Al Qaeda trying to produce lethal poison ricin: Report

Al Qaeda trying to produce lethal poison ricin: Report

Aug 13, 2011

Al Qaeda's arm in Yemen is trying to produce a lethal poison called 'ricin' that is made of castor beans and could be packed around small explosives for attacks inside the US, American counter-terror officials believe.

The white, powdery toxin ricin that is "so deadly that just a speck can kill if it is inhaled or reaches the bloodstream," the New York Times said in a report.

Citing classified intelligence reports, it said al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen has been trying for more than a year to procure large quantities of castor beans, which are required to produce the toxin.

"Intelligence officials say they have collected evidence that Qaeda operatives are trying to move castor beans and processing agents to a hideaway in Shabwa Province, in one of Yemen's rugged tribal areas controlled by insurgents.

"Evidence points to efforts to secretly concoct batches of the poison, pack them around small explosives, and then try to explode them in contained spaces, like a shopping mall, an airport or a subway station," the Times report added.

However, senior officials have said there is "no indication that a ricin attack is imminent," and experts have pointed out that the Qaeda affiliate is still figuring out how ricin can be used as an explosive since it loses its potency in dry, sunny conditions.

President Barack Obama, who was first briefed on the threat last year, has been receiving regular updates on the matter, the report added.

Senior officials said they are "tracking the possibility of a threat very closely," given the Yemeni affiliate's ability to devise plots that have been thwarted earlier including an attempt by the Nigerian underwear bomber.

* Url:http://www.west-bengal.com/world/al-qaeda-trying-to-produce-lethal-poison-ricin-report/117121.html

'9/11 panel was warned not to probe too deeply'

'9/11 panel was warned not to probe too deeply'*

Thu Mar 18, 2010

Leaked confidential documents have revealed that senior officials from the former US administration had warned a 9/11 investigation panel against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks.

In a letter obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, the 9/11 Commission was refused permission to question terror suspects, with the Bush administration arguing that by doing so the panel would "cross" a "line" and obstruct the administration's efforts to protect the nation.

Citing the need to "safeguard the national security, including protection of Americans from future terrorist attacks," the government officials demanded the Commission not make further attempts at conducting a deeper probe into the September 11 terror attacks.

"As the officers of the United States responsible for the law enforcement, defense and intelligence functions of the Government, we urge your Commission not to further pursue the proposed request to participate in the questioning of detainees," the letter said.

The warning note dated January 6, 2004 has been signed by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet.

The 9/11 Commission was set up in November 2002 to prepare a full account of the circumstances surrounding the attacks, which still have an air of suspicion around them.

The revelation comes as according to a recent survey, one-quarter of US adults believe that the 2001 terrorist attacks were fabricated.

* Url:http://edition.presstv.ir/detail/121085.html

Cheney, Rumsfeld Told Investigators To Whitewash 9-11

Cheney, Rumsfeld Told Investigators To Whitewash 9-11*

By Pat Shannan

A respected human rights organization has unearthed an official document dating to the Bush administration, which proves that powerful figures in the White House actively discouraged the official panel set up to investigate the 9-11 attacks from looking too deeply into the attack.

In March, through a FOIA request, the ACLU obtained 42 pages of illuminating documents exposing further the Bush administration’s duplicity regarding the facts of the 9-11 attacks, Guantanamo detainees and other matters. Buried on page 26 of these is a letter revealing that senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9-11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The notification came in a letter dated Jan. 16, 2004 that was addressed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and CIA Director George J. Tenet. The key document indicates once more the behind-the-scenes charade that went on—and continues to go on—with those high-ranking officials attempting to cover-up the facts and truth of the 9-11 attacks. The ACLU described it as a fax sent by David Addington, then-counsel to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

In the message, the officials denied the bipartisan commission’s request to question terrorist detainees, informing its two senior-most members that doing so would “cross a line” and obstruct the administration’s ability to protect the nation.

“In response to the commission’s expansive requests for access to secrets, the executive branch has provided such access in full cooperation,” the letter read. “There is, however, a line that the commission should not cross—the line separating the commission’s proper inquiry into the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks from interference with the government’s ability to safeguard the national security, including protection of Americans from future terrorist attacks.”

The 9-11 Commission, officially called the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, was formed by President Bush in November 2002 “to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks” and to offer recommendations for preventing future attacks.

“The commission staff’s proposed participation in questioning of detainees would cross that line,” the letter continued. “As the officers of the United States responsible for the law enforcement, defense and intelligence functions of the government, we urge your commission not to further pursue the proposed request to participate in the questioning of detainees.”

The letter was obviously prompted by correspondence from the commission two days earlier informing Rumsfeld and Tenet that the commission was zeroing in on seven of more than 100 suspects interviewed by the CIA in order to “form an independent evaluation of the credibility of the suspects’ statements.”

The targeting of these “seven core conspirators,” named along with the others in a previous letter, apparently frightened Rumsfeld and Tenet into worrying that the 9-11 Commission might learn more than they were supposed to know about these interrogations.

Some speculated that this was an attempt by the Bush administration to ensure its torture of detainees, which has since been widely documented, remained secret.

Court watcher and political observer Marcy Wheeler wrote, “Whoever made these annotations appears to have been most worried that commission staff members could make independent judgments about the detainees and the interrogations.” The official didn’t want anyone to “independently evaluate the interrogations conducted in the torture program.”

Eventually, the commission’s co-chairs harshly criticized the administration for having purportedly destroyed tapes of its interrogations with terror suspects. 9-11 Commission members Thomas Kean and Lee H. Hamilton wrote that although President George W. Bush had ordered all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the probe, “recent revelations that the CIA destroyed videotaped interrogations of al Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9-11 plot. . . . Those who knew about those videotapes— and did not tell us about them—obstructed our investigation.

“There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the CIA—or the White House—of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to al Qaeda detainees involved in the 9-11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations.”

* Url:http://americanfreepress.net/html/whitewash_9-11_218.html

'Al-Qaeda is CIA's Arab Legion'

'Al-Qaeda is CIA's Arab Legion'*

Interview with Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley,

author and historian, Washington

Wed Aug 10, 2011

Scores of people including women and children were killed late Monday in the NATO air attack on the Libyan village of Majer, south of Zlitan, which is located 160 km (100 miles) east of the capital, Tripoli.

Press TV talks with Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley, an author and historian in Washington, about recent developments in Libya. The following is a rush transcription of the interview:

Press TV: Dr. Tarpley, on the one side, NATO is saying that it is hitting command and control centers, military facilities, weapons dumps and rocket launchers. On the other hand, Libyan officials are saying that residential areas are being targeted.

How can we make that distinction? How can we get the true news from Libya?

Dr. Tarpley: Well, NATO of course are famous liars. I myself have visited Libya; I visited a compound of the Al-Khoaldi family, 70 kilometers west of Tripoli. It was purely residential that included a petting zoo. I personally inspected it. I looked into every doorway and into every basement that I could reach.

There was nothing military about it and there were at least three women, four children, a Sudanese cook and some other people. So NATO is simply lying. But on the larger question, how does this civil war go on, I think the big news of the past 24 hours is the chaos of the Benghazi Rebel Government; this grows out of the assassination of Commanding General [Abdel Fattah] Younes about ten or twelve days ago now.

You have to imagine a country where the vice president and in that case that would be [Ali] Al-Esawi had joined with the defense minister [du Galley] and they had joined with the disgruntled general who happened to be a CIA agent who had lived in northern Virginia for twenty years.

Those three, the vice president, the defense minister and the disgruntled but ambitious general get together and arrange the assassination of the commanding general of the armed forces and the agency that carries out the assassination is the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – meaning Al-Qaeda – because I take it that is exactly who the February 18 Martyrs’ Brigade is.

That is called democracy. That government is now in chaos. They are trying to patch that up. I do not think they will. They may have a civil war within a civil war.

Press TV: Let’s talk about the relation that the NATO forces especially the United States has had with these anti-Qaddafi forces. A lot of observers are saying that they are linked to Al-Qaeda, that there is a secret collusion between the United States and Al-Qaeda, a marriage of convenience in some people’s words.

How do you see this relationship now that the issue of civil war is being raised? Is that something that NATO was prepared to confront?

Dr. Tarpley: Well, the rivalry appears to have been between Younes, who had been a minister in Gaddafi’s governments and a long-time associate of Gaddafi’s – sort of internal opposition, and then this guy Khalifa Hifter or Hefter or Hafter in various English renderings, that was the person who had lived in northern Virginia, darling of the CIA, darling of the Pentagon and had gone back.

So there had been a conflict between Younes and Hifter. The reports were that the Younes people were trying to call in NATO strikes on Hifter and Hifter would respond by using his better connections to call in NATO strikes on the other side.

So this is totally chaotic. The embarrassment growing out of this political assassination with the help of Al-Qaeda is so great now that the Norwegians have dropped out completely as of August 1. Norway, which was 10 percent of the bombing effort, has dropped out, the Dutch and the Netherlands are still there but they refuse to bomb. Canada will drop out next month.

Berlusconi of Italy says that he was forced into this by the United States, by Obama and Hillary Clinton and by president Napolitano of Italy, an old communist interestingly enough, and by the votes of the neo-communists in the Italian parliament. Here in the United States we have got a 15 vote margin in the House of Representatives. The 15 votes flipped the other way. The House of Representatives will cut off funding for this.

Now that you have mentioned the Al-Qaeda, we here in Washington D.C. have an Al-Qaeda base and the Al-Qaeda base has been created by the State Department.

The Libyan Embassy on Virginia Avenue close to the Watergate Complex, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Key Bridge in the Whitehurst Freeway, right the middle of all that there is now an Al-Qaeda base because the Libyan Rebel Council, the Benghazi gaggle of Libyan Islamic Fighting group and Al-Qaeda, have taken over the building.

So here in Washington, we are at great danger compared to what we were before.

Press TV: If the situation is now near stalemate in Libya, do you think that NATO will in the near future maybe make the decision to start negotiations to stop the military campaign and even talk of a solution that would include a division in Libya?

Dr. Tarpley: I think you are going to have a lot of trouble dividing Libya because I think this is a country that has strong nationalism and the fact that Gaddafi is still in power in most of Libya, certainly most of the population, indicates that Gaddafi has real popular support.

People who are lukewarm on Gaddafi have been driven back into the Gaddafi camp by the atrocities and war crimes of NATO. So now the question is where does this all go. It seems to me that the NATO coalition is falling apart. The Benghazi Rebel Council is falling apart.

Again this is now the season of the town meetings here. The Congress is no longer in Washington. They are at home and they are getting an earful. I know in Vermont this morning, the Congressman from Vermont, Representative [Peter] Welch has gotten on earful from a bunch of citizens who want this war ended.

The United States is sick of war and the people are at least and this has no popular support. It never did. The point I would make is that from the very beginning the effective armed forces of the rebellion – and it was armed and violent from the first day – were the Libyan Islamic Group and Al-Qaeda. Since Al-Qaeda is the CIA Arab Legion and always has been, we have had fighters coming back from Afghanistan and Pakistan, all over the Arab and Islamic world have been brought in to fight for the Benghazi Rebel Council.

So the press has not done their job but this is a monstrosity and this is now the congeries and gaggle that have moved in to the Libyan Embassy on Virginia Avenue here in Washington DC. I think that is something to be really worried about; I think Congressmen will be hearing about that too.

* Url:http://www.presstv.ir/detail/193226.html

Al Qaeda’s Pakistan chief is alive

Al Qaeda’s Pakistan chief is alive*

Tariq Habib

August 7, 2011

KARACHI - The CIA’s claim about killing Ustad Ahmed Farooq, head of al Qaeda in Pakistan, proved false when he appeared in a video tape and vowed to avenge the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Farooq was earlier declared killed in a US drone strike in South Waziristan on June 3.

Pakistan Today received a video tape released by As-Sahab, the media wing of Al Qaeda Pakistan, containing a message from Farooq to his followers. The video contains dozens of images of Osama Bin Laden. In the video, Farooq blames the Pakistani government and law enforcement agencies for betraying the jihadi groups for the sake of money. “Pakistani agencies betrayed Muslims and jihadis by arresting and killing the mainstream leadership of the Taliban and its allies,” he said in the video.

Farooq also noted that Pakistan had arrested Afghan Taliban leaders Mullah Abdus Salam Zaeef, Ustad Yasir, Mullah Abdul Lateef Hakeemi, Mullah Baradar and Mullah Mansour Dadullah, “along with numerous other officials of jihadi movements”.

“We should realise that the system cannot be made better by replacing some people, it can be made better by replacing it with Islamic system,” he said.

At the end of the videotape, Farooq apologised to Ayman Al Zawahiri for being unable to stop the Pakistani military from arresting and killing their companions. “We will purify this land where all mujahideen and emigrants, Arabs and non-Arabs, will walk freely on the streets of Islamabad, fearing none other than Allah,” Farooq said.

* Url:http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/08/al-qaeda%E2%80%99s-pakistan-chief-is-alive/

Bush aide says 9/11 mastermind mocked interrogators during waterboarding

Bush aide says 9/11 mastermind mocked interrogators during waterboarding*

By CAROL ROSENBERG
McClatchy Newspapers

Posted on Monday, 05.16.11

WASHINGTON -- A former speech writer for President George W. Bush said Monday that confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed mocked his CIA interrogators during his March 2003 waterboarding sessions by using his fingers to tick off the number of seconds he would be subjected to near drowning.

"He was communicating to his interrogators that he was on to them," Marc Thiessen said during a panel discussion on what role harsh interrogation tactics might have played in developing the intelligence that led to Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the record about the report, and there was no independent verification of Thiessen's account. Mohammed's lawyer also declined to comment.

Thiessen said Monday that Mohammed knew that agents had to relent after 40 seconds, something he may have divined after undergoing the procedure repeatedly.

Only two detainees, Mohammed, who is also known as KSM, and a Palestinian, Zayn al Abdeen Mohammed Hussein, who's also known as Abu Zubaydah, were waterboarded scores of times, U.S. documents indicate. Abu Zubaydah underwent the procedure at least 83 times, while KSM was waterboarded 183 times, according to a Justice Department memo written in 2005, citing a 2004 report by the CIA's inspector general.

A different 2005 Justice Department memo noted in a footnote that "after multiple applications of the waterboard, it may become apparent to the detainee that, however frightening the experience may be, it will not result in death." In another footnote, the memo quoted the CIA's Office of Medical Services as saying that "some subjects unquestionably can withstand a large number" of waterboard applications.

Neither Justice Department memo nor the portions of the CIA inspector general's report that have been made public, however, mentions KSM as counting down the seconds during his waterboard sessions.

Thiessen, who now writes a weekly column for The Washington Post, said he learned of KSM's actions while researching a book that defends the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques. He referred to Mohammed's waterboard experience as "183 splashes" administered in five separate sessions.

The description of KSM came during a panel discussion at the conservative American Enterprise Institute prompted by reports that some of the information that led to bin Laden was developed during harsh interrogation at so-called CIA black sites, where several al-Qaida figures were secretly held for years before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.

Former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Monday that information from waterboarding "was part of the mosaic" that led to the May 2 raid that killed bin Laden. But U.S. Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, speaking on the Senate floor, said Friday that CIA director Leon Panetta had personally assured him that harsh interrogations had not resulted in the information that led to bin Laden.

In comments to reporters after the session, Thiessen quoted an unidentified interrogator as speaking admiringly of KSM's ability to withstand the waterboard: "For a psychopath, you have to give him his props. He's tough," Theissen said the agent told him.


Mohammed, 46, has been held at Guantanamo since September 2006 after Bush ordered the CIA to transfer him to military custody for a war crimes trial. The Obama administration had planned to try KSM in civilian court in New York City, but after Congress banned the Pentagon from spending money to transfer detainees to the U.S. for trial, Attorney General Eric Holder returned the case to the Pentagon. New charges have yet to be brought.


*Url:http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/16/2219903/bush-aide-says-911-mastermind.htm

Bin Laden Is Dead, Long Live the War

Bin Laden Is Dead, Long Live the War*

Translated Wednesday 11 May 2011, by Gene Zbikowski and reviewed by Bill Scoble

Despite the elimination of the leader of Al Qaeda, Washington and its Western vassals are issuing more and more statements on their intention to pursue the military occupation of Afghanistan.

Bin Laden’s death does not mean “the end of the war” in Afghanistan. Hardly had the death of the leader of Al Qaeda been announced when the strategists in the Pentagon, at NATO and among their Paris partners, threw cold water on the last illusions; they confirmed that the final aim of the endless Afghan conflict is a lasting occupation of the country, which is a key position for control of the region and its wealth. The raison d’être for a Western military presence in Afghanistan is just as pressing today, and it will only grow in the coming years. Henceforth, Washington’s concern is to prepare the modalities of that presence with what it considers to be the best allies and actors on the ground.

It’s a delicate operation for Barack Obama. His Afghan strategy, which rests at one and the same time on an increased military reinforcement of 30,000 men, the promise of a small withdrawal beginning in the summer of 2011, and above all on the renewal of dialogue with the Taliban courtesy of Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, has been sternly rejected by American public opinion. According to an ABC network opinion poll conducted last week, 49% of Americans say they are unhappy with the strategy, as against 41% in January 2011. This general worry has spread to the very heart of the American administration, where legislators who formerly backed Obama compare it to “a sewer filled with blood and capital.”

A strategy of trickery.

It goes without saying that operation “Geronimo” (!) was to polish the blazon of the White House. For all that, Obama’s aims in the region are in the direct line of American policy for the past twenty years: following the implosion of the USSR, it was a question of gaining control of Central Asia and its oil and natural gas riches, to which must be added the enormous reserves in raw materials and minerals which are said to be found in Afghanistan itself. Once this is established, the pretexts put forward by Bush – the struggle against international terrorism and the re-establishment of democracy following the fall of Mullah Omar’s regime – pretexts to justify the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and to persist in a war without any serious political solution nearly ten years after the first strikes on Kabul —throw the light of day on a strategy of trickery aimed at Western public opinion. These pretexts are not refuted by the present administration, but rather reaffirmed under cover of words that are less violent but are every bit as determined.

And for Washington, the end justifies the means, and Obama, like his predecessors, does not look too closely today into the motives of his discussion partners. As long as they cooperated with the American administration in exporting the oil resources of Central Asia and as long as an agreement for the building of an oil pipeline across Afghanistan within five years seemed possible, the White House accommodated Taliban fundamentalism and let enquiries into Bin Laden’s activities drag on.

A decade and several thousand deaths later, renewing discussions with the representatives of the old Mullah Omar regime poses no problem of conscience for George Bush’s successor. The United Nations has effectively taken itself out of the running by giving the green light in September 2001 to military intervention, which the Security Council recognized as a “legitimate defense” operation. The International Security Assistance Force troops came under NATO command in 2003. NATO will help Obama to effect a phoney withdrawal of his fighting troops, which will be re-christened “training personnel” or “security backup forces.” That is to say, a carbon copy of the way the United States staged its retreat from Iraq, and which wound up with permanent bases staffed with GIs.

At NATO’s Lisbon summit last December, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO general secretary, was clear on Western intentions. “We will remain after the transition in a support role… We will stay as long as necessary to finish the job.” And there is no deadline for this job.

* Url:http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/spip.php?article1762

'Bin Laden scenario prelude to new war'

'Bin Laden scenario prelude to new war'

Wed May 4, 2011

Former officials with Pakistan's military and intelligence service say the US wrongfully claims it has killed bin Laden in Pakistan to invade the country for harboring the terror leader.

United States President Barack Obama announced late Sunday that the al-Qaeda leader had been killed in a US military attack on a residence in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad north of the capital, Islamabad.

US reports claim that bin Laden had been living in a house near a Pakistani military base since 2005.

Speaking to the international Urdu daily Ausaf, the former officials said the terror mastermind had been killed elsewhere, questioning the reason for which the media had not broadcast the whereabouts and the manner of his death.

Citing the interviewees, who included General Mirza Aslam Beig, a former chief of Army staff, the newspaper said, “It is a fact that Osama bin Laden has been killed, but he has not been killed in Pakistan and this is evident in interviews with the locals and eyewitnesses.”

They cited remarks by Haidar Ali -- one Abbottabad local, who owns a house near the alleged bin Laden residence and had closely witnessed the US operation.

They quoted Ali as saying, “If Osama bin Laden was in the house, us and neighbors would surely be notified of his presence. The house belongs to a Pakistani of Pashtun decent and has been built in 2005 and was resided by a number of his family members.”

The interviewees also asked whether it was possible that the operation has not even claimed the life of one American trooper given the al-Qaeda militants' “special skills and commando training.”

They added that it was not possible that bin Laden had been living close to a military base as well as Pakistan's garrison city of Rawalpindi for five years without the country's military and intelligence apparatus being informed.

“Bin Laden has been killed somewhere else, but since the US intends to extend the Afghan war into Pakistan and accuse Pakistan and obtain a permit for its military's entry into the country, it has devised the scenario (about his death).”

Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said in a 2007 interview following a failed assassination attempt on her, that bin Laden has been “murdered” years ago.

HN/PKH/MGH

* Url:http://www.presstv.ir/detail/178272.html

Osama Bin Laden Is Dead, Major Media Mind Control Operation

Osama Bin Laden Is Dead, Major Media Mind Control Operation

'Bin Laden dead long before US raid'

'Bin Laden dead long before US raid'

Sun May 8, 2011

Iran's Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi

Iran's intelligence minister says the country has reliable information that former head of the al-Qaeda terrorist group Osama bin Laden died of disease some time ago.

“We have accurate information that bin Laden died of illness some time ago,” Heidar Moslehi told reporters on the sidelines of a Cabinet meeting on Sunday.

He questioned Washington's claim that bin Laden was killed by American troops in a hiding compound in Pakistan on May 1.

“If the US military and intelligence apparatus have really arrested or killed bin Laden, why don't they show him (his dead body) why have they thrown his corpse into the sea?” Moslehi asked.

“When we apprehended [former Jundallah ringleader Abdul Malik] Rigi, we showed him and also aired his interview,” ISNA quoted the intelligence chief as saying.

By releasing such false news, he said, the White House seeks to overshadow regional awakening.

Moslehi said US officials resort to such PR campaigns to divert attention from their domestic problems as well as their “fragile” economic situation.

US President Barack Obama claimed that Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces on May 1 in a hiding compound in Pakistan.

A US official later announced that bin Laden's body was abruptly buried at sea, falsely boasting that his hasty burial was in accordance with the Islamic law, requiring burial within 24 hours of death.

However, burial at sea is not an Islamic practice and Islam does not have a timeframe for burial.

US officials also claimed their decision for a sea burial was made because no country would accept bin Laden's remains, without elaborating on which countries were actually contacted on the matter.

Analysts, however, have raised serious questions as to why US officials did not allow for the application of a DNA test to officially confirm the identity of the corpse before its hasty burial.

NN/HGH/MMN


* Url:http://www.presstv.ir/detail/178898.html

Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden's Death

Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden's Death

May 6, 2011

"We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic."

By Noam Chomsky

It's increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no oppositionexcept, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress "suspects." In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it "believed" that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn't know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidencewhich, as we soon learned, Washington didn't have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that "we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda."

Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden's "confession," but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.

There is also much media discussion of Washington's anger that Pakistan didn't turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush's compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden's, and he is not a "suspect" but uncontroversially the "decider" who gave the orders to commit the "supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

There's more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the "Bush doctrine" that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It's like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It's as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes "Jew" and "Gypsy."

There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.

Copyright 2011 Noam Chomsky

* Url:http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2011/05/noam-chomsky-my-reaction-to-osama-bin-laden%E2%80%99s-death/

Bin Laden compound was a command centre—official

Bin Laden compound was a command centre—official

By David Alexander,

Reuters May 7, 2011

WASHINGTON—The compound in Pakistan where U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden was an "active command and control center" where the al-Qaida leader retained strategic, operational and tactical direction of the group, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Saturday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said information recovered from the raid on bin Laden's compound represented the largest trove of intelligence ever obtained from a single terrorism suspect.

"This compound in Abbottabad was an active command and control center for al-Qaida's top leader and it's clear ... that he was not just a strategic thinker for the group," the official said. "He was active in operational planning and in driving tactical decisions."

The official released five video clips of bin Laden taken from the compound, most of them showing the al-Qaida leader evidently rehearsing for some of the videotape messages he occasionally distributed to his followers.

One video segment, however, showed a gray-bearded bin Laden wrapped in a blanket and apparently wearing a ski cap while reviewing video images of himself in different settings.

It was not clear where the videos had been taped, but an initial assessment indicated one clip in front of an armoire may have been recorded at the compound.

"The materials reviewed over the past several days clearly show that bin Laden remained an active leader in al-Qaida, providing strategic, operational and tactical instructions to the group,'' the official said. "He was far from a figurehead. He was an active player, making the recent operation even more essential for our nation's security."

© Copyright (c) Reuters


* Url:http://www.lists.canada.com/t/236367/10729218/19345/0/

Yemen-based Al Awlaki may succeed Osama

Yemen-based Al Awlaki may succeed Osama

London, May 5 (IANS) A Yemen-based Anwar al Awlaki is tipped to succeed Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, who was killed earlier this week in Pakistan by US Navy Seals in a commando strike, a media report said.

US-born cleric Al Awlaki is dubbed the bin Laden of internet because he uses the web to spread his evil gospel.

The 40-year-old called for a Mumbai-style massacre during a sting operation carried out by The Sun.

He has already engineered a string of attempted outrages here and in the US, The Sun reported.

Al Awlaki allegedly brainwashed 21-year-old student Roshonara Choudhry into stabbing Labour MP Stephen Timms over his support for the war in Iraq. He also allegedly urged British Airways computer worker Rajib Karim, 31 - now in jail - to assist in a plot to blow up an airliner in a Lockerbie-style attack.

He was also allegedly behind last year's ink bomb plot to down cargo jets.

Al Awlaki preaches against vice, but has been arrested twice for using prostitutes - while married, the report says.

The US-born cleric was collared in San Diego in 1996 and 1997. He was fined the first time and put on probation the second.

His radicalisation started in 1993 when he visited Afghanistan during a holiday from Colorado State University, where he studied engineering. On his return, he began advocating holy war. By 1996, he was an imam (cleric) at a mosque with more than 300 followers.

Al Awlaki, believed by US detectives to be "at the centre of the 9/11 story", left the US in 2002. He spent two years in Britain, becoming well-known on the extremist lecture circuit, before heading to his family's native Yemen to continue his increasingly hostile rants.

He linked up with his tribe, whose motto is "We are the sparks of hell."

* Url:http://mangalorean.com/news.php?newstype=local&newsid=236778

Pentagon Dinner Guest al-Awlaki Slated to Replace Osama

Pentagon Dinner Guest al-Awlaki Slated to Replace Osama*

Kurt Nimmo

Infowars.com

May 5, 2011

Yemen-based Anwar al-Awlaki is scheduled to replace the late Osama bin Laden, according to news reports.

As Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann notes above, al-Awlaki is the new face of terror in a war designed to last forever.

“Anwar al-Awlaki, affiliated with a Yemen-based faction of al-Qaida, is being mentioned in national media reports as a potential successor to Osama bin Laden, who was killed last week in Pakistan,” reports a Carlsbad, New Mexico newspaper. The Muslim cleric was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Following the unverified murder of Osama bin Laden, the corporate media has buzzed with speculation on who will replace the Saudi. Ayman al-Zawahiri is not charismatic enough for American audiences, NBC News notes. “We could see Anwar al-Awlaki move in, or Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani militant,” a nameless senior government official told the news organization.

lyas Kashmiri, said to be the leader of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, is in the running because his group is based in Pakistan. As the Osama death story developed, Pakistan was blamed for sheltering the terrorist. Murmurings of war against the Muslim nation are all the rage in Washington and the corporate media.

In Britain, the media has christen al-Awlaki the “new Osama” and claims he is plotting a Mumbai-style massacre in the country. “The options that you have for operations could be pipe bombs, assassinations or using a firearm at a location crowded with enemies,” al-Awlaki supposedly instructed in an email sent to The Sun.

Anwar is said to be behind the the aborted Christmas Day bombing, the Fort Hood shooting, the Times Square bombing attempt. He preached to the alleged September 11 hijackers. He is said to be internet savvy, unlike his predecessor, making him the perfect villain for the 21st century.

He also dined at the Pentagon, according to documents obtained by Fox News. “The Pentagon has offered no explanation of how a man, now on the CIA kills or capture list, ended up at a special lunch for Muslim outreach,” a flummoxed Fox News reported.

“Awlaki was vetted before he was invited to attend a luncheon at the Pentagon in the secretary of the Army’s Office of Government Counsel. His appearance at the meeting was deliberately engineered despite Awlaki’s ties to three of the alleged 9/11 hijackers – Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour – who were identified as the suicide pilots that slammed Flight 77 into the Pentagon,” Paul Joseph Watson wrote on October 21, 2010.

“Given the fact that Awlaki is a double operative, claiming to be an Al-Qaeda leader yet in fact working for U.S. intelligence, it’s hardly surprising that he made an appearance at the Pentagon.”

It is also hardly surprising that he was selected to replace Osama bin Laden, who died nearly a decade ago. The promotion of Anwar al-Awlaki to master terrorist signals a new chapter in the never-ending war against manufactured enemies of the state. It is no mistake an American born and breed Muslim was selected to replace Osama.

* Url:http://info-wars.org/2011/05/05/pentagon-dinner-guest-al-awlaki-slated-to-replace-osama/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InfowarsIreland+%28Infowars++Ireland%29

Paul Craig Roberts: What Is The Agenda Behind The Bin Laden Fable?

Paul Craig Roberts: What Is The Agenda Behind The Bin Laden Fable?

May 6, 2011

The US government’s bin Laden story was so poorly crafted that it did not last 48 hours before being fundamentally altered. What agenda or agendas is the “death of bin Laden” designed to further?

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury.

Globalists to provide “Special Fund” for Insurgents (incl. Al Qaeda fighters) to overthrow sovereign nation of Libya

Globalists to provide “Special Fund” for Insurgents (incl. Al Qaeda fighters)

to overthrow sovereign nation of Libya*

Infowars Ireland

May 6, 2011

Libyan rebels to get special fund, says Frattini

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

(ANSA) – Rome, May 5 – Rebels seeking to end Muammar Gaddafi’s 40-year rule in Libya are going to be supported by a ”special fund” from the international alliance that is backing them, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said during Thursday’s Libya Contact Group meeting.

”A temporary financial mechanism will make it possible for funds to reach the (anti-Gaddafi) Libyan National Council in an effective, transparent way,” Frattini said.

The Italian foreign minister added that getting humanitarian aid to the civilian population was a priority and said the possibility of unblocking frozen Libyan government assets outside the North African country and make them available to the Council should be considered.

”This money belongs to the Libyan people. Italy and France have already called on the relevant EU bodies to seek a solution”. Frattini also called on other nations to recognise the Libyan council as its talking partner in the country, as Italy, France and a handful of other nations have. Italy is hoping to get some idea on when NATO-led operations in the North African country, which it recently joined after major reservations, can be brought to an end at the third meeting of the Libya Contact Group.

The previous gatherings were in London and Doha.

* Url:http://info-wars.org/2011/05/06/globalists-to-provide-special-fund-for-insurgents-incl-al-qaeda-fighters-to-overthrow-sovereign-nation-of-libya/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+InfowarsIreland+%28Infowars++Ireland%29

US trembled

US trembled

by Sajib Sinha

Calcutta, India

In my view Osama bin Laden was the only man who made US imperialism tremble in the 21st century. Whose war against western imperialism has been more powerful? That of Muslim religious organisations or that of the communists and left?

One thing is clear: without the support of the democratic, peace-loving common people - the workers of this world - the great anti-imperialist revolution won't succeed. While the Soviet Union was fighting against western imperialism, that helped the nations struggling for liberation from western colonialism, and from military and economic oppression. The USSR had a good and unbreakable relation with these nations. It guided the liberation wars with communist education, and provided a blueprint for taking them forward towards communist revolution.

The Soviet anti-imperialist struggle was not defeated by the western imperialists. It was defeated by the betrayal of some comrades occupying important party posts, who had discarded the Marxist-Leninist philosophy for narrow revisionism and greed. If the Soviets had had leaders like bin Laden who refused to compromise their philosophy, their fight would still be continuing alongside the world's working class.

Of course, opposition to western imperialism is still being conducted, thanks to Cuba, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, China, Vietnam and leftwing Latin America and Africa. As the oppression of western imperialism has increased, as their war techniques have been modernised, so the people's anti-imperialist movement led by the communist and left parties is being strengthened. It will take time to win the struggle, since most of the world's political and legal institutions, together with modern science and technology, are still controlled by the imperialists. So the enemy can easily dismiss the anti-imperialist movements. Nonetheless, the future of this movement is bright, and the victory of the world anti-imperialist revolution is inevitable. It is the only way to save this world.

But what about the narrow anti-imperialist fight of Muslim religious organisations? Intelligent leaders like bin Laden, who refuse to compromise their philosophy, are being destroyed. Their fight has no relation to the world's democratic, peace-loving, common people. There is no point trying to link them up. Huge numbers of people are killed by their anti-imperialist attacks. These groups do not set out to unite the common people of this world in order to counter imperialism.

We should also remember that the seeds of imperialism are hidden in religion too. If bin Laden's al Qa'eda and other Muslim organisations defeated western imperialism, there is no guarantee that they wouldn't give birth to a new religious imperialism or fascism.

Nonetheless, at present the world's common working class people should give sleeping support to their anti-imperialism, since our two fights - against western imperialism - are the same. But if in the future the anti-imperialist revolution succeeded and the Muslim organisations wanted to follow a religious imperialist path, the world's working class common people would have to resist them too.

Sanjib Sinha
Kolkata

Pakistanis say U.S. shot bin Laden in "cold blood"

Pakistanis say U.S. shot bin Laden in "cold blood"*

By Augustine Anthony and Arshad Mohammed

Thu May 5, 2011

ABBOTTABAD/ROME (Reuters) – A senior Pakistani security official said U.S. troops killed Osama bin Laden in "cold blood", fuelling a global controversy and straining a vital relationship Washington was trying to repair on Thursday.

And Pakistan's army, in its first comment since Monday's raid, threatened to halt cooperation with its military sponsor if it repeated what it called a violation of sovereignty.

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington was still anxious to maintain its alliance with Islamabad.

"It is not always an easy relationship. You know that," she said.

"But, on the other hand, it is a productive one for both our countries and we are going to continue to cooperate between our governments, our militaries, our law-enforcement agencies, but most importantly between the American and Pakistani people."

Americans are questioning how the al Qaeda leader could live for years in some comfort in a garrison town near the Pakistani capital. Some call for cutting billions of dollars in U.S. aid.

As Clinton was meeting European and Arab allies in Rome, Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Kayani, issued a statement saying any new U.S. raids would mean a possible end to cooperation with the Pentagon on security and intelligence.

"Any similar action violating the sovereignty of Pakistan will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States," the army said.

And in a further sign of fractious relations between the allies, senior Pakistani security officials told Reuters that U.S. accounts had been misleading in describing a long gun battle at the compound in Abbottabad where bin Laden and four others were killed by an elite squad of U.S. Navy SEALs.

"It was cold-blooded," said one Pakistani official when asked if there was any exchange of fire. After an initial account of a 40-minute firefight, U.S. officials have now been quoted saying only one person fired at the raiding party, and that only briefly as the helicopter-borne assault team arrived.

A U.S. acknowledgment that bin Laden was unarmed when shot in the head -- as well as the disposal of his body at sea, a practice rare in Islam -- have drawn criticism from the Arab world and Europe, where some have warned of a backlash against the West, even among Muslims who reject Qaeda's violence.

Pakistanis say U.S. shot bin Laden in "cold blood"

By Augustine Anthony and Arshad Mohammed

Thu May 5, 2011

BIN LADEN UNARMED

The White House has blamed the "fog of war" for its changing stories. Citing U.S. officials, NBC television said four of the five people killed, including bin Laden himself, were unarmed.

The New York Times quoted officials in the administration of President Barack Obama saying bin Laden's courier fired the only shots against the Americans, in the early stages of the raid, from a guesthouse in the sprawling, high-walled compound.

"I know for a fact that shots were exchanged during this operation," said one Pentagon official.

Another senior Pakistani security official said no shots were fired inside the building where bin Laden was found.

"The people inside the house were unarmed. There was no resistance," the official said.

The two Pakistani officials declined to describe the sources of their information but confirmed several people from the compound were detained.

Pakistan's GEO TV quoted military sources saying bin Laden's Yemeni-born wife told them the Saudi-born al Qaeda leader had lived in Abbottabad for five years but had never ventured out.

Photographs taken by a Pakistani security official about an hour after the assault show three dead men -- not including bin Laden -- lying in pools of blood. No weapons could be seen in the closely cropped images obtained by Reuters.

U.S.-PAKISTAN FRICTION

Friction between Washington and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed Muslim ally in the war in Afghanistan and against al Qaeda, has focused on the role of Pakistan's top security service, the ISI or Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

With questions swirling about how far it was incompetence or connivance that allowed bin Laden to shelter so close to a major military academy, Pakistan's leaders and security officials have defended their roles and their commitment to the U.S. alliance.

Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir denied the Pakistani forces or ISI aided al Qaeda: "The critique of the ISI is not only unwarranted, it can not be validated," he said, echoing comments from the prime minister who blamed global intelligence failures.

Some Americans, including many in Congress, have suggested that Washington attach more strings to the billions of dollars in aid it gives Pakistan, or even cut off Islamabad altogether.

Bashir said: "That the ISI is incompetent is a value judgment. And we believe that this is not the time for anybody to indulge in the luxury of passing value judgments."

He also issued a warning -- seemingly directed as much at arch-rival India as to Washington -- against intrusions of the kind that saw U.S. troops raid deep inside Pakistan. While few in Pakistan supported bin Laden and his ideology, violations of sovereignty can provoke street protests and media outrage.

A major Islamist party in Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), called for mass protests on Friday against what it called a violation of sovereignty by the U.S. raid. It also urged the government to end support for U.S. battles against militants.

From abroad, China spoke up for Pakistan on Thursday: "Pakistan is a country at the forefront of counter-terrorism efforts, and the international community should give greater support and understanding," a foreign ministry spokeswoman said in Beijing. "We respect and understand Pakistan's stance."

"38 INTENSE MINUTES"

Washington has repeatedly defended its decision to kill bin Laden, though in fact foreign criticism of its failure to take him alive has not been heard in public from the leaders of its key allies in the battle against militant Islam.

In Rome for talks on aiding Libya's rebels, Clinton reminded her international audience that bin Laden had been a clear target for the United States since 2001 and that his death did not end the battle against al Qaeda.

She refused to comment on details of the operation, which she had watched unfolding on a live video transmission.

"Those were 38 of the most intense minutes," she said, referring to a photograph that caught her looking anxious during the raid. She put her gesture down to suppressing a cough.

Aside from defending its forces from criticism from abroad -- Attorney-General Eric Holder has called the shooting of bin Laden "an act of national self-defense" -- the United States has also had to counter those who question the death altogether.

Obama resisted pressure from aides to release photographs of bin Laden's body, saying the images could incite violence and be used by militants as a propaganda tool.

"Given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk," Obama told CBS television.

"There's no doubt that bin Laden is dead," he added. "There are going be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again."

(Additional reporting by Reuters bureau worldwide; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

*Url:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110505/wl_nm/us_obama_statement;_ylt=Aq8afGAKj0izPO8eNXYlLgBn.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTM4ZWRsdjVqBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwNTA1L3VzX29iYW1hX3N0YXRlbWVudARjY29kZQNtcF9lY184XzEwBGNwb3MDMTAEcG9zAzEwBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDcGFraXN0YW5pc3Nh

CIA denies bin Laden was captured before his killing

CIA denies bin Laden was captured before his killing*

By Robert Windrem

The CIA categorically denies two stories coming out of Pakistan, sourced to bin Laden family members:

1) that Osama bin Laden was captured at the scene and then killed minutes afterward; this from his daughter.

2) that a second bin Laden son, Mohammed, was thrown on the chopper as it departed Abbottabad.

"We categorically deny both of those," said a CIA spokesman.

Two senior US officials told NBC News Tuesday that the "only person other than the team who left Abbottabad was Osama Bin Laden's remains."

* Url:http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/04/6583764-cia-denies-bin-laden-was-captured-before-his-killing

Account Tells of One-Sided Battle in Bin Laden Raid

Account Tells of One-Sided Battle in Bin Laden Raid*

By MARK LANDLER and MARK MAZZETTI

May 4, 2011

Warrick Page for The New York Times

On Wednesday, people passed the entrance to the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed by American forces in Abottabad, Pakistan.

WASHINGTON — President Obama decided Wednesday not to release graphic photographs of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, as new details emerged about the raid on Bin Laden’s fortified compound that differed from the administration’s initial account of the nearly 40-minute operation.

Mr. Obama, after a brief but intense debate within his war council, concluded that making the images of Bin Laden public could incite violence against Americans and would do little to persuade skeptics that the founder of Al Qaeda had been killed, White House officials said.

The new details suggested that the raid, though chaotic and bloody, was extremely one-sided, with a force of more than 20 Navy Seal members quickly dispatching the handful of men protecting Bin Laden.

Administration officials said that the only shots fired by those in the compound came at the beginning of the operation, when Bin Laden’s trusted courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, opened fire from behind the door of the guesthouse adjacent to the house where Bin Laden was hiding.

After the Seal members shot and killed Mr. Kuwaiti and a woman in the guesthouse, the Americans were never fired upon again.

This account differs from an official version of events issued by the Pentagon on Tuesday, and read by the White House spokesman, Jay Carney, which said the Seal members “were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation.”

In a television interview on PBS on Tuesday, Leon E. Panetta, the director of the C.I.A., said, “There were some firefights that were going on as these guys were making their way up the staircase of that compound.”

Administration officials said the official account of events has changed over the course of the week because it has taken time to get thorough after-action reports from the Seal team. And, they added, because the Special Operations troops had been fired upon as soon as they touched down in the compound, they were under the assumption that everyone inside was armed.

“They were in a threatening and hostile environment the entire time,” one American official said.

When the commandos moved into the main house, they saw the courier’s brother, who they believed was preparing to fire a weapon. They shot and killed him. Then, as they made their way up the stairs of the house, officials said they killed Bin Laden’s son Khalid as he lunged toward the Seal team.

When the commandos reached the top floor, they entered a room and saw Osama bin Laden with an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol in arm’s reach. They shot and killed him, as well as wounding a woman with him.

The firefight over and Bin Laden dead, the team found a trove of information and had the time to remove much of it: about 100 thumb drives, DVDs and computer disks, along with 10 computer hard drives and 5 computers. There were also piles of paper documents in the house.

The White House declined to release any additional details about the operation, saying that further information would jeopardize the military’s ability to conduct clandestine operations in the future. The administration’s reticence came after it was forced on Tuesday to correct parts of its initial account of the raid, including assertions that Bin Laden had used his wife as a “human shield.”

“We’ve revealed a lot of information; we’ve been as forthcoming with facts as we can be,” Mr. Carney said.

Mr. Carney said the president expressed doubts early on about releasing the photos, but consulted his senior advisers. All of them, Mr. Carney said, voiced concerns about the risks. Based on its monitoring of worldwide reaction to the announcement of Bin Laden’s death, Mr. Carney said, the administration also concluded that most people viewed the reports of his death as credible and that publicizing photos would do little to sway those who believed it was a hoax.

Mr. Obama was direct in an interview with the CBS News program “60 Minutes,” to be broadcast Sunday, according to a transcript released by the network. “It is very important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence — as a propaganda tool.”

“That’s not who we are,” Mr. Obama added. “You know, we don’t trot out this stuff as trophies.” He said, “We don’t need to spike the football.”

“Certainly there’s no doubt among Al Qaeda members that he is dead,” he said on “60 Minutes.” “And so we don’t think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference. There are going to be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see Bin Laden walking on this earth again.”

The deliberations were reminiscent of Mr. Obama’s decision in May 2009 to fight the release of photos documenting the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by American military personnel. The administration said originally that it would not oppose releasing the pictures, but the president decided he would fight making them public after his military commanders warned that the images could provoke a reaction against troops in those countries.

The White House said Mr. Obama would take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the site of the Sept. 11 memorial in Lower Manhattan on Thursday. He is also to meet with relatives of the victims of the terrorist attacks, but he will not make a speech. The next day, he is to travel to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to speak to troops returning from Afghanistan.

Seeking to quell any legal questions about the raid, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said, “It was justified as an act of national self-defense,” citing Bin Laden’s role as the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

There were divided opinions on Capitol Hill about the photographs, with some lawmakers saying the United States needed to show proof that Bin Laden was dead, while others worried about the possibility of blowback against American troops.

“The whole purpose of sending our troops into the compound, rather than an aerial bombardment, was to obtain indisputable evidence of Bin Laden’s death,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “The best way to protect and defend our interests overseas is to prove that fact to the rest of the world.”

Helene Cooper and Thom Shanker contributed reporting.

* Url:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/us/politics/05binladen.html?_r=1