Abbottabad Pakistan

US Offers $1 Million Reward For Information On Osama bin Laden’s Son

The United States is turning up the heat on al-Qaeda and Hamza bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden who along with his son Khaled was killed by US Navy SEALs in 2011. The U.S. is offering $1 million dollars under the “Rewards for Justice” program for information leading to the arrest of the younger bin Laden, specifically calling him a “specially designated global terrorist.”

The younger bin Laden was groomed for this position since he was born. He is believed to be about 30 years old today. Described as Osama’s favorite son, Hamza is one of 26 children the former head of al Qaeda was believed to father. He allegedly sought his father’s approval from a young age. He also asked to be named his father’s heir as the head of the terror organization he founded.

Hamza grew up in a very strict Islamic compound in Jalalabad, Afghanistan where he and his extended family memorized the Koran, while the men planned terror attacks and strategy. Despite this, Hamza was supposedly a fan of Western items that were strictly taboo in al-Qaeda circles such as Tabasco sauce and Coke.

At the time of the 9/11 attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, Hamza was believed to be about 12 years old. However, less than two months after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera posted an al-Qaeda video that showed Hamza and his brothers, armed and inspecting the wreckage of a U.S. helicopter.

Osama tried to steer his son away from being an active participant, but it is believed that he then attempted a terrorist training camp in Pakistan. Hamza then married the daughter of lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta.

No one is aware of where he, his wife and three daughters are living, but it is rumored that they live in Iran and are safely guarded by Iranian security and intelligence teams. In an interview with the Guardian last summer, Osama bin Laden’s mother, Alia Ghanem, said, “I don’t want to go through this again.

“When we thought everyone was over this, next thing I knew was Hamza saying, ‘I am going to avenge my father.’

“If Hamza was in front of me now, I would tell him, ‘God guide you. Think twice about what you are doing. Don’t retake the steps of your father. You are entering really negative and horrible parts of your soul.’ ”

As the younger bin Laden has been being groomed by the leadership to bigger and more prominent roles in the organization, he’s been more visible. He called on all Muslims to “take revenge on the Americans” for killing his father. His comments were made thru al-Qaeda as-Sahab Media Foundation in a speech last year.

Hamza told followers at the time that he rejected democracy, saying “freedom cannot be earned with worthless pieces of paper cast inside a ballot box.”

Al-Qaeda grew out of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The resistance group, known by the U.S. as “mujahadeen” was a localized resistance group that was funded and armed by the CIA. However, many Arabs flocked to their cause, including bin Laden.

Bin Laden, the son of a billionaire real estate developer grew disenfranchised with what he called the corrupt Saudi government and U.S. interests and presence in the region. So, under his leadership, al-Qaeda began to call for attacks on America, their allies and of course, the Jews.

Al-Qaeda began bombing US troops in Yemen, the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, killing up about 300 people and injuring more thousands more. It was behind the suicide attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors. Then bin-Laden’s charges were behind the hijacking of the four airliners on 9/11.

That put bin-Laden squarely on the U.S.target list. It took ten years, but they finally tracked him down to his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was rumored that Hamza was there with him but no evidence was found of his living there. However, his father had a video of Hamza’s wedding, which took place in Iran.

Al-Qaeda has been more active in the past 3-4 years in Sub-Sahara Africa, trying to take advantage of a power vacuum there as the Islamic State has come under increasing pressure by the coalition forces there.

Hamza urged Saudis to unite with al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch to fight against the Saudi state and threatened to target US citizens abroad. Because of this, the Saudis stripped him of his citizenship and then the United States put the bounty on his head.

And his father’s old organization has grown to about 30,000 members which led the US Co-ordinator for Counter-terrorism Nathan Sales to say that, .“Al-Qaeda during this period has been relatively quiet, but that is a strategic pause, not a surrender,” he said.

“Today’s al-Qaeda is not stagnant. It’s rebuilding and it continues to threaten the United States and its allies… Make no mistake, al-Qaeda retains both the capability and the intent to hit us,” he added.

Photos: Wikipedia

Release of Bin Laden Files by CIA Presents Iranian Connection?

When Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, they brought back thousands of documents on computer hard and thumb drives that, it was hoped would shed much more hope on the al-Qaida organization. Now as the CIA released thousands of pages of documents seized in the raid, it has once again raised questions about the support that Iran gave the terror network prior to 9/11.

It has always been the belief within US intelligence organizations that the Iranians had at least some ties to the terrorists of bin Laden since 1991. The 19-page report released by CIA as part of their other 47,000 documents released show just that.

For its part, Iran has long denied any involvement with al-Qaida. However, the report included in the CIA document dump shows how bin Laden, a Sunni extremist from Iran’s archrival Saudi Arabia, could look across the Muslim world’s religious divide to partner with the Mideast’s Shiite power to target his ultimate enemy, the United States.
“Anyone who wants to strike America, Iran is ready to support him and help him with their frank and clear rhetoric,” the report reads.
The document had been included in the CIA release and was available online Wednesday. The CIA later issued a warning about the files on its website, saying that since the material “was seized from a terrorist organization … there is no absolute guarantee that all malware has been removed.” The CIA then took down the files entirely early Thursday, saying they were “temporarily unavailable pending resolution of a technical issue.”
The unsigned 19-page report is dated in the Islamic calendar year 1428 — 2007 — and offers what appears to be a history of al-Qaida’s relationship with Iran. It says Iran offered al-Qaida fighters “money and arms and everything they need, and offered them training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in return for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia.”

The Iranians allowed al-Qaida members to pass through their borders without getting a stamp on their passports to avoid suspicion and met with Iranian intelligence officials. It was also reported that 8 of the 10 so-called “muscle hijackers” of 9/11 passed thru Iran.

The Iranians have long denied any involvement with al-Qaida.

To read the entire article from Fox News, click here:

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Special Operations Painful Coming of Age After 9/11

Mark Moyer’s recent book on the US Special Operations Forces (Oppose Any Foe) is an excellent history of the birth of Special Operations and into the huge command of over 70,000 troops today. He tells it all, with the triumphs, the mistakes and the clashes with the conventional military establishment.

In his latest piece for the National Review, he delves into the love affair Washington has with the SOF and how our leaders really don’t have a clear sense of what special operators can and can’t do and how the rise of the Special Operations Forces hasn’t been clear sailing.

Through the Osama bin Laden raid and other recent victories, special operators had amassed unprecedented prestige both within Washington and in the country more generally.
Special-operations forces seemed not only more exciting, but also more efficient and decisive than the conventional military forces that had been employed in the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan. Hollywood was releasing movie after movie extolling the virtues of the special units, including a film called Act of Valor that starred active-duty SEALs. On the Internet, dating sites were hit by epidemics of men pretending to be special operators in order to win the hearts of unsuspecting women.
Although President Obama relied mainly on subordinates to sell his new strategy to the public, he did cite the special operators while explaining the strategy during an interview with journalist Mark Bowden, who was writing a book on the bin Laden operation. “Special Forces are well designed to deal with the very specific targets in difficult terrain and often-times prevent us from making the bigger strategic mistakes of sending forces in, with big footprints and so forth,” he explained. “So when you’re talking about dealing with terrorist networks, in failed states, or states that don’t have capacity, you can see that as actually being less intrusive, less dangerous, less problematic for the country involved.”
What Obama had called “Special Forces” were in actuality the special-operations forces (SOF) — the official term for all the units dedicated to the conduct of special operations. Special-operations forces include not only the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, but also the Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Night Stalkers, and Special Operations Marines, among others. Mixing up Special Forces with special-operations forces was a common enough mistake, and one that might have been unworthy of mention had the president merely been dispensing praise to an obscure federal bureaucracy, on the order of the Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission or the American Battle Monuments Commission.
But SOF had become the centerpiece of Obama’s national-security strategy, and hence the misstep encouraged doubts about the amount of thought that had gone into the strategic redesign. Later events were to confirm that administration strategists had not given adequate consideration to the strengths and limitations of special-operations forces before hoisting them to the apex of the world’s most powerful military.

As usual, Moyar’s take is an interesting read that delves into the slow growth, maturation, and subsequent over-tasking of the United States’ special operations warriors.

To read the entire article from National Review, click here:

Photo courtesy US Marine Corps

USSOCOM Wants Performance-enhancing Products for its Operator Dogs

“Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war.” USSOCOM is trying to upgrade the performance of its working dog component and they’re looking at pharmaceutical companies to help them do so.

The value of working dog teams with the Special Operations teams with whom they operate can’t be understated. Perhaps no dog is more well-known than Cairo the Belgian Malinois who accompanied SEAL Team 6 into Abbottabad, Pakistan on the mission to get Osama bin Laden in 2011. Cairo even has broken ranks with the Quiet Professionals and has his own Facebook page.

In fact, the enemy has decided that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and have taken to using dogs themselves now. Part of the new task for SOF dog teams is to neutralize and inhibit the work of the enemy’s dogs.

SOCom relies on dogs for jobs like detecting explosives and enemy personnel and works to keep enemy dogs from exposing its secrets.
So the command submitted a request last month through the Pentagon’s Small Business Innovation Research portal for companies interested in developing the necessary products. They are asked to respond via email to [email protected].
For its own dogs, SOCom is seeking products that optimize hearing, vision and scent, improve recovery time when wounded, and increase survivability.
The goal, according to the request, is to help the animals — called “multi-purpose canines” — perform at “very high levels for long durations” under “high levels of stress and distraction.”
At the same time, the request says, the products “must be safe, affordable and easily administered.”
The request includes references to six scientific studies on the subject.
About 150 multi-purpose canines are in use across SOCom, said Ken McGraw, a spokesman for the command.

The upgrade of the dog capability shows how quickly the operational landscape changes and how the SOF community is constantly adapting. These enhancements will make the dog teams much more effective in accomplishing their mission and reduce their chances of compromise.

To read the entire article from the Tampa Bay Times click here:

Photo courtesy USSOCOM

On This Day in 2011, Navy SEALs Eliminate Osama bin Laden

In one of the most daring raids in US Special Operations history, during the early spring of 2011, US Navy SEALs of SEAL Team 6 or DEVGRU raided the compound of Osama bin Laden in Abbottobad, Pakistan and killed the terrorist leader, who was living less than a mile from the Pakistani military academy.

The raid took place at 1:00 a.m. on May 2 in Pakistan but in the US, it was mid-afternoon on May 1^st. The operation called “Neptune Spear” was a joint CIA, JSOC operation with SEALs and aviators from the 160^th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (The Night Stalkers) flying specially designed stealth helicopters on the mission.

But the operation was actually in the works for several years before it was finally unleashed by President Obama.

The Intelligence Prep: The CIA found out the name of bin Laden’s courier as early as 2007. This was considered a high-value intelligence coup because the CIA learned thru their Black sites and thru interrogations at Guantanamo Bay that bin Laden communicated only via couriers. He stopped using phones since the US tracked a cell phone of one of his subordinates and the US launched a missile strike on the location in Afghanistan back in 1998.

The courier named Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed according to Pakistani officials and his brother lived at the Abbottobad compound with bin Laden. The CIA picked up a wiretap of another individual and the courier and CIA paramilitary operatives tracked the man back to the compound.

The compound then became a focus of intense scrutiny. The CIA had a female analyst that had been on bin Laden’s trail for nearly five years. She earned the team’s and superiors’ respect and she believed with 100 percent certainty, that bin Laden was living there with his youngest wife and children. It was built in the 2004-2005 timeframe and was at the end of a long, narrow dirt road. It was outside of the main area of Abbottobad and about 100 miles from Afghanistan.

The compound cost about a million dollars to build and was constructed on a plot of land much larger than the surrounding properties. Walls 12-18 feet high surrounded it and were topped with 2 feet of barbed wire. There were two security gates and the property had no telephone or internet service. Unlike their neighbors, the inhabitants didn’t put their trash out for collection but burned it inside the compound.

The family lived on the second and third floors of the structure and the third-floor balcony had a seven-foot-high privacy wall installed to conceal the tall (6’4’’) bin Laden. The “principal” was seen in intelligence photos every day pacing in the garden that was partially covered with a tarp. The CIA analysts called him ‘the Pacer”. But the photos couldn’t positively identify the target.

In trying to gather more intelligence, the CIA used a fake polio vaccination program to gain entrance to the compound and rented a home nearby where they could keep up surveillance on the potential target.

Despite intense efforts, the CIA was never able to get a picture of the third-floor inhabitant or get a recording of his voice. But after exhaustive intelligence analysis, the CIA deemed that only bin Laden could be living there.

Planning the Operation: The job of planning this fell to Adm. William McRaven of JSOC. He assigned a Navy captain from DEVGRU to set up the plan of a raid with the help of the agency at the CIA HQs in Langley, VA.

There was also talk in using B-2 Stealth bombers but the problems that arose from that plan was that they’d have no way of confirming the death of bin Laden after the raid and the use of the 2000-pound radar-guided JDAM munitions was sure to cause civilian casualties in the area.

The idea of using the Pakistanis in a joint operation was quickly discounted as everyone up the chain of command believed that the leaks that would quickly follow would compromise the mission.

Therefore, since the US isn’t at war with Pakistan, the members of the team were taken off military roles and placed as civilians under the CIA control for the duration of the mission.

The agency and DEVGRU built a mockup of the compound in Harvey Point Defense Testing facility in North Carolina, and another in Nevada. The SEALs still were not told what their target was or its location. Nevada was chosen because, at 4000-foot altitude, it would be close to the actual altitude of the target and test the helicopters’ capabilities.

A full-scale replica was built in Afghanistan at Bagram Air Base. The raid team arrived on the 27^th of April at Jalalabad where the operation would base out of. A CH-47 Chinook helicopter with a quick reaction force would be placed nearby in case the unit had to fight their way out of Pakistan. The entire operation was to last 40 minutes.

The order was given at 1:22 p.m. EST on May 1 for Adm. McRaven to proceed with the raid. The President and members of his Cabinet watched the events unfold from the Situation Room at the White House via a Drone flying overhead.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011.

The Operation: The raid force consisted of 79 operators and a dog. The dog team was to be used if there were hidden rooms or compartments that needed to be searched. The Chinook with the QRF of 24 SEAL operators was landed in a deserted field about halfway to Abbottobad in case they were needed on the ground. Another QRF in Chinooks with an addition 25 SEALs would be waiting just over the border in Afghanistan.

After a 90-minute flight, the first of the Blackhawks deployed over the compound where the SEALs were to fast rope to the ground. A second was to land in the compound with the dog team and interpreter. However, due to a weather phenomenon, the first Blackhawk crashed into the compound sliding up onto the security wall. No one was seriously hurt. The second landed outside the compound where the operators scaled it and began the operation.

Using an assortment of breaching tools and explosives the teams began clearing the compound in a methodical, dance of death. The SEALs cleared the guest house and the ground floor of the main building where two men and woman were dispatched quickly. Numerous other women and children were encountered and they were flex-cuffed and moved outside where they’d be found and questioned by the Pakistanis.

The SEALs moved to the second level of the main building where they killed bin Laden’s son on the staircase before moving up to the top floor. There they found bin Laden, wearing the traditional loose-fitting garb of the region. Later it was found out that he carried 500 Euros and two phone numbers sewn into the lining of his clothes.

Nearly 15 minutes had elapsed since the SEALs crash-landed in the compound until they came face-to-face with him on the third floor. The killing of bin Laden is described in detail by Navy SEAL Mark Bisonette who was later reprimanded by the Navy and forced to give up his $6.8 million dollars in royalties from the book he wrote of the incident. But his first-hand account was riveting.

When the team reached the top, bin Laden was behind his wife, with his hands on her shoulders and was pushing her towards the SEALs. The SEAL who shot bin Laden Robert O’Neill has also written a book about the incident. He was the first in the room. Bisonnette’s book describes in detail what happened next.

“We were less than five steps from getting to the top when I heard suppressed shots.”
BOP. BOP. “The point man had seen a man peeking out of the door on the right side of the hallway about 10 feet in front of him. I couldn’t tell from my position if the rounds hit the target or not. The man disappeared into the dark room.”
“In his death throes, he was still twitching and convulsing. Another assaulter and I trained our lasers on his chest and fired several rounds. The bullets tore into him, slamming his body into the floor until he was motionless.”

Bissonette’s role called for him to photograph the body to positively identify it as bin Laden and confirm for the government that they had indeed got their man.

“It was strange to see such an infamous face up close. Lying in front of me was the reason we had been fighting for the last decade. It was surreal trying to clean blood off the most wanted man in the world so that I could shoot his photo. I had to focus on the mission, right now we needed some good quality photos.”

One of the SEALs (pseudonym Will) spoke Arabic and asked one of the children on the third floor who the dead man was. She replied that it was indeed Osama bin Laden a fact that was confirmed by his wife who was lightly wounded in the foot.

“Will knelt down and asked the girls, ‘Who is the man?’
The girl didn’t know to lie.
‘Osama bin Laden.’
Will smiled.
‘Are you sure that is Osama bin Laden?’
‘Yes,’ the girl said.”

The SEAL team leader had a satellite phone and immediately call Adm. McRaven to relay the code phrase that bin Laden was dead.

“‘For God and country, I pass Geronimo,’ Jay said. Geronimo E.K.I.A.’ “

The entire assault took just 15 minutes. Now the team set about finding intelligence that they could bring back with them to Afghanistan. The SEALS recovered three AK-47s and two pistols, ten computer hard drives, documents, DVDs, almost a hundred thumb drives, a dozen cell phones, and “electronic equipment” for later analysis as well as a large stash of opium.

The crashed helicopter was stripped of classified material and then blown in place, with the team placing enough explosives to completely demolish the crashed Blackhawk. Down one chopper, the team brought in one of the Chinooks to exfil the team back to Afghanistan.

After arriving in Afghanistan, bin Laden was positively identified via facial recognition and DNA analysis and his body was transferred to the USS Carl Vinson where he was buried at sea. The US had contacted Saudi contacts offered to turn bin Laden’s body over to them for burial in Saudi Arabia. But they didn’t want him in death any more than they did in life. They agreed with the burial at sea option.

Aftermath: Reports were being leaked out about bin Laden’s death so President Obama addressed the nation at 11:35 p.m. and confirmed the news.

“Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who was responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”

The President decided not to release the photos of bin Laden’s body stating that “we don’t have to spike the football here.” And despite the DNA evidence and confirmation from his wife and daughter at the scene, the non-release of the photos created a conspiracy theory that he wasn’t dead.

The Pakistanis then began to do damage control and arrested the owner of the CIA’s safe house and five Pakistani informants. The doctor who helped the CIA with the fake polio inoculation ruse was arrested and sentenced to 33 years in prison.

Some of bin Laden’s correspondence was released but very little of it has come to light. One interesting tidbit was that bin Laden stated that both General David Petraeus and President Obama should be assassinated if the opportunity availed itself but that VP Joe Biden should remain untouched. Why?

In bin Laden’s own words, “Biden is totally unprepared for that post [of president], which will lead the US into a crisis.”

The tail boom from the crashed and destroyed Blackhawk was eventually returned to the US but not until the Pakistanis allowed Chinese scientists to study the stealth technology in the boom as well as in the paint.

This was one of the better-executed raids in US Special Operations history. The detailed planning, outstanding execution, and professionalism of all of the operators involved, even when things went wrong as they invariably do is a testament to their dedication to their craft and level of training.

In doing so, they rid the world of one of the worst terrorists in history.

Photo courtesy of DOD

Bin Laden’s Head Had to Be Reconstructed After Take Down, Book Says

The former Navy SEAL that had reportedly killed Osama bin Laden in the raid on the terrorist leader’s house in Abbottabad, Pakistan has said that the dead terrorist’s head was so disfigured by the shooting that it had to be pressed back together for proper identification.

Robert O’Neill, the SEAL Team 6 commando penned, ‘The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Bin Laden’, in which he claims that it was he, who pumped three shots into bin Laden and that it disfigured his head to be almost unrecognizable.

Much of criticism leveled at O’Neill has been centered around the Special Operations Forces strict code of silence. But the events that unfolded in May 2011 in taking out the world’s most wanted terrorist needed to be told.

O’Neill, in his book, makes the gruesome claim that Osama’s head was so severely destroyed by his gunfire that it had to be pressed back together for identification photographs.

In O’Neill’s version, he was trailing five or six other SEALs climbing the stairs to the compound’s second floor when Osama’s son Khalid appeared on the half-landing with an AK-47.

O’Neill kept his hand on the point man’s shoulder. The two were alone on the stairway, convinced that whoever was on the third floor was strapping on a suicide vest for an explosive last stand.

O’Neill recounts that finally, he decided to take action.

He squeezed the point man’s shoulder, the signal to charge and then burst past the curtain.

The point man tackled two screaming women to the floor.

Bin Laden stood near the bed, his hands on the shoulders of the woman in front of him. She was later identified as Amal, the youngest of his four wives, the report said.

“In less than a second, I aimed above the woman’s right shoulder and pulled the trigger twice,” O’Neill writes.

“Bin Laden’s head split open, and he dropped. I put another bullet in his head. Insurance,” he writes.

After the flight back to Afghanistan, the team positively identified bin Laden and the US government released the information from the raid. O’Neill’s book differs from an earlier one written by Mark Bissonnette called “No Easy Day”

To read the entire article from NDTV click here:

Photo courtesy Reuters

Chinese Mimic US Raid bin Laden Raid on Television

Sometimes imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. With the increasing sword rattling between the US and China in different areas of the world, the Chinese are showing their people that maybe they just like the way the US operates.

Chinese special operations security forces conducted a mock assault on “terrorist compound” that bore more than a passing resemblance to the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. That was the compound where Osama bin Laden lived until a raid took place by SEAL Team 6 in 2011 killed the terrorist leader of Al Qaeda.

The assault was carried on Chinese state-run television didn’t mention the similarities but there is little doubt what the compound as based off of. The recent mock raid also featured moves reminiscent of American counterterrorism tactics.

“The movements, room-clearing techniques and shooting drills are all basic special operations techniques,” Colonel David S. Maxwell explained to the New York Times, adding that there was little doubt that Chinese troops were copy American combat techniques. Mimicry may not be enough to get China where it wants to go though.
“There is a big difference between demonstrating choreographed skills and being able to conduct combat operations in the fog and friction of real war when things go wrong, as they did for the assault on Abbottabad,” Maxwell told reporters. Filming propaganda footage is noticeably different from actual in-the-field combat.

The Commander of the Chinese raid, identified as Zhang Yue, who heads the Bayingolin Special Forces Squadron of the Police forces. According to the narrator, Zhang rose through the ranks to command the unit and was described by his troops as a devil.

This isn’t the first time the Chinese have practiced on a replica compound. In 2015 they practiced an assault on one that looked eerily like the Presidential Palace in Taipei.

To read the entire article from The New York Times, click here:

Photo courtesy YouTube