies.
After the families attended a several hour military briefing about this “lucky shot,” describing what happened and why their sons died, they smelled a rat and started digging around.
Billy and Karen Vaughn, parents of Navy SEAL Aaron C. Vaughn, started poking around at the “official” story and found not a rat, but a stinking swamp, a coverup that went all the way to the top.
When the Vaughns began trying to drain the swamp, they received what the Obama administration is famous for: the shakedown. None other than one of the highest ranking officers in the nation—Admiral William McRaven, commander at U.S. Special Operations Command—paid the Vaughns a little visit, in essence telling them to keep their mouths shut.
What exactly happened on August 6, 2011? What went wrong—or in this case went right that has the Obama administration dispatching high-ranking officers as thugs?
There are two possibilities, according to information revealed at the press conference:
1. The Obama administration sent American soldiers on a suicide mission, or
2. Someone set up our American heroes—that is, had them murdered—that may include the Afghan government—or shockingly may include Barack Hussein Obama himself.
We learned seven major facts at the press conference:
1. Thirty SEAL Team 6, National Guard, and Army Reserve were packed into a decrepit 1960s era CH-47 helicopter (something, according to military experts, that was unheard of.) Per military experts, special operations were always conducted with the state-of-the-art MH-47 helicopter—the helicopter SEAL Team 6 exclusivelytrained in. Further, never—ever—were that many special operations personnel packed into a single helicopter. They were always split up into small groups with multiple MH-47s.
2. Although the military could have easily taken out the Taliban positions with a drone strike prior to the operation, as the families were later told, this was not done because there were possible “friendlies” among the Taliban; the United States wanted to “win the minds and hearts of the enemy.”
Billy Vaughn, father of Navy SEAL Aaron Vaughn, speaking at the press conference with rage in his voice, blasted this ludicrousness:
Aaron did not become a Navy SEAL Team 6 Gold Squad to win the hearts and minds of the Islamic jihadists. He became a Navy SEAL to fight for this republic and defeat the enemy!
3. Although the military had intel that the Taliban were planning on firing on a helicopter, although an intense battle had been raging for several hours, and although normal protocol mandated that the CH-47 required at least one gunship escort, all normal rules of war were suspended.
But now for the real coverup by the Obama administration:
4. There were eight nameless Afghan commandos onboard the CH-47. Eight Afghan commandos were loaded onto the CH-47 along with their American counterparts; but at the last minute, they were replaced without changing the manifest. It was as if someone knew they were going on a suicide mission and pulled them out. The official in charge of the investigation (General Jeffrey Colt), in his 1250-page report, did not address this fact and did not even mention it. In fact, it is likely these original Afghan commandos contacted the Taliban, telling themthe CH-47 was on its way. It appears the Taliban knew the exact time and route the CH-47 would be using; that the only way the “lucky shot” would have been possible with the helicopter thousands of feet in the air in cover of darkness would have been if the Taliban had been tipped off.
5. Everyone on Extortion 17 was immediately cremated without permission from the families, supposedly because the bodies were so badly burned in the crash. According to Charles Strange, father of Navy SEAL Michael Strange, this need to immediately cremate everyone aboard is a complete lie. Taliban on the ground in fact found the bodies of the crew. The Obama administration cremated everyone in order to cover up something.
6. The CH-47 black box was “lost” according to the military investigation—“washed away by an Afghan flood.” As most know, aircraft black boxes don’t get “lost”; they are virtually indestructible and carry a tracking device that makes them easy to locate. It was “lost” in order to cover up something the Obama administration wants to keep hidden.
7. Probably one of the most shocking revelations in the SEAL Team 6 coverup, something that was first brought out during the press conference that shows Obama is no Christian but is in fact a closet Muslim, is that Barack Hussein Obama disallowed the name of Jesus to be spoken during the initial military memorial service in Kabul and permitted a radical Islamic iman to curse our dead heroes.
Let every American demand that whatever Barack Obama is hiding, whatever the military brass is hiding, that it be revealed. America must demand that a Congressional investigation drain the swamp of the Obama administration in order to reveal exactly what sickening secret Barack Hussein Obama is covering up. Not next month. Not next week. Not tomorrow. But today.
Retired US Army Captain Pamela Barnett speaks out loudly and clearly: Barack Obama was never vetted. Somehow we have a 'President' who couldn't pass a background check for most jobs in America and he's running the country, straight into the ground. No wonder Barack Obama's VERY 1st executive order was permanently sealing his own records.
She is an activist leader and supporter of others in the Obama eligibility and Obama Forgery-Gate campaigns. More about Pamela below the video.
She is a retired Army Captain and former battalion intelligence staff officer that has proven Obama's background and legal status were never verified by any federal agency and that he would never qualify for a national security clearance if he were required to pass one. She is director of ObamaBallotChallenge.com, editor of UnlawfulPresident.com, President of ConstitutionActionFund.org, Inc. Please subscribe to email updates to her websites and you can also follow her at Facebook and Twitter: www.facebook.com/obamaballotchallenge - Twitter - @obamachallenge
OBAMA NEVER VETTED, THE UNLAWFUL PRESIDENT, THE NATIONAL SECURITY LOOPHOLES THAT ENDANGER AMERICA, is an historic, extremely important book that should be read by all Americans to understand the loopholes that allowed Obama, citizen of other countries that would not pass a national security background check, to usurp the U.S. Presidency and endanger all American citizens. It is currently available for purchase at Amazon.com, but may be selling very soon at Scribd.com. Barnett will post on her websites when her book is available for sale in paper format. Barnett is not completely satisfied with the reproduction of documents on the Kindle format so you may email her proof of purchase to pamelabarnett @nym.hush.com and she will send you a private website link of the pdf version of her book for no additional cost.
And of course the truth is far more interesting than the Washington spin. We still have heroes!
Seals Reveal Truth About Bin Laden Raid
Osama Bin Laden was killed within 90 seconds of the US Navy Seals landing in his compound and not after a protracted gun battle, according to the first account by the men who carried out the raid.
The operation was so clinical that only 12 bullets were fired.
The Seals have spoken out because they were angered at the version given by politicians, which they see as portraying them as cold-blooded murderers on a kill mission. They were also shocked that President Barack 0bama announced Bin Laden’s death on television the same evening, rendering useless much of the intelligence they had seized.
The Seals own accounts differ from the White House version, which gave the impression that Bin Laden was killed at the end of the operation rather than in its opening seconds. Pfarrer insists Bin Laden would have been captured had he surrendered.
There isn’t a politician in the world who could resist trying to take credit for getting Bin Laden but it devalued the intelligence and gave time for every other Al-Qaeda leader to scurry to another bolthole, said Pfarrer. The men who did this and their valorous act deserve better.
It’s a pretty shabby way to treat these guys. The first hint of the mission came in January last year when the team’s commanding officer was called to a meeting at the headquarters of joint special operations command. The meeting was held in a soundproof bunker three stories below ground with his boss, Admiral William McRaven, and a CIA officer.
They told him a walled compound in Pakistan had been under surveillance for a couple of weeks. They were certain a high-value individual was inside and needed a plan to present to the president. It had to be someone important. So is this Bert or Ernie? he asked.
The Seals nicknames for Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are a reference to two Muppets in Sesame Street, one tall and thin and the other short and fat. We have a voice print, said the CIA officer, and were 60% or 70% certain it’s our guy. McRaven added that a reconnaissance satellite had measured the targets shadow. Over 6ft tall.
When McRaven added they would use Ghost Hawk helicopters, the team leader had no doubt. These are the most classified, sophisticated stealth helicopters ever developed, said Pfarrer. They are kept in locked hangars and fly so quiet we call it whisper mode.
Over the next couple of months a plan was hatched. A mock-up of the compound was built at Tall Pines, an army facility in a national forest somewhere in the eastern US.
Four reconnaissance satellites were placed in orbit over the compound, sending back video and communications intercepts. A tall figure seen walking up and down was named the Pacer.
Obama gave the go-ahead and Seal Team 6, known as the Jedi, was deployed to Afghanistan. The White House cancelled plans to provide air cover using jet fighters, fearing this might endanger relations with Pakistan.
Sending in the Ghost Hawks without air cover was considered too risky so the Seals had to use older Stealth Hawks. A Prowler electronic warfare aircraft from the carrier USS Carl Vinson was used to jam Pakistan’s radar and create decoy targets.
Operation Neptune’s Spear was initially planned for April 30 but bad weather delayed it until May 1, a moonless night. The commandos flew on two Stealth Hawks, codenamed Razor 1 and 2, followed by two Chinooks five minutes behind, known as Command Bird and the gun platform. On board, each Seal was clad in body amour and night vision goggles and equipped with laser targets, radios and sawn-off M4 rifles. They were expecting up to 30 people in the main house, including Bin Laden and three of his wives, two sons, Khalid and Hamza, his courier, Abu Ahmed al- Kuwaiti, four bodyguards and a number of children. At 56 minutes past midnight the compound came into sight and the code Palm Beach signaled three minutes to landing. Razor 1 hovered above the main house, a three-story building where Bin Laden lived on the top floor. Twelve Seals roped the 5ft-6ft down onto the roof and then jumped to a third-floor patio, where they kicked in the windows and entered.
The first person the Seals encountered was a terrified woman, Bin Laden’s third wife, Khaira, who ran into the hall. Blinded by a searing white strobe light they shone at her, she stumbled back. A Seal grabbed her by the arm and threw her to the floor. Bin Laden’s bedroom was along a short hall. The door opened; he popped out and then slammed the door shut. Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo, radioed one Seal, meaning eyes on target.
At the same time lights came on from the floor below and Bin Laden’s son Khalid came running up the stairs towards the Seals. He was shot dead.
Two Seals kicked in Bin Laden’s door. The room, they later recalled, smelt like old clothing, like a guest bedroom in a grandmother’s house. Inside was the Al-Qaeda leader and his youngest wife, Amal, who was screaming as he pushed her in front of him. No, no, don’t do this! she shouted as her husband reached across the king-size bed for his AK-47 assault rifle. The Seals reacted instantly, firing in the same second. One round thudded into the mattress. The other, aimed at Bin Laden’s head, grazed Amal in the calf. As his hand reached for the gun, they each fired again: one shot hit his breastbone, the other his skull, killing him instantly and blowing out the back of his head.
Meanwhile Razor 2 was heading for the guesthouse, a low, shoebox-like building, where Bin Laden’s courier, Kuwaiti, and his brother lived. As the helicopter neared, a door opened and two figures appeared, one waving an AK-47. This was Kuwaiti. In the moonless night he could see nothing and lifted his rifle, spraying bullets wildly.
He did not see the Stealth Hawk. On board someone shouted, Bust him!, and a sniper fired two shots. Kuwaiti was killed, as was the person behind him, who turned out to be his wife. Also on board were a CIA agent, a Pakistani-American who would act as interpreter, and a sniffer dog called Karo (sometimes reported as Cairo), wearing dog body armor and goggles.
Within two minutes the Seals from Razor 2 had cleared the guesthouse and removed the women and children.
They then ran to the main house and entered from the ground floor, checking the rooms. One of Bin Laden’s bodyguards was waiting with his AK-47. The Seals shot him twice and he toppled over.
Five minutes into the operation the command Chinook landed outside the compound, disgorging the commanding officer and more men. They blasted through the compound wall and rushed in.
The commander made his way to the third floor, where Bin Laden’s body lay on the floor face up. Photographs were taken, and the commander called on his satellite phone to headquarters with the words: Geronimo Echo KIA Bin Laden enemy killed in action.
This was the first time the White House knew he was dead and it was probably 20 minutes into the raid, said Pfarrer. A sample of Bin Laden’s DNA was taken and the body was bagged. They kept his rifle. It is now mounted on the wall of their team room at their headquarters in Virginia Beach, Virginia, alongside photographs of a dozen colleagues killed in action in the past 20 years.
At this point things started to go wrong. Razor 1 took off but the top secret green unit that controls the electronics failed. The aircraft went into a spin and crashed tail-first into the compound… The Seals were alarmed, thinking it had been shot down, and several rushed to the wreckage. The crew climbed out, shaken but unharmed.
The commanding officer ordered them to destroy Razor 2, to remove the green unit, and to smash the avionics. They then laid explosive charges.
They loaded Bin Laden’s body onto the Chinook along with the cache of intelligence in plastic bin bags and headed toward the USS Carl Vinson. As they flew off they blew up Razor 2. The whole operation had taken 38 minutes.
The following morning White House officials announced that the helicopter had crashed as it arrived, forcing the Seals to abandon plans to enter from the roof. A photograph of the situation room showed a shocked Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, with her hand to her mouth.
Why did they get it so wrong? What they were watching was live video but it was shot from 20,000 feet by a drone circling overhead and relayed in real time to the White House and Leon Panetta, the CIA director, in Langley.
The Seals were not wearing helmet cameras, and those watching in Washington had no idea what was happening inside the buildings.
They don’t understand our terminology, so when someone said the insertion helicopter has crashed, they assumed it meant on entry, said Pfarrer.
What infuriated the Seals, according to Pfarrer, was the description of the raid as a kill mission. I’ve been a Seal for 30 years and I never heard the words kill mission, he said.
It’s a Beltway [Washington insiders] fantasy world. If it was a kill mission you don’t need Seal Team 6; you need a box of grenades. Hooyah!
As Paul Harvey would say: You now know the rest of the story!
BREAKING NEWS- Intelligence and Special Operations forces are furious and frustrated at how President Obama and those in positions of authority have exploited their service for political advantage. Countless leaks, interviews and decisions by the Obama Administration and other government officials have undermined the success of our Intelligence and Special Operations forces and put future missions and personnel at risk.
The unwarranted and dangerous public disclosure of Special Forces Operations is so serious — that for the first time ever — former operators have agreed to risk their reputations and go ‘on the record’ in a special documentary titled “Dishonorable Disclosures.” Its goal is to educate America about serious breaches of security and prevent them from ever happening again.
Use of military ranks, titles & photographs in uniform does not imply endorsement of the Dept of the Army or the Department of Defense. All individuals are no longer in active service with any federal agency or military service.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of former U.S. intelligence and Special Forces operatives is set to launch a media campaign, including TV ads, that scolds President Barack Obama for taking credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden and argues that high-level leaks are endangering American lives.
Leaders of the group, the Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc, say it is nonpartisan and unconnected to any political party or presidential campaign. It is registered as a so-called social welfare group, which means its primary purpose is to further the common good and its political activities should be secondary.
In the past, military exploits have been turned against presidential candidates by outside groups, most famously the Swift Boat ads in 2004 that questioned Democratic nominee John Kerry's Vietnam War service.
The OPSEC group says it is not political and aims to save American lives. Its first public salvo is a 22-minute film that includes criticism of Obama and his administration. The film, to be released on Wednesday, was seen in advance by Reuters.
"Mr. President, you did not kill Osama bin Laden, America did. The work that the American military has done killed Osama bin Laden. You did not," Ben Smith, identified as a Navy SEAL, says in the film.
U.S. President Barack Obama prepares to speak at a campaign event at the B.R. Miller Middle School in Marshalltown, Iowa, August 14, 2012. REUTERS/Larry Downing
"As a citizen, it is my civic duty to tell the president to stop leaking information to the enemy," Smith continues. "It will get Americans killed."
An Obama campaign official said: "No one in this group is in a position to speak with any authority on these issues and on what impact these leaks might have, and it's clear they've resorted to making things up for purely political reasons."
Obama has highlighted his foreign policy record on the campaign trail, emphasizing how he presided over the killing of bin Laden, as well as how he ended the war in Iraq and set a timeline for winding down the war in Afghanistan.
However, Obama has come under sharp attack from Republican lawmakers who have accused his administration of being behind high-level leaks of classified information.
They have pointed to media reports about clandestine drone attacks, informants planted in al Qaeda affiliates and alleged cyber-warfare against Iran that Republicans say were calculated to promote Obama's image as a strong leader in an election year.
The White House has denied leaking classified information.
The president of Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund Inc., Scott Taylor, is a former Navy SEAL who in 2010 ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for a congressional seat in Virginia.
Calling itself "OPSEC" for short - which in spy jargon means "operational security" - the anti-leak group incorporated last June in Delaware, a state that has the most secretive corporate registration rules in the U.S.
It also set itself up as a nonprofit organization under section 501(c)4 of the U.S. Tax Code, allowing it to keep donors' identities secret. Spokesmen for the group declined to discuss its sources of financing.
Several group representatives say their main motivation for setting up OPSEC was dismay at recent detailed media leaks about sensitive operations.
In an interview, Taylor denied OPSEC had any political slant. He described the group as a "watchdog organization" but added that the current administration "has certainly leaked more than others."
OPSEC spokesmen said the group has about $1 million at its disposal and hopes to raise more after the release of its mini-documentary, entitled "Dishonorable Disclosures," which aims, in spy-movie style, to document a recent spate of leaks regarding sensitive intelligence and military operations.
Following the film's release, OPSEC's spokesmen said, the group expects to produce TV spots on the anti-leak theme that will air in a number of states, including Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada - key battleground states.
Fred Rustmann, a former undercover case officer for the CIA who is a spokesman for the group, insisted its focus on leaks was "not a partisan concern." But he said the current administration had been leaking secrets "to help this guy get re-elected, at the expense of peoples' lives.... We want to see that they don't do this again."
Chad Kolton, a former spokesman for the office of Director of National Intelligence during the George W. Bush administration who now represents OPSEC, also said the group's message and make-up are nonpolitical.
"You'll see throughout the film that concern about protecting the lives of intelligence and Special Forces officers takes precedence over partisanship," he said.
Responding to criticism about the president taking credit for the bin Laden raid, an Obama campaign official pointed to an interview with CNN last month in which Admiral Bill McRaven, commander of the raid, said: "At the end of the day, make no mistake about it, it was the president of the United States that shouldered the burden for this operation, that made the hard decisions, that was instrumental in the planning process, because I pitched every plan to him."
"I think Admiral McRaven knows more about the President's role in the bin Laden operation than this group," the campaign official said.
(Additional reporting by Lauren French and Alexander Cohen in Washington. Editing by Claudia Parsons and Ciro Scotti)
US (Obama) bars media from covering return of 30 dead soldiers killed in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has ruled out media coverage of a ceremony marking the return of 30 US soldiers, including 22 Navy SEALs, who were killed when the helicopter they were travelling in was shot down in Afghanistan.
The return of the remains in flag draped coffins to the Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, possibly today, was denied media coverage because given the nature of the attack there were "no identifiable remains" of these servicemen, Pentagon spokesman Marine Col David Lapan told reporters during an off camera briefing.
The International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said the CH-47 Chinook helicopter was reportedly shot down by an insurgent rocket-propelled grenade while transporting the US service members and Afghan commandos to the scene of an engagement between ISAF and insurgent forces.
As a result of the attack, the helicopter exploded in midair, killing everyone on board.
"Due to the catastrophic nature of the crash, the remains of our fallen service members will be returned to the US via Dover AFB in unidentified status, until they can be positively identified by the Armed Forces Mortuary Affairs Office at Dover," another Pentagon spokesman, Navy Capt Jane Campbell said in a statement later.
"Because the remains are unidentified at this point, next-of-kin are not in a position to grant approval for media access to the dignified transfer," he said.
Therefore, in accordance with the policy of the Department of Defense, no media coverage of the arrival and dignified transfer is permitted, Campbell said.
"Families will however, be given the opportunity to be present for the arrival," he said.
Coverage of arrival of soldiers killed in battlefield was banned for the media during the previous Bush administration.
The Obama administration permitted media coverage of the return ceremony for service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, subject to the approval by the next-of-kin. But this time the Department of Defense ruled against the media coverage.
Pentagon Press Association president Nancy Youssef said the organization has protested the decision to ban media coverage and had sought to reverse the decision. posted at Times of India - US
Then mysteriously by the end of the day the reports began to change and the news was “corrected”, now it was being reported that it wasn’t any of the guys from the Bin Laden mission but other Seals.
We have friends who has a son serving right now that is part of a Special Forces Team and just back states side at a base filled with Special Forces. He says that everyone of them believes that there is something fishy with the deaths, the reports, the events and especially the changing story. Below is some input:
Was Seal Team Six Executed by Obama Administration?
The shocking death of the SEALS who took out bin Laden is starting to stink like a corpse. And the one who’s sniffing that stench the loudest is Ann Barnhardt. Immediately upon the tragic news of the deaths of Seal Team 6, Ann erupted with disgust at why President Obama’s staff had blared news of the deaths before the families of the deceased had themselves been notified. This is NOT in accordance with military protocol. She was also vehemently suspicious of just how Obama had been able to know the identities of the dead personnel when there hadn’t been enough time for DNA analysis; indeed, most of the bodies hadn’t yet been recovered. But most of all she was highly suspicious as to just how the bumbling buffoons of the Taliban had been able to take out the elite Seals. We all know that America’s soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan are awesome – but, face it folks, the Seals are a breed apart.
Seals operate in total secrecy, nobody knows who they are, where they are or what they’re doing; in short, the Seals are ‘invisible’ to the world, including their own fellow soldiers. In fact, the Seals are ‘invisible’ to themselves in terms of knowing where they will be within the next hour or what they will be doing. That secrecy protects them. And the protection is ratcheted even higher when one adds in the amazing agility with which Seals move; finding them is nearly impossible because they slip and slide amongst the landscape like – well, like seals do in the ocean, darting at awesome speeds in the twinkling of an eye. Which means that even if you DO get them in your sights, their speed is so incredible they could vanish before you pull the trigger. So, given the slovenly ineptitude of the Taliban (a ragtag bunch of losers who more often blow themselves up instead of their targets), it is unthinkable that such a band of incompetents would have been able to execute such a huge number of highly trained, incredibly well-protected Seals. It was akin to a high school dweeb taking down Bruce Lee with a single kick.
As far as Barnhardt was concerned, the death of the Seals could only have happened because of insider information. The Taliban had to have known exactly where and when those Seals would be appear on the landscape – and had to been waiting with proper weaponry that would fire at precisely the right moment and angle. Only then could all of those Seals been taken down. The Seals wouldn’t have told the Taliban, their brother officers wouldn’t have and neither would have their immediate superiors. No, only someone much higher up, someone privy to top secret information could have given that out. And once you understand that an attack of this magnitude needed an insider, the next logical question is – why would the insider do that? What would be their motive?
Well, if that insider were a President who refused to take out bin Laden because that President didn’t want to ‘upset’ the Muslims, than getting revenge on the ones who did is a whopper of a motive. A fit of the self-pitying sulks only makes the motive worse. Contrary to the lies from his administration, Obama was not glorified by the take down of bin Laden, he was instead humiliated. This is because Obama never had a single thing to do with the terrorist’s death; it was all the work of CIA Director Leon Panetta. Four months before the attack on the terrorist, Panetta and General Petraeus had located bin Laden’s whereabouts and begged the President to authorize a takedown of the murderer. But Obama flatly refused. He was more concerned with the feelings of the Muslim world than the grief and pain of the American victims of 9/11. Enraged by Obama’s stance, Panetta then staged a palace coup by secretly organizing the entire operation himself (with the explicit cooperation of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates). The killing of bin Laden was thus Panetta’s triumph, not the Commander in Chief – which accounts for that humiliating picture of the Command Center in the White House basement on the night bin Laden died. Whereas Clinton, Gates and even VP Biden are all seated at the command table as they’re briefed (off camera) by Panetta on the takedown, the President of the United States is banished from the table to squat in the corner like a tyke on his potty straining to make Number 2. (Obama even has his finger in his mouth.) It also explains why Obama’s nanny, Valerie Jarrett, was nowhere in sight. Because she’d shrieked even worse than Obama against taking out the terrorist because of her concern for Muslim ‘good will’, Panetta had slammed the door of the room shut in her face. Trust me – Valerie and Barack had more than enough motive to ‘punish’ the Seals.
Well, someone did just that because now the Seals are dead. Barnhardt is smelling a rat – and I am also. And the smell is only getting worse with the news (which Barnhardt outlines below) that the Seals themselves were not only clumped together in abnormally huge numbers (they never travel in large packs) but were also NOT traveling in their usual specially armored choppers.
I hope and pray that I (and Ann) are wrong. But I don’t think so.
————————-
Tip from Afghanistan
Posted by Ann Barnhardt – August 7, AD 2011 6:57 AM MST
I received a tip from a soldier stationed with an aviation brigade out of Jalalabad overnight.
“Almost immediately, after news of the crash began to spread, we were placed in an internet and phone blackout. This means communication with family, friends and “others” back home, in real time, is prevented until further notice.
However, there are also chinook pilots, crews and mechanics assigned here who were privy to the details of the crash almost immediately. One of confirmed details they have been discussing is that the chinook shot down belonged to a National Guard unit. Which is causing people to whisper in astonishment, “why were some of the most elite of America’s military, in such large numbers, tooling around on a National Guard aircraft?”
Also, those around me are wondering why such a large number(extremely unconventional for Seals, Green Berets, etc) of them riding in a single aircraft instead of being spread out into numerous aircraft.
Without question, I mean no disrespect to the pilots and crew of the National Guard aircraft, but the fact is that it’s very “strange” that Seals would be conducting an actual mission, with such large numbers, in such a basic aircraft. Especially, given the fact, that there were special operation chinooks easily available, and sitting idle, when this tragedy took place.”
I am not a journalist. I have no means of checking this. But SOMEONE needs to investigate if in fact the SEALS were on a National Guard helo, if there were SPECOPS Chinooks available and idle, and what the difference in armament is between Guard Chinooks and SPECOPS Chinooks. This potential difference in armament is HUGE and could account for the possibility of the Chinook being shot down by an RPG, if that is what happened.
Hello? Journalists? Anyone out there?
UPDATE: The SPECOPS Chinook is a very different beast that is heavily upgraded with enhanced survivability features. It is the Boeing MH-47E/G. Boeing’s Homepage for the SPECOPS chinook here. The soldier quoted above contends that the SEALS were NOT in one of these units, but rather in a standard Chinook while these SPECOPS Chinooks were available and sitting idle. Again, a JOURNALIST needs to confirm this.
UPDATE 2: From a reader:
Ann, You are on to something here. I was in the 160th 1982- 1985 and I can tell you that the reason the aviation wing was created was so special ops would never again have to fly missions with anyone other than their own pilots and birds.
UPDATE 3: From a reader:
Ann, I’m sure you’re getting a lot of notes on the Chinook debacle. I’m retired USAF familiar with how the system works when it comes to the questions asked by your Jalalabad contact. First, look to the Command Authority. Dispersion protocols are almost never broken except on direct order up the chain high enough that nobody could question or refuse the order without jeopardizing their career.Second, ‘who benefits’? Follow the trail of beneficiaries to the incident. Tactically, intell had to be passed to the shooters as to the timetable. I’m willing to bet that there were several RPG’s (if not Stinger’s – remember, we provided quite a few and never kept a record during the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan) involved. Then, once fired, the shooters had to egress unseen to fight another day. Many people I know, including some recently back from that area say this stinks to high Heaven, as you do.
Updated August 8, 2011 3:30pm ET
Today 31 NATO troops, 20 of them Navy Seals from the Osama bin Laden operation died in what is reported as a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
The chances of this story being true is almost nil. The chances of this being a staged cover-up is over 80%. We believe these people were murdered to silence them. This is why.
Some Possibly Killed in Abbottabad Helicopter Crash Months Before
By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor – Veteran Times
We have solid information on two areas:
Osama bin Laden died in 2001 as an active CIA employee and his body was recovered in Afghanistan and taken to “the sand box.” We were told it was frozen. We have so much verification from this, CIA, ISI, US military and top officials. I have a direct confirmation from Bin Laden’s CIA handler who I grilled mercilessly on this.
The Abbottabad operation involved numerous American deaths, witnessed, bodies all over, a helicopter crash. (suppressed translated TV interview below) These bodies were recovered by land vehicle from Islamabad and there was NO “successful” bin Laden operation of any kind. There was and has been a CIA safe house in Abbotabad where terror suspects were stored for years.
This gave the US several areas of severe vulnerability. Generally, Navy Seals are the best people in the world at keeping their mouths shut, these are real team players, as the term “Seal Team” belies.
We at VT were informed that the bin Laden operation was staged at this time, a theatrical farce, to cover the exit of Secretary Gates, the move by former CIA Director Leon Panetta into the DOD as Secretary of Defense and to stem any heroic claims by new CIA Director Petraeus of killing the long dead Osama bin Laden, the long frozen CIA operative.
Petraeus is a possible presidential contender and had to be denied this “gift from heaven,” a fast track to the oval office for sure.
Will We Ever Know What Happened?
Again, I remind you, I went over specific meetings on bin Laden with his handlers, getting every last detail. I have watched what has gone on, the continuing need to vilify a long dead top CIA operative to provide residual cover for the Bush administration….
The reason? Bush and his cronies are all facing charges of war crimes, not just in minor jurisdictions but heading for the ICC, putting them on the dock with Gaddafi ( a far less harmful character).
As for the timing of this incident? This we will work on. What we can easily surmise is that some of the dead have been dead since their bodies were taken away from the helicopter crash site in Abbotabad.
Who would order such a thing? We are going to have to wait but we are going to find out. However, we expected this, the timing is exactly as predicted.
HOW VT TRIED TO SAVE THEM
When the phony Abbotbad operation came out, I immediately understood what happened. I also saw much potential good from it other than the tragedy of the dead Americans from the crash. I wrote of this and see their deaths as more heroic than many recognize.
They died to erase for all time remnants of the Bush era fairly tale of bad guy and evildoer Osama bin Laden. Enough good men had died chasing a ghost who lived only in phony video and audio tapes by “Bin Laden Studios” in Tel Aviv and in the continual “boogeyman” rhetoric of professional fear-mongers.
Not long afterward, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, another able public servant announced the near defeat of Al Qaeda, another Bush fairly tale.
Al Qaeda has never existed, there are no magic worldwide terror conspiracies other than those run by governments. There are several of those and I have written extensively on these. Google will help you with this if you are curious.
When VT saw why the government staged this, we saw we could accomplish two things:
We could simply report the truth for those willing to believe it, something we believe is the right thing to do.
We could also support the United States in a very real way, knowing Pakistan would weather this crisis, timed, in some ways, as a face saving move in response to the embarrassing Raymond Davis affair. I believed if the truth came out, clear enough for insiders, intel and military for sure, to understand that we knew and other insiders knew, there would be no reason to “clean house” afterward, to stage a cover-up and get rid of any involved.
Abbotabad – How Many Died Here?
I had felt that we had provided cover for the Seal Team, we hadn’t trashed them, we acknowledged the dead at Abbotabad where no one else bothered, this is our job as fellow members of America’s military forces (current and former).
More importantly, we got out word, I certainly did enough radio and TV on this, enough that, for anyone who care, the “truth was out there.”
This is all we could do but I hoped it would stem a need for covering tracks. After all, anyone leaking real information on the operation would only seem like they had gotten it from me and I put it out there in such a manner that I allowed room to be “debunked.”
I do this to protect myself but I really was thinking of them. These are great guys, Seals are among the best people on earth. The Seal and Special Forces communities are, of the military groups in the US, some of the finest people I know.
They also help cover my “behind,” which I appreciate.
This is just too obvious, too brazen. I can’t imagine it started at the White House or even cabinet level but maybe I am deluding myself. Bin Laden was all about the election.
After the bond collapse and credit disaster yesterday, anything threatening President Obama’s reelection is seen, by some, as a threat to America’s financial survival. This debt crisis is a bigger threat to the US than a Japanese invasion in 1942 would have been.
You may not see it that way and you certainly cant get out your hunting rifle to fix it. (Don’t be a sap, kill a Jap!)
Osama in Better Days
Someone had gotten to someone. My best guess and this is a guess…an expose’ by the mainstream media, perhaps Murdoch, another guess, conjecture I admit, regarding the farce at Abbottabad, information possibly gotten through spying, bribery and blackmail, threatened to take down Obama.
With Murdoch’s good friend and “monkeyboy,” Netanyahu ‘on the ropes,” with crowds marching in Israel’s streets demanding his ouster, we have more timing to factor in.
The bin Laden killing, the third rate drama of capturing an unarmed frozen dead guy and throwing him into the ocean had probably become an albatross around certain high ranking necks.
Norway was no accident, it was a warning too. It has been containerized, just as the Murdoch espionage issue is now “poor Rupert and the pie thrower.”
These Americans are casualties in a game, one like 9/11, sacrificial pawns, like Britain’s 7/7, all lies, all theatre, all evil.
This is not for public consumption. There are those who know exactly who I am talking to.
There are many of us here who still keep our mouths shut about so many things. There are too many who don’t even care, most of us at VT do. Yes, I am aware I can be jailed, I am aware my passport can be pulled, I already see the damned surveillance.
Amateurs.
We aren’t anti-American. I am simply sick of seeing solutions that go one direction, stealing everything that isn’t nailed down. I am also sick of the fact that Washington can’t visit the “head’ without Israel’s permission.
This…today, this is too much. It is unforgivable. We are not going to allow this to stand.
We have a long standing history of “cleaning house” after operations of this kind. Usually its dead senators in plane crashes, heart attacks, car wrecks, like the Minot Barksdale or 9/11 incidents. I could name a dozen more. Does the name Wheeler meaning anything to you? Anyone remember Pat Tillman?
But this many?
g
Keep checking in with us and Ann Branhardt for updates to this story. Ask Marion~
Is there anybody out there besides me that thinks this is just too much of a coincidence??
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A military helicopter was shot down in eastern Afghanistan, killing 31 U.S. special operation troops, most of them from the elite Navy SEALs unit that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, along with seven Afghan commandos. It was the deadliest single incident for American forces in the decade-long war.
The Taliban claimed they downed the helicopter with rocket fire while it was taking part in a raid on a house where insurgents were gathered in the province of Wardak late Friday. It said wreckage of the craft was strewn at the scene. A senior U.S. administration official in Washington said the craft was apparently shot down by insurgents. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the crash is still being investigated.
NATO confirmed the overnight crash took place and that there "was enemy activity in the area." But it said it was still investigating the cause and conducting a recovery operation at the site. It did not release details or casualty figures.
"We are in the process of accessing the facts," said U.S. Air Force Capt. Justin Brockhoff, a NATO spokesman.
One current and one former U.S. official said that the dead included more than 20 Navy SEALs from SEAL Team Six, the unit that carried out the raid in Pakistan in May that killed bin Laden. They were being flown by acrew of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because families are still being notified.
President Barack Obama mourned the deaths of the American troops, saying in a statement that the crash serves as a reminder of the "extraordinary sacrifices" being made by the U.S. military and its families. He said he also mourned "the Afghans who died alongside our troops."
The death toll would surpass the worst single day loss of life for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001 -- the June 28, 2005 downing of a military helicopter in eastern Kunar province. In that incident, 16 Navy SEALs and Army special operations troops were killed when their craft was shot down while on a mission to rescue four SEALs under attack by the Taliban. Three of the SEALs being rescued were also killed and the fourth wounded. It was the highest one-day death toll for the Navy Special Warfare personnel since World War II.
With its steep mountain ranges, providing shelter for militants armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, eastern Afghanistan is hazardous terrain for military aircraft. Large, slow-moving air transport carriers like the CH-47 Chinook are particularly vulnerable, often forced to ease their way through sheer valleys where insurgents can achieve more level lines of fire from mountainsides.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday gave the first public word of the new crash, saying in a statement that "a NATO helicopter crashed last night in Wardak province" and that 31 American special operations troops were killed. He expressed his condolences to President Barack Obama.
The helicopter was a twin-rotor Chinook, said an official at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was receiving his information from an Afghan officer in Kabul.
The crash took place in the Sayd Abad district of Wardak province, said a provincial government spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid. The volatile region borders the province of Kabul where the Afghan capital is located and is known for its strong Taliban presence.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that Taliban fighters downed the helicopter during a "heavy raid" in Sayd Abad. He said NATO attacked a house in Sayd Abad where insurgent fighters were gathering Friday night. During the battle, the fighters shot down the helicopter, killing 31 Americans and seven Afghans, he said, adding that eight insurgents were killed in the fight.
There have been at least 17 coalition and Afghan aircraft crashes in Afghanistan this year.
Most of the crashes were attributed to pilot errors, weather conditions or mechanical failures.
However, the coalition has confirmed that at least one CH-47F Chinook helicopter was hit by a rocket propelled grenade on July 25. Two coalition crew members were injured in that attack.
Meanwhile, in the southern Helmand province, an Afghan government official said Saturday that NATO troops attacked a house and inadvertently killed eight members of a family, including women and children.
NATO said that Taliban fighters fired rocket propelled grenades and small arms fire at coalition troops during a patrol Friday in the Nad Ali district.
"Coalition forces responded with small arms fire and as the incident continued, an air strike was employed against the insurgent position," said Brockhoff. He added that NATO sent a delegation to meet with local leaders and investigate the incident.
Nad Ali district police chief Shadi Khan said civilians died in the bombardment but that it was unknown how many insurgents were killed.
Helmand, a Taliban stronghold, is the deadliest province in Afghanistan for international troops.
NATO has come under harsh criticism in the past for accidentally killing civilians during operations against suspected insurgents. However, civilian death tallies by the United Nations show the insurgency is responsible for most war casualties involving noncombatants.
In south Afghanistan, NATO said two coalition service member were killed, one on Friday and another on Saturday. The international alliance did not release further details.
With the casualties from the helicopter crash, the deaths bring to 365 the number of coalition troops killed this year in Afghanistan and 42 this month.
This was the largest single loss of life ever for SEAL Team Six.
The Associated Press has learned that more than 20 Navy SEALs from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden were among those lost in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
For anyone who questions what really happened to Bin Laden and what happened in that reported raid… the witness list is getting thin! (Bit my bit posts, photos and accounts related to these events are vanishing from the web… soon they will vanish, or be re-written with nobody to verify them, for posterity!)
“Just because something is a conspiracy does not mean it isn’t true!” …Rubicon
Update from Fox News… It has been confirmed that the helicopter carrying the Navy Seals plus 7 Afghans was shot down with an RGB. Curiously neither the Taliban nor any Al-Qaeda groups have taken credit? Odd??
My condolences to the families of the 31 Navy Seals that had their lives taken from them in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan. My prayers go out to everyone who them loved them all.
I just happened to catch on Fox News all the happenings on the Bin Laden snuff out last night as we were hooking up new hardware and swearing at the slowness of software.
Geraldo comes on Fox News and starts going on about the president getting ready to address the nation. He is on there with a 3 star general, and it is being pointed out that this has never been done before on a Sunday evening. They call it a “pop up.” Speculation was all over the place from Gadhafi being killed, to invading Syria, to an impending attack via chemical/biological/nuclear warfare. Good times indeed.
Then, suddenly, Geraldo exclaims, “What if they got Osama Bin Laden?” I’m not kidding when I say 30 seconds later that is exactly what came over the wires. The president’s speech was delayed an hour and then Obama appeared trying and failing to look humble and triumphant simultaneously. Earlier, Geraldo reported that Bin Laden had been killed a week earlier and DNA was being verified. But Obama claimed that the intel was received a week earlier and Bin Laden was killed yesterday. That Obama gave the order to take the head honcho terrorist out.
Let the media Obama worship begin on every channel ad nauseam. Oh, do I have doubts and questions on this one. First off, let me say, that if he is dead, terrific! I hope he rots in hell. And if the Seals got him, awesome! But there are glaring out points here that all of the media will not address and that includes Fox News, who seems to be in an all out Obama love fest complete with progressives slobbering on air and the Woodrow Wilson Institute claiming victory for the left. Gag…
Now, this morning, I hear Bin Laden was buried at see because of Muslim tradition. Well, isn’t that convenient? No body to have to come clean on. Since when do we follow religious observation for terrorists?
I also want to know how thousands showed up at the White House within minutes of word getting out complete with signs and youthful exuberance. More showed up in Times Square and it had the definite feeling of actual astroturfed propaganda worthy of the Nazi regime. Maybe it was real, but I kind of doubt it.
And ask yourself, what is this distracting from? The border? Gun confiscation? The EPA? What? Because you just know the other hand is busy doing something.
I would love to revel in the knowledge Bin Laden is dead. But it is just too neat. Too convenient for a president whose ratings are in the toilet with a reelection coming up. Too convenient when the economy is in the crapper and our elites want to ‘stimulate’ it into recovery. Too neat that the assassination occurred on May Day, a Communist day. Just too many doubts and questions.
Great job Terresa!! Couldn’t have said it better myself! It was exactly what I’ve been thinking since I first heard this and all day long as the coverage progressed. The only thing I’d like to add is that the other problem with this whole story is that it keeps changing!! From the story of the intel having been received and the kill having happened a week earlier and them needing the time and waiting for DNA testing results to now Bin Laden was killed Sunday and they’ve already done DNA testing and dumped the body? Plus now it seems that the WH is again modifying their account and backing off key details from their Monday evening narrative as well as there being leaks that senior military and Intelligence officials overruled Obama regarding the mission to kill Bin Laden. We are also starting to hear rumblings and questions from members of the CIA and the like… MGA of Knowledge Creates Power
Obama sure uses a lot of "I's" in his message... "I authorized...I've oversaw..." Meanwhile, our brave troops are in harms way!
I thought Bin Laden was dead 9 years ago. Just when Barry’s popularity needs a BIG boost. I’m skeptical. sorry.
This is the case of a president that wants to assure his re-election and is and will do everything in his power to make it happen. This is only the beginning of his smoke and mirrors!
Crowds cheering USA and waving American flags appear at
The timing of this is really weird. It's possible Pakistan and U.S has known his whereabouts for a while & this is a political stunt.
Osama killed by American hands. To the Navy Seals who got the S.O.B., I & all Americans offer heartiest congratulations & deepest gratitude.
If Osama is really dead, good… He can rot in Hell. However, I am very skeptical! I think it is very convenient timing for Obama’s reelection… a bit too convenient!
In his last attack on the world, Osama blew up all of our twitter feeds.
OOPS: MSNBC (and Geraldo on Fox) Says “Obama,” Not Osama Killed http://bit.ly/lgptA7
FBI: 10 Most Wanted list with Bin Laden has not been updated with "Dead/Capture" http://goo.gl/pg7fn
Phillies Crowd Erupts in ‘U-S-A’ Cheers on News of Bin Laden Death http://bit.ly/jr7yuH
Ground zero crowd cheering USA, fire trucks passing by honking in support http://t.co/Kq5m7vF
Osama Bin Laden Killed in US Military Operation in Pakistan
WASHINGTON--Osama bin Laden has been killed, President Barack Obama announced Sunday night.
President Obama made the announcement almost ten years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Within an hour of the news breaking, thousands of spectators were gathering outside of the White House chanting "USA, USA" and singing "God Bless America." Elsewhere in the United States, crowds gathered and fans at baseball games burst into spontaneous cheers. "Justice has been done," the president said.
CNN and other news agencies reported that the US is in possession of the body and that identification has been absolutely confirmed. No details of bin Laden's death have been yet released.
The operation that killed the al-Qaida leader in a mansion outside of Islamabad was apparently the culmination of weeks of intelligence gathering and no less that five top secret national security meetings between Obama and his war cabinet.
US military and diplomatic installations are on a state of heightened alert and members of the Obama administration and the President have been alerting members of Congress and foreign leaders all night long.
Bin Laden was apparently killed in a "human operation" that was based on actionable intelligence in a mansion outside of Islamabad, Pakistan, according to CNN. He was killed in a highly secure compound, built in 2005, that was a virtual fortress of 15-foot-high walls and barbed wire.
The entire operation lasted just 40 minutes and was conducted by an elite team of US Navy SEALS, CIA officers, and other special military commandos. Pakistani intelligence officials apparently were key to the success of the mission, initial reports suggested. The announcement comes nearly a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks which started a tireless hunt for the terrorist mastermind and al-Qaida leader.
Challenging the might of the "infidel" United States, Osama bin Laden masterminded the deadliest militant attacks in history and then built a global network of allies to wage a "holy war" intended to outlive him.
The man behind the suicide hijack attacks of September 11, 2001, and who U.S. officials said late on Sunday was dead, was the nemesis of former President George W. Bush, who pledged to take him "dead or alive" and whose two terms were dominated by a "war on terror" against his al-Qaida network.
Bin Laden also assailed Bush's successor, Barack Obama, dismissing a new beginning with Muslims he offered in a 2009 speech as sowing "seeds for hatred and revenge against America." Widely assumed to be hiding in Pakistan -- whether in a mountain cave or a bustling city -- bin Laden was believed to be largely bereft of operational control, under threat from U.S. drone strikes and struggling with disenchantment among former supporters alienated by suicide attacks in Iraq in 2004-06.
But even as political and security pressures grew on him in 2009-2101, the Saudi-born militant appeared to hit upon a strategy of smaller, more easily-organized attacks, carried out by globally-scattered hubs of sympathizers and affiliate groups. Al=Qaida sprouted new offshoots in Yemen, Iraq and North Africa and directed or inspired attacks from Bali to Britain to the United States, where a Nigerian Islamist made a botched attempt to down an airliner over Detroit on Dec 25, 2009.
While remaining the potent figurehead of al-Qaida, bin Laden turned its core leadership from an organization that executed complex team-based attacks into a propaganda hub that cultivated affiliated groups to organize and strike on their own. With his long grey beard and wistful expression, bin Laden became one of the most instantly recognizable people on the planet, his gaunt face staring out from propaganda videos and framed on a U.S. website offering a $25 million bounty.
Officials say U.S. authorities have recovered bin Laden's body, ending the largest manhunt in history involving thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and tens of thousands of Pakistani soldiers in the rugged mountains along the border.
Whether reviled as a terrorist and mass murderer or hailed as the champion of oppressed Muslims fighting injustice and humiliation, bin Laden changed the course of history.
ASYMMETRIC WARFARE
The United States and its allies rewrote their security doctrines, struggling to adjust from Cold War-style confrontation between states to a new brand of transnational "asymmetric warfare" against small cells of Islamist militants. Al=Qaida's weapons were not tanks, submarines and aircraft carriers but the everyday tools of globalization and 21st century technology -- among them the Internet, which it eagerly exploited for propaganda, training and recruitment.
But, by his own account, not even bin Laden anticipated the full impact of using 19 suicide hijackers to turn passenger aircraft into guided missiles and slam them into buildings that symbolized U.S. financial and military power. Nearly 3,000 people died when two planes struck New York's World Trade Center, a third hit the Pentagon in Washington and a fourth crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania after passengers rushed the hijackers. "Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs," bin Laden said in a statement a month after the September 11 attacks, urging Muslims to rise up and join a global battle between "the camp of the faithful and the camp of the infidels." In video and audio messages over the next seven years, the al-Qaida leader goaded Washington and its allies. His diatribes lurched across a range of topics, from the war in Iraq to U.S. politics, the subprime mortgage crisis and even climate change.
A gap of nearly three years in his output of video messages revived speculation he might be gravely ill with a kidney problem or even have died, but bin Laden was back on screen in September 2007, telling Americans their country was vulnerable despite its economic and military power.
MILLIONAIRE FATHER
Born in Saudi Arabia in 1957, one of more than 50 children of millionaire businessman Mohamed bin Laden, he lost his father while still a boy -- killed in a plane crash, apparently due to an error by his American pilot. Osama's first marriage, to a Syrian cousin, came at the age of 17, and he is reported to have at least 23 children from at least five wives.
Part of a family that made its fortune in the oil-funded Saudi construction boom, bin Laden was a shy boy and an average student, who took a degree in civil engineering. He went to Pakistan soon after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and raised funds at home before making his way to the Afghan front lines and developing militant training camps. According to some accounts, he helped form al-Qaida ("The Base") in the dying days of the Soviet occupation. A book by U.S. writer Steve Coll, "The Bin Ladens," suggested the death in 1988 of his extrovert half-brother Salem -- again in a plane crash -- was an important factor in Osama's radicalization.
Bin Laden condemned the presence in Saudi Arabia of U.S. troops sent to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait after the 1990 invasion, and remained convinced that the Muslim world was the victim of international terrorism engineered by America. He called for a jihad against the United States, which had spent billions of dollars bankrolling the Afghan resistance in which he had fought.
TRAIL OF ATTACKS
Al-Qaida embarked on a trail of attacks, beginning with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six and first raised the specter of Islamist extremism spreading to the United States. Bin Laden was the prime suspect in bombings of U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996 as well as attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 224. In October 2000, suicide bombers rammed into the USS Cole warship in Yemen, killing 17 sailors, and al-Qaida was blamed. Disowned by his family and stripped of Saudi citizenship, bin Laden had moved first to Sudan in 1991 and later resurfaced in Afghanistan before the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996. With his wealth, largesse and shared radical Muslim ideology, bin Laden soon eased his way into inner Taliban circles as they imposed their rigid interpretation of Islam. From Afghanistan, bin Laden issued religious decrees against U.S. soldiers and ran training camps where militants were groomed for a global campaign of violence.
Recruits were drawn from Central, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and even Europe by their common hatred of the United States, Israel and moderate Muslim governments, as well as a desire for a more fundamentalist brand of Islam. After the 1998 attacks on two of its African embassies, the United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at Afghanistan, targeting al-Qaida training camps. Bin Laden escaped unscathed. The Taliban paid a heavy price for sheltering bin Laden and his fighters, suffering a humiliating defeat after a U.S.-led invasion in the weeks after the September 11 attacks.
ESCAPE FROM TORA BORA
Al-Qaida was badly weakened, with many fighters killed or captured. Bin Laden vanished -- some reports say U.S. bombs narrowly missed him in late 2001 as he and his forces slipped out of Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains and into Pakistan.
But the start of the Iraq war in 2003 produced a fresh surge of recruits for al-Qaida due to opposition to the U.S. invasion within Muslim communities around the world, analysts say. Apparently protected by the Afghan Taliban in their northwest Pakistani strongholds, bin Laden also built ties to an array of south Asian militant groups and backed a bloody revolt by the Pakistani Taliban against the Islamabad government.
Amid a reinvigorated al-Qaida propaganda push, operatives or sympathizers were blamed for attacks from Indonesia and Pakistan to Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Spain, Britain and Somalia. Tougher security in the West and killings of middle-rank Qaida men helped weaken the group, and some followers noted critically that the last successful al Qaida-linked strike in a Western country was the 2005 London bombings that killed 52.
But Western worries about radicalization grew following a string of incidents involving U.S.-based radicals in 2009-10 including an attempt to bomb New York's Times Square. In a 2006 audio message, bin Laden alluded to the U.S. hunt for him and stated his determination to avoid capture: "I swear not to die but a free man."
They have pointed to media reports about clandestine drone attacks, informants planted in al Qaeda affiliates and alleged cyber-warfare against Iran that Republicans say were calculated to promote Obama's image as a strong leader in an election year.
Saturday, August 6th, 2011 Fox news released the alert early in the day that 
