Bob Schieffer said “Obama Bin Laden,” which, let’s face it, every media outlet ever has done. Except most of us don’t do it in front of the president. (He didn’t make a big deal about it.)
The suspect, 21-year-old Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, is a Bangladeshi national who came to the U.S. on a student visa in January for the specific purpose of launching a terror attack here, authorities said. He allegedly told an undercover agent last month that he hoped the attack would disrupt the presidential election, saying “You know what, this election might even stop,” according to the criminal complaint against him.
Authorities say Nafis bought what he thought were explosives from who he thought was “an al-Qaida facilitator.” It was actually an FBI agent, and Nafis was arrested by the bureau after parking a truck full of the “explosives” next to the New York City Federal Reserve building and attempting to detonate it with a cell phone. A statement praising “our beloved Sheikh Osama bin Laden” and claiming responsibility for attack was found on a thumb drive on his body. source
“No Easy Day” author speaks: Wearing a disguise and having his voice modified to hide his identity, Mark Owen, the Navy SEAL who has been outed by some media outlets, will make an appearance on “60 Minutes” tonight, in which he discusses taking photos of Osama bin Laden after his death. “I figured these were probably some of the most important photos I’d ever take in my life,” he said. Should we take his claims with a grain of salt? The Pentagon says that Owen’s account of the incident is inaccurate.
I think as far as the case of Mr. Afridi is concerned, it was in accordance with Pakistani laws and by the Pakistani courts, and we need to respect each other’s legal processes.Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Moazzam Ali Khan • Discussing the sentence the country gave to Dr. Shakil Afridi for ”conspiring ‘to wage war against Pakistan or depriving it of its sovereignty,’ ‘concealing existence of a plan to wage war against Pakistan’ and ‘condemnation of the creation of the state and advocacy of abolition of its sovereignty’,” according to Pakistani newspaper Dawn. Afridi’s work running a vaccination program that doubled as a DNA-tracing program helped the U.S. find Osama bin Laden, making the decision to imprison Afridi one that has built tension between the two countries. Will the U.S. respect Pakistan’s decision?
» And no, the U.S. isn’t happy: Previously, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she hoped to see Shakil Afridi freed, as his work helped capture a pretty bad dude. Instead, Afridi is heading to jail, a move which will likely strain relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, who are currently locked in a diplomatic battle over Afghan War supply routes. (EDIT: We apologize for the inital error in the title. Total accident. Sorry guys.)
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So, what was al-Qaeda’s network like? After a year, we finally have insight at a level we never did before, from the Abbottabad compound where the al-Qaeda leader was killed almost exactly one year ago. The documents show the group’s struggle to keep a consistent message, with debates on how to market itself to appeal more to Muslims and how to best target the U.S. The New York Times has a pretty solid summary, but if you’re looking to dig in, our pal Matt has put everything in a Scribd document perfect for digging.
Front pages: 5/2/03 vs. 5/2/11
HT @nytjim
It’s almost funny, how sad it all is.
In other words: Bush declared a major victory, while Obama scored one.
Based on this above article, you might expect the threat from al-Qaeda is basically gone, right? Well, perhaps you should read these other articles first. As we pointed out in our analysis on Sunday, media outlets left and right are saying al-Qaeda’s threat is basically gone a year after Osama bin Laden’s death. Or it isn’t.
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To close out, Obama again pulls out the Bin Laden hook he used at the beginning:
One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden. On it are each of their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates – a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary; and Hillary Clinton, a woman who ran against me for president.
All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves. One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn’t deserve credit for the mission. It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job – the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs. More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other – because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s someone behind you, watching your back.
Think this was totally the right way to intro — and end — his speech.
Did China get a good look at the downed Bin Laden stealth copter?: The Pentagon thinks Pakistan let the uber-powerful communist nation take a look at this stealth Blackhawk copter, which crashed just before a bunch of Seal Team 6 members killed Osama bin Laden. source
We’ve heard this before, but The Washington Post has an attention-grabbing headline this morning: “U.S. officials believe al-Qaeda on brink of collapse.” More specifically, The Post cites closed-door meetings between counter terrorism officials and says that “a widespread view at the CIA and other agencies [is] that a relatively small number of additional blows could effectively extinguish the Pakistan-based organization.” Osama bin Laden’s death at the hands of the Navy SEAL team was referred to as “the turning point.”
Beyond bin Laden, “we have eliminated a number of generations of leaders,” said a senior U.S. counterterrorism official. “They have not had a successful operation in a long time. You at some point have to ask yourself, ‘What else do we have to do?’”
Fascinating.
(Source: theatlantic)
airzona asks: Thoughts on the New York Observer article that almost outs the CIA operative that hunted Bin Laden down?
» SFB says: The NY Observer wasn’t in the wrong for printing it, though you need to approach these types of things with kid gloves (do you think they did?); the CIA was in the wrong for not being careful enough to make sure his identity was hidden. — Ernie @ SFB
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