Bin Laden hiding in Pakistan's Hindu Kush mountains

Well is this news, or not news? Does this mean that the allies have actually narrowed down bin Laden's whereabouts to a mere million square miles? IMHO, the solution to eliminating bib Laden is to turn the US special operations community loose with no constraints on where or when they operate.

At any rate, bin Laden is not the most pressing issue in Pakistan. Control of their nuclear weapons is.

FROM INDIAPOST.COM:

Bin Laden hiding in Pakistan's Hindu Kush mountains
Monday, 03.16.2009, 04:54am (GMT-7)

NEW YORK: The United States is said to have tracked down the world's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, in the impenetrable Hindu Kush Mountains in Pakistan's scenic Chitral region, according to a media report.America won't say it officially, but the world's biggest manhunt for bin Laden who murdered nearly 3,000 people on 9/11 has zeroed in on Chitral's stunning peaks and valleys, the 'New York Daily News' reported.

The region has been sealed off to outsiders and is now regularly buzzed by American spy drones, it said.Six US and foreign officials have also confirmed that the Hindu Kush mountains in the Chitral region have been eyed as bin Laden's hideout since 2006 by Osama hunters aiming for the big kill.A lengthy review of evidence, including recent Predator fly-bys, bin Laden's tapes since 9/11 and interviews with three dozen experts on al Qaeda, Pakistan and special operations, point to these vast mountains as Osama's likely haven, the report said.

Two senior foreign officials said the nearby town of Kalam also is suspect.In fact, drones were first spotted spying on Chitral last summer and were seen again as recently as February 2. It is so far from US-run airfields that drone sorties are limited to just a few hours due to fuelling issues, the report said.Moreover, Islamic militancy is taking root in several Chitrali valleys leading to Afghan border, prompting Pakistan to decree them off-limits to foreigners, local sources said, reinforcing the suspicion Osama is nearby.

Bin Laden’s Threat and the New Jihadist Message for Europe

Waled Phares looks into the influence and potential operations of al Qaeda in Europe. As he puts it: "What I saw in the al Qaeda message and the al Jazeera debate was clear: The Salafist movement worldwide was “talking” to the Europeans and the Euro-Jihadis. It was threatening Governments to retreat from the confrontation on the one hand and unleashing the pools of indoctrinated Jihadis across the continent to “engage” in violence.

The near future will tell us if the trigger will be successful or not."

FROM POLITICALMAVINS.COM:

Bin Laden’s Threat and the New Jihadist Message for Europe
By Walid Phares (bio)

In an audiotape posted on Internet, Osama Bin Laden threatened Europe with punishment because of its “negligence in spite of the opportunity presented to take the necessary measures” to stop the publishing of the Danish cartoons. It also menaced the Vatican with retribution for an alleged role in incitement “against religion.”
This al Qaeda warning would have been normal in Salafi Jihad logic. This radical movement obviously considers the drawings as an ultimate insult to Muslims and would unleash extreme violence in retaliation. Actually one would have expected al Qaeda to strike back “for the cartoons offense” a long time ago. In fact, this particular audio is intriguing precisely because it is too “political” (read too sophisticated). Bin Laden’s school of Jihadism would have smitten first, explained later. So why is this message more peculiar than previous ones? What can we read into it?
In short, I see in it the imprint of Jihadi “politicians” and strategists in international relations deeply immersed in the diplomatic games across the Mediterranean. Even though it is indeed the voice of al Qaeda’s master, one can see the increasing impact of political operatives on the movement’s public statements. Here is why:
A raw al Qaeda reaction to the “infidel cartoons” would have been a strike back into the heart of the enemy with simple harshness and highly ideological brutality. But the audio tape has other points to make than just about the drawings. The message is heavily targeting Europe, while using the “cartoon Jihad” as a motive. Bin Laden and the war room behind him are concerned about the rise of tough national leaders on the continent: Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown and a possible reemergence of Berlusconi’s party in Italy in power.
In many spots in Europe, citizens are rejecting the Jihadi intimidations and becoming vocal about it. France is going to Chad, Germany has ships in the Eastern Mediterranean and Spain is arresting more Salafists. But the traditional apologists toward the Islamist agenda in Europe, remains strong. Al Qaeda wants to use the apologists against the “resistance.” What better means than threatening to strike at Europe’s peace if its liberal values are not altered?
READ IT ALL:

Bin Laden and Future Jihad in Europe

Here's Walid Phares' analysis of Bin Laden's latest audio message. As always Mr. Phares has a good handel on the Jihad and where it is going.
FROM NEWMEDIAJOURNAL.US:
Bin Laden and Future Jihad in Europe Terrorism
Dr. Walid Phares
December 1, 2007
What is interesting about the latest audio message of Usama Bin Laden, carried by al Jazeera, is its delayed argument. Strangely he is trying to convince the Europeans - seven years later - that they are wrong to have followed the United States into Afghanistan. Why?

In his speech - irrespective of the ritual investigative questions regarding its location, technology and other details - the central issue appears to be his growing concern with the European role in Afghanistan, and perhaps because of it, the potential growth of that role in the fight against the forces of Jihadism worldwide. As a reader of the Jihadi strategic mind, I believe that the speech writers (Bin Laden himself or his “advisors”) are looking ahead in their evaluation of future European involvement in the so-called War on Terror, and are positioning al Qaeda to “own” it. The significance of this is, as al Qaeda’s war room has showed in the past, they are skilled at anticipating trends.
READ IT ALL:

America Could Have Killed Usama bin Laden — But Didn't

This is an interesting story, which if true, does not speak well of our upper level anti-terror people, on the military or civilian side. time will tell if this is true, but it would not be the first time we have had Bin Laden where he could have been taken out, but didn't.
FROM FOXNEWS.COM:
America Could Have Killed Usama bin Laden — But Didn't
Tuesday , October 23, 2007
By Col. David Hunt
Because there is no shortage of things to yell about regarding the War on Terror, Iraq, Afghanistan, Homeland Security, and so on, deciding what to write about is always fun.
This week, I was going to yell about how the Bush administration leaked classified information — again — but we've been there before. Then, I thought I might write about Blackwater, but compared to so many things, Blackwater looks like back water.
I bet the few of you that read this stuff thought I would write about my short stint in the sights of those who complained or used my column last week for their own purposes. Nah, it ain't going to happen. Those who were yelling or using me on their TV shows — without bringing me on to comment — are hardly worth the print space. I am not that big a deal. Besides, these things are of little consequence when you realize how we missed, squandered, screwed up, made a mess of and were massively risk adverse — again — when we did not kill Usama bin Laden in Afghanistan just two short months ago.
We know, with a 70 percent level of certainty — which is huge in the world of intelligence — that in August of 2007, bin Laden was in a convoy headed south from Tora Bora. We had his butt, on camera, on satellite. We were listening to his conversations. We had the world’s best hunters/killers — Seal Team 6 — nearby. We had the world class Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating with the CIA and other agencies. We had unmanned drones overhead with missiles on their wings; we had the best Air Force on the planet, begging to drop one on the terrorist. We had him in our sights; we had done it. Nice job again guys — now, pull the damn trigger.
Unbelievably, and in my opinion, criminally, we did not kill Usama bin Laden.
You cannot make this crap up; truth is always stranger and more telling than fiction. Our government, the current administration and yes, our military leaders included, failed to kill bin Laden for no other reason than incompetence.
The current “boneheads” in charge will tell you all day long that we are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan to stop terrorists there so they do not come here. Nice talk, how about — just for a moment — acting like you mean what you say? You know walk the walk. These incidents, where we displayed a total lack of guts, like the one in August, are just too prevalent. The United States of America’s political and military leadership has, on at least three separate occasions, chosen not capture or kill bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahri. We have allowed Pakistan to become a safe haven for Al Qaeda. We have allowed Al Qaeda to reconstitute, partially because of money they (Al Qaeda in Iraq) have been sending to Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
We are in a war with terrorists. We are in a war with countries that support terrorists. We are in a war with people that fly planes into buildings and who never, ever hesitate to pull the trigger when given the chance to kill us. We cannot win and, I will tell you this now, we are losing this war every damn time we fail to take every single opportunity to kill murderers like Usama bin Laden. Less than two months ago, we lost again.
Our men and women are being blown up and killed every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. Every family who is separated from a loved one during this war is being insulted by our government when they fail to kill those who have already killed us and will not hesitate to do so again and again. Damn it guys, PULL THE DAMN TRIGGER.

Uncle Osama Wants You

FROM INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Uncle Osama Wants You
Posted 9/10/2007
War On Terror: The co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission buy the Democratic line that the war in Iraq is a diversion from the war on terror and a recruiting tool for al-Qaida . But it's the bad guys who are less safe.

In a Washington Post op-ed, 9/11 Commission chairman Thomas Kean and vice chairman Lee Hamilton ponder the question of whether we are safer now than we were on that tragic day.
They conclude the war in Iraq has made us less safe.
They are wrong.
"No conflict" they opine, "drains more time, attention, blood and treasure and support from our worldwide counterterrorism efforts than the war in Iraq. It has become a powerful recruiting and training tool for al-Qaida."
Considering the rapid demise of al-Qaida leaders, the terror group probably isn't offering a retirement plan, though.
Omaf Farouq, leader of al-Qaida in Southeast Asia, was one of those drawn to the jihadist cause in Iraq. In September 2006, he was killed by British troops in a firefight in Basra. In an audiotape released late that month, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq said 4,000 such recruits had been killed in Iraq since Iraq was liberated, including leaders like Omar Farouq and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
What Kean and Hamilton fail to comprehend is that Islamofascists and al-Qaida will always find excuses to wage war on civilization and the West.
We weren't in Iraq on 9/11. We were in Saudi Arabia protecting that country after Saddam, the world's most prolific killer of Muslims, invaded Kuwait. Osama bin Laden used the presence of infidel soldiers on holy Saudi soil as an excuse, and a recruiting tool.
The jihadists always will have an excuse, whether it be the existence of Israel or the excesses of Western culture or a newspaper publishing offensive cartoons. In his latest videotape, bin Laden warned about Western corporations and global warming. Do Kean and Hamilton suggest we ratify Kyoto to prevent the next attack?
It is al-Qaida that has made Iraq a central front. Al-Qaida's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a letter to the leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq, said: "Victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established in the manner of the Prophet in the heart of the Islamic world" — a description that Iraq fits nicely.
"The jihad movement is growing and rising," Zawahiri wrote to the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in October 2005. "Now it is waging a great historic battle in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and even within the Crusader's own homes."
READ IT ALL:

Media Alters Bin Laden's Message

Photo: Dr. Paul Williams and Mr.Hamid Mir of GEO TV
This is really disturbing. Once again the MSM just can't face the fact that Islamists are bent on destroying America and the west. The article below from Atlas Shrugs describes the real meaning of Bin Ladens latest message. This is getting outrageous. that our own media who are supposed to report facts to us without bias continues to behave hysterically and refuse to acknowledge the imminent threat that radical Islam presents.
Here is a link to the whole Bin Laden transcript so you can make your own determination from foxnews.com.
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FROM ATLASSHRUGS:
Dr. Paul Williams: Media Alters Bin Laden's Message
When I read the transcript, I thought this is a call to war.
Bin Laden said in no uncertain words, convert or die. And I wasn't the only one in the blogosphere. The media is talking about bad dye jobs but there is a serious message here. Here is an Atlas exclusive written by Dr. Paul Williams outlining the media deceit, taqiya.
REAL WARNING RECEIVES NO AIRING ON MAJOR NEWS OUTLETS
LEADING PAKISTANI BROADCASTER CHARGES AMERICAN MEDIA WITH ALTERING BIN LADEN'S LATEST MESSAGE
By Paul L.Williams, Ph.D., Hugh Cort, M.D., and Michael Travis


The American media missed the most important part of Osama bin Laden's videotape message, according to Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir.[http://hamidmir.com]
Mr. Mir, the only reporter to interview bin Laden in the wake of 9/11, said that the text of bin Laden's address may have been redacted by government sources since a significant portion of it was not aired by major American news outlets.
In the unaltered message, according to Mr. Mir, bin Laden says: "We must sacrifice our lives to attack the enemy." This statement, Mr. Mir points out, is a call for suicide attacks to take place throughout the United States - - a call that was erased from official transcripts of the videotape.
These suicide attacks, Mr. Mir believes, may involve the use of radiological devices and/or tactical nuclear weapons.
Mr. Mir said that he had been informed by leaders of the Taliban in Afghanistan that al Qaeda's long-planned American Hiroshima - - a nuclear attack on seven to ten U.S. cities - - will occur in 2008 but could come sooner.
In June, ABC News reported that large teams of al Qaeda suicide bombers had been sent to the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Germany to launch attacks at strategic sites. The report contained videos of hundreds of recruits for these missions at a graduation ceremony in Pakistan. Some of the recruits were as young as 12.
In August, four Islamic terrorists were arrested in Germany for planning to strike German airports and US bases in commemoration of the sixth anniversary of 9/11. It is important to note that those arrested were blonde, German born converts, whose appearance allowed them to operate "under the radar" of traditional profiling techniques and counter-terrorism protocols.
Mr. Mir has long sounded the alarm of al Qaeda's plan to launch an American Hiroshima.
"As far as I know, they smuggled three suitcase nukes from Russia to Europe," Mr. Mir maintained last year. "They smuggled many kilos of enriched uranium inside America for their dirty bomb projects. They said in 1999 that they must have material for more than six dirty bombs in America. They tested at least one dirty bomb in the Kunar province of Afghanistan in 2000. They have planned an attack bigger than 9-11, even before the attacks on the World Trade Centre.9-11 took place. Osama bin Laden trained 42 fighters to destroy the American economy and military might. Nineteen were used on 9-11, 23 are still 'sleeping' inside America waiting for a call from bin Laden."
Mr. Mir said al-Qaeda operatives told him that tactical nuclear weapons were smuggled over the Mexican border before Sept. 11, 2001.
Asked why al-Qaeda hasn't used nuclear weapons it already possesses, Mir said: "They are waiting for the proper time. They want the U.S. to be involved in a mass killing of Muslims, so that they will have some justification. That is what I was told by a top al-Qaeda leader in the Kunar Mountains of Afghanistan."
Mr. Mir, whose biography of bin Laden is expected to appear before Christmas, says that the al Qaeda chieftain is no longer in Pakistan but has relocated to a remote mountainous area within the Khost and Paktia provinces of eastern Afghanistan.
These and ten other Afghani provinces, Mir maintains, are now under the rule of the Taliban.
The pipeline for jihadi supply troops, he insists, now runs from the United Arab Emirates through Iran and into southern Afghanistan.
The Iranian-Taliban alliance is a new, unique and disturbing development in the war on terror. When the Taliban came to power in 1996, Mullah Omar and his army were decried by the Shiite mullahs in Iran for the massacre of thousands of Shiite Hazaras and Panjshiri Tajiks. Iran began to send money and arms to Ahmed Shah Massoud and his opposition army of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras that became known as the "United Front" or "Northern Alliance." The Russians also came to the support Massoud's army to protect the interests of Uzbekistan.
The Northern Alliance continued to receive support from Iran and Russia until the launching of Operation Enduring Freedom (the codename for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan) Oct. 7, 2001. Overnight, the Iranian and Russian advisers to Massoud became replaced by CIA operatives and Green Beret A team members.
A major setback in the war on terror, according to Mir, is that Iran and Russia are now allied in Afghanistan on the side of their old enemy.
The first major indication of Iran's change of heart toward the Taliban came in the wake of the bombing of Tora Bora in December 2001, when Mullah Omar and hundreds of his soldiers and al-Qaida agents, scaled the mountains between the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, cut through the southern provinces of Afghanistan and headed west to Iran, where they found safe refuge, thanks to the intervention of Imad Mugniyah and the other leaders of Hezbollah. The newly arrived guests included such luminaries as Saad bin Laden, Osama's eldest son; Yaaz bin Sifat and Saif al-Adel, al-Qaida military planners; and Mohammed Islam Haani, the mayor of Kabul under the Taliban. Within Iran, they were placed in luxurious safehouses under the protection of SAVAMA, the Iranian intelligence service.
When the war on terror moved to Iraq, Iran came to serve as a base of operations for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al-Qaida field commanders to mount attacks on the occupying armies.
This monumental event – the union between Sunni and Shiite – remained largely ignored by Western observers.
While the war dragged on in Iraq, Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders returned to Pakistan, gained thousands of new recruits, secured control of much of the tribal areas, and launched the re-conquest of Afghanistan.
The Taliban soldiers are now accompanied by advisers and regulars from the Iranian army and, according to Mir, within Afghanistan, Mullah Omar has received visits from his old friend and fellow jihadi, Osama bin Laden.
Because of this newly forged alliance, Mr. Mir speculates that the American Hiroshima may occur as soon as the Bush Administration launches an offensive against Iran to prevent the Shiite country from becoming a member of the nuclear club.