Osama Bin Laden was killed in his hideout in Abbottabad, a city in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, on Sunday, May 2, 2011. He had been hunted by score of American intelligence since 9/11/2001 attacks on twin towers of New York, in the rugged mountains of Waziristan in FATA. Osama had been illusive between Afghanistan and Pakistan for about the last ten years with guessing game. In April 2011, President Obama ordered a covert operation to kill or capture bin Laden. On May 2, 2011, U.S. Navy SEALs carried it out, killing him in his Abbottabad, Pakistan compound.[1]
Those who welcomed Osama’s killing included the United States, the United Nations, European Union, NATO, and some nations in Asia, South America, and the Middle East, including Yemen, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, India, Israel, Indonesia, Somalia, Philippines, Turkey, Iraq, and the rebel Libyan Republic.[2]
His killing was condemned, however, by Venezuela, the Hamas administration of the Gaza Strip, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Taliban.[3] The governments of most Arab and Muslim countries maintained official silence. Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood opined that bin Laden's death removed "the last excuse" for western forces to remain in the Middle East, and urged their withdrawal. The monitoring of Jihadist websites after bin Laden's death, by intelligence agency SITE, revealed encouragement of attacks in retaliation for his killing.[4]
The 14th Dalai Lama said, "Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures."[5] Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said "it doesn't look as if justice ... is done," concerning the killing of an unarmed man. He elaborated, "I don’t know full details any more than anyone else does. But I do believe that in such circumstances when we are faced with someone who was manifestly a war criminal, in terms of the atrocities inflicted, it is important that justice is seen to be observed."[6]
Military officials said it was the ISI of Pakistan, which had initially provided a lead on Osama in the shape of cell phone details of his most trusted courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, which the CIA pursued and developed but did not share with the ISI and instead went ahead unilaterally to kill the Al Qaeda leader.[7]
Osama Bin Laden’s hideout was without any armed security, other than the surveillance cameras fixed in the building. Osama was living inside the building without any heavy guard or equipment to protect him in case of surprise attack. His living was simple and modest. But the way the Navy SEALs attacked Osama and killed him in cold blood, raises the question as to why the Administration wanted to silence him while they could easily capture him like Saddam Hussein. The videos collected from his belongings and recently shown on the CNN are also displayed mute without his speeches audible. To keep his words muted and to silence him by killing dead raises the suspicion as to what are the matters that the US Administration wants to hide from the American citizens. May be there is nothing fishy in the bloody drama, but the way it is conducted makes it fishy.
The woman, identified as Yemeni-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, was taken into custody following the American raid on bin Laden's compound in the town of Abbottabad. A Pakistani official said CIA officers had not been given access to the women in custody. One official said Pakistani authorities found an AK-47 and a pistol in the house belonging to those in the house, with evidence that one bullet had been fired from the rifle.[8] "That was the level of resistance" they did put up, said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
Late Thursday, two Pakistani officials cited bin Laden's wives and children as saying that he and his associates had not offered any "significant resistance" when the American commandos entered the compound, in part because the assailants had thrown "stun bombs" that disorientated them.[9]
The official, who identified the woman as Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, the youngest of bin Laden's three wives, told Reuters she was wounded in the US raid on Monday. Bin Laden’s widow says they lived in Pakistan for five years.[10]
“An investigation has been ordered into the circumstances that led to this situation,” a military spokesman said after the conference which focused exclusively on the May 2 pre-dawn US raid and its implications. But he did not share the scope and terms of reference of the inquiry.[11]
In the aftermath of the incident, the military and the ISI have faced numerous questions, with almost everyone asking how it was possible for Osama to live unnoticed at the Pakistan Military Academy Kakul`s doorway for years without any support. “While the CIA developed intelligence based on initial information provided by the ISI, it did not share further development of intelligence on the case with ISI, contrary to the existing practice between the two services,” the ISPR statement maintained.[12]
Gen Kayani is reported to be looking at 25 to 40 per cent cut in the number of US Special Operations personnel based in Pakistan.[13]
In its report the New York Times said that when the commandos reached the top floor of the house in the compound, they entered a room and saw Osama bin Laden with an AK-47 rifle and a Makarov pistol “in arm's reach,” and they “shot and killed him, as well as wounding a woman with him.”
Al-Qaeda released a statement on militant Web sites Friday, May 6, confirming the death of Osama bin Laden, news agencies reported. The statement, dated May 3, was signed by “the general leadership” of the group, the Associated Press said.[14] “We stress that the blood of the holy warrior sheik, Osama bin Laden, God bless him, is precious to us and to all Muslims” the statement said according to the A.P., adding that his death would not “go in vain.” The statement also said, “We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following them outside and inside their countries.” The statement said a voice recording that Bin Laden made a week before his death would be released soon, Reuters reported. The statement also called on the people of Pakistan to rebel against their government and warned of reprisal attacks against America.[15]
“Whatever the acts attributed to Bin Laden,” Castro of Cuba wrote, “the murder of an unarmed human being surrounded by his family constitutes an abhorrent deed. This is apparently what the government of the most powerful nation ever did to exist.”[16]
Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Martin Scheinin, special rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering terrorism, said that in certain exceptional cases, deadly force may be used in "operations against terrorists". "In respect of the recent use of deadly force against Osama bin Laden, the United States of America should disclose the supporting facts to allow an assessment in terms of international human rights law standards," they said. "It will be particularly important to know if the planning of the mission allowed an effort to capture bin Laden."[17]
It was important to get this information "into the open," according to the investigators who report to the UN Human Rights Council whose 47 members include the United States.[18]
It was important to get this information "into the open," according to the investigators who report to the UN Human Rights Council whose 47 members include the United States.[18]
Almost simultaneously with the spread of the news of Osama bin Laden's death in a covert US operation in Pakistan, Chinese analysts had begun the guessing game of where Washington will focus its attention next. "Why didn't they catch him alive?" speculated military affairs analyst Guo Xuan. "Because he was no longer needed as an excuse for Washington to take the anti-terror war outside of the US borders. It is because of bin Laden that the US were allowed to increase their strategic presence in many places around the world as never before.[19] Beijing officially hailed the killing of the terrorist leader by the US as "a milestone and a positive development for the international anti-terrorism efforts".[20]
The US presence in Afghanistan has always been a controversial one for Chinese politicians. China joined the global war on terror because bin Laden's political agenda of setting up an Arab caliphate and sponsoring terrorism presented a direct threat to its restive Muslim north-western region of Xinjiang. But Beijing has been suspicious of the US intentions, worrying that Washington is pursuing a broader agenda for long-term presence in the region, which China regards as its backyard.[21]
"The great anti-America fighter bin Laden was murdered by the US! How sad!" wrote one commenter on Sina's popular Weibo micro-blogging site. "Is this real? Excellent!" wrote another of the news. "Now the only terrorist left is the United States!" "What a great way to issue a warning to all anti-American politicians in the region," Chen said. "And a declaration that it (the US) intends to mould the Middle East according to its own design."[22]
Osama bin Laden's death has been big news, but for many the real story is the relationship between Pakistan and the United States. How much they did or indeed did not co-operate on the mission? Is the relationship between Pakistan and the United States dead and buried too? Even before bin Laden was killed - the US administration was already under pressure to curtail its aid to Pakistan, over concerns how the aid was being spent. But with strained relations, will the financial lifeline dry up?
The completion of the largest and most expensive manhunt in history for Osama bin Laden must be a turning point to completely rethink our response to terrorism. The threats of terrorists are still real, but it is now clear that full-scale military action is not the most effective response. There is no more room or time for excuses. The war in Afghanistan -- now the longest war in American history -- no longer has any justification.
It was the campaign against bin Laden and al Qaeda that was always used to justify the war in Afghanistan. General David Petraeus has said there are about 100 al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan. We have more than 100,000 American troops and another 40,000 coalition soldiers in Afghanistan. That means 1,400 soldiers for each al Qaeda fighter. It costs about $1 million a year to deploy and support each American soldier — or more than $100 billion a year total. That breaks down to our country spending $1 billion per year, per al Qaeda fighter. Every deficit hawk in America should now oppose this war. The cost is simply too high, especially when compared with all the painful budget choices this failed war is causing us to make.
Even more important is the human cost of 1,570 Americans killed, more than 10,000 wounded, and many more families separated -- lives disrupted and changed forever. We must always care about the casualties on the other side, especially innocent lives who are the collateral damage of war. From 2001 to 2011 the War on Terror has resulted in a total of between 80,000 and 1.2 million civilian deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. This war is not worth that human cost. The damages it causes far outweigh the possible results, and that makes this war unjustifiable. As Chuck Colson recently said, “Maintaining 100,000 troops in Afghanistan no longer meets the just war criteria.”[23]
The operation that found and killed bin Laden was not the massive war of counter-insurgency. It was the result of smart intelligence, good detective work, and aggressive law-enforcement work—policing, rather than war-making. Even many conservatives have pointed this out, as George Will recently wrote, “bin Laden was brought down by intelligence gathering that more resembles excellent police work than a military operation.”[24]
More innocent civilians have become the “collateral damage” of our wars, than from the direct assault on civilians undertaken by Osama bin Laden and his al- Qaeda assassins on September 11. This fact, by the standards of Just War Theory, which is at least given lip service in most churches, is a grave moral failing. Violence is always more a sign of our failures than our successes and is not easily exorcized from the world by the killing of one man, no matter how dangerous or symbolic he may be.
The White House says that Amal, 24, was shot in the calf when she charged at the Seals who burst into bin Laden's bedroom, presumably to protect her husband. Bin Laden's body was taken away for burial in the Arabian Sea. But Amal was left behind, along with her young daughter Safiyah, who Pakistani officials say witnessed her father's killing. It is not clear how many of the dozen other children in the compound were bin Laden's. Pakistani officials say bin Laden's wife and daughter are now recovering in a military hospital in Rawalpindi, and they have released Amal's passport photograph.[25]
In 2002, Amal reportedly gave an interview to a Saudi woman's magazine, Al Majalla, in which she explained how, after the 9/11 attacks, she made her way out of Afghanistan back to Yemen with assistance from Pakistani officials. Bin Laden's widow told her Saudi interviewer at the time, "When the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan started, we moved to a mountainous area with some children and lived in one of the caves for two months until one of his sons came with a group of tribesmen and took us with them. I did not know that we were going to Pakistan until they handed us over to the Pakistani government."[26]
Parts of that account were confirmed to TIME in a telephone interview with an Arab woman who prefers not to be identified but who knew bin Laden personally in Afghanistan and whose family formed part of al-Qaeda's inner circle. After 9/11, al-Qaeda's leadership decided to evacuate their families. "All the families had to leave Afghanistan swiftly," the Arab woman said. "They didn't want their women and children captured."[27]
After bin Laden's young bride - Amal was then 19 - was turned over to the Pakistani authorities, she and her daughter Safiyah were released and allowed to fly home to Ibb, a town not far from Sana'a, Yemen's capital, where her father worked as a minor civil servant.[28]
But bin Laden somehow arranged for Amal to rejoin him and his kids in Pakistan. In her magazine interview, she was asked if she would return to her fugitive husband. Her enigmatic reply: "Let us see what happens." Pakistani press quoted officials as saying that Amal claimed to have been living with bin Laden in the Abbottabad safe house for five years.[29]
So far, Pakistan is refusing to let U.S. officials anywhere near Amal, now under guard in a hospital. Chances are, that won't change - cultural taboos aside, she may know too many uncomfortable truths. Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani said Thursday, May 5, that Pakistan is ordering all but the "minimum essential" American personnel to leave the country, a sign that the tense relations between Pakistan and the U.S. have worsened as a result of the Abbottabad raid.[30
Pakistan's security establishment has long been accused of playing a double game: taking billions in U.S. aid while secretly backing select jihadi militants in Afghanistan and in Pakistan's tribal region. Even al-Qaeda types were expected to play ball. Says the Arab woman formerly connected to al-Qaeda: "There was an understanding with the Pakistani army. We would get a tip-off that the army planned to raid one of our houses in the tribal area. We would flee but leave some 'evidence' behind so that the army could show to the Americans that we'd been there."[31]
Osama bin Laden was fighting a war with the USA, in the same way as the USA was later fighting a War on Terror. War of any kind has its own moral rather no moral of common practices of our society. It has its own rules and practices which are in contrast with the norm of our society. The following incidence pushed Osama to wage war with the United States:
"God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the towers, but after the situation became unbearable—and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women."[32]
But this act of terror by Osama reversed into more killings of men, women and children by the United States in the name of War on Terror in many states of Africa and Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan. War leaves no victors, only victims. By this equation none is innocent.
Osama is dead, but the cause he upheld is not. Others will take his place and may already have. If the world is to prevent the rise of more Osamas, it must change its strategy to the festering cancer of injustices and oppressions in the Middle East and elsewhere. Now that the so-called architect of 9/11 is gone, the US should have no business in Afghanistan-Pakistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Bin Laden has taken with him to his watery grave the West’s raison d’être for its imperial project.
Edited by: ISRAR HASAN
hitt2010@gmail.com.
[7] Associated Press, Islamabad, Munir Ahmed, May 7, 2011.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Dawn.com; May 6, 2011.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] New York Times, May 6, 2011
[15] Ibid.
[16] The New York Times, “Castro deplores the Murder of Osama Bin Laden”, May 5, 2011.
[17] Al-Jazeera, May 6, 2011
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] TIME, May 6, 2011.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ibid.
[31] Ibid.
[32] The Guardian (London), Oct. 30, 2004.
very good essay on a hot topic for Pakistanis.
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