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NT - Osama gallery

One year since U.S. commandos flew into this Pakistani <a href="/topics/United_States_Military_Academy">army</a> town and killed <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Osama bin Laden</a>, <a href="/topics/Islamabad">Islamabad</a> has failed to answer tough questions over whether its security forces were protecting the world's most wanted terrorist. 
 Partly as a result, fallout from the raid still poisons relations between Washington and Pakistan, where anti-American sentiment, support for Islamist extremism and anger at the violation of sovereignty in the operation can be summed up by a Twitter hashtag doing the rounds: 02MayBlackDay. 
 The Pakistani government initially welcomed the raid that killed bin <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Laden</a> in his three-story compound, but within hours the mood changed as it became clear that Pakistan's army was cut out of the operation. Any discussions over how bin Laden managed to stay undetected in Pakistan were drowned out in anger at what the army portrayed as a treacherous act by a supposed ally. 
 That bin Laden was living with his family near Pakistan's version of West Point — not in a cave in the mountains as many had guessed — raised eyebrows in the West. The Pakistani army was already accused of playing both sides in the campaign against militancy, providing some support against <a href="/topics/Al-Qaeda">al-Qaida</a> but keeping the Afghan <a href="/topics/Taliban">Taliban</a> as strategic allies. 
 A week after the raid, <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Barack Obama</a> said bin Laden had a "support network" in Pakistan and the country must investigate how he evaded capture. Pakistan responded by announcing the formation of a committee to investigate bin Laden's presence in Pakistan as well as the circumstances surrounding the U.S. raid. 
 Soon after it began its work, the head of the committee said he was sure that security forces were not hiding bin Laden. Other statements since then have also suggested the report will be more of a whitewash than a genuine probe. 
 Last week, committee spokesman retired Col. Mohammad Irfan Naziri said its findings were being written up but they might not be released publicly. 
 "We're disappointed," said a U.S. official about the investigation. "They promised to do it, but they haven't yet." 
 The public line of the <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Obama</a> administration is that no evidence has emerged to suggest bin Laden had high-level help inside Pakistan. Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency said bin Laden's long and comfortable existence in the country was an "intelligence failure." 
 But suspicions have increased following recent disclosures by one of bin Laden's wives in a police interrogation report that the al-Qaida leader lived in five houses while on the run and fathered four children, two of whom were born in Pakistani government hospitals. 
 "I just find the idea that he lived in a place like <a href="/topics/Abbottabad%2C_Pakistan">Abbottabad</a> without the ISI's knowledge strains credibility," said Shawn Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Bradford University in the U.K. "It is ridiculous that he wasn't being protected." 
 Since the raid, Pakistan has tried to close one of the most notorious chapters in its history. 
 The three-story compound in Abbottabad that housed him for six years was razed by bulldozers in a surprise, nighttime operation. Just last week, his three wives and 11 daughters, children and grandchildren were deported to <a href="/topics/Saudi_Arabia">Saudi Arabia</a>; their side of the story is unlikely to be told anytime soon. 
 In this relatively wealthy and well-ordered town that has become infamous for hosting bin Laden for so long, it's hard to find anyone prepared to say they supported the American operation. Many don't believe bin Laden ever lived in the house, reflecting the popularity of conspiracy theories in a country where the rulers often obscure the truth. 
 Umair Ishaq, who grows vegetables close to the empty lot, said he remained angry about the raid. 
 "You go there to the compound, there is a still a fragrance from those who were killed," he said, referring to Islamic belief that those who die as a martyr to the faith give off a sweet smell at death. "They were innocent and they were martyrs." 
 Most of the rubble has been hauled away from the site, on which local children now play cricket. Farmers cross over it on their way to the fields, and on a recent day older boys were smashing away at bits of masonry, trying to extract the metal poles inside so they could sell them. 
 After the helicopter-borne operation, the country's generals retaliated by kicking out U.S. special forces trainers operating close to the Afghan border, cutting intelligence cooperation with the <a href="/topics/Central_Intelligence_Agency">CIA</a> and restricting the travel of foreign diplomats and aid workers. 
 Authorities arrested a Pakistani doctor who assisted America in tracking down bin Laden. The doctor remains in detention, facing possible treason charges. The country has made not made public the arrests of anyone connected bin Laden's time on the run. 
 Relations had barely recovered when in November U.S. airstrikes inadvertently killed 24 Pakistani troops along the Afghan border. Pakistan immediately blocked U.S. and <a href="/topics/NATO">NATO</a> supply routes across its soil into <a href="/topics/Afghanistan">Afghanistan</a>. They remain shut, despite U.S. attempts to renegotiate a new deal with Pakistan. 
 Even before the raid, anti-American sentiment was so rampant in Pakistan that anyone who opposed Washington was lauded by many sections of society. Bin Laden was no exception, even as his followers carried out numerous bloody attacks inside the country. 
 "OBL was considered as a hero by the general public at large, and his death generated a lot of sympathy," said Aftab Khan Sherpao, a lawmaker from the northwest who has three times been targeted by Islamist militant suicide bombers. "No one has been able to control and contain his supporters." 
 Despite reservations about Pakistan's commitment to U.S. goals in Afghanistan and doubts over how bin Laden managed to evade capture for so long, the Obama administration feels it has little choice but to ally itself with the country. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and will remain important in the fight against al-Qaida in years to come. 
 Many believe Islamabad's cooperation will be essential for getting any Afghan peace deal to stick, allowing the U.S. to withdraw troops.

World

woraid02

1 year on from OBL raid, no answers from Pakistan 

Pakistan Gilani

A former Obama administration official says <a href="/topics/Al-Qaeda">al Qaida</a> leader <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Osama bin Laden</a> wanted to see <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Barack Obama</a> and Gen. <a href="/topics/David_Petraeus">David Petraeus</a> assassinated. 
 But Michael Leiter tells NBC's "<a href="/topics/Today_%28NBC_Program%29">Today</a>" show he didn't think that necessarily was bin Laden's highest priority, suggesting the terrorist leader dreamed of another large-scale, 9/11-type attack on the United States. 
 Asked by "Today" host <a href="/topics/Matt_Lauer">Matt Lauer</a> Tuesday whether bin Laden's aim of seeing Obama assassinated was more of a "wish-list" than a plot, Leiter agreed. 
 Leiter served as head of the <a href="/topics/National_Counterterrorism_Center">National Counterterrorism Center</a> during the Obama administration. He was present with Obama, Vice President <a href="/topics/Joe_Biden">Joe Biden</a> and Secretary of State <a href="/topics/Hillary_Rodham_Clinton">Hillary Rodham Clinton</a> at the White House a year ago as they monitored the U.S. operation that killed bin Laden at a Pakistan compound.

usosam02

Bin Laden said to have wanted Obama assassinated 

wobin

<a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Barack Obama</a> gave a steely defense of his handling of the raid that killed <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Osama bin Laden</a> and his use of it to burnish his re-election credentials a year later, saying Monday that it is appropriate to mark an anniversary that <a href="/topics/U.S._Republican_Party">Republicans</a> charge is being turned into a campaign bumper sticker. 
 He then jumped at the chance to portray presumed <a href="/topics/U.S._Republican_Party">Republican</a> presidential challenger Mitt <a href="/topics/Mitt_Romney">Romney</a> as unprepared to make the kind of hard call required to send U.S. forces on that highly risky mission. Without mentioning Romney by name, Obama recommended looking at people's previous statements on the manhunt for the 9/11 mastermind. 
 Obama's re-election team has seized on a quote from Romney in 2007, when he said it was not worth moving heaven and earth to go after one person. On Monday, Romney said he "of course" would have ordered bin Laden killed, but his campaign criticized Obama for turning the successful death raid to political gain. 
 "I assume that people meant what they said when they said it," Obama said at a <a href="/topics/White_House">White House</a> news conference. "That's been at least my practice. I said that I'd go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him, and I did. If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest they'd do something else, then I'd go ahead and let them explain it." 
 Obama is using the May 2 anniversary to help maximize a political narrative that portrays him as bold and decisive. Romney has sought to cast Obama as weak and too quick to compromise on other foreign policy matters, including <a href="/topics/Iran">Iran</a>'s nuclear ambitions. 
 Obama and his national security team will be featured in an NBC prime-time special Wednesday night that reconstructs the operation from inside the <a href="/topics/White_House">White House</a> Situation Room. <a href="/topics/White_House">White House</a> counterterrorism chief <a href="/topics/John_Brennan">John Brennan</a> discussed Obama's command of the raid on a Sunday talk show and in a speech Monday. 
 "The death of bin Laden was our most strategic blow yet against <a href="/topics/Al-Qaeda">al-Qaida</a>," <a href="/topics/John_Brennan">Brennan</a> said at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. 
 Credit goes to the special forces who carried out the raid and the intelligence experts who led them to the hideout, <a href="/topics/John_Brennan">Brennan</a> said, "and to <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Obama</a>, who gave the order to go in." 
 Bin Laden was killed in <a href="/topics/Pakistan">Pakistan</a> by U.S. Navy SEALs. The terror leader was living in a compound outside the capital of <a href="/topics/Islamabad">Islamabad</a>, having evaded capture for nearly 10 years. 
 Obama sent in the U.S. forces with no assurance that bin Laden was at the site, leading to a heart-pounding scene in the Situation Room that was captured in one of the most famous photos of Obama's presidency. 
 "It's unfortunate that <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Obama</a> would prefer to use what was a good day for all Americans as a cheap political ploy and an opportunity to distort Gov. Romney's strong policies on the war on terror," Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said Monday. "<a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Obama</a>'s feckless foreign policy has emboldened our adversaries, weakened our allies, and threatens to break faith with our military." 
 Romney was scheduled to appear Tuesday in New York City with firefighters and former Mayor <a href="/topics/Rudy_Giuliani">Rudy Giuliani</a> to help mark Wednesday's anniversary of bin Laden's death. 
 "I hardly think you've seen any excessive celebration taking place here," Obama said at the news conference with Japanese Prime Minister <a href="/topics/Yoshihiko_Noda">Yoshihiko Noda</a>. His voice was taut and his smile thin. 
 "I think that people, the American people, rightly remember what we as a country accomplished in bringing to justice somebody who killed over 3,000 of our citizens." 
 In 2007, Romney told The Associated Press that it was not worth "moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person." 
 In a debate days later, he clarified the remark: "We'll move everything to get him. But I don't want to buy into the Democratic pitch that this is all about one person — <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Osama bin Laden</a> — because after we get him, there's going to be another and another," Romney said. 
 Romney was critical of then-candidate Obama's vow to strike <a href="/topics/Al-Qaeda">al-Qaida</a> targets inside <a href="/topics/Pakistan">Pakistan</a> if necessary. Obama said at the time that he would be willing to launch military strikes inside <a href="/topics/Pakistan">Pakistan</a> with or without the government's approval. 
 Ultimately, that's exactly what Obama did to get bin Laden. The decision outraged <a href="/topics/Pakistan">Pakistan</a>'s U.S.-backed civilian government and fanned anti-U.S. sentiment across the country. 
 Romney and his advisers suggested Monday that the decision to order the raid was an easy one. 
 "Even <a href="/topics/Jimmy_Carter_%28boxer%29">Jimmy Carter</a> would have given that order," Romney said Monday following a campaign appearance in <a href="/topics/New_Hampshire">New Hampshire</a>. 
 Romney probably meant that as a jab at the Democratic record on foreign policy generally, but invoking Carter may actually cloud Romney's message. 
 Carter demonstrated how dangerous and politically perilous such decisions can be when he ordered an attempt to rescue American hostages held in <a href="/topics/Iran">Iran</a>. 
 The 1980 mission ultimately embarrassed the nation, ending with the death of eight servicemen and the loss of several American helicopters. The hostage crisis lasted more than a year and helped deny Carter a second term. 
 If the bin Laden raid had gone similarly awry, Obama would have been badly damaged by a military debacle on top of the country's economic woes. 
 A spokeswoman for Carter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

NT - Bin Laden no celebration

Obama: Marking bin Laden death isn't 'celebration' 

Campaign Osama Bin Laden

Once a moment of national unity, the political battle over <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Osama bin Laden</a>'s death intensified Monday as presumptive <a href="/topics/U.S._Republican_Party">Republican</a> presidential candidate <a href="/topics/Mitt_Romney">Mitt Romney</a> sought to minimize the role <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Barack Obama</a> has carved out for himself in killing the terrorist leader. 
 The president's re-election campaign has raised questions about Romney's willingness to assassinate the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington. <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Obama</a> authorized the U.S. military raid in <a href="/topics/Pakistan">Pakistan</a> that ended with bin Laden's death after a decade in hiding one year ago this week. 
 Romney pushed back Monday, saying "of course" he would have made the same decision. 
 "Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order," Romney said, referencing the former president in his answer to a reporter's question after a campaign appearance in <a href="/topics/New_Hampshire">New Hampshire</a>. 
 Romney was scheduled to appear Tuesday in New York City with firefighters and former Mayor <a href="/topics/Rudy_Giuliani">Rudy Giuliani</a> to help mark Wednesday's anniversary of bin Laden's death. Obama and his national security team will be featured in a NBC prime-time special Wednesday night that reconstructs the operation from inside the <a href="/topics/White_House">White House</a> Situation Room. 
 Obama said Monday that the anniversary is a time for reflection, not celebration. 
 "I hardly think you've seen any excessive celebration taking place here," he said at a White House news conference. "I think that people, the American people, rightly remember what we as a country accomplished in bringing to justice somebody who killed over 3,000 of our citizens." 
 But Obama is using the successful military operation to help maximize a political narrative that portrays him as having the courage to make the tough calls his opponent might not. 
 Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALs. The terror leader was living in a compound in one of <a href="/topics/Islamabad">Islamabad</a>'s suburbs, having evaded capture for nearly 10 years. 
 Obama sent in the U.S. forces with no assurance that bin Laden was at the site, leading to a heart-pounding scene in the Situation Room that was captured in one of the most famous photos of Obama's presidency. 
 But Romney and his advisers suggested Monday that the decision to order the raid was an easy one. In evoking Carter, however, Romney may have clouded his message. 
 Carter demonstrated how dangerous such decisions can be when he ordered an attempt to rescue American hostages held in <a href="/topics/Iran">Iran</a>. The 1980 mission ultimately embarrassed the nation, ending with the death of eight servicemen and the loss of several American helicopters. The hostage crisis lasted more than a year and helped deny Carter a second term. 
 On Sunday, Obama campaign adviser <a href="/topics/Robert_Gibbs">Robert Gibbs</a> said it was unclear whether Romney would have made the same decision as Obama. 
 "Look, just a few years ago, <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Obama</a> — then a candidate — said in a speech that if we had actionable intelligence of a high-value target in Pakistan, we'd go in and get that high value target," <a href="/topics/Robert_Gibbs">Gibbs</a> said on NBC's "Meet the Press." ''Mitt Romney said that was foolish. He wouldn't do such a thing. That he wouldn't move heaven and earth to get Osama bin Laden." 
 Obama's campaign last week released a video featuring former President <a href="/topics/Bill_Clinton">Bill Clinton</a> that seeks to reinforce Gibbs' doubts about what Romney would have done in that situation. "Which path would mitt Romney have taken?" the video asks. 
 <a href="/topics/U.S._Democratic_Party">Democrat</a> <a href="/topics/Arianna_Huffington">Arianna Huffington</a>, founder and editor-in-chief of the <a href="/topics/Huffington_Post">Huffington Post</a>, said the campaign ad went too far. 
 "I think it's one thing to celebrate the fact that they did such a great job. All that is perfectly legitimate," she said on CBS' "This Morning." ''But to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do." 
 Former New Hampshire Gov. <a href="/topics/John_H._Sununu_%28politician%29">John H. Sununu</a>, a key Romney supporter who was chief of staff in the first Bush White House, said Obama is wrongly taking credit for bin Laden's killing. Sununu said the decision to strike was ultimately made by a Navy admiral. 
 "It's wrong in taking credit and it's wrong in implying that someone else would not have made the same decision," Sununu said before Romney addressed a crowd on Portsmouth Fish Pier. "There is no way that anyone sitting in that White House would not have at least done what he did."

NT - Mitt kill Bin Laden

Romney says he would have ordered bin Laden killed 

Romney 2012 - CROPPED

The killing of <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Osama bin Laden</a>, first presented as a moment of national unity by <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Barack Obama</a>, has become something else: a political weapon. 
 Obama's re-election campaign is portraying his risky decision to go after America's top enemy as a defining difference with his <a href="/topics/U.S._Republican_Party">Republican</a> presidential opponent, suggesting Mitt <a href="/topics/Mitt_Romney">Romney</a> might not have had the guts to order a mission that put lives and perhaps a presidency at stake. 
 Obama himself is opening up on the raid again — and opening the secretive <a href="/topics/White_House">White House</a> Situation Room as an interview stage — to hail the one-year anniversary. 
 The broader goal for Obama, whether through campaign web videos or the trappings of the White House, is not to just to remind voters of an enormous victory on his watch. It is to maximize a political narrative that he has the courage to make tough calls that his opponent might not. 
 "Does anybody doubt that had the mission failed, it would have written the beginning of the end of the president's first term?" Vice President <a href="/topics/Joe_Biden">Joe Biden</a> says in laying out Obama's foreign policy campaign message. "We know what <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Obama</a> did. We can't say for certain what Governor Romney would have done." 
 The strategy underscores the fact that the Obama who ordered the raid as commander in chief is now seeking a second term as president. The risk is the political blowback that can come if he is seen as crossing a line into politicizing national security. 
 "Sad," said a Romney spokeswoman. "Shameless," said 2008 Obama election foe John <a href="/topics/John_McCain">McCain</a>. 
 <a href="/topics/Joe_Biden">Biden</a> even combined the killing of the <a href="/topics/Al-Qaeda">al-Qaida</a> leader and Obama's support for a failing auto industry into what he called a re-election bumper sticker message. 
 "It's pretty simple: Osama bin Laden is dead and <a href="/topics/General_Motors">General Motors</a> is alive," the vice president said in a speech on Thursday. 
 Obama's campaign followed that Friday with a new web video questioning whether Romney would have taken the same path Obama did. If features a quote from a 2007 Romney interview in which he said it was not worth "moving heaven and <a href="/topics/Earth_%28musician%29">earth</a> spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person." 
 That prompted Obama's 2008 opponent, <a href="/topics/Arizona">Arizona</a>'s McCain, to issue a scathing statement in which he accused Obama of playing politics with the bin Laden killing and "diminishing the memory of September 11th." 
 "This is the same president who said, after bin Laden was dead, that we shouldn't 'spike the ball' after the touchdown," he said. "And now <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Barack Obama</a> is not only trying to score political points by invoking Osama bin Laden, he is doing a shameless end-zone dance to help himself get re-elected." 
 The president's initial words on the bin Laden mission — a raid for which he received wide praise, including from Romney — were ones of sober thanks. Addressing the nation late that night of May 1, 2011, in Washington, Obama said: "Tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11." 
 So much for that, the Romney campaign said Friday. 
 "It's now sad to see the Obama campaign seek to use an event that unified our country to once again divide us, in order to distract voters' attention from the failures of his administration," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said. 
 Obama campaign spokesman <a href="/topics/Ben_LaBolt">Ben LaBolt</a> declined comment for this story, saying Biden's speech and the new campaign video speak for themselves. 
 White House spokesman Jay Carney said the bin Laden raid is a part of Obama's foreign policy story, and "I think the way that we've handled it represents exactly the balance you need to strike." 
 President <a href="/topics/George_W._Bush">George W. Bush</a>, when seeking re-election in 2004, faced criticism that he was politicizing the memory of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, including with a video at the <a href="/topics/Republican_National_Convention">Republican National Convention</a> that credited him with "the heart of a president." 
 Steve Schmidt, a spokesman and strategist for that Bush campaign, said the bin Laden killing is fair game as a campaign message for Obama. 
 "It was a courageous political decision to launch the raid where bin Laden was killed. The stakes were enormous," Schmidt said. "Had it gone south, there would have been tremendous political ramifications for the president. It's a real event that happened on his watch, by his command." 
 In perspective, Schmidt added, the issue won't be a determining factor in an election to be driven by the economy. 
 Bin Laden was killed in <a href="/topics/Pakistan">Pakistan</a> by U.S. Navy SEALs. The terror leader was living in a compound in one of <a href="/topics/Islamabad">Islamabad</a>'s suburbs, having evaded capture for nearly 10 years. 
 The episode is featured prominently in a longer Obama campaign video, narrated by actor <a href="/topics/Tom_Hanks">Tom Hanks</a>, as an example of decisive leadership. 
 Obama sent in the U.S. forces with no assurance that bin Laden was at the site, leading to a heart-pounding scene in the Situation Room, captured in one of the most famous photos of Obama's presidency. 
 From that room, Obama will relive the moment in prime time. The White House granted <a href="/topics/NBC_News">NBC News</a>' <a href="/topics/Brian_Williams_%28football%29">Brian Williams</a> access to the Situation Room, and interviews with Obama and top members of his security team, for a special that has been taped and will air on Wednesday. 
 It is unclear if the room has been used before as the setting for such an interview. NBC News called it a first for network television. White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor said the room itself is only classified if the topic being discussed is, and that reporters have been inside the room before. 
 Said Schmidt: "It's part of the advantage of being an incumbent president."

NT - Obama Osama death

For Obama, bin Laden killing becomes campaign tool 

Politics Osama bin Laden - cropped

A year after the U.S. raid that killed <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Osama bin Laden</a>, al-Qaida is hobbled and hunted, too busy surviving for the moment to carry out another Sept. 11-style attack on U.S. soil. 
 But the terrorist network dreams still of payback, and U.S. counterterrorist officials warn that, in time, its offshoots may deliver. 
 A decade of wars in <a href="/topics/Iraq">Iraq</a> and <a href="/topics/Afghanistan">Afghanistan</a> that has cost the U.S. about $1.28 trillion and 6,300 U.S. troops* lives has forced al-Qaida's affiliates to regroup, from <a href="/topics/Yemen">Yemen</a> to Iraq. Bin <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Laden</a>'s No. 2, Ayman al-<a href="/topics/Ayman_al-Zawahiri">Zawahri</a>, is thought to be hiding, out of U.S. reach, in <a href="/topics/Pakistan">Pakistan</a>'s mountains, just as bin Laden was for so many years. 
 "It's wishful thinking to say al-Qaida is on the brink of defeat," says Seth Jones, a Rand analyst and adviser to U.S. special operations forces. "They have increased global presence, the number of attacks by affiliates has risen, and in some places like Yemen, they've expanded control of territory." 
 It's a complicated, somewhat murky picture for Americans to grasp. 
 U.S. officials say bin Laden's old team is all but dismantled. But they say new branches are hitting Western targets and U.S. allies overseas, and still aspire to match their parent organization's milestone of Sept. 11, 2001. 
 The deadliest is in Yemen. 
 "They are continuing to try to again, carry out an attack against U.S. persons inside of Yemen, as well as against the homeland," <a href="/topics/White_House">White House</a> counterterrorism advisor <a href="/topics/John_Brennan">John Brennan</a> said Sunday on <a href="/topics/ABC">ABC</a>'s "This Week." 
 "We're working very closely with our Yemeni partners to track down all these leads," he said. 
 <a href="/topics/John_Brennan">Brennan</a> says there's no sign of an active revenge plot against U.S. targets, but U.S. citizens in Pakistan and beyond are being warned to be vigilant ahead of the May 2 anniversary of the night raid. U.S. helicopters swooped down on bin Laden's compound in the Pakistani army town of <a href="/topics/Abbottabad%2C_Pakistan">Abbottabad</a>, killing him, one of his sons, two couriers and their wives. 
 The last view for Americans of the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks was that of a wizened old man sitting in front of an old television, wrapped in a blanket. 
 The world may never see photographic proof of his death. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg in Washington ruled last week that the <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">Obama</a> administration, under the Freedom of Information Act, would not have to turn over images of bin Laden during or after the raid. 
 "Verbal descriptions of the death and <a href="/topics/Burial_%28musician%29">burial</a> of <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Osama Bin Laden</a> will have to suffice," Boasberg wrote in his ruling on the lawsuit by the public interest group Judicial Watch. 
 Bin Laden's killing and al-Qaida's stumbling efforts to regroup are now the national security centerpiece of <a href="/topics/Barack_Obama">President Barack Obama</a>'s re-election campaign. 
 The White House frequently cites the president's decision to approve the raid, with only a 50-50 chance that bin Laden was even at the compound. Obama could have gone down in history as the man who put the Navy SEALs and the relationship with Pakistan in jeopardy, while failing to catch the al-Qaida leader. 
 "<a href="/topics/Al-Qaeda">Al-Qaida</a> was and is our No. 1 enemy," White House spokesman Jay Carney said last week. "So it's a part of his foreign policy record, obviously, but it's also part of a very serious endeavor to keep our country safe." 
 How safe remains in question. 
 U.S. officials say al-Qaida is less able to carry out a complex attack like Sept. 11 and they rule out al-Qaida's ability to attack with weapons of mass destruction in the coming year. These officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they say publicly identifying themselves could make them a target of the terrorist group. 
 U.S. counterterrorist forces have killed roughly half of al-Qaida's top 20 leaders since the raid. That includes U.S.-born cleric <a href="/topics/Anwar_al-Awlaki">Anwar al-Awlaki</a>, killed by a drone in Yemen last September, less than six months after bin Laden's death. 
 Only a few of the original al-Qaida team remain, and most of the new names on the U.S. target lists are relative unknowns, officials say. 
 "The last terror attack (in the West) was seven years ago in London and they haven't had any major attacks in the U.S." says <a href="/topics/Peter_Bergen">Peter Bergen</a>, an al-Qaida expert who once met bin Laden. "They are recruiting no-hopers and dead-enders." 
 Yet Zawahri is still out there. Though constantly hunted, he has managed to release 13 audio and video messages to followers since bin Laden's death, a near record-rate of release according to the IntelCenter, a private intelligence firm. He has urged followers to seize on the unrest left by the Arab Spring to build organizations and influence in <a href="/topics/Egypt">Egypt</a>, <a href="/topics/Libya">Libya</a> and elsewhere, and back rebels in <a href="/topics/Syria">Syria</a> — a call that U.S. intelligence officials say is being heeded. 
 U.S. attempts to deliver a "knockout punch" to Zawahri and his followers in Pakistan have been hamstrung by a breakdown in relations with Pakistan's government over the bin Laden raid. 
 Pakistani officials saw the raid as a violation of their sovereignty, made worse by a U.S. friendly fire attack that killed almost two dozen Pakistani troops on the border with Afghanistan last fall. Pakistan's parliament called for a redrafting of what the U.S. is allowed to do, and where. 
 <a href="/topics/Central_Intelligence_Agency">CIA</a> drone strikes in Pakistan's border area continue, but are limited to a relatively small area of the tribal region. 
 "Our efforts are focused on one small kill box and, we've hit them hard, but they still maintain a vital network throughout Pakistan" says Bill Roggio, editor of the Long War Journal, which tracks U.S. counterterrorism efforts worldwide. 
 Al-Qaida also takes shelter in Pakistan's urban areas, as shown by the bin Laden raid, and the CIA's efforts to search those areas is often blocked by the Pakistani intelligence service. 
 U.S. officials say they believe factions within the agency shelter and even fund al-Qaida's senior leaders and related militant groups such as the Haqqani network, which attacks U.S. troops in Afghanistan, from their Pakistani safe haven. Pakistan denies the charge. 
 Afghanistan is the temporary home to up to 100 al-Qaida fighters at any single time, U.S. officials say, adding that a steady series of U.S. special operations raids is essential to keeping them out. With the withdrawal of U.S. forces, U.S. counterterrorism officials fear al-Qaida could return. 
 By the numbers, al-Qaida's greatest presence is still greatest in Iraq, where intelligence officials estimate up to a 1,000 fighters have refocused their campaign from striking now-absent U.S. troops to hitting the country's Shiite-dominated government. 
 Yemen's al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is becoming a major draw for foreign fighters as it carves out a stronghold in the south of the country, easily defeating Yemeni forces preoccupied battling tribal and political unrest. The White House recently agreed to expanded drone strikes to give the CIA and the military greater leeway to target militant leaders. 
 This al-Qaida group has been a major threat since 2009, when one of its adherents tried to bring down a jetliner over Detroit. 
 Al-Qaida affiliates such as <a href="/topics/Al-Shabab">al-Shabab</a> in <a href="/topics/Somalia">Somalia</a> are struggling to carry out attacks in the face of a stepped up CIA-U.S. military campaign, and a loss of popular support after blocking U.N. food aid to some 4 million starving Somalis, officials say. 
 But the group is kept afloat by a stream of cash, partly from piracy and kidnapping of the Somali coast. Brennan, the White House counterterrorism chief, told an audience of CIA officers that total ransom payments paid to <a href="/topics/Piracy_at_Sea">Somali pirates</a> increased from approximately $80 million in 2010 to $140 million in 2011, according to remarks obtained by The Associated Press. 
 Cutting off those finances by persuading companies and U.S. to stop paying up is now central to the terrorism-fighting effort. 
 So, too, is the strategy of fighting small, smartly and covertly, avoiding land invasions such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan that caused Muslim outrage and helped draw fresh recruits, says Rand's Jones, in his new book "Hunting in the Shadows," a comprehensive history of the counterterror search since Sept. 11. 
 Many U.S. officials cite the Yemen model as the way ahead: a small network of U.S. intelligence and military forces working with local forces to selectively target militants. 
 "The key challenge will be balancing aggressive counterterrorism operations with the risk of exacerbating the anti-Western global agenda" of al-Qaida and its affiliates, says Robert Cardillo, a senior official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. 
 In other words, adds Jones, "it is a war in which the side that kills the most civilians loses."

NT - Al Qaeda plots

Weaker al-Qaida still plots payback for US raid 

Al-Qaida Top 5 - cropped

The picture in Defense Secretary <a href="/topics/Leon_Panetta">Leon Panetta</a>'s office captures the "mission accomplished" moment. 
 It shows Panetta, then the head of the <a href="/topics/Central_Intelligence_Agency">CIA</a>, and a group of U.S. commandos and others in the CIA operations center on the night of May 2 with their arms around each other — a quiet celebration just after U.S. helicopters crossed back over the border into <a href="/topics/Afghanistan">Afghanistan</a>. 
 Not until then — 90 minutes after U.S. special operations forces had lifted off from the heavily fortified compound in <a href="/topics/Pakistan">Pakistan</a> where they went in search of <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Osama bin Laden</a> — was he sure they could breathe a sigh of relief. 
 "We got the job done," Panetta said Friday as he recalled the long silences and the tense, heart-pounding moments before Adm. William McRaven's words finally came through loud and clear. 
 "Geronimo EKIA" — the code name for bin <a href="/topics/Osama_bin_Laden">Laden</a>, and the signal for "enemy killed in action." 
 With the first anniversary of the <a href="/topics/Al-Qaeda">al-Qaida</a> leader's death approaching, Panetta spoke to reporters on his plane as he flew back from a series of meetings with defense leaders in South America. Perched on a table inside the Airstream trailer — dubbed the Silver Bullet — that serves as his office inside his C-17 transport plane, Panetta traced back through the nerve-wracking moments of that night. 
 And he talked about its impact over the past year. 
 "I don't think there's any question that America is safer as a result of the bin Laden operation," he said. 
 While al-Qaida and its offshoots remain a threat, he said, the military and intelligence communities have learned to work better together since Sept. 11, 2001. Still, he acknowledged, there is no single, completely effective way to destroy the terror network. 
 "The way this works is that the more successful we are at taking down those who represent their spiritual, ideological leadership, the greater our ability to weaken their threat to this country," he said. 
 The story of the raid is well-known: The SEALs and special operations forces that flew deep into Pakistan; the wrenching moment when one of the helicopters went down in the heat, landing hard with its tail on the wall; the SEALs' assault on the house where they believed bin Laden and his wives had been living for several years; and what Panetta on Friday called the "fingernail-biting moments." 
 "We knew that there were gunshots and firing, but after that we just didn't know," said Panetta, describing the nearly 20 minutes of silence after the SEALs went into the house. 
 Then came confusion. McRaven, commander of the operation, told him that he thought he'd picked up the word "Geronimo." 
 "The way he said it was like, you know, 'We think,'" said Panetta. "It wasn't ideal. We were still waiting." 
 A few minutes later came the KIA message. Then came the long flight out of Pakistan. 
 "By that time they had blown the helicopter that was down and we knew we had woken up all of Pakistan to the fact that something had happened," Panetta said with a laugh. "The concern was just exactly what were they thinking and how were they going to respond." 
 The moment they crossed the border, he said, was "the moment when we finally knew the mission had been accomplished." 
 Then they could embrace the victory. 
 The raid created a deep fissure into the already rocky U.S.-Pakistan relations. U.S. officials, including members of <a href="/topics/U.S._Congress">Congress</a>, were irate that the al-Qaida leader had been able to hide — virtually in plain sight — in a Pakistani military town. Some suggested there was at least some knowledge of his hiding place. 
 Pakistani leaders, meanwhile, were outraged that the U.S. had launched a military mission deep within the country's borders without alerting them, violating their sovereignty. <a href="/topics/Islamabad">Islamabad</a>'s military commanders were embarrassed that the U.S. was able to carry out the raid without being detected. 
 The bin Laden saga has continued in Pakistan. His three wives and their families were deported early Friday to <a href="/topics/Saudi_Arabia">Saudi Arabia</a>. Officials have said that the wives and as many as eight children and some grandchildren were living in the compound when it was raided. 
 The anniversary has triggered security warnings for Americans in Pakistan. The U.S. Embassy said its employees would be restricted from restaurants and markets in Islamabad for the next two weeks. While there was no mention of bin Laden, the period includes the anniversary date.

NT - PANETTA

Panetta recalls nail-biting moments of raid 

510368600 - cropped

Osama bin Laden killed: One year later

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