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Osama Bin Laden Dead: Does It Matter?
02 May, 2011 | Huffington Post
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But as crowds streamed to the White House to chant “USA! USA!
USA!” in ecstatic reaction to the news, experts were divided over
whether bin Laden's end would weaken the terrorist movement he
oversaw, or whether it had arrived too late to make a substantial
difference: some suggested that al Qaeda is now so established and
globally organized that it is likely to continue seeking Western targets.
"This closes a chapter but the most sobering aspect of this is that this
is not the end," said Jack Cloonan, a former special agent in the FBI’
s bin Laden unit. "The reasons they hate us have not subsided and
this could reinvigorate things.”
Nearly 10 years after bin Laden directed the terrorist attack that
felled New York’s World Trade Center, a new Freedom Tower is
rising at Ground Zero. The mastermind of the attack, Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, awaits a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay. Despite
numerous reported efforts, al Qaeda has yet to pull off another
attack as deadly as the one it unleashed on Sept. 11, 2001.
And yet, say experts, the jihadists who revered bin Laden have not
gone away. A Yemeni-American cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki has
taken over as the spiritual director of al Qaeda, calling for attacks
like the one the Christmas underwear bomber attempted over
Detroit. Just last Friday, meanwhile, German police arrested three
suspected members of the al Qaeda organization who officials said
were preparing a test run for a terrorist attack there.
At the same time, the American mission in Pakistan on Sunday dealt
the al Qaeda movement a serious blow with potentially grave
ramifications: The symbolic leader of their cause is dead.
“A timely triumph -- especially coming as the 10th anniversary of the
9/11 attacks approaches,” said Bruce Hoffman, director of security
studies at Georgetown University. “After a long wait, the U.S. has
made good on the pledge of President Bush nearly a decade ago
that the U.S. would get bin Laden dead or alive.”
The milestone was not lost on President George W. Bush. “This
momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people
who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved
ones on September 11, 2001," he declared in a statement. "The fight
against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable
message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."
Some suggested that al Qaeda would be weakened by the loss of its
long-time leader.
“It matters. Bin Laden represented consistent and coherent
leadership of the movement for well over a decade,” said former
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. “The movement is
more diffuse that it was before 9/11 – there are still franchises
around the world, but the center is now hollow with bin Laden
leaving the scene.”
Crowley compared the impact of bin Laden’s death to that of Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq who was also
taken out in a targeted killing by U.S. forces in 2006. “Our
experience in Iraq is instructive,” he said. “AQI can still conduct
isolated attacks, but it was never the same once Zarqawi was killed.
I expect this will be similar.”
Obama called the death of bin Laden “the most significant
achievement" in the long war that began in 2001 war. But he added
words of caution: "We must and we will remain vigilant at home and
abroad."
Several experts agreed with Obama's warning, saying that bin
Laden's killing would itself hand al Qaeda a powerful rallying point,
one it will seek to explode as it readies a new set of targets.
“Retaliation to some degree is probable,” said Fred Burton, an
intelligence analyst at the research group Stratfor. “Soft targets will
be in the gun sights.”
Candace Rondeaux, a senior analyst for the International Crisis
Group in Kabul, said retaliatory strikes are particularly likely in
Afghanistan and the broader region. “This is a significant blow but
obviously not the endgame," she said in an e-mail. "We certainly
should expect reprisal attacks in Kabul and possibly in Islamabad.”
The hunt for bin Laden had long gone cold after he slipped away
from the grasp of coalition forces bombarding his hideout in the
mountains of Tora Bora in December 2001. But in August 2010,
Obama said, intelligence officials got a tip that he was living in a
compound in Abbottabad, deep inside Pakistan. That’s where Navy
SEALs killed him and others in a shootout Sunday.
Obama said he called Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who he
said agreed that, “This is a good and historic day for both of our
nations.”
"Counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin
Laden and the compound where he was hiding," Obama said.
"Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and
ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.”
But Hoffman pointed out that no matter how much the Pakistanis
cooperated with American forces in the operation, bin Laden was
living in a mansion not far from the capital.
"The fact that he wasn't hiding or cowering in a cave somewhere in
the mountains but in [a compound in a populated area] means that
he couldn't have survived for this long without help from some
quarters," he said.
Some expressed suspicions that Pakistan’s Inter-Services
Intelligence agency knew where bin Laden was all along. Thomas E.
Gouttierre of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of
Nebraska suggested the ISI “gave him up because it was becoming
clear he was now expendable, because the war in Afghanistan, even
with its many issues, was going in a direction that was likely to
reduce Pakistani influence and access to negotiations between
[Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and Pakistani-supported Taliban
elements."
“Pakistan wants to be able to manipulate Afghanistan much in the
way Syria has sought to manipulate events in Lebanon," he said,
noting bin Laden may have become a victim of the fierce rivalry
between Pakistan and India.
For its part, the Indian government focused less on the fact of bin
Laden's demise and more on the location of his killing, underscoring
the tense state of relations between India and Pakistan.
In a statement, the government of India noted "with grave concern"
the fact that bin Laden was killed deep inside Pakistan. "This fact
underlines our concern that terrorists belonging to different
organizations find sanctuary in Pakistan," it said, adding that it
believed the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack continue
to be sheltered in Pakistan.
Courtesy
02 May, 2011 | Huffington Post
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- WASHINGTON -- The words so
many Americans have waited to
hear for nearly a decade -- Osama
Bin Laden is dead -- were finally
spoken on a spring night by a
President still grappling with the
national security crisis sparked by
9/11.
But as crowds streamed to the White House to chant “USA! USA!
USA!” in ecstatic reaction to the news, experts were divided over
whether bin Laden's end would weaken the terrorist movement he
oversaw, or whether it had arrived too late to make a substantial
difference: some suggested that al Qaeda is now so established and
globally organized that it is likely to continue seeking Western targets.
"This closes a chapter but the most sobering aspect of this is that this
is not the end," said Jack Cloonan, a former special agent in the FBI’
s bin Laden unit. "The reasons they hate us have not subsided and
this could reinvigorate things.”
Nearly 10 years after bin Laden directed the terrorist attack that
felled New York’s World Trade Center, a new Freedom Tower is
rising at Ground Zero. The mastermind of the attack, Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, awaits a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay. Despite
numerous reported efforts, al Qaeda has yet to pull off another
attack as deadly as the one it unleashed on Sept. 11, 2001.
And yet, say experts, the jihadists who revered bin Laden have not
gone away. A Yemeni-American cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki has
taken over as the spiritual director of al Qaeda, calling for attacks
like the one the Christmas underwear bomber attempted over
Detroit. Just last Friday, meanwhile, German police arrested three
suspected members of the al Qaeda organization who officials said
were preparing a test run for a terrorist attack there.
At the same time, the American mission in Pakistan on Sunday dealt
the al Qaeda movement a serious blow with potentially grave
ramifications: The symbolic leader of their cause is dead.
“A timely triumph -- especially coming as the 10th anniversary of the
9/11 attacks approaches,” said Bruce Hoffman, director of security
studies at Georgetown University. “After a long wait, the U.S. has
made good on the pledge of President Bush nearly a decade ago
that the U.S. would get bin Laden dead or alive.”
The milestone was not lost on President George W. Bush. “This
momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people
who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved
ones on September 11, 2001," he declared in a statement. "The fight
against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable
message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."
Some suggested that al Qaeda would be weakened by the loss of its
long-time leader.
“It matters. Bin Laden represented consistent and coherent
leadership of the movement for well over a decade,” said former
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. “The movement is
more diffuse that it was before 9/11 – there are still franchises
around the world, but the center is now hollow with bin Laden
leaving the scene.”
Crowley compared the impact of bin Laden’s death to that of Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq who was also
taken out in a targeted killing by U.S. forces in 2006. “Our
experience in Iraq is instructive,” he said. “AQI can still conduct
isolated attacks, but it was never the same once Zarqawi was killed.
I expect this will be similar.”
Obama called the death of bin Laden “the most significant
achievement" in the long war that began in 2001 war. But he added
words of caution: "We must and we will remain vigilant at home and
abroad."
Several experts agreed with Obama's warning, saying that bin
Laden's killing would itself hand al Qaeda a powerful rallying point,
one it will seek to explode as it readies a new set of targets.
“Retaliation to some degree is probable,” said Fred Burton, an
intelligence analyst at the research group Stratfor. “Soft targets will
be in the gun sights.”
Candace Rondeaux, a senior analyst for the International Crisis
Group in Kabul, said retaliatory strikes are particularly likely in
Afghanistan and the broader region. “This is a significant blow but
obviously not the endgame," she said in an e-mail. "We certainly
should expect reprisal attacks in Kabul and possibly in Islamabad.”
The hunt for bin Laden had long gone cold after he slipped away
from the grasp of coalition forces bombarding his hideout in the
mountains of Tora Bora in December 2001. But in August 2010,
Obama said, intelligence officials got a tip that he was living in a
compound in Abbottabad, deep inside Pakistan. That’s where Navy
SEALs killed him and others in a shootout Sunday.
Obama said he called Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who he
said agreed that, “This is a good and historic day for both of our
nations.”
"Counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin
Laden and the compound where he was hiding," Obama said.
"Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and
ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.”
But Hoffman pointed out that no matter how much the Pakistanis
cooperated with American forces in the operation, bin Laden was
living in a mansion not far from the capital.
"The fact that he wasn't hiding or cowering in a cave somewhere in
the mountains but in [a compound in a populated area] means that
he couldn't have survived for this long without help from some
quarters," he said.
Some expressed suspicions that Pakistan’s Inter-Services
Intelligence agency knew where bin Laden was all along. Thomas E.
Gouttierre of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of
Nebraska suggested the ISI “gave him up because it was becoming
clear he was now expendable, because the war in Afghanistan, even
with its many issues, was going in a direction that was likely to
reduce Pakistani influence and access to negotiations between
[Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and Pakistani-supported Taliban
elements."
“Pakistan wants to be able to manipulate Afghanistan much in the
way Syria has sought to manipulate events in Lebanon," he said,
noting bin Laden may have become a victim of the fierce rivalry
between Pakistan and India.
For its part, the Indian government focused less on the fact of bin
Laden's demise and more on the location of his killing, underscoring
the tense state of relations between India and Pakistan.
In a statement, the government of India noted "with grave concern"
the fact that bin Laden was killed deep inside Pakistan. "This fact
underlines our concern that terrorists belonging to different
organizations find sanctuary in Pakistan," it said, adding that it
believed the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack continue
to be sheltered in Pakistan.
Courtesy
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