| Author | Message | | Guest | |  | | Anglo Thug | | Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2002 12:08 am Post subject: |
| | What I find remarkable is, despite US offers of a fortune, nobody has turned bin Laden in. Or have they? Maybe his terrorist (ex-freedom fighter) friends are men of high principle but judging by our press and Dubya this cannot be the case. Maybe he is just extremely efficient when it comes to hiding out? Whatever the reason for his elusiveness we must all bear in mind that bin Laden is no longer the issue, according to the Pentagon. Not this week anyway. | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2002 8:08 pm Post subject: |
| The reward was taken off the market for Afghans...seriously...it was downgraded to supply of livestock and farm materials in Feb March time...
As for OBL going to the likes of Somalia to hide....Can you imagine the clans ignoring the reward?
Where would he be safe from money grabbers? Maybe amongst his own...in a secular society maybe?
Idi Amin has a neighbour in my view..thats a guess..but a few million dollars worth of guesses...
Any Marines in Saudi? Any one even looking off base? Sempa fi...Hooraahh | | | | Anglo Thug | | Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 10:57 pm Post subject: |
| Well I'm still trying to find out if the rumour detailing the sudden departure of the bin Laden clan from American shores is genuine or a red herring. I suppose it is not beyond credibility to suggest they are all at home in a time of crisis.
I'm still trying to find out the extent of the relationship between Osama and the CIA. If it is as cosy as reported in some quarters then the world is bin Laden's oyster.
I'm also trying to tie up the business dealings between family Bush and family bin Laden but, as is normal in an open society, it is almost impossible to distinguish fact from fantasy. Freedom to say what you want is often used to great effect when concealing a truth.
On 11/9 it was apparent that the worst outcome for the US would be the capture of bin Laden. His mystery status and the guessing surrounding his whereabouts are essential to the ongoing Washington drama - the real conspiracy theory that all 'rational thinkers' are happy to swallow. Mind you, secret trials without jury will help if they need to drag him in. | | | | Guest | | Posted: Tue Jul 30, 2002 7:33 pm Post subject: |
| The last two lines of this make me worry....Are we to believe that there is really someone in Bushes administration that makes a living as an expert at tracking OBL...If so he ows the US taxpayer a lot of money.
Osama bin Laden's son Saad has gained prominence in al-Qaida since the Sept. 11 attacks, senior U.S. officials said Monday, but they dismissed speculation he has assumed his father's command of the terrorist network.
A prominent London-based Saudi newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, reported that Saad bin Laden, 22, had taken control of al-Qaida and that this "substantiates the theory that bin Laden was killed or seriously wounded" by U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan.
A growing number of terrorism analysts inside and outside the U.S. government believe bin Laden is probably dead. They point to the fact that it has been seven months since bin Laden last appeared in a video, looking gaunt and partially immobilized, as well as to a dearth of electronic "chatter" since then indicating he is still alive.
Dale Watson, the FBI's chief counterterrorism official, added his voice to this chorus two weeks ago, saying he personally thought bin Laden "is probably not with us anymore."
But other analysts interpret the lack of information as evidence that bin Laden has simply gone underground and shut down all communications, reasoning that his death would have prompted communications among his supporters that almost certainly would have been intercepted.
One thing the FBI and the CIA know for sure is that they do not have bin Laden's body. DNA samples obtained from bin Laden relatives would allow them to identify bin Laden's remains, if they were found. But no match has turned up after testing samples taken by U.S. military personnel from hundreds of bodies in Afghanistan, including the remains of a "tall individual" killed in a missile attack 30 miles southwest of Khost in February.
U.S. officials initially thought the man might have been bin Laden, who is believed to be 6 feet 4 inches to 6 feet 6 inches tall.
The CIA also dismisses reports that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease and sporadically requires dialysis. The story gained prominence in January when Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, repeated it in an interview with CNN and said he believed the al-Qaida leader had died from the kidney problem due to a lack of medical care.
But the CIA's rejection of that claim and the absence of a body has done nothing to quell speculation that bin Laden may be dead. While U.S. officials once spoke with near certainty that bin Laden was alive, they now openly countenance the possibility that he is not.
Asked in December about bin Laden's fate, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he was presumed to be alive and well. "We think he's in Afghanistan," Rumsfeld said. "We are chasing him. He is hiding."
When asked the same question last week, Rumsfeld replied, "I've not heard hide nor hair of him since December. He's either dead, which is fine from our standpoint, or he's alive and for some reason decides he does not want to live up to his reputation as enjoying going on videos and letting the world know that he's alive."
Rumsfeld said Monday that a number of "key players," possibly including Saad bin Laden, are capable of taking control of al-Qaida. "I have said from the beginning that if Osama bin Laden disappeared, which would be nice, that it would not change greatly the al-Qaida operations - that there are three, four, five, six, seven people who know where the bank accounts are, who know the key players, who know the key planners, and are perfectly capable of running that operation," he said.
Saad bin Laden, among the eldest of bin Laden's 23 children, is believed to be somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Saad lived with his father in Sudan from 1991 to 1996, after bin Laden was stripped of his Saudi passport and forced to leave his home there.
After bin Laden was expelled from Sudan in 1996 and ended up in Afghanistan, Saad was at his side when he gave an interview to the Independent, a British newspaper, and promised to continue working in Afghanistan to establish a true Islamic state.
One counterterrorism official dismissed the notion of Saad bin Laden running al- Qaida, but acknowledged that "his responsibilities have grown since the war began."
But the official added: "We don't see this as evidence pointing in the direction that (Osama) bin Laden is dead."
One congressional terrorism expert said there are three good "data points" on which to conclude that bin Laden is most likely dead: the December video, a lack of conclusive intelligence on him since then and a recent report in a London-based Arabic newspaper with good al-Qaida contacts, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, that bin Laden had been wounded by U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan. That claim was seconded by Monday's Asharq Al-Awsat report.
But as every CIA analyst is taught from day one, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Robert Blitzer, the FBI's former head of domestic counterterrorism who has closely studied bin Laden, dismisses the argument that bin Laden is incapable of keeping quiet for six or seven months.
"This is typical of the way he would do something," Blitzer said. "He would just drop off the face of the Earth and hide. The smartest thing is for him to stay down and not give any inkling of whether he's dead or alive. If you look at the way they did the World Trade Center attack and the kind of security he maintained, I just think this is classic - very tight and very quiet."
One senior Bush administration official with extensive experience tracking bin Laden agreed with Blitzer's assessment. "He's alive," the official said. "He's smart. There's no reason for him to surface right now."
Sources: Arizona Republic - The Washington Post | | | | Anglo Thug | | Posted: Thu Aug 01, 2002 6:33 pm Post subject: |
| So everyone is an expert right up until 23:59 10/09/2001. Then they become wildly incompetent up until 23:59 11/09/2001 and then they are back to being experts. Apart from the FBI who resumed expert status around noon on 11/09/2001.
Did you see the ANG pulling down some very high praise for their efforts 'since Sept. 11?' They also received multiple awards prior to 11/9. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
