So, when looking up stories on the upcoming one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death, we noticed a bizarre trend: None of the stories seemed to agree with one another. Some seemed to suggest al-Qaeda was basically gone. Others suggested that they were still planning major terror attacks. Seeing this, we got an idea: What if we scored the stories based on the done-ness of al-Qaeda, from 1 to 10? Because one wire service’s “in ruins” is another national newspaper’s “far from defeated.” Check the results above, and take one major point from this: Not every story has an agreed-upon answer.
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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 expect to learn more how bin Laden communicated, who he communicated with and how often he did it, what guidance did he pass on, what questions were passed on, how he operated, how he ran al Qaeda and what did other people expect from bin Laden.A U.S. intelligence official • Discussing what they’ve learned from the death of Osama bin Laden. Rather than devolving into a mere symbol of al-Qaeda, the official suggested that the U.S. gained ”real intelligence” from the raid, though much of that intelligence shows that planned attacks were merely “aspirational” in nature. Still, knowing the inner-workings of an organization known for its coordinated attacks is a huge deal. Other notable news from the raid: The group of Navy SEALS were prepped for a possible fight with Pakistani military and police — which is why the group was fairly large. source (via • follow)
The nays have it: Though some might find reason for disagreeing with Obama on whether or not to release death photos of the al-Qaeda leader, a NBC News poll puts that number strongly in Obama’s favor, though some of the people polled weren’t super-passionate about the issue. When we posed this question to our readers last week, we got a lot of passionate response on both sides. Which suggests that people passionate about this are really passionate. source
Barack Obama explains the Bin Laden thang to “60 Minutes”: Know how sure Obama was that Osama bin Laden was in that Pakistani compound? 55 percent. But he went for it anyway. Like a boss. source
However, the heavily-armed, electronically wired SEALs didn’t come with a tape measure to get an accurate height reading. According to reports, a Navy SEAL of about 6-feet laid out next to bin Laden’s corpse to gauge the Al Qaeda leader’s height. The corpse was several inches taller.An article on CBS’ Dan Farber • Noting the fairly awkward way that they measured Osama bin Laden’s height after the raid that led to his death. Could you imagine? These big hulking men just killed Bin Laden, only to have to force one of them to lay the ground next to him to do rough measurements? That’s weird. source (via • follow)
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They were growing pot on his compound: A recent report by our boy Nic Robertson of CNN notes that the slain al-Qaeda leader may have had an interesting crop on his property. Next to the cabbage and potatoes were potent marijuana leaves, which is interesting for a number of reasons. Osama had longstanding kidney problems, which might partly explain it, but if he was smoking recreationally, that adds a new wrinkle to this story. LOOK AT US, SPECULATING! source
Soon — with help from Allah — their happiness will turn into sorrow, and their blood will be mixed with their tears.A message reportedly from al-Qaeda • Revealing that Osama bin Laden is dead (on their end), and that retaliation was likely in the cards. The statement was posted on notable jihadist forums this morning, and SITE Intelligence Group translated it. “We will not deviate from that or change until Allah judges between us and between our enemy with truth,” the note continues. “Indeed, He is the best of all judges. Nothing will harm us after that, until we see either victory and success and conquest and empowerment, or we die trying.” So, to those doubting Bin Laden’s death: So there’s this. source (via • follow)
Where were you when you found out Osama bin Laden died? If you were anything like us, you were sitting in a bar in Virginia Beach, having your birthday weekend abruptly ended by a historic news story, reblogging and retweeting stuff on your phone and taking grainy photos of the bar’s TV screen when something notable happened. (We have the photos to prove it.) Maybe you might’ve been watching “The King’s Speech” on pay-per-view and had to pause it in the middle. Or perhaps you were getting off a plane when your phone started buzzing with all sorts of crazy crap. Or about to get on one — to Afghanistan — when you suddenly had to jump off and cover a major story at home. Or maybe you were sitting in bed, reading a book about Bob Dylan. Or maybe you were actively ignoring the news, only to have your daughter call you to point out that all hell was breaking loose. All of these scenarios happened to journalists. All of them stopped what they were doing and got directly to work. source
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