Tag: aden (last 300)
Conspiracy theories at Jaipur fest
(WSJ) Dhume: At Jaipur, Javed Akhtar said he thought OBL was dead while Ayan Hirsi Ali came unannounced for security reasons. (via @harikunzru)
Tweet this
Facebook this
Reddit thisTar Baby Kabul
(Rollingstone) OBL’s son: ‘Even Bush’s own mother says he is the biggest idiot boy of his family... As soon as America went to Afghanistan, [Osama’s] plan worked. He has already won.’
Flying while Spanish
(USA Today) Spanish lawmaker’s hair and features used in age-progressed photo of OBL. This makes flying awkward.
‘Beauty is in the eye of the beheader’
(Telegraph) Paul Chowdhry quoted in story on ‘Jihad the Musical,’ which prides itself on appearing above bin Laden videos on YouTube.
East of Aden
(Wiki) British seized Aden, Yemen to protect Bombay shipping and ruled it as part of British India, using anna as the currency.
MoDo asks the obvious
(NYT) MoDo: What if victory over AQ lies in Pakistan? Are we going to go get them or not? Bin Laden’s escape is a humiliating symbol of our failure.
Hillary: Pakistan military shelters bin Laden
(NYT) HRC accuses Pakistan of sheltering bin Laden: ‘I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where [AQ leaders] are and couldn’t get to them if they really wanted to.’
FINALLY focusing on bin Laden
(NYT) Obama: AQ is now in Pakistan, let’s focus there. Taliban don’t directly threaten U.S. right now, and they’re locals and hard to tackle.
Bin Laden, Dubya used terrorism threat to tip ’04 election
(NYT) Both bin Laden and Dubya tried to tip the ’04 U.S. election via the threat of terrorism, bin Laden by releasing a videotape 4 days prior and Dubya by leaning on Ridge to up the terror alert.
Pakistan an OBL safe haven
(LRB) Osama bin Laden chooses to be in Pakistan precisely because Pakistan can restrict US operations.
Tales from the bin Laden hunt
(Style ‘08) ISI tipped Haqqani to CIA attack... Tribal safe houses are so nasty (e.g. slaughterhouse with rats), CIA takes any volunteer... CIA agreed to ISI shadowing them at all times [!]
ISI saved bin Laden from Clinton missiles
(Historycommons) ‘98: ISI dir Hamid Gul allegedly tipped bin Laden to Clinton’s cruise missile strike hours in advance, well before the U.S.’ 10 minute airspace warning to Pakistan. [Later, ISI wired $100K to Atta.]
He’s only lookin’ out for them
(WaPo) Bin Laden tape: Zardari “betrayed the nation" to “implement an American, Jewish and Indian conspiracy" against Pakistan.
Standing orders to invade if bin Laden found
(WaPo) U.S. commandos would conduct ground ops in Pakistan if they ID’d OBL, Zawahiri or Omar... Pakistan abandoned UAV info sharing because they don’t want U.S. overflight outside tribal areas.
Like Afghanistan, Mexico in grips of drug war
(NYT) Mexican cops corrupted by narcos: ‘Imagine Bush sending a military infiltrated with Taliban to Afghanistan.’ [He did, sent them to catch bin Laden!]
Let the tribes catch bin Laden
(WaPo) Kilcullen at State Dep’t: Pakistan’s army is bigger than the U.S. army, and al-Qaeda HQ sits in the 2/3rds the gov’t doesn’t control. The ISI is a rogue state within a state... Ideally the tribes would try bin Laden for treason, not America.
Toff wars
(Nybooks) ‘The bin Ladens’ by Steve Coll: [Dhirubai Ambani went to Yemen to make $.] Mohamed bin Laden left Yemen for Saudia Arabia, becoming a wealthy man catering to the royals’ whims. The family split along Western vs. fundie lines. Thus, Osama.
UCLA thinks it knows where bin Laden is
(Newsroom) A UCLA survey of satellite photos, using crime-based data mining, says 1 of 3 bldgs in Parachinar, in Pakistan’s Kurram tribal region, may be bin Laden’s current location. He could move to Peshawar if it falls to the Taliban. PDF: [via]
Bin Laden’s mountain fortress
(Somethingawful ‘01) Newspaper illustration of the stylish crib built by the scion of a Saudi construction megacorp.
Bin Laden son operating in Pakistan
(NYT) A son of Osama bin Laden who spent years under Iranian house arrest has left Iran and is now probably working for AQ inside Pakistan.
Nightmare scenario in Pakistan
(NYT) Expat Pakistanis with jihadi sympathies are burrowing into its nuke program. A fundie nuclear chief also met with bin Laden... U.S. helped Pakistan design domestic nuke locks via 20 Questions... Pak mil warned madrassas of raids in advance.
Dubya lacked even basic understanding of Pakistan
(VF) CIA: Dubya didn’t get that the Pakistani Border Force was a Taliban ally and would let OBL go... Mahbubani: China played Dubya on Iraq. Clarke: It was disgusting, Rumsfeld was talking Iraq while bodies were still burning in the Pentagon and WTC.
Macaca state
Commando recalls bin Laden hunt
(CBS) A Delta Force commando said Afghan ‘allies’ pulled weapons on his team when they had bin Laden cornered and let OBL escape into Pakistan. A plan to mine OBL’s escape route was rejected by U.S. superiors. At 9:25, video of OBL’s hideout.
McCain was for bin Laden hot pursuit
(Defensenews ‘07) Last year, McCain said he’d take out bin Laden with or without Pakistan’s permission: -So if you were president and you knew that bin Laden were over there, you could nail him, you’d go get him? -Sure. Sure. We have to. [via]
Obama smears spread
(NYT) A hate group distributed fliers in Roxbury, a mostly white town in northern New Jersey, portraying Obama as Osama bin Laden with language derisive of black people.
Dubya’s October surprise
(Harpers) Why raids now in Pakistan: Dubya wants to capture bin Laden before Election Day. And a democracy is not given the same deference as a military dictator who has a personal rapport with him. As always, he focuses on short-term partisan advantage.
7 years after 9/11, where’s bin Laden?
(AFP) On the eve of the 7th anniversary of 9/11, White House spokeswoman: ‘You know, this is not the movies. We don’t have super powers.’ [But you do have a Pakistan policy that shelters bin Laden and a defocusing Iraq war.]
Jindal was on McCain shortlist
(WaPo) The final 6 on McCain’s VP shortlist were Palin, Bobby Jindal, Lieberman, Ridge, Pawlenty and Romney. One of the questions McCain asked: was the VP willing to order bin Laden killed in Pakistan if civilian casualties would result.
Follow bin Laden to Pakistan, not ‘hell’
(Cato At Liberty) Exalting terrorism, as John McCain does with his ‘gates of hell’ talk, is wrong. We must deflate the image of Osama bin Laden and making his movement less attractive. [via]
Outsourcing bin Laden hunt is deeply unserious
(NYT) There is a growing recognition that Bush did not take the Qaeda threat in Pakistan seriously and relied on Musharraf to dismantle militants.
A case of exploding snit-fits
(Middlestage) General Zia teeters out into his kingdom on a bicycle and is humiliated by a constable. Hanif’s novel raises the possibility that the bin Laden’s rage first erupted when he was not invited into a group photograph.
Hamdan defense raises Charlie Wilson’s war
(Yahoo) Bin Laden’s driver is being prosecuted for transporting missiles ‘for use against civvies.’ The defense argues they were for use against U.S. planes. Otherwise, the U.S. committed a war crime by giving Stingers to the mujahedeen.
McCain: no hot pursuit of bin Laden
(Vid) On ‘Larry King,’ McCain said he wouldn’t pursue Osama bin Laden into Pakistan because it’s a sovereign nation, despite earlier having pledged to pursue him ‘to the gates of hell.’ [via]
‘New Yorker’ satire of Obama as terr’ist
(Politico) Latest ‘New Yorker’ cover has Michelle Obama in an afro and AK-47 doing fist bump with Barack in a turban while bin Laden portrait looks on. [via]
NOW he gets serious
(ToL) Delta Force and British commandos are regularly operating in tribal Pakistan for the first time in Dubya’s final push to get bin Laden before his term ends.
Zakaria: Killing Benazir screwed jihadis
(Newsweek) Excluding Iraq, terrorism is down over 40% since ’01, partly because indiscriminate attacks have angered host populations. In Pakistan, support for bin Laden went from 70% to 4% in 5 months after Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. [via]
‘The Bin Ladens’
(NYT) The bin Laden group was the largest owner of Caterpillar earthmovers in the world. Osama fortified Afghanistan caves with them. 9/11 made him an Arab hero and drove up the price of oil, igniting a construction boom. 9/11 turned a profit. [via]
‘Where in the World’s’ serious side
(Economist) A Talib is killed during a camera blackout. Later you see his corpse being dragged off by the same soldiers who had been joking about bin Laden being on the other side of the border.
‘Where in the World’ is slight, trite
(NYT) It’s impossible to disagree with much of ‘Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden,’ but it’s also impossible to learn anything about war, terrorism, religion, oil, democracy or any of the other topics.
Dubya letting bin Baden get away
(NYT) GAO audit: ‘Since 2002, the U.S. embassy in Islamabad has had no Washington-supported, comprehensive plan to combat terrorists and close the terrorist safe haven in the FATA.’
‘Ghost Wars’ author on ‘Daily Show’
(Daily Show) Jon Stewart interviews Steve Coll, author of ‘Ghost Wars’ on the CIA in Afghanistan, and his new book ‘The Bin Ladens.’ ‘I think he’s in Pakistan.’ Both Osama’s brother and father died in aircraft crashes.
Jihadi farmer
(NYT) ‘Ghost Wars’ author’s new book ‘The Bin Ladens’: In Sudan, Osama bin Laden bought a farm, raised horses and sunflowers and trained jihadis.
NYT held Pakistan story until after ’04 election
(HuffPo·L) NYT reporter who revealed bin Laden was in Pakistan: ‘I wanted to do it after the [‘04 presidential] election. I didn’t want to get caught up in the politics of it.’
Musharraf hits his floor
(WaPo) Musharraf’s approval is 15%, and the opposition could get the 2/3rds necessary to impeach. But the U.S. keeps backing him... Bin Laden approval at 24% (halved) and Taliban at 19%.