This day Ten years ago Usama Bin Ladin was killed

[truthfollower]

Minutes and Years: The Bin Ladin Operation

April 30, 2016
Intelligence and Operations
In the early morning hours of May 2, 2011-Pakistan time (afternoon of May 1-Eastern Daylight Time), a US military raid on an al-Qa`ida compound killed Usama Bin Ladin, America’s most wanted terrorist. The mission’s success was the culmination of many years of complex, thorough, and highly advanced intelligence operations and analyses led by the CIA with support from partners across the Intelligence Community (IC).
While Bin Ladin had been a key focus of the IC since the 1990s, shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the CIA began collecting information on key individuals connected to or providing support to Bin Ladin. Reporting identified a key courier by his kunya, or operational pseudonym. It would be years later that the kunya was matched to a real name.

By late 2010, further intelligence linked the courier to a compound in Abbottabad, a town in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province (formerly the Northwest Frontier Province), about 35 miles north of Islamabad. The compound and its main residence had extensive security features unusual for the area: high walls topped with barbed wire, double entry gates, opaque windows, no apparent internet or telephone connections, and all trash was burned rather than collected. Moreover, the two registered owners did not appear to work or have an income that would allow them to afford such a large residence. This, along with other intelligence, led the IC to assess that the compound was probably being used to hide Bin Ladin, as well as the courier.

Intense training for the raid began, including the building of an exact life-size replica of the compound with movable interior walls to prepare the assault teams for any internal layout they might encounter.
The operation, authorized by the President on April 29th, was a surgical raid by a small team of special operations forces chosen to minimize collateral damage, to pose as little risk as possible to noncombatants on the compound or to Pakistani civilians in the neighborhood, and to increase the likelihood of confirming the identity of Bin Ladin.
The helicopters arrived at the Abbottabad compound at 0030-Pakistan time on May 2; one crashed, but the assault continued without delay. Bin Ladin was found and killed within 9 minutes. In the aftermath, Bin Ladin was positively identified via several independent means.

Timeline of the Raid
May 1 – EDT
1:25 p.m. EDT —President Obama, DCIA Panetta, and JSOC commander Admiral McRaven approve execution of the operation.
1:51 p.m. EDT — Helicopters depart from Afghanistan.
3:30 p.m. EDT — Two helicopters descend on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan (north of Islamabad). One crashes, but the assault continues without delay or injury.
3:32 p.m. EDT — President Obama, in the Situation Room, receives up to the minute reports on the situation on the ground in Abbottabad.
3:39 p.m. EDT — Usama Bin Ladin is found on third floor and killed.
3:53 p.m. EDT — President Obama receives tentative confirmation of positive identification of Bin Ladin.
3:55 p.m. EDT —Bin Ladin’s body is moved to the first floor and placed in a body bag.
3:39 p.m. — 4:10 p.m. EDT — Assault Team retrieves a large quantity of materials from the compound for intelligence analysis.
4:05 p.m. EDT — First helicopter leaves the area.
4:08 p.m. EDT —Assault Team destroys the crashed helicopter.
4:10 p.m. EDT —Backup helicopter picks up remaining team members and materials and leaves Abbottabad.
5:53 p.m. EDT — Helicopters return to Afghanistan where Admiral McRaven greets the team.
7:01 p.m. EDT — President Obama receives confirmations of high probability of positive identification of Bin Ladin.
11:35 p.m. EDT — President Obama speaks to the nation from the East Room.

May 2 – EDT
12:59 a.m. EDT — Bin Ladin’s body is buried at sea from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the north Arabian Sea.
Materials Recovered
The large quantity of materials collected from the compound required time for a thorough review. The CIA led a multi-agency task force to prioritize, catalogue, and analyze them for intelligence about al-Qa`ida’s affiliates, plans and intentions, and current threats. The collected materials indicated that Bin Ladin remained an active leader in al-Qa`ida, providing strategic, operational, and tactical instructions to the organization. Though separated from many al-Qa`ida members in remote areas of the region, he was far from a figurehead. Bin Ladin remained in charge while in hiding.
The Director of National Intelligence recently posted on the DNI website the second tranche of released Usama Bin Ladin documents that were captured during the raid. From the documents, analysts learned that Bin Ladin had been planning to leave his Abbottabad abode.
On January 14, 2011—three and a half months before the raid that killed him—Bin Ladin wrote a formal letter to the two brothers—one of whom was the courier identified years before—who had been hiding him for eight years. Apparently, the pressures of hiding Bin Ladin and his family had led the brothers to use harsh words in open argument days before with the al-Qa`ida leader, who in his written response expressed profound gratitude to the brothers, acknowledging the “heavy burden” of their “huge responsibility” for his safety.
In other letters to relatives and friends, Bin Ladin confirmed that the brothers sheltering him were “exhausted” from the effort. On February 2, 2011, Bin Ladin wrote to an al-Qa`ida confidante that the brothers had “for a long time demanded separation from us,” that Bin Ladin had agreed in writing that they would retire and hand over to others the duty of hiding him and his family, and that this would involve moving to another location. The target date for the move and changeover was September 2011.
Of course, Bin Ladin’s plans to move from the Abbottabad compound were not known to CIA when the IC and our military partners discovered his hiding place in August 2010; nor were President Obama, other top US policymakers, and the leaders of the IC aware of these plans as they studied the intelligence on the compound during the many months leading up to the raid. Had the decision to conduct the raid been delayed, this story might have had a very different ending.

The Death of Bin Ladin
The death of Usama Bin Ladin marked a significant victory in the US-led campaign to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qa`ida. He was al-Qa`ida’s founder and only amir, or commander, in its history until his death. He was largely responsible for the organization’s mystique, its ability to raise money and attract new recruits, and its focus on the United States as a target for terrorist attacks.
The daring raid that ensured Bin Ladin would never kill again was a team effort, the product of increased integration within the IC and of close collaboration with our military partners. The CIA was at the center of it all, driving the collection of vital information, assessing each piece of data, and analyzing all sources to produce the compelling intelligence case that led US forces to Abbottabad.

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/m...dYAV47JXTIRQxV38E2u9CiBd-ZeCaUO4MXEJmt00fB0B0

 

[Reichsmarschall]

Minutes and Years: The Bin Ladin Operation

April 30, 2016
Intelligence and Operations
In the early morning hours of May 2, 2011-Pakistan time (afternoon of May 1-Eastern Daylight Time), a US military raid on an al-Qa`ida compound killed Usama Bin Ladin, America’s most wanted terrorist. The mission’s success was the culmination of many years of complex, thorough, and highly advanced intelligence operations and analyses led by the CIA with support from partners across the Intelligence Community (IC).
While Bin Ladin had been a key focus of the IC since the 1990s, shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the CIA began collecting information on key individuals connected to or providing support to Bin Ladin. Reporting identified a key courier by his kunya, or operational pseudonym. It would be years later that the kunya was matched to a real name.

By late 2010, further intelligence linked the courier to a compound in Abbottabad, a town in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province (formerly the Northwest Frontier Province), about 35 miles north of Islamabad. The compound and its main residence had extensive security features unusual for the area: high walls topped with barbed wire, double entry gates, opaque windows, no apparent internet or telephone connections, and all trash was burned rather than collected. Moreover, the two registered owners did not appear to work or have an income that would allow them to afford such a large residence. This, along with other intelligence, led the IC to assess that the compound was probably being used to hide Bin Ladin, as well as the courier.

Intense training for the raid began, including the building of an exact life-size replica of the compound with movable interior walls to prepare the assault teams for any internal layout they might encounter.
The operation, authorized by the President on April 29th, was a surgical raid by a small team of special operations forces chosen to minimize collateral damage, to pose as little risk as possible to noncombatants on the compound or to Pakistani civilians in the neighborhood, and to increase the likelihood of confirming the identity of Bin Ladin.
The helicopters arrived at the Abbottabad compound at 0030-Pakistan time on May 2; one crashed, but the assault continued without delay. Bin Ladin was found and killed within 9 minutes. In the aftermath, Bin Ladin was positively identified via several independent means.

Timeline of the Raid
May 1 – EDT
1:25 p.m. EDT —President Obama, DCIA Panetta, and JSOC commander Admiral McRaven approve execution of the operation.
1:51 p.m. EDT — Helicopters depart from Afghanistan.
3:30 p.m. EDT — Two helicopters descend on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan (north of Islamabad). One crashes, but the assault continues without delay or injury.
3:32 p.m. EDT — President Obama, in the Situation Room, receives up to the minute reports on the situation on the ground in Abbottabad.
3:39 p.m. EDT — Usama Bin Ladin is found on third floor and killed.
3:53 p.m. EDT — President Obama receives tentative confirmation of positive identification of Bin Ladin.
3:55 p.m. EDT —Bin Ladin’s body is moved to the first floor and placed in a body bag.
3:39 p.m. — 4:10 p.m. EDT — Assault Team retrieves a large quantity of materials from the compound for intelligence analysis.
4:05 p.m. EDT — First helicopter leaves the area.
4:08 p.m. EDT —Assault Team destroys the crashed helicopter.
4:10 p.m. EDT —Backup helicopter picks up remaining team members and materials and leaves Abbottabad.
5:53 p.m. EDT — Helicopters return to Afghanistan where Admiral McRaven greets the team.
7:01 p.m. EDT — President Obama receives confirmations of high probability of positive identification of Bin Ladin.
11:35 p.m. EDT — President Obama speaks to the nation from the East Room.

May 2 – EDT
12:59 a.m. EDT — Bin Ladin’s body is buried at sea from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the north Arabian Sea.
Materials Recovered
The large quantity of materials collected from the compound required time for a thorough review. The CIA led a multi-agency task force to prioritize, catalogue, and analyze them for intelligence about al-Qa`ida’s affiliates, plans and intentions, and current threats. The collected materials indicated that Bin Ladin remained an active leader in al-Qa`ida, providing strategic, operational, and tactical instructions to the organization. Though separated from many al-Qa`ida members in remote areas of the region, he was far from a figurehead. Bin Ladin remained in charge while in hiding.
The Director of National Intelligence recently posted on the DNI website the second tranche of released Usama Bin Ladin documents that were captured during the raid. From the documents, analysts learned that Bin Ladin had been planning to leave his Abbottabad abode.
On January 14, 2011—three and a half months before the raid that killed him—Bin Ladin wrote a formal letter to the two brothers—one of whom was the courier identified years before—who had been hiding him for eight years. Apparently, the pressures of hiding Bin Ladin and his family had led the brothers to use harsh words in open argument days before with the al-Qa`ida leader, who in his written response expressed profound gratitude to the brothers, acknowledging the “heavy burden” of their “huge responsibility” for his safety.
In other letters to relatives and friends, Bin Ladin confirmed that the brothers sheltering him were “exhausted” from the effort. On February 2, 2011, Bin Ladin wrote to an al-Qa`ida confidante that the brothers had “for a long time demanded separation from us,” that Bin Ladin had agreed in writing that they would retire and hand over to others the duty of hiding him and his family, and that this would involve moving to another location. The target date for the move and changeover was September 2011.
Of course, Bin Ladin’s plans to move from the Abbottabad compound were not known to CIA when the IC and our military partners discovered his hiding place in August 2010; nor were President Obama, other top US policymakers, and the leaders of the IC aware of these plans as they studied the intelligence on the compound during the many months leading up to the raid. Had the decision to conduct the raid been delayed, this story might have had a very different ending.

The Death of Bin Ladin
The death of Usama Bin Ladin marked a significant victory in the US-led campaign to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qa`ida. He was al-Qa`ida’s founder and only amir, or commander, in its history until his death. He was largely responsible for the organization’s mystique, its ability to raise money and attract new recruits, and its focus on the United States as a target for terrorist attacks.
The daring raid that ensured Bin Ladin would never kill again was a team effort, the product of increased integration within the IC and of close collaboration with our military partners. The CIA was at the center of it all, driving the collection of vital information, assessing each piece of data, and analyzing all sources to produce the compelling intelligence case that led US forces to Abbottabad.

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/m...dYAV47JXTIRQxV38E2u9CiBd-ZeCaUO4MXEJmt00fB0B0

Thanks for the reminder

 

[Goritoes]

Yay?

 

[That Guy]

Im glad he's dead, but his death changed nothing. AQ is still active, and deadly. The US is withdrawing, and if the taliban don't cut ties with them, we'll see AQ make a major come back.

In the end, the raid ended up doing nothing but securing Obama's reelection.

 

[Dalit]

Yeah the world became a safer place as papa America had promised.

 

[truthfollower]

Im glad he's dead, but his death changed nothing. AQ is still active, and deadly. The US is withdrawing, and if the taliban don't cut ties with them, we'll see AQ make a major come back.

In the end, the raid ended up doing nothing but securing Obama's reelection.

I hope Pakistan is closely watching taliban and AQ, we will be the first target.

 

[truthfollower]

 

[LeGenD]

Im glad he's dead, but his death changed nothing. AQ is still active, and deadly. The US is withdrawing, and if the taliban don't cut ties with them, we'll see AQ make a major come back.

In the end, the raid ended up doing nothing but securing Obama's reelection.

His death helped victims of 9/11 and other incidents find peace?

His son Hamza Bin Laden was looking forward to replace him and was killed in 2019.

The Death of Hamza bin Laden Will Hurt al Qaeda

Hamza bin Laden, the son of al Qaeda's founder and the architect of the 9/11 attacks, is reportedly dead. If true, this is more than just a symbolic loss for the terrorist organization.

www.rand.org

Al-Qaeda Network is a conglomeration of like-minded groups with legs in different countries.

Tentacles of Terror: Al Qaeda's Southeast Asian Network on JSTOR

ZACHARY ABUZA, Tentacles of Terror: Al Qaeda's Southeast Asian Network, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 24, No. 3 (December 2002), pp. 427-465

www.jstor.org

USA have confronted these groups in different countries and delivered much-needed blows to them.

American efforts to REBOOT Iraq was a bad decision however; this neocon Foreign Policy initiative damaged American reputation and made it possible for Al-Qaeda Network Affiliates to do much EVIL in the region. War On Terror became a much larger initiative consequently.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14702430701559248?src=recsys

The Death and Life of Terrorist Networks

Without defeating ISIS's network of allies it will be hard to fully finish off the core group.

www.foreignaffairs.com

Nobody could hold George H. W. Bush accountable?

 

[PakFactor]

Im glad he's dead, but his death changed nothing. AQ is still active, and deadly. The US is withdrawing, and if the taliban don't cut ties with them, we'll see AQ make a major come back.

In the end, the raid ended up doing nothing but securing Obama's reelection.

I've been saying that all along -- you kill 1 their are 100s who'll take his place.
These two wars been a waste of time, money and energy.

 

[That Guy]

His death helped victims of 9/11 and other incidents find peace?

His son Hamza Bin Laden was looking forward to replace him and was killed in 2019.

The Death of Hamza bin Laden Will Hurt al Qaeda

Hamza bin Laden, the son of al Qaeda's founder and the architect of the 9/11 attacks, is reportedly dead. If true, this is more than just a symbolic loss for the terrorist organization.

www.rand.org

Al-Qaeda Network is a conglomeration of like-minded groups with legs in different countries.

Tentacles of Terror: Al Qaeda's Southeast Asian Network on JSTOR

ZACHARY ABUZA, Tentacles of Terror: Al Qaeda's Southeast Asian Network, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 24, No. 3 (December 2002), pp. 427-465

www.jstor.org

USA have confronted these groups in different countries and delivered much-needed blows to them.

American efforts to REBOOT Iraq was a bad decision however; this neocon Foreign Policy initiative damaged American reputation and made it possible for Al-Qaeda Network Affiliates to do much EVIL in the region. War On Terror became a much larger initiative consequently.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14702430701559248?src=recsys

The Death and Life of Terrorist Networks

Without defeating ISIS's network of allies it will be hard to fully finish off the core group.

www.foreignaffairs.com

Nobody could hold George H. W. Bush accountable?

Im not gonna make an argument on people's emotions, because if I did, then I could very well point out just how devastating the US war on terror has been, and just how many victims it has created, and just how many recruits it has created for terrorist organizations. The victims of 9/11 may be satisfied, but I doubt the families of innocent women and children that were killed in drones strikes that were supposedly targeting AQ are cheering with joy. Frankly, that a rabbit hole neither of us want to get into.

Hamza bin Laden's death is irrelevant to this topic. The US has killed a lot of AQ leaders, and they've all been replaced. The US's entire approach to fighting AQ has been flawed from the very beginning, this is why AQ is still around and kicking. My main point is OBL, and him alone. Its not a secret that by the time of his death, he was merely just a figure head with no real power.

The US has done nothing but made AQ's various affiliates more well know and spread out. AQ didn't exist, or had very little presense in a number of the countries that it in exists now, before the US got involved; Iraq comes to mind here. It now exists in multiple continents and quite a few nations, with a large number of affiliates and a large number of members, from Afghanistan and Iraq, to Yemen and Syria,

The entire war on terror was a bad idea in the first place. AQ is fighting a culture war through blood and bullets, the US is fighting a land war. The US tried to fight against AQ in Iraq using the "hearts and minds" strategy, but that ultimately ended up failing, because the US backed the wrong people in the Iraqi government, namely Maliki, who is responsible for death squads that targeted Sunnis, which led to an increase in recruitment and expansion of AQ in Iraq. Consequently, this also gave birth to the group that would eventually be known as IS.

I've been saying that all along -- you kill 1 their are 100s who'll take his place.
These two wars been a waste of time, money and energy.

AQ is fundamentally fighting a culture war, the US is fighting a land war, this is why the AQ is still around, and why the US is abandoning the region. The US could have very easily won, if they took the approach of fighting AQ culturally, which they didn't do.

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

According to the US Whites, these are all hogwash by the LGBTs.....

By the by, they botched up the ops and left behind samples of RAM coating and stealth chopper fuselage that had been developed spending billions of tax $s spanning over decades...

 

[LeGenD]

Im not gonna make an argument on people's emotions, because if I did, then I could very well point out just how devastating the US war on terror has been, and just how many victims it has created, and just how many recruits it has created for terrorist organizations. The victims of 9/11 may be satisfied, but I doubt the families of innocent women and children that were killed in drones strikes that were supposedly targeting AQ are cheering with joy. Frankly, that a rabbit hole neither of us want to get into.

Hamza bin Laden's death is irrelevant to this topic. The US has killed a lot of AQ leaders, and they've all been replaced. The US's entire approach to fighting AQ has been flawed from the very beginning, this is why AQ is still around and kicking. My main point is OBL, and him alone. Its not a secret that by the time of his death, he was merely just a figure head with no real power.

The US has done nothing but made AQ's various affiliates more well know and spread out. AQ didn't exist, or had very little presense in a number of the countries that it in exists now, before the US got involved; Iraq comes to mind here. It now exists in multiple continents and quite a few nations, with a large number of affiliates and a large number of members, from Afghanistan and Iraq, to Yemen and Syria,

The entire war on terror was a bad idea in the first place. AQ is fighting a culture war through blood and bullets, the US is fighting a land war. The US tried to fight against AQ in Iraq using the "hearts and minds" strategy, but that ultimately ended up failing, because the US backed the wrong people in the Iraqi government, namely Maliki, who is responsible for death squads that targeted Sunnis, which led to an increase in recruitment and expansion of AQ in Iraq. Consequently, this also gave birth to the group that would eventually be known as IS.

AQ is fundamentally fighting a culture war, the US is fighting a land war, this is why the AQ is still around, and why the US is abandoning the region. The US could have very easily won, if they took the approach of fighting AQ culturally, which they didn't do.

I think you missed my point. Invading and rebooting Iraq was a bad call no doubt (a land war as you put). This development made it possible for AQ affiliates in the Middle East to do much EVIL in the region, and War On Terror became a much larger initiative to counter AQ affiliates including ISIL in the Middle East. Bush administration is responsible for this mess but it was of the view that closing the chapter of Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath party is a worthy cause and end in itself. Americans should reflect on this themes and draw lessons from them.

The aforementioned notwithstanding, Iraq seems to be back on its feet and ISIS is reduced to a mere shadow of its former self by now. Iraq can take care of ISIS remnants by itself.

11 Daesh/ISIS terrorists caught in Iraq

Operations conducted in eastern Diyala province - Anadolu Ajansı

www.aa.com.tr

I am not sure how AQ can be fought culturally; you cannot reason with brainwashed (psycho) killers.

Recall this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_al-Qaeda_attacks

Kinetic strikes were necessary to soften these groups therefore.

In regards to loss of innocent lives (most unfortunate), but do AQ (and the sort) think on humanitarian lines? Do they wear uniforms, fight with honor and care about implications of their actions? These are non-state IRRATIONAL actors (they don't give a sh**). If AQ (and the sort) will continue with their ways (terrorist attacks), people will continue to die in resulting crossfire(s). The greater Islamic Bloc (OIC) needs to make sure that AQ (and the sort) cannot have unchecked reigns and cannot misutilize Islamic lands by using them as launching pads for terrorists attacks in different countries. The approach of fighting AQ culturally is collective responsibility of OIC. Americans cannot teach Islam to Muslims, they can help governments soften AQ (and the sort) and develop regions at maximum.

 

[Ahmet Pasha]

Minutes and Years: The Bin Ladin Operation

April 30, 2016
Intelligence and Operations
In the early morning hours of May 2, 2011-Pakistan time (afternoon of May 1-Eastern Daylight Time), a US military raid on an al-Qa`ida compound killed Usama Bin Ladin, America’s most wanted terrorist. The mission’s success was the culmination of many years of complex, thorough, and highly advanced intelligence operations and analyses led by the CIA with support from partners across the Intelligence Community (IC).
While Bin Ladin had been a key focus of the IC since the 1990s, shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, the CIA began collecting information on key individuals connected to or providing support to Bin Ladin. Reporting identified a key courier by his kunya, or operational pseudonym. It would be years later that the kunya was matched to a real name.

By late 2010, further intelligence linked the courier to a compound in Abbottabad, a town in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province (formerly the Northwest Frontier Province), about 35 miles north of Islamabad. The compound and its main residence had extensive security features unusual for the area: high walls topped with barbed wire, double entry gates, opaque windows, no apparent internet or telephone connections, and all trash was burned rather than collected. Moreover, the two registered owners did not appear to work or have an income that would allow them to afford such a large residence. This, along with other intelligence, led the IC to assess that the compound was probably being used to hide Bin Ladin, as well as the courier.

Intense training for the raid began, including the building of an exact life-size replica of the compound with movable interior walls to prepare the assault teams for any internal layout they might encounter.
The operation, authorized by the President on April 29th, was a surgical raid by a small team of special operations forces chosen to minimize collateral damage, to pose as little risk as possible to noncombatants on the compound or to Pakistani civilians in the neighborhood, and to increase the likelihood of confirming the identity of Bin Ladin.
The helicopters arrived at the Abbottabad compound at 0030-Pakistan time on May 2; one crashed, but the assault continued without delay. Bin Ladin was found and killed within 9 minutes. In the aftermath, Bin Ladin was positively identified via several independent means.

Timeline of the Raid
May 1 – EDT
1:25 p.m. EDT —President Obama, DCIA Panetta, and JSOC commander Admiral McRaven approve execution of the operation.
1:51 p.m. EDT — Helicopters depart from Afghanistan.
3:30 p.m. EDT — Two helicopters descend on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan (north of Islamabad). One crashes, but the assault continues without delay or injury.
3:32 p.m. EDT — President Obama, in the Situation Room, receives up to the minute reports on the situation on the ground in Abbottabad.
3:39 p.m. EDT — Usama Bin Ladin is found on third floor and killed.
3:53 p.m. EDT — President Obama receives tentative confirmation of positive identification of Bin Ladin.
3:55 p.m. EDT —Bin Ladin’s body is moved to the first floor and placed in a body bag.
3:39 p.m. — 4:10 p.m. EDT — Assault Team retrieves a large quantity of materials from the compound for intelligence analysis.
4:05 p.m. EDT — First helicopter leaves the area.
4:08 p.m. EDT —Assault Team destroys the crashed helicopter.
4:10 p.m. EDT —Backup helicopter picks up remaining team members and materials and leaves Abbottabad.
5:53 p.m. EDT — Helicopters return to Afghanistan where Admiral McRaven greets the team.
7:01 p.m. EDT — President Obama receives confirmations of high probability of positive identification of Bin Ladin.
11:35 p.m. EDT — President Obama speaks to the nation from the East Room.

May 2 – EDT
12:59 a.m. EDT — Bin Ladin’s body is buried at sea from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the north Arabian Sea.
Materials Recovered
The large quantity of materials collected from the compound required time for a thorough review. The CIA led a multi-agency task force to prioritize, catalogue, and analyze them for intelligence about al-Qa`ida’s affiliates, plans and intentions, and current threats. The collected materials indicated that Bin Ladin remained an active leader in al-Qa`ida, providing strategic, operational, and tactical instructions to the organization. Though separated from many al-Qa`ida members in remote areas of the region, he was far from a figurehead. Bin Ladin remained in charge while in hiding.
The Director of National Intelligence recently posted on the DNI website the second tranche of released Usama Bin Ladin documents that were captured during the raid. From the documents, analysts learned that Bin Ladin had been planning to leave his Abbottabad abode.
On January 14, 2011—three and a half months before the raid that killed him—Bin Ladin wrote a formal letter to the two brothers—one of whom was the courier identified years before—who had been hiding him for eight years. Apparently, the pressures of hiding Bin Ladin and his family had led the brothers to use harsh words in open argument days before with the al-Qa`ida leader, who in his written response expressed profound gratitude to the brothers, acknowledging the “heavy burden” of their “huge responsibility” for his safety.
In other letters to relatives and friends, Bin Ladin confirmed that the brothers sheltering him were “exhausted” from the effort. On February 2, 2011, Bin Ladin wrote to an al-Qa`ida confidante that the brothers had “for a long time demanded separation from us,” that Bin Ladin had agreed in writing that they would retire and hand over to others the duty of hiding him and his family, and that this would involve moving to another location. The target date for the move and changeover was September 2011.
Of course, Bin Ladin’s plans to move from the Abbottabad compound were not known to CIA when the IC and our military partners discovered his hiding place in August 2010; nor were President Obama, other top US policymakers, and the leaders of the IC aware of these plans as they studied the intelligence on the compound during the many months leading up to the raid. Had the decision to conduct the raid been delayed, this story might have had a very different ending.

The Death of Bin Ladin
The death of Usama Bin Ladin marked a significant victory in the US-led campaign to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qa`ida. He was al-Qa`ida’s founder and only amir, or commander, in its history until his death. He was largely responsible for the organization’s mystique, its ability to raise money and attract new recruits, and its focus on the United States as a target for terrorist attacks.
The daring raid that ensured Bin Ladin would never kill again was a team effort, the product of increased integration within the IC and of close collaboration with our military partners. The CIA was at the center of it all, driving the collection of vital information, assessing each piece of data, and analyzing all sources to produce the compelling intelligence case that led US forces to Abbottabad.

https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/m...dYAV47JXTIRQxV38E2u9CiBd-ZeCaUO4MXEJmt00fB0B0

Looks more like a CIA safehouse repurposed for this drama.

Gen Hameed Gul may Allah bless his soul. Said he was already dead of kidney disease. Even if he was alive he had become irrelevant. When Gen Hameed Gul speaks. You listen.

 

[Mujahid Memon]

The Costliest Day in SEAL Team Six History
Sarah Pruitt

5-7 minutes


The Tangi Valley, located along the border between Afghanistan’s Wardak and Logar provinces some 80 miles southwest of Kabul, is a remote, inaccessible area known for its resistance to foreign invasion. Alexander the Great suffered heavy troop losses there during his campaign in Afghanistan in the fourth century B.C. In the 1980s, mujahideen fighters in Wardak and Logar provinces devastated an entire division of Soviet fighters.
In 2009, U.S. forces from the 10th Mountain Division of the U.S. Army established a base in the Tangi Valley area after it became clear the Taliban had taken advantage of low coalition presence there to establish a stronghold within striking distance of the Afghan capital. As the United States and NATO allies began a drawdown of their troops in the spring of 2011, U.S. forces turned over the Tangi Valley outpost to their Afghan counterparts. They continued to run operations in the area, however, using helicopters and special operations forces to combat groups of insurgents in the region.
Under cover of darkness on the night of August 6, 2011, a special ops team that included a group of U.S. Army Rangers began an assault on a Taliban compound in the village of Jaw-e-Mekh Zareen in the Tangi Valley. The firefight at the house went on for at least two hours, and the ground team called in reinforcements. As the Chinook CH-47 transport helicopter (call sign: Extortion 17) carrying 30 U.S. troops, seven Afghan commandos, an Afghan civilian interpreter and a U.S. military dog approached, the insurgents fired on the helicopter and it crashed to the ground, killing all aboard.

U.S. Army soldiers prepare a Humvee to be sling-loaded by a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Bagram, Afghanistan, on July 24, 2004. (Credit: Public Domain)
Of the 30 Americans killed, 22 were Navy personnel, and 17 were SEALs. These included two bomb specialists and 15 operators in the Gold Squadron of DEVGRU, or Team Six, the highly classified unit that conducted the raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan the previous May. None of the operators killed in the Afghan helicopter crash had been involved in that mission, officials said. In addition to the SEALs, the others killed in the Chinook crash included five other Naval Special Warfare (NSW) personnel, three Air Force forward air controllers and five Army helicopter crewmembers.
The attack on August 6 was the most devastating day in SEAL Team Six history, as well as the single largest loss of life for U.S. forces since the war in Afghanistan began in October 2001. More than twice as many NSW personnel died in the Wardak crash than were killed on June 28, 2005, during Operation Redwings. That day, eight SEALs and eight members of the members of the Army’s 160th Special Forces Operations Regiment (SOAR) were killed when insurgents shot down their Chinook helicopter in Kunar province, near Asadabad. Three SEALs involved in a firefight on the ground were also killed, in what would stand as the deadliest day in NSW history since the Normandy landings on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
“No words describe the sorrow we feel in the wake of this tragic loss,” General John R. Allen, senior commander of the international military coalition in Afghanistan, said after the crash. “All of those killed in this operation were true heroes who had already given so much in the defense of freedom. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten.”
As funerals for the fallen sailors and other servicemen took place throughout the United States, a team of specialists conducted an official investigation to determine the cause of the crash. The resulting report, delivered in October 2011, concluded that a Taliban fighter shot down the Chinook with a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) as the helicopter neared its landing zone, and that “all operational decisions, linked to the incident, were deemed tactically sound.”
Some later questioned the official narrative of the Extortion 17 crash, even suggesting the attack could have been an inside job, with Afghan forces tipping the Taliban off about the mission beforehand. Others criticized the planning and execution of the mission, including the decision to fly the helicopter into an area where it could be easily shot down and the use of a conventional helicopter rather than one designed for special operations missions. Family members of some of the SEAL Team Six operators killed in the crash, along with some military personnel, claimed that the U.S. government had turned the members of the elite unit into a target by revealing their role in the bin Laden raid. A congressional oversight committee even held a controversial hearing into the events surrounding the crash in early 2014.
Though the U.S.-led coalition formally ended its combat mission in Afghanistan in December 2014, the war has continued for more than two years beyond that point, marking its 15th anniversary last October. As of 2016, some 9,800 U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan. The Department of Defense estimates the total number of U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan at 2,254. Meanwhile, the civilian toll of the war grows ever higher; one estimate, by the organization International Physicians for the Prevention of War, put the total number of Afghans killed in the first 12 years of the conflict at some 220,000.


JUSTICE SERVED

 

[That Guy]

I think you missed my point. Invading and rebooting Iraq was a bad call no doubt (a land war as you put). This development made it possible for AQ affiliates in the Middle East to do much EVIL in the region, and War On Terror became a much larger initiative to counter AQ affiliates including ISIL in the Middle East. Bush administration is responsible for this mess but it was of the view that closing the chapter of Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath party is a worthy cause and end in itself. Americans should reflect on this themes and draw lessons from them.

The aforementioned notwithstanding, Iraq seems to be back on its feet and ISIS is reduced to a mere shadow of its former self by now. Iraq can take care of ISIS remnants by itself.

11 Daesh/ISIS terrorists caught in Iraq

Operations conducted in eastern Diyala province - Anadolu Ajansı

www.aa.com.tr

I am not sure how AQ can be fought culturally; you cannot reason with brainwashed (psycho) killers.

Recall this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_al-Qaeda_attacks

Kinetic strikes were necessary to soften these groups therefore.

In regards to loss of innocent lives (most unfortunate), but do AQ (and the sort) think on humanitarian lines? Do they wear uniforms, fight with honor and care about implications of their actions? These are non-state IRRATIONAL actors (they don't give a sh**). If AQ (and the sort) will continue with their ways (terrorist attacks), people will continue to die in resulting crossfire(s). The greater Islamic Bloc (OIC) needs to make sure that AQ (and the sort) cannot have unchecked reigns and cannot misutilize Islamic lands by using them as launching pads for terrorists attacks in different countries. The approach of fighting AQ culturally is collective responsibility of OIC. Americans cannot teach Islam to Muslims, they can help governments soften AQ (and the sort) and develop regions at maximum.

Well, you wouldn't be reasoning with AQ, but rather people who may be most vulnerable to join AQ. In the end, its all about who has the better propaganda.

They're an evil terrorist group, but one thing I've learned is that there is no large group that exists that isn't rational, even those that believe in clear false ideas and conspiracies. Terrorist groups don't just bomb people randomly because that's what they want to do, but rather their goal is to force political change through the spilling of blood and the causing of fear. Its a very rational way to go about it, if you're a small militant group, even if it evil.

The US doesn't even need to do much, it just needs to spend money on Muslim governments to encourage them to counter extremist propaganda, that's how you truly defeat AQ. Remember, AQ isn't just a militant group, IS isn't just a militant group, hell, even the KKK aren't just another militant racist group, they're all ideas. The only way to kill an idea is to convince people that its a bad idea, instead of a good one.

You're right that its the responsibility of muslim governments to fight this, but its difficult to do when you have corrupt self serving muslim nations who're supported by self serving non-muslim world powers. Its even worse when muslim leaders only take half measures to stop extremism, because these extremist groups in their minds may end up being useful down the road.

Finally, I'm not opposed to taking military action against AQ, just the way it was done. Regardless of the reason why the US invaded Iraq, it is a fact that their invasion allowed AQ to spread itself across the entire region.

AQ's entire goal was to bankrupt the US by getting the US involved in multiple battlefields across the middle east. While bankruptcy is unlikely, the US has no doubt fallen into AQ's trap and has suffered untold amount of both human, material, and financial damage over the last 20 years, more if you count the Clinton years when OBL first came across the US's radar.

The closest the US came to truly beating AQ was when they implemented their hearts and minds policy in Iraq, which led to the so called Sunni awakening. This allowed the US and Iraqi forces to push back AQ so much that it finally looked like AQ was on the verge of collapse in Iraq.

The problem was, once again, the US bet on the wrong horse, namely Maliki, who ran death squads, and helped organize anti-Sunni pro-Iran Shia militias, who ran around killing Sunnis and Sunnis groups, including those same groups that fought against AQ, and supported both the US and Iraqi army against AQ.

Even in Afghanistan, when Obama came to power (actually this plan was drafted during Bush's era, but he rejected it), the US military came up with a 15 year plan, which including up to 300,000 US/coaltion troop Presence, and tens of billions of dollars in both military and economic plans for Afghanistan, this was known as the surge. The plan was a good idea, because it fought groups like AQ and the taliban both militarily, economically, and most importantly, ideologically. However, while Obama agreed to the surge, but gutted the plan so much that it was onsidered by strategic planner to be a complete failure by the time it was implemented, and indeed it failed spectacularly, and achieved no long term benefits.