BBC Claims Osama’s Yemeni Wife Says Kidney Failure All Better Now

[The BBC has come-0ut with the allegation that bin Laden's Yemeni wife reported that he had recovered from his certainly fatal kidney disease, resulting from a near fatal poisoning attack in Afghanistan, allegedly by CIA and Saudi secret services (SEE:  November 1998: Americans and Saudis Possibly Attempt to Poison Bin Laden).  

"Bin Laden's Yemeni wife - who survived the raid on the compound - has said that he had recovered from his widely publicised kidney problems, Pakistani officials who are questioning her told the BBC."

The new jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama Bin Laden and the future of terrorism

By Simon Reeve

Is Osama bin Laden Dying ... Again?

TIME

June 30, 2008

By Massimo Calabresi 

Which is closer to dying: Osama bin Laden or the CIA's effort to catch him? Nothing has characterized the fruitlessness of the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader so much as the recurrent — and mostly inaccurate — reports that he is seriously ailing, or even at death's door. In 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said bin Laden had kidney disease, and that he had required a dialysis machine when he lived in Afghanistan. That same year, the FBI's top counterterrorism official, Dale Watson, said, "I personally think he is probably not with us anymore." Since then, of course, bin Laden has appeared on multiple videos looking healthier than ever.

Now the CIA has produced a report saying that bin Laden has long-term kidney disease and may have only months to live, two U.S. officials familiar with the report told TIME. The agency ostensibly managed to get the names of some of the medications bin Laden is taking. One U.S. official familiar with the report, which came out between six and nine months ago, says it concluded, "Based on his current pharmaceutical intake, [we] would expect that he has no more than six to 18 months to live and impending kidney failure.”

CIA AGENT ALLEGEDLY
MET BIN LADEN IN JULY 
From ‘Le Figaro’ [1 November 2001]
Translated by Tiphaine Dickson
===========================

By Alexandra Richard 
(Page 2, October 31st, 2001)

Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the Federation of the United Arab Emirates, North-East of Abi-Dhabi. This city, population 350,000, was the backdrop of a secret meeting between Osama bin Laden and the local CIA agent in July. A partner of the administration of the American Hospital in Dubai claims that public enemy number one stayed at this hospital between the 4th and 14th of July.

Having taken off from the Quetta airport in Pakistan, bin Laden was transferred to the hospital upon his arrival at Dubai airport. He was accompanied by his personal physician and faithful lieutenant, who could be Ayman al-Zawahari–but on this sources are not entirely certain–, four bodyguards, as well as a male Algerian nurse, and admitted to the American Hospital, a glass and marble building situated between the Al-Garhoud and Al-Maktoum bridges.

Each floor of the hospital has two “VIP” suites and fifteen rooms. The Saudi billionnaire was admitted to the well-respected urology department run by Teerry Callaway, gallstone and infertility specialist. Dr Callaway declined to respond to our questions despite several phone calls.

As early as March, 2000, ‘Asia Week,’ published in Hong Kong, expressed concern for bin Laden’s health, describing a serious medical problem that could put his life in danger because of “a kidney infection that is propagating itself to the liver and requires specialized treatment”. According to authorized sources, bin Laden had mobile dialysis equipment shipped to his hideout in Kandahar in the first part of 2000. According to our sources, bin Laden’s “travels for health reasons” have taken place before. Between 1996 and 1998, bin Laden made several trips to Dubai on business.

On September 27th, 15 days after the World Trade Center attacks, at the request of the United States, the Central Bank of the Arab Emirates announced an order to freeze assts and investments of 26 people or organisations suspected of mainting contact with bin Laden’s organization, and in particular at the Dubai Islamic Bank.

“Relations between the Emirate and Saudi Arabia have always been very close,” according to sources, “princes of reigning families, having recognized the Taliban regime, often travelled to Afghanistan. One of the princes of a ruling family regularily went hunting on the land of bin Laden, whom he had known and visited for many years.”

There are daily flights between Dubai and Quetta by both Pakistan and Emirates Airlines. As to private planes from Saudi Arabia or from the Emirates, they regulariy fly to Quetta, where their arrival is rarely registered in airport logs.

While he was hospitalised, bin Laden received visits from many members of his family as well as prominent Saudis and Emiratis. During the hospital stay, the local CIA agent, known to many in Dubai, was seen taking the main elevator of the hospital to go to bin Laden’s hospital room.

A few days later, the CIA man bragged to a few friends about having visited bin Laden. Authorised sources say that on July 15th, the day after bin Laden returned to Quetta, the CIA agent was called back to headquarters.

In late July, Emirates customs agents arrested Franco-Algerian activist Djamel Beghal at the Dubai airport. In early August, French and American authorities were advised of the arrest. Interrogated by local authorities in Abu Dhabi, Beghal stated that he was called to Afghanistan in late 2000 by Abou Zoubeida, a military leader of bin Laden’s organization, Al Qaeda. Beghal’s mission: bomb the US embassy on Gabriel avenue, near the Place de la Concorde, upon his return to France.

According to Arab diplomatic sources as well as French intelligence, very specific information was transmitted to the CIA with respect to terrorist attacks against American interests around the world, including on US soil. A DST report dated 7 September enumerates all the intelligence, and specifies that the order to attack was to come from Afghanistan.

In August, at the US Embassy in Paris, an emergency meeting was called between the DGSE (French foreign intelligence service) and senior US intelligence officials. The Americans were extremely worried, and requested very specific information from the French about Algerian activists, without advising their counterparts about the reasons for their requests. To the question “what do you fear in the coming days?”, the Americans kept a difficult-to-fathom silence.

Contacts between the CIA and bin Laden began in 1979 when, as a representative of his family’s business, bin Laden began recruiting volunteers for the Afghan resistance against the Red Army. FBI investigators examining the embassy bombing sites in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam discovered that evidence led to military explosives from the US Army, and that these explosives had been delivered threee years earlier to Afghan Arabs, the infamous international volunteer brigades involved side by side with bin Laden during the Afghan war against the Red Army.

In the pursuit of its investigations, the FBI discovered “financing agreements” that the CIA had been developing with its “arab friends” for years. The Dubai meeting is then within the logic of “a certain American policy”.

(c) Le Figaro 2001 * Reprinted for Fair Use Only

ABC News Releases “Bin Laden” Video of Hobo In “Million Dollar” Hovel, Watching Himself On Multiple Channels

[The prepared "bin Laden" video, which was to be released to the world is of the same old fat-faced, dyed beard, "bin Laden" that appears in the Mossad SITE videos. 

The video of "bin Laden" watching himself on multiple satellite tv channels (why OBL would appear on multiple channels before the raid, is unexplainable), looks like a hobo wearing a toboggan, sitting on the floor at a homeless shelter.

 

They will have to make a better production than this to eliminate the air of cover-up.]

Videos show bin Laden watching himself on TV

By KIMBERLY DOZIER and LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) – Home movies taken from Osama bin Laden’s hideout show the terrorist leader watching news coverage of himself on television.The videos were seized by Navy SEALs after bin Laden was killed Monday. They were shown to reporters Saturday by intelligence officials.The five movies offer the first public glimpse at bin Laden’s life behind the walls of his compound in suburban Pakistan. The government-selected clips also provide an opportunity for the U.S. to paint bin Laden in an unflattering light to his supporters. They video include outtakes of his propaganda films and, taken together, portray him as someone obsessed with his own image and how he is portrayed to the world.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Secret Pentagon “Intelligence” Unit Assassins Dispatched Over Central Asia, Awaiting “Go” Orders

[Everything about this "Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) Pentagon assassins' network is disturbing.  When checking into this group, the literature which lays-out the reasons for this being a super-secret outfit (SEE:  Secret Pentagon Intelligence: The Intelligence Support Activity) proved to be even more disturbing than the group itself.  The reason for the super-secrecy is the membership's common belief that everyone on the left are treasonous enemies of the United States, who actively work to compromise American national security.  It is radical, extremist belief such as this, which has fueled Mccarthyism and the "Communist witch hunt" in the past, and promises a very rough period of national reconciliation, if the war is somehow brought to an end today--and an even rougher period if the war-mongers win the day and succeed in spreading the Imperial war throughout Africa and Central Asia.  The divisions between America's bloodthirsty right and the "humanitarian" left could very well lead to a "Second American Civil War," which seems to be exactly what the most extreme on the right have in mind.]

Shadowy American Special Forces Unit sent to take out al-Qaeda’s network

by Chris Hughes, Daily Mirror

Night vision view of some Navy SEALS

GREY Fox – an elite American Special Forces kill squad – has taken up secret positions throughout Asia and the Middle East to track down and “eliminate” key al-Qaeda members.

The shadowy group of Seals, Delta troops and CIA flooded into the region the moment Barack Obama gave the green light to attack bin Laden’s lair.

And now the men – officially named Intelligence Support Activity – are relentlessly tracking bin Laden’s terror associates panicked following his liquidation by crack US troops in Pakistan.

Some have gone undercover as foreign businessmen, throwing money at local agents in an effort to further infiltrate and undermine the terror network.

Their primary mission is to dismantle al-Qaeda’s remaining hierarchy before they can reorganise and carry out revenge attacks on the West – in ­particular in New York and London.

Grey Fox – who played a crucial role in the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003 – have a new No1 target… al-Qaeda’s Egyptian leader-in-waiting Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Credited with being the “brains behind al-Qaeda”, al-Zawahiri is believed to have become the dominant figure of the ­international terrorist network.

He is thought to be hiding in Pakistan, where many al-Qaeda kingpins targeted by the CIA have been killed in hundreds of Predator drone strikes.

Now the 30-year-old ISA – set up after a failed bid to free US hostages from an Iranian prison in Tehran – is hot on the heels of al-Zawahiri.

An intelligence source told the Daily Mirror: “This is one of the most secretive units within the American spook and military Special Forces world and they are at the tip of every operation – public and secret.

“Experts in intelligence analysis and agent running and trained at the highest Special Forces level in military tactics, they are the least known and the most fearsome unit in America.”

After being assigned to the mission six months ago, ISA members were among the Operation Geronimo squad of Navy commandos who killed bin Laden in his Abbottabad fortress in the early hours of Monday morning.

And in addition to the chief aim of liquidating the terrorist leader, they also found a “treasure trove” of five computers, 10 hard drives and more than 100 computer memory devices, including DVDs and memory sticks.

Even as bin Laden’s bloodied corpse was being airlifted to Afghanistan for DNA testing, the seized material was being emptied of information by specialist technicians seconded to the CIA who used a “plug in and suck out” device – computer hardware that milks other computers of every scrap of data.

As soon as it was downloaded and copied, the material was sent to America’s National Security Agency “cryptoanalysis” unit in Maryland, USA.

There the CIA began painstakingly sifting through the “OBL files” as members of Grey Fox linked to CIA stations throughout the Middle and Far East and Asia were put on standby for more “kill or capture” missions.

Within hours of bin Laden’s death, it emerged the computer data included communications between senior al-Qaeda members and their leader.

Despite bin Laden’s strict ban on the use of telephones and laptops, it is believed the information gleaned could lead the spooks to even more al-Qaeda suspects.

The intelligence source added: “Bin Laden’s death has sparked some urgency in finding certain people but America has been preparing for this for months. There will be some previously unknown information that will have to be acted on immediately but certain people will already be under surveillance so the spooks can monitor their reaction when bin Laden was killed.

“Such a massive event would spark a lot of communication between associates within the al-Qaeda network and that information would reveal a great deal about people’s whereabouts.”

Al-Qaeda has been dealt a series of major blows in recent years with hundreds of its operatives, including high-ranking officials, being killed in Pakistan and its border with ­Afghanistan by Predator drone strikes.

Sources say al-Qaeda knows the CIA has infiltrated agents into its organisation and they are relaying information on the whereabouts of key figures back to ISA headquarters.

The ISA has played a vital role in the USA’s toughest missions since it first came into being – then called the Field Operations Group – in the summer of 1980 to lead a second attempt to rescue 52 US hostages held in the Tehran embassy.

This followed the catastrophic failure of Operation Eagle Claw – launched by Delta Force – which highlighted a shortfall in intelligence gathering and ended in the deaths of eight US servicemen.

ISA was behind the killing of South America’s most infamous drug baron Pablo Escobar in 1993 after bugging his mobile phone and tracking him for months.

They have worked extensively undercover in South America, the Middle East and Afghanistan and are based in Arlington, Virginia.

Part of the Special Operations Forces, the ISA has two mottos “Send Me” and Veritas Omnia Vincula Vincit – Truth Overcomes All Bonds. It was launched by Colonel Jerry King and their badge depicts a Bald Eagle grasping a claymore, surrounded by a kilt belt.

Army Interrogator Rejects Torture As Blight On Humanity and Service

[This military interrogator sounds like an eloquent, feeling individual for most of the following speech, until he lapses into the inevitable military self-worship of the "warrior class" mentality (omitted here, follow title link to read more).   White-washing their jobs as "professionalism" in the noble service of Empire, the speaker ignores the basic immorality of serving as govt. hit-men, or agents whose job consists of inflicting real human suffering in the hope of confirming preconceived theories.  There are just as many, or perhaps more, former military men who reject the concept of Imperial torture/"enhanced interrogation" as an evil which produces no concrete answers, and is a blight on a formerly noble national service.

The "war on terror," in general, is America's national shame.]

Army Interrogator: Torture Not a Subject for Debate

By Marcus Lewis
United States Army Interrogator, Instructor, and Intelligence Analyst
Fellow Interrogators, former interrogators, and instructors,

Once again, our profession is in the spotlight. As a former interrogator and instructor, now a leader in this schoolhouse, I would feel remiss not to speak out.

In the wake of Usama Bin Laden’s death, politicians, pundits, 24-hour TV chatterboxes, and other such attention-seekers have begun again to sharpen their teeth on that debate which should never have existed in a free country like the United States: the notion that torture is justified.

Some are pointing out that one of the couriers who led us to UBL gave up this information under the stress of waterboarding. The reality is that it took us over 14 long, painful years to get Bin Laden. For at least five of those years it seems he was hiding within a stone’s throw of the Pakistani Military Academy, in an embarrassing amount of comfort for the world’s most wanted terrorist.

That it took so long from the time the alleged waterboarding-derived information was revealed, seven years ago, according to some reports, until UBL’s demise only demonstrates how extraordinarily counterproductive our overt policy of torture was. We got a name only. Perhaps had we used some of our more sophisticated approaches — our minds rather than brutality — we would have had a detainee willing to take us directly to Bin Laden.

We will never know how many lives might have been saved had we held fast to our Army values instead of flaunting them out of fear of the unknown.

I need not remind you:
This is not a subject for debate as far as you are concerned as a military intelligence professional or contractor, especially as an instructor. We do not torture. We do not teach it. There are no winks, no nods, not a scintilla of reverence for “special warfare types” who might operate outside the rules. (Truth be told, anyone who has ever worked with JSOC, CJSOTF, Ranger Bat, OGA, etc., knows they have as many or more lawyers and rules than any odd Army BCT or Marine Det., and they don’t torture.)

I need not remind you:
In World War II, our nation executed Japanese officers for water torture.
In World War II, our nation executed German officers for torture.

I need not remind you:
Torture is illegal; it is wrong; it is against military law, values, doctrine; and it is against the basic human rights we soldiers have fought and died for in centuries of service to the United States of America. We don’t teach it. We don’t do it. It is cowardly and dishonorable. Do not let the moral flexibility of the political class sway you otherwise.

We know, to be sure, our experiences as interrogators have never been without significantly emotional moments. Good HUMINTers are tough, aggressive, if need be, push the envelope, but know well where and when to draw the line. Good HUMINTers don’t need to torture. We are calm and reasonable students of human behavior who can develop rapport with a source quickly and acquire valuable intelligence information, then just as quickly put that information forward in a coherent report or use it to stage a movement to the next critical target.

Torture is antithesis of everything we are. Torture is by nature anti-rapport building. Worse, torture paints the picture of the U.S. military and its soldiers as goons and stooges, the bully-imperialists, The Great Satan, the very picture our enemies would like their followers to believe is true, and we know is false.

AP Takes Legal Actions to Get Dead Osama Photos

World | May 7, 2011, Saturday

Muslim demonstrators march on the U.S embassy in London, Britain, 06 May 2011. Muslims gathered outside the U.S embassy after Friday prayers to protest following the death of Bin Laden. Photo by EPA/BGNES

The Associated Press has filed a legal request for the photos of Osama Bin Laden‘s dead body, citing the Freedom of Information Act.

The agency also demands that it is provided with the video of the raid taken by the military personnel during the raid and on the USS Carl Vinson, the ship that conducted his burial at sea.

The government has 20 days to respond.

Lawyers demand resignation of Pakistan’s political, military leadership

Pakistani children who live in the neighbourhood where al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed, look from their house in Abbottabad  AP

The demand was made in a resolution adopted by the Lahore High Court Bar Association. This was the first time that the body passed such a resolution against army officials.

An influential grouping of lawyers has demanded the resignation of Pakistan’s President, Prime Minister, army chief, heads of military intelligence agencies and Interior Minister for their failure to protect borders and sovereignty during the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The demand was made in a resolution adopted by the Lahore High Court Bar Association. This was the first time that the body passed such a resolution against army officials.

The association strongly condemned the U.S. military operation in the garrison city of Abbottabad that killed bin Laden on Monday and criticised the Pakistan government, military and intelligence agency chiefs for playing the role of a silent spectator during the raid.

It said the U.S. operation near the Pakistan Military Academy was tantamount to an attack on the country’s sovereignty and independence.

The resolution said: “The illegal U.S. raid on Pakistani soil is a challenge for the whole nation.”

The army’s Corps Commanders looked ashamed and helpless in restoring the confidence of the nation, it contended.

“The Pakistan Army is given a huge share in the annual budget so that people of the country could sleep without any fear. But the army has disappointed the whole nation,” it said.

The resolution was moved by a senior bar association member Zafarullah Khan, who said the U.S. raid was went against local and international laws.

Balochistan unrest: A new debate

[The American destabilization operations are always preceded by extensive preparations in the targeted nation or region.  Pakistan's survival and continued unity as a free state depends upon disrupting the most dangerous of those prepared insurrections--that would be in Balochistan.   The coming double-cross of Pakistan will rely heavily upon the long-running US/Indian psyop in Balochistan (SEE:  The Stunning Investigative Story on the Birth of Balochistan Liberation Army).   Without Balochistan, there is no pipeline route.]

Posted on May 7, 2011

In a recently conducted seminar on Balochistan unrest, held in Washington, a dominant theme emerging was an alignment between the US and India in favour of a free and sovereign Balochistan. That the US welcomes Balochistan as an independent American client state with the Baloch leadership exhibiting a distinct US bias is apparent, but the fact that the clandestine role of the Indians in the Pakistani province is being legitimized in this new emerging debate which needs to be looked at very closely. What is the true Indian design in behind the Indian support of the separatist movement? Are the Indian concerns, as advocated by the US as being genuine in Balochistan, truly linked to the need for eradicating terrorism from the region? Or is it something more sinister? Should we leave it up to the Americans to decide who is a genuine stakeholder or not? If it is then how should Pakistan react to the growing saffron terrorism that threatens the regional peace with its Pakistan centric focus?No debate on the issue, however well argued, can legitimize the Indian involvement as a major source of disturbance in Balochistan. Pakistani authorities ought to wake up to this realisation that a politico-economic solution is inevitable and that people demand action over verbal pacifiers that they have been fed since eternity.

Professor Kabil Khan

Peshawar

Bush torture architect: Killing Osama was wrong!

John Yoo argues that “a deliberately small force” was sent to Pakistan to ensure bin Laden wouldn’t come back alive VIDEO

BY EMMA MUSTICH

John Yoo on Eliot Spitzer’s CNN show, “In the Arena.”

Eliot Spitzer took Bush torture memo author John Yoo to task on his show “In the Arena” last night, questioning the lawyer over his controversial Wednesday Washington Post op-ed.

Yoo, who credits former president Bush’s interrogation policies with substantial success in leading Obama and his team to Osama bin Laden, again stressed his belief that terrorists should be captured and questioned rather than killed.

But he also went further, suggesting that the Navy SEALs sent to Abbottabad were not given the option of taking bin Laden alive. “If they were going in with no options other than to kill [bin Laden], then I do think that’s a problem — and that’s what it’s starting to sound like from the information that’s coming out of Washington right now.”

“It does seem from the initial reports that a deliberately small force was sent in and there wasn’t a lot of thought given to the idea of capturing him.”

“They don’t want to capture high-level al-Qaida leaders,” Yoo said of Obama’s administration. Watch video of the interview here:

Bush torture architect: Killing Osama was wrong…, posted with vodpod

In his Washington Post piece, Yoo argued that the death of bin Laden represented the squandering of “one of the most valuable intelligence opportunities since the beginning of the war [on terror].”

Yoo’s stand on “enhanced interrogation techniques” is well-documented, so his argument that bin Laden would have been more useful alive (and talking) than dead was a relatively predictable one. But toward the end of his piece, Yoo introduced a more provocative hypothesis: the idea that President Obama would rather just kill terrorists than “wade through the difficult questions raised by their detention.”

Yoo wrote that “the demands of the real world” have “forced Mr. Obama to give up his law-enforcement approach to terrorism” since the heady days of the 2008 campaign, when then-candidate Barack could make optimistic promises about closing Guantánamo and trying terrorists in the courts. Indeed, he speculated that Obama, disheartened by his progress in these areas over the past two years, would simply rather not deal with all the challenges associated with a terrorist’s capture — choosing, instead, to have special forces assassinate his extremist enemies.

• More: Emma Mustich

Russian president, Chinese foreign minister meet on ties, cooperation

English.news.cn

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (R) shakes hands with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Moscow, capital of Russia, on May 6, 2011. (Xinhua/Liu Lihang)

MOSCOW, May 6 (Xinhua) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi agreed here Friday to further promote the China-Russia strategic partnership of cooperation.Yang said China and Russia have made great achievements on the development of their strategic partnership of cooperation in the last decade since the signing of the China-Russia Treaty on Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation.

In the current situation, the two countries should comprehensively sum up their experiences learned from the past 10 years and set forth principles for the further development of bilateral ties, Yang said.

China attaches great importance of President Hu Jintao’s upcoming visit to Russia and Kazakhstan, Yang said, adding that China is willing to further cooperate with Russia on issues of common concern and the further development of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

China wants to see new breakthroughs in the China-Russia strategic partnership of cooperation in all fields, Yang said.

During their meeting, Yang also expressed to Medvedev the cordial greetings and best wishes from President Hu.

Meanwhile, Medvedev asked Yang to convey his greetings and appreciation to Hu, saying the frequent exchanges between the leaders of the two countries have brought smooth communications and coordination to both nations.

Russia and China hold similar stances on regional and international issues, Medvedev said, noting that the two countries have been expanding and strengthening cooperation on economy and trade, energy, environmental protection, culture and other fields.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (2nd L) meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (1st R) in Moscow, capital of Russia, on May 6, 2011. (Xinhua/Liu Lihang)

The two nations also have been cooperating within the framework of many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Group 20 and BRICS, the president added.

Hu’s visit to Russia is a big event for bilateral ties, Medvedev said, adding that Russia would give high priority and make joint efforts with China to ensure the success of the visit.

During their meeting, the two sides also exchanged views on the situation in Western Asia, Northern Africa and other regional and international issues of common concern.

Earlier on Friday, Yang also met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Over the next 10 years China and Russia will not only face important opportunities for their national renewal, but also for further development of bilateral ties, said Yang.

He also said the presidents of the two nations have already agreed to step up cooperation and better coordinate on regional and international issues.

Lavrov said a growing bilateral strategic partnership of cooperation between Russia and China serves the interests of both sides.

He said Russia values its cooperation with China within the SCO, adding that it would like to work with China for the organization’s future development.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the SCO. Founded in Shanghai in 2001, SCO comprises six member countries: China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

In February, Hu was invited by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to visit Kazakhstan as the SCO celebrates its 10th anniversary in the Kazakh capital city of Astana in June.

 

Editor: yan

China Hones Shanghai Cooperation Organization Anti-Terrorism Skills In Preparation for Western Meddling

China, Central Asian countries hold anti-terror drill

BEIJING: China, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan conducted a joint anti-terror drill in the restive western region Xinjiang, where anger against Beijing has led to attacks on police, state media reported Saturday.

The one-day exercise on Friday was aimed at better coordinating efforts between the countries to “locate and crack down on ‘terrorists’ in the border regions”, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The drill aimed to help the countries respond to the “three evil forces” of terrorism, separatism and extremism coming from the perceived threat of Muslim separatists in Xinjiang, a Chinese counter-terrorism agency spokesman said.

The separatists were a common threat to the participating countries, he added.

The drill, codenamed “Tianshan-II”, was the second to take place in Xinjiang under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a six nation group formed in 2001 with a broad agenda ranging from anti-terrorism to economic cooperation.

Hundreds of police and special forces from China and Kazakhstan participated in the similar “Tianshan-I” drill in 2006 in Xinjiang.

The region has been hit in recent years by numerous violent attacks, typically directed at police.

Many in the region’s Muslim ethnic Uighur population accuse Beijing of oppression and discrimination in education and employment and also resent a recent influx of migrants from China’s majority Han ethnic group.

In July 2009, Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi was rocked by vicious violence pitting Uighurs against Han in China’s worst ethnic unrest in decades.

Nearly 200 people were killed and 1,700 injured, the government said.

China blames unrest in the region on “terrorists” and “separatists” but has provided no evidence of any organised campaign.

- AFP/cc

Leon Panetta Admits That There Is No Video Footage of Alleged Bin Laden Assassination

Osama bin Laden dead: Blackout during raid on bin Laden compound

The head of the CIA admitted yesterday that there was no live video footage of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound as further doubts emerged about the US version of events.

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House Photo: PETER SOUZA

By Steven Swinford

Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, revealed there was a 25 minute blackout during which the live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US special forces was cut off.

A photograph released by the White House appeared to showPresident Barack Obama and his aides in the situation room watching the action as it unfolded. In fact they had little knowledge of what was happening in the compound.

In an interview with PBS, Mr Panetta said: “Once those teams went into the compound I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn’t know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information.

“We had some observation of the approach there, but we did not have direct flow of information as to the actual conduct of the operation itself as they were going through the compound.”

Mr Panetta also told the network that the US Navy Seals, rather than Mr Obama, made the final decision to kill bin Laden.

He said: “The authority here was to kill bin Laden. And obviously, under the rules of engagement, if he had in fact thrown up his hands, surrendered and didn’t appear to be representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But they had full authority to kill him.

“To be frank, I don’t think he had a lot of time to say anything. It was a firefight going up that compound. And by the time they got to the third floor and found bin Laden, I think it – this was all split-second action on the part of the Seals.”

The President only knew the mission was successful after the Navy Seals commander heard the word “Geronimo” on the radio, a code word from commandos reporting that they had killed bin Laden.

The absence of footage of the raid has led to conflicting reports about what happened in the compound. According to Pakistani authorities one of bin Laden’s daughter’s, who was present during the raid, claimed that her father was captured alive before he was killed.

There was also growing doubt about the US claims that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies involved in the raid.

Lieutenant General Asad Durrani, former head of the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service, said it was “inconceivable” that his government was unaware of the US raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound.

He claimed his country was forced to deny any knowledge of the raid to avoid a domestic backlash. The ISI’s official line has been that bin Laden’s compound had “slipped off our radar” after it raided the building in 2003 while hunting for another senior al-Qaeda operative.The agency claims it was unaware that bin Laden was hiding there.

Lieutenant General Durrani, however, said that the denial was a “political” maneuver by the intelligence services to avoid claims that they were working too closely with the US.

He said: “It is more likely that they did know [about the raid]. It is not conceivable that it was done without the involvement of Pakistani security forces at some stage. They were involved and they were told they were in position.

“The army chief was in his office, the cordons had been thrown around that particular place. The Pakistani helicopters were also in the air so that indicates that it was involved.

“[There are] political implications back home. If you say that you are involved there is a large, vocal faction of Pakistani society that will get very upset because we are carrying out repeatedly these operations with the Americans.”

And Now, It’s Lebanon!

Lebanon prosecutor amends Hariri killing indictment

AMSTERDAM – The prosecutor at the U.N.-backed Lebanon tribunal filed an amended indictment on Friday in the 2005 killing of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri after new evidence emerged, which could further delay the process.

The Lebanon tribunal, the world’s first international court with jurisdiction over the crime of terrorism, was set up to try those accused over the 2005 bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others.

In a statement Friday, the prosecutor said an indictment that was filed on March 11 was replaced to “include substantive new elements unavailable until recently.” A prosecutor spokeswoman declined to comment on what those elements were.

“The amendment of an indictment or the filing of new indictments is and will continue to be guided solely by the evidence uncovered by the ongoing investigation,” the prosecutor said in the statement.

Hariri was killed by a huge truck bomb, triggering international condemnation that forced neighboring Syria to end a 29-year military presence in Lebanon.

Six months after the February 14, assassination, four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals were arrested at the request of the U.N. investigator. A report delivered to the U.N. Security Council initial findings implicated high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese officials in the murder.

The prosecutor does not intend to make further amendments to the indictment unless ordered to do so by the pre-trial judge, although other indictments could be filed in the future if the evidence warrants, the statement said.

The prosecutor’s original indictment filed in January, the contents of which are still secret, set off a political crisis in Lebanon, where the militant Shi’ite group Hezbollah and its allies toppled the government of Hariri’s son, Saad al-Hariri.

On March 11, the prosecutor said he had expanded the scope of the indictment and that, as a result, its review could take months rather than weeks.

Friday’s statement said that the pre-trial judge was working to complete the review process as quickly as possible following the amendment, adding that no fixed timeframe was set but it was anticipated that this would be completed in the coming months.

Lebanese officials and Western diplomats expect the court to accuse Hezbollah members of involvement in the assassination, a prospect Lebanese politicians fear could fuel tensions.

Copyright 2011 Reuters.

Repairing Obama’s Image with the Corpse of Osama

[If we lived in a normal society, one where politicians could be believed, then supporting the Republicans who hammer Obama's foreign policy might be the most hopeful approach to ending the war.  Everyone reading these words understands that ours is nothing like a normal society, therefore the following report would seem to be mindless drivel--but (like always), I see a possible political opportunity to upset someone's Imperial plans.   What if the easiest way to end this insane synthetic war was to drive Obama from office, or merely deny him his second term?  I tell you one thing for certain--the Empire's plans are in such a complex phase right now, with the revolutions, the counter-revolutions, the new wars, and the ongoing bin Laden psyop to invade Pakistan, it would be inconceivable that a newby Republican, no matter who he was, could receive full public confidence and easily slide into the complicated "captain's chair."  It is imperative that Obama stay put. 

Breaking Obama's plans for a second term will cause a pause, or at least a moment of confusion, in the American aggression being deployed across the planet.  The key to regaining our rights as Americans is in exposing the utter fraud that feeds the national narrative.  Obama, like Osama, is a product of CIA handlers.  Obama's insistence upon allying himself with some of Obama's soldiers in Libya and waging war upon other Osama soldiers in Pakistan is the key to exposing his lies and hypocrisy (SEE:  Obama’s Great Reversal Is the Key To the Psywar).  

Getting back to the central truth that our government has hand-selected both Barack Obama, as well as Osama bin Laden, when they were young men, to enter them into the multi-faceted leadership training programs developed by the masters of psywar who run our government for their future roles.  Obama's mom worked for the government, probably directly for the CIA, or one of its underling outfits.  We know Osama bin Laden's history as the CIA's man, running the Maktab al-Khidamat  (MAK--Services Office) center at "House no. 125, Street 54, Phase II, Hayatabad, Peshawar," processing Arab recruits from the Middle East, flown to Peshawar by Saudi airlines.  We also know that Osama's soldiers have served the CIA , traveling all over the world serving the Empire, as an expeditionary force ever since the Soviet war.  Some of them were Libyans, who fought US soldiers in Iraq, before they were relocated to lead our current insurrection in Libya.

Exposing the grand psy-op is the key to ending the psywar.  Instead of allowing Obama to tie his political fortunes to closing the book on the long-dead Osama, we must tie the Saudi billionaire's alleged corpse to Obama's coattails, so that the two become inseparable.  In order to escape the false, manufactured "reality" that engulfs us, all we really need to do is to hold up a large mirror, showing the men behind the curtains, pulling the puppet strings.]

GOP hopefuls go after Obama on foreign policy in debate

By Jackie Kucinich, USA TODAY

GREENVILLE, S.C. — The death of Osama bin Laden did not stop Republican presidential contenders from hammering President Obama’s foreign policy during the first Republican debate of the 2012 cycle.

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty fielded the first question from Fox News’ Bret Baier, who asked if Pawlenty believed Obama was “weak” on foreign policy matters.

Pawlenty praised the administration’s role in killing bin Laden but said “that moment is not the sum total of America’s foreign policy.” Pawlenty went on to criticize Obama’s actions in Libya.

Five potential contenders for the Republican presidential nomination took the stage Thursday night. Joining Pawlenty were former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza Herman Cain, former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum.

Baier asked participants who supported the release of the photo of bin Laden’s body — all but Cain raised their hands.

The discussion about foreign policy was one of many issues during the policy-driven debate in which candidates largely refrained from attacking one another or those that were not present for the discussion Thursday evening.

Divisions within the GOP on the Afghanistan War were apparent. Paul and Johnson called for a quick end to the U.S. deployment, but Santorum shot back that the operation against bin Laden wouldn’t have been possible without the U.S. military operation based there.

The debate spent little time on the economy and jobs — issues that Americans put at the top of their list of concerns.

Paul was asked a series of questions about his rejection of government involvement in everything from war to social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. “I have my standards, but I shouldn’t have to impose my standards on others,” he said when asked about his position on gay marriage.

Though the contenders mostly targeted Obama, Santorum did take a shot at Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who called for a “truce” on social issues as the party focuses on the economy.

“Anybody who would call a truce on social issues doesn’t understand what America is all about,” Santorum said.

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, Huckabee and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmannhave yet to make decisions about whether they will get into the race — making them ineligible to attend the debate because of the criteria imposed by the event’s sponsors.

One of the final rounds of questioning was dedicated solely to addressing the missing contenders.

Asked why he chose to run for president rather than supporting Romney as he had in 2008, Cain said he had liked Romney because of his background as a business man.

“I’m running now rather than supporting Mr. Romney because he did not win … so I’m going to try,” Cain said.

Before the debate, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley told reporters at the Greenville Tea Party event that the debate was right on time.

“It may be too early for them; it’s not too early for the people of South Carolina,” she said. “The candidates that are here have said they understand that South Carolina is important. The candidates that haven’t made it here have some time to make up and some extra work that they’ve got to do.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called the Republican field a work in progress. “A lot of candidates are measuring the field right now but the reality is there’s going to be a lot of candidates that jump in the race because we have a president that hasn’t delivered,” he said.

“It’s a little frustrating that people aren’t declaring their intentions and getting in the race. This time four years ago they had been going at it a long time,” said Dean Allen, a member of the Greenville Tea Party who helped stage a rally beforehand.