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March 28, 2024

Osama bin Laden dies in firefight; Nevada delegation praises action

Osama

LEFT: Osama bin Laden speaks in Afghanistan, Dec. 24, 1998. MIDDLE: President Obama reads a statement on the death of bin Laden from the White House on Sunday. RIGHT: A group gathers Sunday night in front of the Statue of Liberty at the New York-New York on the Strip.

Updated Monday, May 2, 2011 | 1:49 a.m.

Obama's announcement

Osama bin Laden Dead

President Barack Obama reads his statement to photographers after making a televised statement on the death of Osama bin Laden from the East Room of the White House in Washington, Sunday, May 1, 2011. Launch slideshow »

Group Gathers at New York-New York

A small group gathers in front the Statue of Liberty at New York-New York on the Las Vegas Strip shortly after it was announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed Sunday, May 1, 2011. Launch slideshow »

Osama bin Laden's compound

WASHINGTON -- Osama bin Laden, the charismatic mastermind and founder of al-Qaida, a global terrorist network that radically reshaped American foreign policy and propelled the country into two bloody, long-term wars in Muslim countries, was killed Sunday in a firefight with U.S. troops in a compound outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

President Obama, in a rare televised address to the nation late Sunday, announced that a small team of U.S. troops had killed bin Laden and seized his body earlier in the day in a helicopter-borne commando operation.

Senior U.S. officials said no other countries were involved in the raid, raising the potential for diplomatic fallout once the initial celebration and congratulations are over.

The United States considers Pakistan a key ally in the war on terror, but the relationship between the two is a complicated and tenuous one at best.

According to President Obama, U.S. intelligence officials determined last August that bin Laden was likely hiding "within a compound deep inside Pakistan," Obama said during his address from the White House late Sunday.

It took several more months of intelligence gathering before the military was prepared to make a strike, which Obama ultimately authorized Friday. On Sunday, a small team of American soldiers went into the compound near Islamabad and killed Osama bin Laden during a firefight, recovering his body afterwards.

President Obama said the death of bin Laden "marks the most significant achievement to date in our efforts to defeat al-Qaida," though Obama also added that bin Laden's death "does not mark the end of our effort ... we must remain vigilant."

Taking out bin Laden means the United States has decapitated the head of the largest terrorist network that has bedeviled intelligence agencies around the world -- and not just since Sept. 11, 2001.

The attack on New York's World Trade Center nearly a decade ago was the most cataclysmic of al-Qaida’s terror attacks, and the most deadly to occur on U.S. soil. More than 3,000 Americans died when hijacked planes hit the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and crashed into a rural field in Pennsylvania.

But the U.S. has been tracking and chasing bin Laden for much longer than that.

The U.S. apparently missed various opportunities to take out bin Laden during the Clinton administration, in both Sudan and Afghanistan, going back to 1996. Bin Laden declared holy war, or jihad, on the United States and any American, anywhere in the world, in 1998.

"I directed [former CIA director] Leon Panetta to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al-Qaida," Obama said late Sunday.

Early Monday, senior administration officials applauded the unidentified soldiers who carried out the attack, and the years-long "team effort" of intelligence and military coordination that led to finding and killing bin Laden.

Obama himself became closely involved in the planning stages of the operation starting in mid-March. He chaired a series of meetings with the National Security Council, on March 14, March 29, April 12, April 19 and April 28. Obama then gave the authorization for the attack the next morning.

The administration is crediting cooperative intelligence work between the Pakistani and U.S. governments for unearthing information that led them to identify bin Laden's whereabouts.

But according to senior administration officials speaking early Monday, the U.S. carried out the actual strike on bin Laden's compound without the help of the Pakistani government, Pakistani intelligence or the governments and/or intelligence outfits of any other country. They said the secrecy and exclusivity was for "operational security purposes."

The standing arrangement between the U.S. and Pakistan dictates that the American military is supposed to seek permission or at least notify the Pakistani government about all planned military operations, on the ground or in the air.

"If it was a unilateral operation, I would imagine that there will be some backlash from the Pakistanis," Nevada Rep. Joe Heck said early Monday.

Heck, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, just returned from a diplomatic mission that included significant time spent in Pakistan over the congressional recess. Heck spoke to the Las Vegas Sun late last week about his meetings with senior government officials in Karachi, and the tenuous nature of the diplomatic relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan.

"We certainly are getting pushback on the drone strikes," Heck said Thursday, referencing complaints made by senior Pakistani officials about unmanned drone flights to scout out terrorist locations. Such flights are regulated by Pakistani authorities.

"But the fact is the bad guys are in Pakistan," Heck continued Thursday before the strike on bin Laden, a plan that neither Heck nor the members of the Intelligence Committee, which is an oversight body and not a planning wing of the administration, knew about before it was announced Sunday. "We go through great lengths with surveillance, sometimes for months, or up to a year, before we are certain that the target we are going after is the target that we need to get ... When we know there’s somebody in that area, I think it’s critically important that we have the ability to go in and neutralize that target. When we have the opportunity to do a direct action, we need to do that."

That is, apparently, the rationale that the U.S. adopted in planning and executing the strike to take out its prime global public enemy.

“Over the years I repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was,” Obama said, crediting previous cooperation with Pakistan for helping to lead U.S. troops.

Obama said he spoke to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari before his White House address Sunday night, and that they “agreed this is a good and historic day for both of our nations,” adding “it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al-Qaida and its affiliates.”

But if the U.S. acted unilaterally, it's not clear how much of a precedent this strike will set for future operations, or more importantly, it's not clear how much of a precedent Pakistan thinks it will set, and what that means for diplomatic relations going forward.

So far, it doesn't seem like there's much of a shock to the system. Early Monday morning, Pakistan's foreign office said the U.S. acted "in accordance with declared U.S. policy," according to the Reuters news agency.

"It would be very hard for them to push back too hard considering the success of the operation, no collateral casualties, and that the United States’ number one enemy has been taken out of business," Heck said early Monday.

The reception elsewhere in the U.S., and in Nevada, was incredibly strong.

"Tonight, Americans join the world in marking the end of this symbol of hatred who died with the blood of thousands on his hands," Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley said in a statement Sunday night. "The U.S. pledged it would hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden for the crimes he committed and nearly a decade after the tragedy of September 11, justice has been served. This is a tremendous victory for America and a promise kept to the families of the 9-11 victims."

“As the face of global terrorism, bin Laden will forever be a reminder of how deeply we must cherish our freedom, and so it is fitting we come together as Nevadans and Americans to remember the victims of the 9-11 attacks,” Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval said in a statement. “We are also grateful for the relentless courage and dedication of our Armed Forces who continue to keep us safe from harm.”

“This is the most significant victory in our fight against al-Qaida and terrorism, but that fight is not over," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement Sunday night. "As we remember those who were killed on that dark day in September and their families, we also reaffirm our resolve to defeat the terrorist forces that killed them and thousands of others across the globe. Because of courageous Americans in our military and intelligence community, their leader is now gone.”

Those are common words of praise for what appears to be the most uncommon of raids.

For years, the fantastical image of Osama bin Laden has placed the bearded leader in the deeper recesses of caves in Afghanistan's unforgiving Tora Bora Mountains, or in tents in the desert. But the raid took place in Abbottabad, just miles outside Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in a residential neighborhood.

According to senior administration officials, when the compound in which bin Laden was found was built, in 2005, it was in a remote area at the outskirts of the town center and at the end of a dirt road. It's in the six years since that a residential area has grown around it.

The compound, which is still about eight times the size of the other residential structures in the area, is an imposing place, as officials described it. The external walls are 12-to-18 feet tall and topped with barbed wire. There are internal walls, too, to provide extra security for extra privacy in certain sections of the compound, and two security gates control the flow of people in and out.

Click to enlarge photo

Osama bin Laden is shown in this 1998 file photo.

There were other curiosities about life in the compound, which officials believe that three families called home, including several members of the bin Laden clan, among them, Osama bin Laden's youngest wife and at least one son, who was also killed in the attack.

For a compound in a residential area, there was little contact with the outside world. Residents would burn their trash, unlike their neighbors, who'd put it out to be collected. The compound is worth about $1 million dollars, officials added, but had no telephone or Internet service. Officials also couldn’t determine a legitimate source of income for the residents there.

Osama bin Laden "did resist the assault force," officials said early Monday, "and was killed in a firefight," along with three adult males -- two couriers and bin Laden's adult son -- and one woman, when a male combatant used her as a human shield, officials said.

“[Bin Laden’s] demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity,” Obama said late Sunday. But his reveling in the triumph of the day was measured by the consciousness that the war against terror -- and all the cultural and diplomatic strains the U.S. has put on the world -- are far from over.

“The United States never was and never will be at war with Islam,” Obama said, beginning an appeal for the sort of commonality that brought the United States and the world together in the close wake of Sept. 11, the tragedy that also propelled bin Laden to universally reviled fame.

The perception persists in some parts of the Muslim world that anti-Islamic sentiment, instead of strategic considerations, motivate and perpetuate the U.S.’s various wars and diplomatic stances with Islamic countries, and the backlash has often been violent. Most recently, a group in Afghanistan -- where bin Laden was thought to be hiding for a while -- attacked and killed seven internationals at a United Nations compound in a fairly peaceful part of the country last month, as payback, they said, for a Florida pastor’s public burning of Korans.

Obama took pains to appeal to Muslims around the world that killing bin Laden was not an act against the Muslim world, but an act done in its interest.

“Bin Laden was not a Muslim, was not a Muslim leader,” Obama said. “He was a mass murderer of Muslims.”

Obama also appealed to the general spirit of common purpose and experience that united the U.S. with the world in the wake of Sept. 11, reminding that bin Laden's death is but one step in a struggle that’s far from over.

“I know that it has at times frayed,” Obama said. “Yet today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people. But the cause of security in our country is not complete.”

Although the war goes on, the president stressed that bin Laden’s death provides long overdue closure for victims of his attacks.

“On nights like this one,” Obama said, “we can say to those families who have lost loves ones … justice has been done.”

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