Wednesday, May 4, 2011

03/05 World 'failed to track' Bin Laden - Pakistanis have been shocked into silence by the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

Demonstrators hold posters of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed on Monday in a U.S. special forces assault on a Pakistani compound, as they chant anti-U.S. slogans during a rally of more than 100 people in Multan May 4, 2011. Protests over Bin Laden's death have been few and far between so far in Pakistan

Pakistanis have been shocked into silence by the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

There have been few protests - or public expressions of any kind - since US Navy Seals killed the al-Qaeda leader in Abbottabad on Sunday night.

"I feel numb - I really don't know what to say," Arsalan Mateen, a manager in a Karachi-based multinational company, told the BBC.

"Frankly speaking, I think this is just going to lead to more bloodshed in Pakistan.

"They have just killed one person - not destroyed the operational command and control structure of al-Qaeda. There are grave implications for Pakistan's internal security. I really don't think it's going to make this region, or the world any safer."

But it's not just the fall-out from the special forces' raid that has Pakistanis worried.

Many believe the whole incident was just a ruse to portray the country in a bad light - and that Osama Bin Laden was never in the compound in the first place.

"We don't know whether Osama was there - we never saw their bodies or the bodies of the others killed in the attack," says Shaista Bukhari, a housewife from Islamabad, echoing a widely-held view here.

"There are so many lies coming out of all governments that the truth seem like lies and lies like the truth. We can't believe their version of events till we have absolute proof."

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America has killed the man they said was responsible for all those attacks - it's time for them to leave us in peace”

Arsalan MateenKarachi manager

Like Mrs Bukhari, many here are suspicious about the claims that Pakistani officials were not told of the raid and were unaware about Bin Laden's hiding place.

"Our armed forces are always assuring us that they will protect us. I can't believe they let this happen," says Mr Mateen.

"This means the entire world can now point fingers at Pakistan and call it a state that supports people the West calls terrorists and militants."

This is another point on which most Pakistanis differ from the West - whether Bin Laden was responsible for all he has been accused of.

"They say he was responsible for the New York (9/11) attacks, but have never given any concrete evidence," says Shahnawaz, a shopkeeper in Islamabad.

"He was just fighting for the rights of oppressed Muslims everywhere - that was his real fault."

'Struggle goes on'

This view is shared by many Pakistanis - especially the religious hardliners.

"Sheikh Osama Bin Laden is a hero of Islam and symbol of our struggle against the West," says Maulana Asmatullah, a Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) MP, said to have close links to the Taliban leadership.

The JUI is one of the few parties to come out on the streets so far - holding several demonstrations in Quetta against the killing of Bin Laden.

In Karachi a small prayer ceremony was organised on Tuesday by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an Islamic charity accused of links to militant groups.

Supporters of the banned Islamic organization Jamaat-ud-Dawa embrace each other after taking part in a funeral prayer for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Karachi May 3, 2011.Public expressions of grief have been small scale

Several hundred of the group's members attended the gathering in the east of the city, many openly weeping as the last rites were conducted. The public were invited, but few turned up.

Maulana Asmatullah wants the government to explain how the attack took place without its consent.

"I would also like to add that if Sheikh Osama is indeed dead - then there is no more rationale for the US to be in this region," he told the BBC.

"They wanted to kill him, and now he's dead they should leave immediately."

Many ordinary citizens believe that too.

"America has killed the man they said was responsible for all those attacks against the US. Its mission is accomplished - and it's time for them to leave us in peace," says Arsalan Mateen in Karachi.

Ahmed Nadeem, a bank executive in the city, says: "It's not just security - our economy has also been severely damaged due to the conflict. Osama is dead and they should now go."

For the militants, however, it's not the end of the story.

Mohammad Younis, a young Taliban member who has fought for four years on the fronts of Ghazni, Helmand and Kandahar, says Bin Laden was "like my father".

"I can't really describe my grief to you," he told me in southern Pakistan.

"But jihad is not and never was about one man. We mourn his loss, but the struggle will never stop.

"We will make all those responsible for his death pay - in Afghanistan and across the world.

"Let them rejoice now - soon they will feel fear again."


04/05 Should Osama Bin Laden have been caught and tried?

A policeman walks in front of the compound where al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad May 3, 2011From Abbottabad to Guantanamo?

US special forces shot Osama Bin Laden in the head, rather than arresting him, so America's "most wanted man" will not face trial, but should he have?

Quite rightly, jurists will always argue that due process is preferable to revenge. To (almost) paraphrase Winston Churchill: law law is better than war, war. But it comes at a price.

Would adherents to Sharia law have regarded the laborious legalism of a Milosevic-style trial, with its emphasis on history and geopolitics, as an appropriate means of decapitating the al-Qaeda hydra? Would the majority of Americans have?

And where could Bin Laden have been securely housed while awaiting a trial?

Location, location

With the lesson of the trial of Saddam Hussein in mind, whose moral authority would have been enhanced, as America's entanglement with the mujahideen in the 1980s unfolded as background evidence?

From a jurisdictional point of view, the obvious venue for a trial would have been New York City. That's where the majority of the deaths on 9/11 took place.

Yet, for security reasons, the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man accused of being the organisational mastermind of the attacks, will not be tried in a Manhattan courthouse but before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay.

A man reads newspapers with Osama Bin Laden on the cover in Abbottabad on 3 May, 2011Would a trial have boosted Bin Laden's hero status?

While such tribunals have a long provenance in trying acts committed during a war, their validity in these circumstances is regarded as dubious by many commentators.

Moreover, those who argue that at least they produce quicker results are confounded by the facts: in the nine or so years since the Guantanamo commissions were announced, only five cases have reached a verdict, three by plea bargain.

Thus, it is unlikely that a Bin Laden trial at Guantanamo would have delivered the kind of effective closure America has sought.

So, if not in a civilian or military courtroom in the US, what about before an international forum? After all, the al Qaeda-inspired jihad is often portrayed as a declaration of war on global institutions and mores, rather than a targeted assault on the US alone.

Bin Laden could not have been tried for 9/11 at the International Criminal Court because its jurisdiction runs only from 2002.

The UN Security Council could have set up an ad hoc tribunal - as it did for crimes committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia - but in those cases, the world community was sending a message about the ending of impunity for those who wilfully commit crimes against humanity and genocide.

Inspiration or mastermind?

The only precedent for a tribunal set up specifically to deal with an act of terrorism, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, is not a happy one. It was established in 2007 to investigate the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, and has yet to hold a trial.

Many believe that, given the ultra sensitive politics of the Middle East, it may never do so.

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A prosecutor would have had to prove Bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11 not merely as a symbolic Pied Piper... but as someone who organised a criminal conspiracy ”

A Bin Laden prosecution in an international forum might also have been hostage to the perennial argument that the pursuit of justice can jeopardise peace.

With continuing instability in Pakistan and Afghanistan and an uncertain future in the Middle East, provoked by the Arab Spring, this argument would have particular force in this case.

But supposing some of these difficulties had been surmounted and Bin Laden had stood trial, like a latter day Milosevic or the Liberian president, Charles Taylor, would the cause of justice have been served and the prospect of martyrdom dealt a blow?

Not necessarily. A prosecutor would have had to prove Bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11. Not merely as a symbolic Pied Piper of wannabe terrorists, but as someone who organised a criminal conspiracy to kill thousands in the United States.

Distance and intent were difficult connections to make in the case of Milosevic (and, of course, we will never know what the outcome would have been had he not died mid-trial).

Hero worship

They have been difficult connections to make in the trial of Charles Taylor, currently awaiting a judgment.

And in both Serbia and Liberia, there were many whose hero worship for their former leaders was reinforced rather than weakened by seeing them in the dock.

As the clinching argument for trials, the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson has cited the Nuremberg Tribunal, "which has confounded Holocaust-deniers ever since".

Sadly, it hasn't and, in the age of the Internet, malicious fabrication about the Nazis still pulls in gullible converts.

How much more seductive is the viral propaganda of Islamist extremism and what contribution would Bin Laden, giving evidence in his own defence and imprisoned for the rest of his natural life - like Rudolf Hess - have made to the myth?

Churchill never regretted being talked out of his original preference for the surviving Nazi leaders to be summarily shot.

But if Barack Obama gave explicit authorisation for the killing of Bin Laden, he can cite persuasive reasons for doing so.

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03/05 Bin Laden: The team that killed him

The BBC's Steve Kingstone reports on the US Navy Seals

The men assigned to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden were part of the US Navy's legendary special forces unit, the Seals. Who are they?

It was years in the planning but took just 40 minutes to execute.

More than a dozen members of the US military were dropped near the high-walled, three-storey compound on the outskirts of Abbottabad in north-west Pakistan.

After a brief firefight, five people were killed, including Osama Bin Laden, who reportedly received a shot above his left eye.

All the US forces escaped unharmed, despite technical problems with one helicopter that they had to leave behind.

It says everything about their presence of mind that despite the dangers, they collected hard drives, DVDs and documents from the building before they left.

From the US point of view, the mission, codenamed Geronimo, could hardly have gone any better, a reflection on the preparation and skills of the men who carried it out.

"Discreet pride" is the best way to sum up the mood. Local people are delighted that the men who faced down Bin Laden were from the Seal base at Virginia Beach, but they also understand that absolute secrecy is the foundation of Seal achievements.

The town's mayor is politely declining interviews - having earlier floated the idea of a public tribute to the special forces. And at the base which is understood to house Team Six, the Military Police were courteous but tight-lipped.

At CP Shuckers, a bustling late-night bar, I heard a surprisingly nuanced range of views on Bin Laden's death. Everyone welcomed the killing, and many were proud of the local connection. But there was no consensus as to whether the terror threat to America would now ease.

Separately, I spoke to a serving Seal, who did not want to be identified. He was mildly sceptical about the US government's account of the raid. "I'll only form a true view on this," he said, "when I hear about it directly - from the guys who were there."

Although there has been no official confirmation which team was involved, it is widely thought that it was the Seal Team Six (ST6), officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, but more commonly known as DevGru.

They are the all-star, elite group of Seals, a team of military personnel trained to carry out top secret operations.

The Seals are part of the Navy Special Warfare Command, and are also the maritime component of the US Special Operations Command, continually deployed throughout the world in operations to protect US interests.

There are 2,500 Seals in total, and they take their name from the environments in which they are trained to work - sea, air and land. But it is their highly specialised training to operate in water that they are best known for.

Their missions can be enormously varied in nature, involving combat, anti-terrorism and hostage rescues.

These guys are America's thoroughbreds, says Don Shipley, from Virginia, who spent two decades in the Navy as a Seal.

"They're the finest guys America has. Your average guy walking down the street just doesn't have it.

"The guys that become Seals have gifted eyesight, above average intelligence, and are genetically built to withstand a lot of punishment, being pounded a lot. Those are the guys that are qualified to get in but the guys that ultimately come out are thoroughbreds, they're racehorses."

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Stew Smith

I never thought about dropping out”

Stew Smith, former Seal on the gruelling training

It is often described as the toughest training available to any special forces anywhere in the world. The drop-out rate is 80-85%.

Stew Smith, a Seal for eight years, now runs fitness training courses in Maryland for people who are thinking of joining up.

He says the first six months of Seal training, known as Basic Underwater Demolition (Buds) is the toughest. It includes one period which lasts a continuous 120 hours, and involves swimming, running, obstacle courses, scuba diving and navigation.

The current Buds training course has already lost 190 recruits out of 245, and is only three weeks in, he says.

"I never thought about dropping out. People ask me why not, and I say that you have to go there in a mindset of competing, not just surviving.

Seal Team Six (ST6)

  • Elite force of Seals, based near Virginia Beach
  • Selected from all the units, to carry out the most demanding missions
  • Usually have five years of experience already
  • The unit belongs to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) which is run at a cost of more than $1bn a year
  • Involved in Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan in recent years
  • Existence shrouded in mystery
  • They reportedly train around the clock and can spend 300 days a year away from home

"If you're running your first marathon, your goal is just to finish the thing, you're in a survival mode. But when you're stretching out before, you look across and see a Kenyan who is trying to drop a minute off his best time.

"There is a different mindset. For me, every day in training was a competition."

After Buds, you are officially a Seal and assigned to a team but you need to have another 12 months of training with your new colleagues before you are deployed, says Mr Smith.

He believes what makes Seals special is their versatility.

"Also, having a strong confidence with the boat, and a relationship with the Navy, we have a way of respecting Mother Nature because we realise that when you're out there in the middle of the ocean, you're just a speck."

This familiarity with the vagaries of the weather teaches Seals to always have a Plan B, he says. "There's a saying in the Seals that two is one and one is nothing."

Navy SealSeal training is gruelling, and many recruits drop out

The origins of the Seals can be traced to World War II, and its predecessors like the Naval Combat Demolition Unit, which was involved in the invasion of North Africa in 1942.

Their formation came out of a $100m (£61m) package by President John F Kennedy to strengthen the US special forces capability.

They were later involved in Vietnam, Grenada and in Panama, where four Seals were killed as they tried to prevent leader Manuel Noriega escaping by destroying his jet and boat.

The episode was also renowned for an incident a few days later, in which loud rock music was played all day and night to force him out of his refuge in Panama City.

In more recent years, the Seals have been heavily involved in missions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But their role in the death of Osama Bin Laden writes another chapter in their history.

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