Osama Bin Laden captured

[seelenjaeger]

According to several reports Osama Bin Laden is already in US custody and will be used during the electoral campaign in order to make sure Pres. Bush is re-elected.

More "leftist propaganda" or another sign of how you are treated by your government?

[mavsfanforever]

Edit.

[MavKikiNYC]

Question of the day: Is John Kerry in favor of or against the capture of OBL?

Originally posted by: seelenjaeger
According to several reports Osama Bin Laden is already in US custody and will be used during the electoral campaign in order to make sure Pres. Bush is re-elected.

More "leftist propaganda" or another sign of how you are treated by your government?

New U.S. Effort Steps Up Hunt for bin Laden
By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT

Published: February 29, 2004


WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 — President Bush has approved a plan to intensify the effort to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, senior administration and military officials say, as a combination of better intelligence, improving weather and a refocusing of resources away from Iraq has reinvigorated the hunt along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The plan will apply both new forces and new tactics to the task, said senior officials in Washington and Afghanistan who were interviewed in recent days. The group at the center of the effort is Task Force 121, the covert commando team of Special Operations forces and Central Intelligence Agency officers. The team was involved in Saddam Hussein's capture and is gradually shifting its forces to Afghanistan to step up the search for Mr. bin Laden and Mullah Muhammad Omar, the former Taliban leader.

After a visit to Pakistan earlier this month by the the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, American officials say, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan appears to be far more seriously committed to tracking down Al Qaeda and Taliban militants along the semiautonomous border region.

"Two assassination attempts close together tends to be life-focusing," said one senior official who is overseeing the new drive, referring to the December attacks on General Musharraf.

Mr. bin Laden and his deputies have painted General Musharraf as a lackey of the United States, and many officials here believe that Al Qaeda had a role in the assassination attempts. General Musharraf has told the United States, the senior official said, that "he is now willing to be even more helpful" in tracking down Qaeda and Taliban militants in the region where Mr. bin Laden is still believed to be hiding.

Under the new plan, officials say, the 11,000 American forces in Afghanistan are changing their tactics. Rather than carrying out raids and returning to their bases, small groups will now remain in Afghan villages for days at a time, handing out various forms of aid and conducting patrols. By becoming a more permanent, familiar presence, American officials say, they hope to be able to receive and act on intelligence within hours. Such a technique helped them to capture Mr. Hussein.

"We're trying to transplant some of the lessons of the Saddam capture," one senior official said. "This is different territory, and our targets are presumed to be moving around. But one lesson we learned in Iraq is that, by analogy, there are only a limited number of places that someone like Saddam or bin Laden feel comfortable."

Similarly, Task Force 121 and the Pakistani forces are focusing on Mr. bin Laden's support network, hoping it will crack as Mr. Hussein's did.

With a great deal at stake strategically, symbolically and politically, Mr. Bush and his national security team have repeatedly met in recent months to refine the new approach, and it appears to have been approved in the last two months. White House officials will not say exactly when, emphasizing that the hunt for Mr. bin Laden never stopped, though clearly the effort lost momentum.

Much of the timing now is driven by the weather: as winter snows melt, troops can navigate in the high mountain passes and trails where many Qaeda and Taliban members are believed to be hiding. When that moment arrived last year, many of the forces and American intelligence operatives now engaged in Afghanistan were tied up in the Iraq.

But presidential politics are also at play. Though the White House denies that Mr. Bush is letting the election influence strategy, some of his aides have privately spoken about the obvious advantages of going into the last months of the election campaign with both Mr. Hussein and Mr. bin Laden in custody.

On Friday, Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat and the front-runner in the Democratic race, appeared to try to inoculate his campaign from the possibility of Mr. bin Laden's capture, while at the same time faulting Mr. Bush for failing to put together an effective search strategy far earlier.

"As we speak, night has settled on the mountains of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan," Mr. Kerry said in California. "If Osama bin Laden is sleeping, it is the restless slumber of someone who knows his days are numbered. I don't know if the latest reports — saying that he is surrounded — are true or not. We've heard this news before."

Mr. Kerry said, "We had him in our grasp more than two years ago at Tora Bora, but George Bush held U.S. forces back and instead, called on Afghan warlords with no loyalty to our cause to finish the job."

Mr. Kerry's aides contended that Mr. Bush's new strategy was a tacit admission of past failures and said the White House had criticized Mr. Kerry for questioning its earlier strategy.

White House and military officials insist that despite the rumors to which Mr. Kerry alluded, they do not know Mr. bin Laden's whereabouts. Pentagon officials on Saturday denied a report on Iranian state radio that Mr. bin Laden had been captured in the region long ago.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, speaking to reporters on Thursday, sounded testy when asked about the chances of finding Mr. bin Laden, saying it "will happen when it happens, and I don't believe it's closer or farther at any given moment."

But at the White House and at the Pentagon, there is talk of better intelligence — some of it supplied by captured Qaeda lieutenants — and a new sense of optimism.

Much of it centers on Task Force 121, which was created last fall to hunt what the military calls "high-value targets" in Iraq and Afghanistan. A senior military official in Washington with access to classified troop movements said "small numbers" of the commandos had recently moved to Afghanistan to bolster the Special Operations efforts there, a development first reported this week by The Washington Times.

Military officials say there are also increasing intelligence reports on Mr. bin Laden's movements in the border region, where he has a large network of Taliban sympathizers. Many of these new reports are the result of heightened activity by Pakistani security forces along its border with Afghanistan. Pakistani troops have pressured tribal leaders to hand over villagers suspected of harboring Qaeda members.

"The volume of intelligence is increasing as we get more forces out there," said a senior Pentagon official who follows Afghan developments closely. "Right now, it's more a qualitative difference in intelligence than a quantitative difference, but it's improving."

The critical question, however, is how committed General Musharraf is to the task. Since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Afghan and American military officials have complained that he has been reluctant to track down Qaeda and Taliban militants along the border.

But in recent weeks, American commanders say that has sharply changed. The assassination attempts, officials say, made it clear to General Musharraf that he had to crush Mr. bin Laden's support group, even if they retained a strong constituency in Pakistan and in the Pakistani intelligence services.

Moreover, Mr. Bush's willingness to look the other way as General Musharraf pardoned A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist who shipped his technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, was part of a concerted effort to demonstrate, in the words of one American official, "that we're going to let him do what he needs to do to stay in control."

In the wake of Mr. Tenet's visit, Pakistan is now preparing for a major spring offensive against Al Qaeda in the border region.

Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, the commander of American forces in Afghanistan, said earlier this month that American and Pakistani forces would work together in a "hammer and anvil" approach to drive militants in each other's direction and destroy them.

But the White House is trying to tamp down expectations. Officials there cringed when Lt. Col. Brian Hilferty, the senior spokesman for American forces in Afghanistan, said on Jan. 29 that, "We have a variety of intelligence, and we're sure we're going to catch Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar this year."

Three days earlier, General Barno told the BBC: "You can be assured that we're putting a renewed emphasis on closing this out and bringing these two individuals to justice, as well as the other senior leadership of that organization. They represent a threat to the entire world, and they need to be destroyed."

Pentagon officials have sought to play down the remarks, chalking them up to exuberant commanders.

Even so, there is a heightened sense of anticipation that the Qaeda leader may soon be caught.

"With this guy holed up, the more time that goes by, the more likely it is he'll make a mistake," said the senior Pentagon official who follows Afghanistan closely.

[seelenjaeger]

I´m not against the capture of Osama Bin Laden.

I´m just asking you what it would tell you about your government if the capture of OBL would be used as the famous "rabbit from the hat" during the electoral campaign.

IF OBL is captured NOW, and would be presented later during a strategical important moment of the electoral campaign, wouldnt that be a undeniable hint that some people in charge are caring more about their own benefit than they care about truth and honesty?

[MavKikiNYC]

Originally posted by: seelenjaeger
I´m not against the capture of Osama Bin Laden.

I´m just asking you what it would tell you about your government if the capture of OBL would be used as the famous "rabbit from the hat" during the electoral campaign.

IF OBL is captured NOW, and would be presented later during a strategical important moment of the electoral campaign, wouldnt that be a undeniable hint that some people in charge are caring more about their own benefit than they care about truth and honesty?

If they can capture OBL, and orchestrate such an event so as keep it a secret until the OPTIMAL moment in the campaign, the by all means, and without a doubt THESE are the people I want in charge.

And that would suggest that the state of American intelligence service and covert operations forces is not in nearly as bad a shape as has been accused by politicians such as Kerry.

Beyond that, could you envision a scenario where the announcement of the capture of a terrorist would reasonably be delayed so that other similarly dangerous terrorist elements could be captured as well? Or so that political reverberations in a country like Pakistan could be muted?

And if the reports that you cite are false, what would it say to you about the motives of those publications? Or about the motives of governments or individuals who would rely on them to attempt to call into question the integrity of Bush's administration?

[Chiwas]

Question of the day: Is John Kerry in favor of or against the capture of OBL?

If I were Kerry, I would think-know that the capture of OBL would be the end of my aspiration for the Presidency. Personal goals are always first than others, belonging to whatever party.

IF OBL is captured NOW, and would be presented later during a strategical important moment of the electoral campaign, wouldnt that be a undeniable hint that some people in charge are caring more about their own benefit than they care about truth and honesty?

Same commentary as above.

[Rhylan]

Word to everything Kiki said... whether or not Osama is currently captured, the simple fact is that his capture, at ANY time, is practically money in the bank for the Bush administration when it comes to re-election. To hold back on publicizing a capture purely for political reasons (assuming there were no stratgeic reasons for doing so), they'd need to be much, much stupider than even their most critical opponents have ever accused them of being.

[MavKikiNYC]

Wall Street Journal

WORLD NEWS

U.S., Pakistani Officials Deny
Report of bin Laden's Capture

Associated Press


TEHRAN, Iran -- Pentagon and Pakistani officials on Saturday denied an Iranian state radio report that Osama bin Laden was captured in Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan "a long time ago."

The claim came at a time when Pakistan's army was hunting al Qaeda suspects in a remote tribal region along the border with Afghanistan, believed to be a possible hiding place for the al Qaeda leader.

The report was carried by Iran radio's external Pashtun service, which is designed for listeners in Afghanistan and Pakistan where the language is widely spoken.

Iran state radio's main news channel -- the Farsi-language service for Iranian listeners – didn't carry the bin Laden report. Iran state television also didn't carry the report.

The director of Iran radio's Pashtun service, Asheq Hossein, said he had two sources for the report. The radio quoted its reporter as saying Mr. bin Laden had been in custody for a period of time, but a U.S. announcement of the capture was being withheld by President Bush until closer to the November election.

"Osama bin Laden has been arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda maneuvering in the presidential election," he said.


There have been reports that military forces believed they had identified Mr. bin Laden's general location and had him encircled, but Pakistani officials have denied any specific knowledge of his whereabouts.

The state radio report, quoting an unnamed source, said U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's visit to the region this week was in connection with the arrest.

Larry Di Rita, the chief Pentagon spokesman who traveled with Mr. Rumsfeld this week to Afghanistan, denied the report. "I don't have any reason to think it's true," he said Saturday.

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, also said he had no information to suggest Mr. bin Laden had been caught.

"Things are going well, and we believe we will eventually catch all the leaders of al Qaeda, but I know nothing of that report," he said.

Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed denied the reported capture, saying it was "baseless news."

"We have neither arrested Osama nor we have any information about him," Mr. Ahmed told the Associated Press.

Pakistani Army spokesman Gen. Shaukat Sultan also told the AP that the report wasn't true. "That information is wrong," he said.

A Pakistani official said previously that members of al Qaeda are being sought in the border region, although Mr. bin laden wasn't a specific target.

Separately, Pakistani forces killed 11 people in an exchange of fire Saturday after a minibus failed to stop at a roadblock in a tribal region where the continuing antiterrorism operations have been taking place, an army spokesman told the AP. The shooting occurred a day after armed men and soldiers exchanged fire at a military compound in the region.

Speaking to the AP in Tehran, Mr. Hossein identified one of the sources for the bin Laden report as Shamim Shahed, editor of the English-language Pakistani newspaper the Nation in Peshawar. Mr. Hossein said Mr. Shahed told him Friday night that Mr. bin Laden was arrested "a long time ago."

But Mr. Shahed, who is the Nation's Peshawar bureau chief and not its editor, denied telling Iranian radio that Mr. bin Laden had been captured.

"I never said this," Mr. Shahed said in a telephone interview with the AP's Islamabad bureau. "But I have for the last year been saying that he is not far away. He is within their [the Americans'] reach, and they can declare him arrested any time."

Mr. Hossein said he had a second source for his report that Mr. bin Laden had been captured, but he declined to identify him except to say he was "a man with close links to intelligence services and Afghan tribal leaders."

The Iranian news agency IRNA was first to report the capture of ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. IRNA also carried the state radio report about Mr. bin Laden's capture and said it had contacted a radio announcer at the Pashtun service who confirmed the news.

Copyright © 2004 Associated Press

Updated February 28, 2004 11:50 a.m.

[seelenjaeger]

So - summing it up - you´re beggin for politicians using your fears and concerns for their own political benefit? For ignoring your rights on beeing treated faithful and honest?

IF your intelligence is "not in as bad of a state as it is reported" - then how do you explain those failures in recent days? EITHER your intelligence IS in a bad state, or those were not FAILURE but planned misinformation and propaganda. Pick your choice.

[twelli]

The only thing politicians should be concerned about is the safety of the people.

Is it better to tell the world we have Osama and risk retaliation by his deputies?

Or is better to first capture other leaders of his network and make larger parts of the organisation disfunctional?

All these decisions are based on intelligence beyond the reach of us ordinary earthlings.

We never know.

We only know that politicians are selfish beings interested in power and power only [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

[dude1394]

On the other hand, the capture of bin laden would be a testament to the tenacity of the bush administration. He will NEVER, EVER give up hunting for him. He's like an american president terminater...

He's great

[dude1394]

We only know that politicians are selfish beings interested in power and power only [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

Way too cynical twelli. Unless you are talking about a dimocrat. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

[Chiwas]

Originally posted by: twelli
...

We only know that politicians are selfish beings interested in power and power only [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

Don't forget the money.

[Mavdog]

Quote originally posted by Twelli

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We only know that politicians are selfish beings interested in power and power only
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Posted by dude1394

Way too cynical twelli. Unless you are talking about a dimocrat.

yeah, republicans have never been corrupt ot violated the law for self preservation.
Eyes wide shut....twilli isn't cynical, they're being realisitic.

[dude1394]

No that statement is way too cynical. I was joking about even dimocrats. Although politicians are interested in power and of course they aren't perfect, they also are performing service to their country. They could have an easier and certainly a more financially better life without being politicians. Certainly rumsfeld, cheney for example took massive pay cuts to come back into governement. I'm not saying they are saints, but what they gave up has to be considered if you are honest about it.

But it is tough for me to give the dimocrats the benefit of the doubt however. After clintoon, I can't quite figure out where their standards are.

[Mavdog]

But it is tough for me to give the dimocrats the benefit of the doubt however. After clintoon, I can't quite figure out where their standards are.

Funny, the same can be said about republicans as it relates to Pat Buchanan.

[dude1394]

Agreed but pat buchanon isn't the rnc leader like terry mccaulife. so I'm not sure it's an accurate comparison. Ala kucinich, sharpton, etc..

[MavKikiNYC]

Originally posted by: Mavdog

Funny, the same can be said about republicans as it relates to Pat Buchanan.

Pat Buchanan = Jean-Marie LePin. Et point.