Osama bin Laden, the accepted leader of Al Qaeda and the various other groups undertaking terrorist activities was executed on May 2nd 2011 by USA Seal Marines in a mission planned and ordered by the USA President Obama, days before commencement of the official campaigns for the next USA Presidential elections to be held in next year. The act is likely to have secured the President a second term but will it make the world a safer place and reduce or increase the threat of more acts of terrorism in the USA, here in the UK or elsewhere in the world?
Leaving aside the issue of why he was executed and not taken into custody and brought to trial according to USA and International Law one has to ask why it has taken so long to locate a man where the first USA indictment and arrest warrant was issued over two decades ago. The answer lies in the life of the man, the size of his extended family, its wealth and influence and extent to which close relatives including children support his belief and activities. There is also the depth of support for his beliefs and methods, particularly in Pakistan and elsewhere. Finally there is he value of the information found at the compound.
It is naive to believe that his death will reduce to threat of terrorist acts in the USA, the UK and across the world. The short, medium and longer term preventive work will need to continue without let up, and with added vigilance by everyone over the next year as the separate cells gear up to commit acts which will be described as revenge. It has to be accepted that the minority who use violence are financed, sometimes sheltered from justice and generally supported by hundreds of thousands of Muslims who believe that all aspects of their daily lives and of everyone in the nations where they live should be governed by the laws of their God and not by those of men.
The Bin Laden family has a known background in the Yemen prior to emigration to Saudi Arabia before World War One. It is understood that the individual set up a construction company and as a consequence of links with the Saudi Royal family, Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was granted exclusive rights to construct and make alterations to all Mosques in the Kingdom including renovations at Mecca and to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. His sons attended the same educational establishment in Egypt as King Hussein of Jordan, the Kashoggi brothers, Kamal Adham who headed Intelligence for King Faisal, the actor Omar Sharif and many others of note and influence.
There is some question about the number of official children fathered by Mohammed with his twenty two legal wives with some reporting 54 and others 58. It is my understanding that all the children receive income from family businesses which extended into oil and equity management and said to own part of Microsoft and Boeing, grossing an estimated $5 billion dollars each year. Until steps were taken to stop family funds to Osama bin Laden it is said to have received upwards of $300 million to fund his terrorist, political, religious, educational and propaganda activities. The family business has offices in London and Geneva in addition to those in Arab countries and is said to have a total of 600 members in Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Lebanon and in Egypt, where the family are said to employ 40000 people and are the largest investors in that country. Some of the children of Osama are said to be in Iran. Osama had one uncle who was married 4 times with 24 children and they come within the umbrella of the bin laden family empire
Osama bin Laden is the only child of a short marriage to the tenth wife who was divorced shortly after his birth, and then remarried and was brought up in Jeddah when his step father who already worked for the family company. He is said to have been born on March 10th 1957. There is no official biography as such but it is said that he was taught by members of the Muslim brotherhood which he joined attending after school political teachings. There is debate over his educational attainment. He is reported to have studied economics and business and public administration and to have gained a degree in civil engineering. There are reports that at University his main interest was his religion and interpreting the Quran and the Jihad. The catalyst for his extremism was the Iranian revolution and establishment of an Islamic state and this was followed by the way he felt the Saudi Royal family had responded to the attack on the Grand Mosque at Mecca. It was the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan which appears to have made the difference in turning him from an advocate into an actionist.
One aspect that has not been emphasised enough is that Osama was an intellectual who enjoyed the company of intelligent women, some he married, but was also something of a puritan and lived austerely, whatever his immediate surroundings and personal wealth. He also engaged in marriages of convenience. He had exceptional influence as a father on his children, some who with his half brothers and sisters husband, are known to have become active terrorists, probably killing more people directly than himself. This aspect tends to be overlooked in the media who have concentrated on his role and personal influence.
What is known is that one of Osama’s half brothers was originally implicated in the attack on Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979 because trucks owned by family were said to have been used to smuggle arms and because of his association with a/the son of the Sultan of Yemen who had been radicalised by Syrian members of the Muslim brotherhood. This puts in perspective his criticism of the Saudi Royal Family for their response
His half sister, three years younger, married Mohammed Jamal Khalifa who had a history of alleged involvement in terrorist activities and Al Qaeda,, including the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre and the bombing of Cinema Theatres in Amman. Jordan sentenced him to death in his absentia then over turned. When Osama was in the Sudan with the help of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa and family money he established a new Mujahideen base near Khartoum. After 2001 Mohammed condemned Osama. His apparent rehabilitation and subsequent assassination in Madagascar in 2007 merits more attention.
Osama is known to have married at least five times and to have fathered a number of children. He was first married at the age of 17 years to his first cousin, Najwa Ghanem from Syria the mother of eleven of his children. She is said to have not lived with him since 2001, leaving before the 9/11 attacks.
Their children are Abdallah born 1976 who runs an adverting firm in Saudi Arabia and is known to have regular contact with the present head of the family’s international businesses and who is Bin Laden’s half brother;
Abdul Rahman born 1978 is reported to manage the family business operations in Egypt and is a super bike champion;
Saad is known to have been a guerilla with his father in Afghanistan at the age of 16, and is considered responsible for bombing a synagogue in Tunisia which killed 19 people in 2002 and to be implicated in suicide bombing in Riyadh 2003 and the Morocco bombing four days later He is known to have been in Iran and Pakistan where the USA thought he had been killed by an unmanned aerial strike in 2009, but claims that he survived and lives in Pakistan remain;
Omar born 1981 trained Al Qaeda camps from 14 years and lived with its second in command. Just before the 9/11 attacks he is said to have advised his father he was opposed to the use of violence against non combatants and went to live in Saudi Arabia as a contractor and scrap metal dealer. However in 2007 he married a Cheshire woman previously five times married from the age of 16 and who knew his father from the 1970’s when he was on a visit to England. They have since applied for residency in Saudi Arabia, England, New Zealand and been deported from Egypt. He is the stated author of a book with his mother about his childhood and the is the subject of a documentary of a BBC documentary yet to be shown;
Osman born 1983 (?); I have seen a report of one son living in the USA. It is known that at the time of 9/11 there were a dozen members of the bin Laden family in the USA who were allowed to leave a week later although one who was married and working in Boston stayed for a month before leaving,
Mohammed born 1985 married the daughter of the late al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef in January 2001, at Kandahar, Afghanistan, with footage broadcast by Al-Jazeera, where three of Osama's step-siblings and Osama's mother were in attendance.
Fatima born 1987 reported in 2009/2010 to be living with other siblings (Iman born 1990; Bakr 1993; Rukhaiya, 1997 and Nour 1999 in a compound in Tehran Iran with a query as whether they are being held there or live freely.
One wife, Umm Ali, lecturer and is said to have requested a divorce because she could not cope with the austere life he led; Umm Hanza was a professor of child psychology, seven year his senior, said to have been his favoured wife. She is from a wealthy and distinguished family and Umm Khaled was a teacher of Arabic grammar. Both women continued their occupations commuting between the Sudan and Saudi Arabia.
I have different names for the three women who between them are reported to have born 8 children born 1986 1988 1989,1989 1990, 1990 1992 and 1992. Of these Hamza 1989 was a senior member of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and among his activities is said to have been attacks on Pakistan security forces. It is not clear if he was killed during the May 1st attack or is his half brother Khalid also born 1989.
His fifth and known latest wife married 2000/2001 was a 15 year old Yemeni girl and is said to have been a political arrangement with an important Yemeni tribe. She is known to have had at least one child by Osama born 2001
There were a number of women and children in the compound raided on May 1st, where the status and relationship to Osama is not yet established and who are said to be in the hands of the Pakistan Government.
It was in 1979 that the married at 17 Osama left college to join a former teacher at the University in Jeddah who had moved to Pakistan to organise armed resistance against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
By 1984 the two had established an organisation which funnelled money and Muslim fighters from throughout the Arab world into Pakistan and then by road into Afghanistan and which appears to have continued after 9/11 and may well remain the basic network today. The organisation involved sympathetic contacts in Pakistan facilitating their operations without which it is questionable they would have been able to have effective. However at that time it was in the interests of the USA and its allies for the Soviet invasion to be thwarted.
I accept that it was not likely that Osama’s operations were directly supported or funded by the CIA. However what is certain is that the fighters he arranged and paid for would have used arms provided by the USA government and been assisted by the “advisers,” from special operations who were part of Operation Cyclone, the covert USA Government operation which used secret funds estimated at over $300 million arranged by US Congressman Charlie Wilson with the special help of CIA man Gus Avrakatos who persuade the US government. This is reported to have been the biggest USA covert operation in another country, even greater than for example initially in Vietnam, in Chile, and in Australia (which I will cover in my next writing)
The scale of Osama involvement and responsibility for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, together with his support for the Taliban should also not been underestimated for having returned home in 1990 he offered the Saudi Royal family 100000 trained men to force Saddam Hussein to remove his troops from Kuwait and the threat to the Kingdom and thus avoid involving the USA and other non Muslim countries.
The main reason given to Osama for rejecting the offer was that the Saudi’s believed Sadam possessed chemical and biological weapons which the would use and that the battlefield terrain was very different from that in Afghanistan. However their main concern would have been the fundamental difference of viewpoint over the kind of society which would emerge in Iraq and in Saudi Arabia as a consequence.
Osama was a literal or fundamentalist Muslin rather like literal or fundamentalist Jews, Christians and other religious group who put into practice their faith in all aspects of their day to living and who believe that only when their nation and world share the same beliefs and faith that the will can the Will of their God as stated in their Holy books becomes a reality. I have no idea how many people hold such views but collectively there will be millions trying to put in to practice, and the USA was in part created by those who wanted to live with others of similar beliefs in freedom without fear of persecution because of their way of life. The difference between the majority of fundamentalists is that of living and let living as long as no one attempts to adversely intervene.
Having said that the Taliban controlled Afghanistan was only true Muslim country, the question is why he did not stay there and organise his Al Qaeda from there? The answer, I suspect is that he and particular his wives were not natural cave dwellers or nomads. He genuinely believed he had a mission to convert through popular uprising all Muslim countries to his particular brand of beliefs. He was bitterly opposed to the Saudi approach of rendering unto to Caesar what is Caesars’s and to God what is God‘s, especially as the Saudi‘s are guardians of Mecca.
As a result of falling out with the Saudi Royal he moved his organisation to the Sudan in 1992 after purchasing property in 1990 and being invited by the leader of the National Islamic front in 1989. From 1992 it is known that Osama commenced to fund an organise recruits from the Arab world into Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of the Bosnian Mujahideen. At one point he was allocated Bosnian citizenship and a passport. He also developed an organisation in Albania which he visited to recruit and arm fighters for Kosovo. He was involved with a rebel group in Macedonia with the aim of gaining control of the US oil pipeline. He was responsible for the 1992 bombing the hotel used by American in the Yemen.
While he advocated uprisings in all Muslim countries to establish the kind of state he wanted, he was particularly venomous against the rulers of Saudi Arabia with a wide range of grievances and against the United States for their involvement in any way with Muslim countries. He was strongly anti Semitic and wanted the ending of the state of Israel by any means.
He also seems to have had few qualms if any about the murder of men, women and children of all ages who are citizens of countries who took action he disagreed with and while he regretted the unintended death of devout Muslims as a consequence of his Jihad activities these had to be regarded as sacrifices for the greater good.
The USA and the UK need to be humble about taking the high moral ground in this respect, remembering that it was an American President that justified the dropping of Atomic bombs in Japan and Churchill who ordered that the civilian population of Coventry should not be evacuated or given special warnings when advance information was obtained on the raid on Coventry. War is war and all Governments have to take decisions for the greater good and have to deal with those who commit atrocities even when they do now authorise or support such behaviour themselves,
The Saudi Royal family were not able to cut off the family funds estimated at $7 million a year until 1994. Because of his involvement with anti government terrorists in Egypt and the failed attempt to assassinate President Mubarak the Egyptian government along with the Saudi’s and USA exerted pressure and he was eventually expelled from the Sudan and went back to Afghanistan where he quickly made friends with the Taliban leadership, particularly Mullah Mohammed Omar. He was able to raise money from Pakistan to train fighters against India in Kashmir and which obviously strengthened his ties in that country and where clearly various officials feel beholden and loyal to him.
He was responsible for the Luxor massacre in Egypt in 1997. He then arranged the bombings at USA embassies in 1998 which led to his original Federal Grand Jury Indictment and offering of a $5 million reward. In 2000 there was the bombing of the USS Cole.
9/11 followed and herein lies the problem of why he was assassinated rather than taken into custody with a view to trial in that there has been no evidence, other than his own video admission that he directly authorised, organised or funded the attack which killed just under 3000 people including the largest group of UK citizens ever killed by terrorists in modern times. While he has been indicted since by two USA Grand juries, these were not for 9/11. He accepted responsibility in video statements but also emphasised there was no evidence to prove his direct involvement. This understandably posed difficulties bringing him to trial in the USA.
It has also to be appreciated that similar to the situation in northern Ireland in addition to the military command separate structures were created for managing money and propaganda as well covering issues of Islamic study and Law and proving the involvement of individuals in specific activities through the normal processes of law especially one or more in other countries are involved is complex and time consuming.
I now turn to the failure of the USA intelligence and their supposed allies in Pakistan to find and capture Osama over the past decade. The present evidence is that he did remain in Afghanistan after 9/11 although whether as the commander in chief he lived in caves remains open. There were those who said that he had been mortally wounded in the attacks on the Torah Bora mountain cave area on the borders with Pakistan, or had died of natural causes because of known liver problems or had escaped into Pakistan. One suspects these were reports spread by Al Qaeda and his supporters within the Pakistan Government, Military and Security services to mislead pursuers while they prepared to move him from the border country to the compound in the least likely of locations where the USA would be expected to look. The place had to be built and made secure. The local support structure would need to be put in place and strengthened, the papers for Osama, his wife (wives) and children authenticated and the links with the branches of his organisation using couriers, and audio and video tapes developed, The absence of Satellite and telephonic communication meant he would needs to receive information as well as give it. The idea that he did not regard himself as leader and did not continue to direct strategy and advise or direct specific operation is questionable, as I hope the information found in the compound will confirm.
There is general agreement that the failure to identify and capture the man by the Pakistan government reveals the extent to which that country is divided and that elements in government and the military have conspired and potentially continue to conspire in support of international terrorism and those who organise and undertake such activities. The President, the Prime and other chief Ministers in Pakistan may have been ignorant of the man’s precise location but this reflects their inadequacy and impotence. Governments throughout the rest of the world should place the Pakistan government on Probation, should expect to see action taken again anyone no matter their position who helped Osama to continue his activities and to expect their unqualified support for action against the continuation of the use of force by the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
There is already evidence in the public domain. U.S. government files leaked by Wikileaks disclosed that American diplomats were told that Pakistani security services were tipping off bin Laden every time U.S. forces approached.
As early as to 2005 a Taliban leader was adamant that Osama was alive and in the same year the Pakistan counter terrorism chef said he was in Afghanistan. An ABC report in the USA in 2006 was withdrawn because its author could not prove his statement that Osma had been seen in an area of Pakistan on the borders with Afghanistan and where tribe’s men conducted several campaigns against Taliban/al Qaeda supporters.
In 2007 another Taliban leader stated he had received a letter of support and condolences from Osama adding that his leader had said he was avoiding being seen or meeting anyone because of the danger to him and the organisation. There was also the suggestion of a former counter terrorism officer that he thought current images of the Osama looked false, speculating that this meant he had shaved off his beard in order to blend in wherever he was hiding. Leon Panetta CIA Director said in June 2007 that Osama was being protected within the tribal areas of the North West Pakistan. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) are alleged to have helped smuggle al-Qaeda militants into Afghanistan to fight NATO . In 2007 USA officials discovered the name of an Al Qaeda courier but his home in Abbotabad only later.
In 2008 there was the now classic statement from Interior Minister Rehman Malik that if Osama was in Pakistan, “we would know!” He added that the drone strikes by the USA were a waste of time. He was either incompetent or a liar and one presumes action will be taken against him, if not already. A CIA chief thought he was probably hiding in the tribal areas of North West Pakistan, putting a lot of energy into his own security and isolated from day to day operations of the organisation he was supposed to head. Pakistan’s President said that they could find no trace of his whereabouts which probably meant he was dead.
In 2009 the USA established the home of the courier was in the Military city of Abbotabad. In September 2009 the conclusion was reached by the CIA that the property built in 2005 was the most likely location of Osama although because he appears to have made no day time movement within the grounds or outside and there was no telephone or Internet there was no direct means of confirming this. According to the leaked Wiki files, in December 2009, the government of Tajikistan had told U.S. officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden's whereabouts Wikileaks also revealed that a US diplomatic dispatch told the Americans that "many" inside Pakistan knew where bin Laden was. The document stated that "In Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden wasn't an invisible man, and many knew his whereabouts in North Waziristan, but whenever security forces attempted a raid on his hideouts, the enemy received warning of their approach from sources in the security forces."[
In October 2010 senior Nato official told CNN that Osama was alive and living comfortably in a house in West Pakistan and protected by local people and that nobody in Al Qaeda is living in a cave.
Criticism of Pakistan’s position is being reported from around the world and especially within the USA, but also within Pakistan.
U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said "This is going to be a time of real pressure on Pakistan to basically prove to us that they didn’t know that bin Laden was there". John O. Brennan, Osama’s chief counterterrorism advisor, said that it was inconceivable that bin Laden did not have support from within Pakistan. He further stated "People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long." Senator Dianne Feinstein said that "it's hard for me to understand how the Pakistanis would not know what was going on inside the compound", and that top Pakistan officials may be "walking both sides of the street." Senator Lindsey Graham questioned, "How could [bin Laden] be in such a compound without being noticed?" raising suspicions that Pakistan was either uncommitted in the fight against Islamist militants or was actively sheltering them while pledging to fight them. A Pakistani intelligence official said that they had passed on raw phone tap data to U.S. that led to the operation, but had failed to analyze this data themselves.
Anonymous Pakistani officials were saying that he could not have hidden in Abbotabad without the knowledge of the military because the Pakistani equivalent of West Point was only a half mile from Osama Bin Laden's compound.
Indian Minister for Home Affairs P. Chidambaram said that bin laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India, and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He called on Pakistan to arrest them.
Pakistani-born British MP Khalid Mahmood stated that he was "flabbergasted and shocked" after he learned that bin Laden was living in a city with thousands of Pakistani troops, reviving questions about alleged links between al Qaeda and elements in Pakistan's security forces.
Gulf News reported that the compound where bin Laden was killed had previously been used as a safe house by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), but was no longer being used for this purpose. The Globe and Mail reported local police saying that the compound belonged to Hizbul Mujahideen, a militant group supported by ISI which is fighting Indian forces in Kashmir.
It should be evident that in these circumstances the USA President took the decision that the information could not be communicated to Pakistan at any level other than perhaps the President/Prime Minister in strictest of confidence on the understanding it went no further. If the mission had been carried out and Osama had not been found or no evidence of criminal activities being planned or directed by anyone at the compound and lives had been lost, it could have ended the Presidency and the political fortunes of his Political Party. We all know the problems of Tony Blair and his government arising from no weapons of mass destruction being found in Iraq
The political ramification of relations with Pakistan would have created problems for everyone. The propaganda coup for Al Qaeda and the other terrorist organisations and groups would have been significant. The President was deciding to invade another country, an ally and engage in armed combat.
The President had five special meetings in six weeks to review the plans for the action which he authorised at 8.20 am 29th April USA time. I have an open mind about the decision to execute without overpowering and taking into custody.
It is unfortunate that reports by USA Government and Administration officials of what happened during the mission changed several times immediately after the President had addressed his nation following the successful completion of the mission. A statement was made of a fierce fire fight when in fact one person within the compound fired individual gun shots at the advancing Special Forces. The claim that Osama had hidden behind a female human shield was also later withdrawn and that he had been armed. It was said he was given the opportunity to surrender and he resisted but given that that he was not armed are we seriously being asked to believe that the USA specialist team could not have overpowered him and taken him into custody?
Given the ongoing pressure on former Prime Minister Blair and his Ministers over the legality of the decision to invade with military force Iraq I would be surprised that after the dust has settled the issue of the legality of the execution will be raised although the basic situation in the USA and the UK is so different. If the polls show the political tide turning in favour of the President and the Democratic party, there will Republicans in the Party machine likely to raise the issue and similarly if the political tide does not turn there will be the ambitious within the Democrats seeing an opportunity to make an early bid for 2016. Such is the nature of democratic party politics.
Meanwhile for all those families of victims, those injured or were affected by the killings organised or inspired by his man if they have been helped in anyway by his death, I say amen. We shall remember them, and unfortunately we shall also remember him.
Leaving aside the issue of why he was executed and not taken into custody and brought to trial according to USA and International Law one has to ask why it has taken so long to locate a man where the first USA indictment and arrest warrant was issued over two decades ago. The answer lies in the life of the man, the size of his extended family, its wealth and influence and extent to which close relatives including children support his belief and activities. There is also the depth of support for his beliefs and methods, particularly in Pakistan and elsewhere. Finally there is he value of the information found at the compound.
It is naive to believe that his death will reduce to threat of terrorist acts in the USA, the UK and across the world. The short, medium and longer term preventive work will need to continue without let up, and with added vigilance by everyone over the next year as the separate cells gear up to commit acts which will be described as revenge. It has to be accepted that the minority who use violence are financed, sometimes sheltered from justice and generally supported by hundreds of thousands of Muslims who believe that all aspects of their daily lives and of everyone in the nations where they live should be governed by the laws of their God and not by those of men.
The Bin Laden family has a known background in the Yemen prior to emigration to Saudi Arabia before World War One. It is understood that the individual set up a construction company and as a consequence of links with the Saudi Royal family, Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was granted exclusive rights to construct and make alterations to all Mosques in the Kingdom including renovations at Mecca and to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. His sons attended the same educational establishment in Egypt as King Hussein of Jordan, the Kashoggi brothers, Kamal Adham who headed Intelligence for King Faisal, the actor Omar Sharif and many others of note and influence.
There is some question about the number of official children fathered by Mohammed with his twenty two legal wives with some reporting 54 and others 58. It is my understanding that all the children receive income from family businesses which extended into oil and equity management and said to own part of Microsoft and Boeing, grossing an estimated $5 billion dollars each year. Until steps were taken to stop family funds to Osama bin Laden it is said to have received upwards of $300 million to fund his terrorist, political, religious, educational and propaganda activities. The family business has offices in London and Geneva in addition to those in Arab countries and is said to have a total of 600 members in Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Lebanon and in Egypt, where the family are said to employ 40000 people and are the largest investors in that country. Some of the children of Osama are said to be in Iran. Osama had one uncle who was married 4 times with 24 children and they come within the umbrella of the bin laden family empire
Osama bin Laden is the only child of a short marriage to the tenth wife who was divorced shortly after his birth, and then remarried and was brought up in Jeddah when his step father who already worked for the family company. He is said to have been born on March 10th 1957. There is no official biography as such but it is said that he was taught by members of the Muslim brotherhood which he joined attending after school political teachings. There is debate over his educational attainment. He is reported to have studied economics and business and public administration and to have gained a degree in civil engineering. There are reports that at University his main interest was his religion and interpreting the Quran and the Jihad. The catalyst for his extremism was the Iranian revolution and establishment of an Islamic state and this was followed by the way he felt the Saudi Royal family had responded to the attack on the Grand Mosque at Mecca. It was the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan which appears to have made the difference in turning him from an advocate into an actionist.
One aspect that has not been emphasised enough is that Osama was an intellectual who enjoyed the company of intelligent women, some he married, but was also something of a puritan and lived austerely, whatever his immediate surroundings and personal wealth. He also engaged in marriages of convenience. He had exceptional influence as a father on his children, some who with his half brothers and sisters husband, are known to have become active terrorists, probably killing more people directly than himself. This aspect tends to be overlooked in the media who have concentrated on his role and personal influence.
What is known is that one of Osama’s half brothers was originally implicated in the attack on Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979 because trucks owned by family were said to have been used to smuggle arms and because of his association with a/the son of the Sultan of Yemen who had been radicalised by Syrian members of the Muslim brotherhood. This puts in perspective his criticism of the Saudi Royal Family for their response
His half sister, three years younger, married Mohammed Jamal Khalifa who had a history of alleged involvement in terrorist activities and Al Qaeda,, including the 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre and the bombing of Cinema Theatres in Amman. Jordan sentenced him to death in his absentia then over turned. When Osama was in the Sudan with the help of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa and family money he established a new Mujahideen base near Khartoum. After 2001 Mohammed condemned Osama. His apparent rehabilitation and subsequent assassination in Madagascar in 2007 merits more attention.
Osama is known to have married at least five times and to have fathered a number of children. He was first married at the age of 17 years to his first cousin, Najwa Ghanem from Syria the mother of eleven of his children. She is said to have not lived with him since 2001, leaving before the 9/11 attacks.
Their children are Abdallah born 1976 who runs an adverting firm in Saudi Arabia and is known to have regular contact with the present head of the family’s international businesses and who is Bin Laden’s half brother;
Abdul Rahman born 1978 is reported to manage the family business operations in Egypt and is a super bike champion;
Saad is known to have been a guerilla with his father in Afghanistan at the age of 16, and is considered responsible for bombing a synagogue in Tunisia which killed 19 people in 2002 and to be implicated in suicide bombing in Riyadh 2003 and the Morocco bombing four days later He is known to have been in Iran and Pakistan where the USA thought he had been killed by an unmanned aerial strike in 2009, but claims that he survived and lives in Pakistan remain;
Omar born 1981 trained Al Qaeda camps from 14 years and lived with its second in command. Just before the 9/11 attacks he is said to have advised his father he was opposed to the use of violence against non combatants and went to live in Saudi Arabia as a contractor and scrap metal dealer. However in 2007 he married a Cheshire woman previously five times married from the age of 16 and who knew his father from the 1970’s when he was on a visit to England. They have since applied for residency in Saudi Arabia, England, New Zealand and been deported from Egypt. He is the stated author of a book with his mother about his childhood and the is the subject of a documentary of a BBC documentary yet to be shown;
Osman born 1983 (?); I have seen a report of one son living in the USA. It is known that at the time of 9/11 there were a dozen members of the bin Laden family in the USA who were allowed to leave a week later although one who was married and working in Boston stayed for a month before leaving,
Mohammed born 1985 married the daughter of the late al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef in January 2001, at Kandahar, Afghanistan, with footage broadcast by Al-Jazeera, where three of Osama's step-siblings and Osama's mother were in attendance.
Fatima born 1987 reported in 2009/2010 to be living with other siblings (Iman born 1990; Bakr 1993; Rukhaiya, 1997 and Nour 1999 in a compound in Tehran Iran with a query as whether they are being held there or live freely.
One wife, Umm Ali, lecturer and is said to have requested a divorce because she could not cope with the austere life he led; Umm Hanza was a professor of child psychology, seven year his senior, said to have been his favoured wife. She is from a wealthy and distinguished family and Umm Khaled was a teacher of Arabic grammar. Both women continued their occupations commuting between the Sudan and Saudi Arabia.
I have different names for the three women who between them are reported to have born 8 children born 1986 1988 1989,1989 1990, 1990 1992 and 1992. Of these Hamza 1989 was a senior member of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and among his activities is said to have been attacks on Pakistan security forces. It is not clear if he was killed during the May 1st attack or is his half brother Khalid also born 1989.
His fifth and known latest wife married 2000/2001 was a 15 year old Yemeni girl and is said to have been a political arrangement with an important Yemeni tribe. She is known to have had at least one child by Osama born 2001
There were a number of women and children in the compound raided on May 1st, where the status and relationship to Osama is not yet established and who are said to be in the hands of the Pakistan Government.
It was in 1979 that the married at 17 Osama left college to join a former teacher at the University in Jeddah who had moved to Pakistan to organise armed resistance against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
By 1984 the two had established an organisation which funnelled money and Muslim fighters from throughout the Arab world into Pakistan and then by road into Afghanistan and which appears to have continued after 9/11 and may well remain the basic network today. The organisation involved sympathetic contacts in Pakistan facilitating their operations without which it is questionable they would have been able to have effective. However at that time it was in the interests of the USA and its allies for the Soviet invasion to be thwarted.
I accept that it was not likely that Osama’s operations were directly supported or funded by the CIA. However what is certain is that the fighters he arranged and paid for would have used arms provided by the USA government and been assisted by the “advisers,” from special operations who were part of Operation Cyclone, the covert USA Government operation which used secret funds estimated at over $300 million arranged by US Congressman Charlie Wilson with the special help of CIA man Gus Avrakatos who persuade the US government. This is reported to have been the biggest USA covert operation in another country, even greater than for example initially in Vietnam, in Chile, and in Australia (which I will cover in my next writing)
The scale of Osama involvement and responsibility for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, together with his support for the Taliban should also not been underestimated for having returned home in 1990 he offered the Saudi Royal family 100000 trained men to force Saddam Hussein to remove his troops from Kuwait and the threat to the Kingdom and thus avoid involving the USA and other non Muslim countries.
The main reason given to Osama for rejecting the offer was that the Saudi’s believed Sadam possessed chemical and biological weapons which the would use and that the battlefield terrain was very different from that in Afghanistan. However their main concern would have been the fundamental difference of viewpoint over the kind of society which would emerge in Iraq and in Saudi Arabia as a consequence.
Osama was a literal or fundamentalist Muslin rather like literal or fundamentalist Jews, Christians and other religious group who put into practice their faith in all aspects of their day to living and who believe that only when their nation and world share the same beliefs and faith that the will can the Will of their God as stated in their Holy books becomes a reality. I have no idea how many people hold such views but collectively there will be millions trying to put in to practice, and the USA was in part created by those who wanted to live with others of similar beliefs in freedom without fear of persecution because of their way of life. The difference between the majority of fundamentalists is that of living and let living as long as no one attempts to adversely intervene.
Having said that the Taliban controlled Afghanistan was only true Muslim country, the question is why he did not stay there and organise his Al Qaeda from there? The answer, I suspect is that he and particular his wives were not natural cave dwellers or nomads. He genuinely believed he had a mission to convert through popular uprising all Muslim countries to his particular brand of beliefs. He was bitterly opposed to the Saudi approach of rendering unto to Caesar what is Caesars’s and to God what is God‘s, especially as the Saudi‘s are guardians of Mecca.
As a result of falling out with the Saudi Royal he moved his organisation to the Sudan in 1992 after purchasing property in 1990 and being invited by the leader of the National Islamic front in 1989. From 1992 it is known that Osama commenced to fund an organise recruits from the Arab world into Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of the Bosnian Mujahideen. At one point he was allocated Bosnian citizenship and a passport. He also developed an organisation in Albania which he visited to recruit and arm fighters for Kosovo. He was involved with a rebel group in Macedonia with the aim of gaining control of the US oil pipeline. He was responsible for the 1992 bombing the hotel used by American in the Yemen.
While he advocated uprisings in all Muslim countries to establish the kind of state he wanted, he was particularly venomous against the rulers of Saudi Arabia with a wide range of grievances and against the United States for their involvement in any way with Muslim countries. He was strongly anti Semitic and wanted the ending of the state of Israel by any means.
He also seems to have had few qualms if any about the murder of men, women and children of all ages who are citizens of countries who took action he disagreed with and while he regretted the unintended death of devout Muslims as a consequence of his Jihad activities these had to be regarded as sacrifices for the greater good.
The USA and the UK need to be humble about taking the high moral ground in this respect, remembering that it was an American President that justified the dropping of Atomic bombs in Japan and Churchill who ordered that the civilian population of Coventry should not be evacuated or given special warnings when advance information was obtained on the raid on Coventry. War is war and all Governments have to take decisions for the greater good and have to deal with those who commit atrocities even when they do now authorise or support such behaviour themselves,
The Saudi Royal family were not able to cut off the family funds estimated at $7 million a year until 1994. Because of his involvement with anti government terrorists in Egypt and the failed attempt to assassinate President Mubarak the Egyptian government along with the Saudi’s and USA exerted pressure and he was eventually expelled from the Sudan and went back to Afghanistan where he quickly made friends with the Taliban leadership, particularly Mullah Mohammed Omar. He was able to raise money from Pakistan to train fighters against India in Kashmir and which obviously strengthened his ties in that country and where clearly various officials feel beholden and loyal to him.
He was responsible for the Luxor massacre in Egypt in 1997. He then arranged the bombings at USA embassies in 1998 which led to his original Federal Grand Jury Indictment and offering of a $5 million reward. In 2000 there was the bombing of the USS Cole.
9/11 followed and herein lies the problem of why he was assassinated rather than taken into custody with a view to trial in that there has been no evidence, other than his own video admission that he directly authorised, organised or funded the attack which killed just under 3000 people including the largest group of UK citizens ever killed by terrorists in modern times. While he has been indicted since by two USA Grand juries, these were not for 9/11. He accepted responsibility in video statements but also emphasised there was no evidence to prove his direct involvement. This understandably posed difficulties bringing him to trial in the USA.
It has also to be appreciated that similar to the situation in northern Ireland in addition to the military command separate structures were created for managing money and propaganda as well covering issues of Islamic study and Law and proving the involvement of individuals in specific activities through the normal processes of law especially one or more in other countries are involved is complex and time consuming.
I now turn to the failure of the USA intelligence and their supposed allies in Pakistan to find and capture Osama over the past decade. The present evidence is that he did remain in Afghanistan after 9/11 although whether as the commander in chief he lived in caves remains open. There were those who said that he had been mortally wounded in the attacks on the Torah Bora mountain cave area on the borders with Pakistan, or had died of natural causes because of known liver problems or had escaped into Pakistan. One suspects these were reports spread by Al Qaeda and his supporters within the Pakistan Government, Military and Security services to mislead pursuers while they prepared to move him from the border country to the compound in the least likely of locations where the USA would be expected to look. The place had to be built and made secure. The local support structure would need to be put in place and strengthened, the papers for Osama, his wife (wives) and children authenticated and the links with the branches of his organisation using couriers, and audio and video tapes developed, The absence of Satellite and telephonic communication meant he would needs to receive information as well as give it. The idea that he did not regard himself as leader and did not continue to direct strategy and advise or direct specific operation is questionable, as I hope the information found in the compound will confirm.
There is general agreement that the failure to identify and capture the man by the Pakistan government reveals the extent to which that country is divided and that elements in government and the military have conspired and potentially continue to conspire in support of international terrorism and those who organise and undertake such activities. The President, the Prime and other chief Ministers in Pakistan may have been ignorant of the man’s precise location but this reflects their inadequacy and impotence. Governments throughout the rest of the world should place the Pakistan government on Probation, should expect to see action taken again anyone no matter their position who helped Osama to continue his activities and to expect their unqualified support for action against the continuation of the use of force by the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
There is already evidence in the public domain. U.S. government files leaked by Wikileaks disclosed that American diplomats were told that Pakistani security services were tipping off bin Laden every time U.S. forces approached.
As early as to 2005 a Taliban leader was adamant that Osama was alive and in the same year the Pakistan counter terrorism chef said he was in Afghanistan. An ABC report in the USA in 2006 was withdrawn because its author could not prove his statement that Osma had been seen in an area of Pakistan on the borders with Afghanistan and where tribe’s men conducted several campaigns against Taliban/al Qaeda supporters.
In 2007 another Taliban leader stated he had received a letter of support and condolences from Osama adding that his leader had said he was avoiding being seen or meeting anyone because of the danger to him and the organisation. There was also the suggestion of a former counter terrorism officer that he thought current images of the Osama looked false, speculating that this meant he had shaved off his beard in order to blend in wherever he was hiding. Leon Panetta CIA Director said in June 2007 that Osama was being protected within the tribal areas of the North West Pakistan. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) are alleged to have helped smuggle al-Qaeda militants into Afghanistan to fight NATO . In 2007 USA officials discovered the name of an Al Qaeda courier but his home in Abbotabad only later.
In 2008 there was the now classic statement from Interior Minister Rehman Malik that if Osama was in Pakistan, “we would know!” He added that the drone strikes by the USA were a waste of time. He was either incompetent or a liar and one presumes action will be taken against him, if not already. A CIA chief thought he was probably hiding in the tribal areas of North West Pakistan, putting a lot of energy into his own security and isolated from day to day operations of the organisation he was supposed to head. Pakistan’s President said that they could find no trace of his whereabouts which probably meant he was dead.
In 2009 the USA established the home of the courier was in the Military city of Abbotabad. In September 2009 the conclusion was reached by the CIA that the property built in 2005 was the most likely location of Osama although because he appears to have made no day time movement within the grounds or outside and there was no telephone or Internet there was no direct means of confirming this. According to the leaked Wiki files, in December 2009, the government of Tajikistan had told U.S. officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden's whereabouts Wikileaks also revealed that a US diplomatic dispatch told the Americans that "many" inside Pakistan knew where bin Laden was. The document stated that "In Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden wasn't an invisible man, and many knew his whereabouts in North Waziristan, but whenever security forces attempted a raid on his hideouts, the enemy received warning of their approach from sources in the security forces."[
In October 2010 senior Nato official told CNN that Osama was alive and living comfortably in a house in West Pakistan and protected by local people and that nobody in Al Qaeda is living in a cave.
Criticism of Pakistan’s position is being reported from around the world and especially within the USA, but also within Pakistan.
U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said "This is going to be a time of real pressure on Pakistan to basically prove to us that they didn’t know that bin Laden was there". John O. Brennan, Osama’s chief counterterrorism advisor, said that it was inconceivable that bin Laden did not have support from within Pakistan. He further stated "People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long." Senator Dianne Feinstein said that "it's hard for me to understand how the Pakistanis would not know what was going on inside the compound", and that top Pakistan officials may be "walking both sides of the street." Senator Lindsey Graham questioned, "How could [bin Laden] be in such a compound without being noticed?" raising suspicions that Pakistan was either uncommitted in the fight against Islamist militants or was actively sheltering them while pledging to fight them. A Pakistani intelligence official said that they had passed on raw phone tap data to U.S. that led to the operation, but had failed to analyze this data themselves.
Anonymous Pakistani officials were saying that he could not have hidden in Abbotabad without the knowledge of the military because the Pakistani equivalent of West Point was only a half mile from Osama Bin Laden's compound.
Indian Minister for Home Affairs P. Chidambaram said that bin laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India, and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He called on Pakistan to arrest them.
Pakistani-born British MP Khalid Mahmood stated that he was "flabbergasted and shocked" after he learned that bin Laden was living in a city with thousands of Pakistani troops, reviving questions about alleged links between al Qaeda and elements in Pakistan's security forces.
Gulf News reported that the compound where bin Laden was killed had previously been used as a safe house by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), but was no longer being used for this purpose. The Globe and Mail reported local police saying that the compound belonged to Hizbul Mujahideen, a militant group supported by ISI which is fighting Indian forces in Kashmir.
It should be evident that in these circumstances the USA President took the decision that the information could not be communicated to Pakistan at any level other than perhaps the President/Prime Minister in strictest of confidence on the understanding it went no further. If the mission had been carried out and Osama had not been found or no evidence of criminal activities being planned or directed by anyone at the compound and lives had been lost, it could have ended the Presidency and the political fortunes of his Political Party. We all know the problems of Tony Blair and his government arising from no weapons of mass destruction being found in Iraq
The political ramification of relations with Pakistan would have created problems for everyone. The propaganda coup for Al Qaeda and the other terrorist organisations and groups would have been significant. The President was deciding to invade another country, an ally and engage in armed combat.
The President had five special meetings in six weeks to review the plans for the action which he authorised at 8.20 am 29th April USA time. I have an open mind about the decision to execute without overpowering and taking into custody.
It is unfortunate that reports by USA Government and Administration officials of what happened during the mission changed several times immediately after the President had addressed his nation following the successful completion of the mission. A statement was made of a fierce fire fight when in fact one person within the compound fired individual gun shots at the advancing Special Forces. The claim that Osama had hidden behind a female human shield was also later withdrawn and that he had been armed. It was said he was given the opportunity to surrender and he resisted but given that that he was not armed are we seriously being asked to believe that the USA specialist team could not have overpowered him and taken him into custody?
Given the ongoing pressure on former Prime Minister Blair and his Ministers over the legality of the decision to invade with military force Iraq I would be surprised that after the dust has settled the issue of the legality of the execution will be raised although the basic situation in the USA and the UK is so different. If the polls show the political tide turning in favour of the President and the Democratic party, there will Republicans in the Party machine likely to raise the issue and similarly if the political tide does not turn there will be the ambitious within the Democrats seeing an opportunity to make an early bid for 2016. Such is the nature of democratic party politics.
Meanwhile for all those families of victims, those injured or were affected by the killings organised or inspired by his man if they have been helped in anyway by his death, I say amen. We shall remember them, and unfortunately we shall also remember him.
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