[ 2011-05-04 ]

President Barack Obama and National Security Adviser Tom Donilon discuss the mission which killed bin Laden

Obama orders special forces: ‘Now destroy al-Qaeda’
America will use the death of Osama bin Laden to
“pummel” and smash al-Qaeda, the White House
pledged.
The US Administration planned to build on the
death of the al-Qaeda leader “to destroy that
organisation”, John Brennan, President Obama’s
senior counter-terrorism adviser, said yesterday.
“We’re determined to do so and we believe we
can.”
It will be assisted by what Leon Panetta, the CIA
Director, called an “impressive amount” of
material, including computers, DVDs and documents
seized from bin Laden’s compound during the raid
by US Navy Seals. Another source called it a
“mother lode” of intelligence.
Scores of US officials are now poring over that
material. “Can you imagine what’s on Osama bin
Laden’s hard drive? They cleaned it out,” one
said. “It’s going to be great even if only 10
per cent of it is actionable.”
Mr Brennan said that the plan was to “take that
information and continue our efforts to destroy
al-Qaeda”. The priority was to foil any
terrorist plots in the pipeline, then to “see
whether or not there are leads to other
individuals within the organisation”.
The White House was facing growing pressure to
release photographs of bin Laden’s body to prove
that he was killed during Sunday’s raid. Mr
Panetta said last night that officials were
discussing “how best to do this, but I don’t
think there was any question that ultimately a
photograph would be presented to the public”.
Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, warned that
the pictures were gruesome and that releasing them
could be inflammatory to Muslims. Bin Laden was
shot above the left eye.
The Administration is aware of the need to scotch
conspiracy theories spreading through the Islamic
world that bin Laden is alive and that the US
faked his death. The Taleban in Afghanistan said
that America had not provided any acceptable
evidence that he was dead, describing the claims
as premature.
The White House was considering the release of a
photograph of bin Laden’s body taken while being
buried at sea more than ten hours after the raid
in Abbottabad. By that stage his body had been
washed and shrouded in accordance with Islamic
law.
Officials are also considering the release of
video footage shot by cameras mounted on the
Seals’ helmets.
David Cameron told the House of Commons yesterday
that bin Laden’s death was a strike at the heart
of global terrorism and derided the al-Qaeda
leader as “a man who encouraged others to make
the ultimate sacrifice while he . . . hid in the
comfort of a large expensive villa in
Pakistan”.
The Prime Minister also hinted at a more rapid
withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan than
the target date of 2015.
The raid on Monday has deepened America’s rift
with Pakistan, its supposed ally in the fight
against terrorism, with US officials almost openly
accusing the Pakistanis of protecting bin Laden.
Mr Panetta said that the Administration did not
tell Pakistan of the planned assault because
“any effort to work with the Pakistanis could
jeopardise the mission. They might alert the
targets.”
Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, said that Pakistan’s
intelligence and military had “a lot of
explaining to do”.
Dianne Feinstein, the head of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, gave a warning that
Congress might cut the $1.3 billion aid given to
Pakistan each year if it were proved that
Islamabad knew where bin Laden was hiding.
The US and Britain are investigating how bin Laden
could have escaped detection for six years while
living in Abbottabad, a town that bristles with
military facilities and is only 35 miles from the
Pakistani capital. Mr Cameron told MPs that bin
Laden had an extensive support network in Pakistan
and searching questions were in order.
President Zardari of Pakistan denied that his
country sheltered terrorists, describing it as
“the world’s greatest victim of terrorism”
in an article in The Washington Post. Bin Laden
“was not anywhere we had anticipated he would
be”, he said.
Terrorist suspects detained in Guantánamo Bay saw
news of bin Laden’s death on television at the
same time as the rest of the world, a Pentagon
spokeswoman said.
A Spanish newspaper, La Vanguardia, cited Saudi
intelligence sources as saying that bin Laden left
a will in which he ordered his closest military
confidants to avenge his death if he were killed,
and apologised to his five wives and twenty
children for neglecting his role as a father.

Source - The Times(UK)

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