Inside the compound where Bin Laden was found

KyaemonMay 2, 201125min33521

 

Inside the compound where Bin Laden was found

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13260250

 

 

President Barack Obama says the al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been killed by US forces in Pakistan.
Bin Laden is believed to be the mastermind of the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 and a number of others.
He was killed in a ground operation at the compound where he was hiding, in the town of Abbottabad.
Footage from inside the building showed scenes of disarray, and bloodstains on the floor. Steve Kingstone reports.

 

 

 

BBC News – A look at Osama Bin Laden’s compound

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13257528

 

US President Barack Obama says al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been killed by US forces in Pakistan.
Bin Laden was killed in a ground operation outside Islamabad based on US intelligence. Mr Obama said US forces took possession of Bin Laden’s body after “a firefight” at a compound in Abbotabad.
Adam Brookes reports.

 

BBC News – A look at Osama Bin Laden’s compound

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13257528

BBC News – Bin Laden raid eyewitness ‘heard heavy gunfire’

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13258799

A man who unknowingly lived in the same town as Osama Bin Laden has said he heard “heavy gunfire followed by a huge blast”, as US forces attacked his compound.
Syed Riaz Hussain from Abbottabad in Pakistan, told the BBC he had no idea the most wanted man in the world was living in his town.

 

 

Good Morning America:

YouTube – Osama Bin Laden Dead: Graphic Footage Inside Bin Laden’s Compound, 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B62Q6t_xAng

Courier Led CIA to Bin Laden – Fox News Video – FoxNews.com


http://video.foxnews.com/v/4672190/courier-led-cia-to-bin-laden

 

Trusted messenger located using intelligence from Gitmo interrogations

 

 

What Is Navy SEAL Team 6?

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4672190/courier-led-cia-to-bin-laden#/v/4672216/what-is-navy-seal-team-6/?playlist_id=87937

 

What Is Navy SEAL Team 6? – Fox News Video – FoxNews.com

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4672216/what-is-navy-seal-team-6/?playlist_id=87937

 

 

 

Osama Bin Laden’s Compound On Google Maps: Pics, Videos, Links, News

http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrismenning/osama-bin-ladens-compound-on-google-maps

Osama Bin Laden Death Confirmed By DNA Testing: Reports

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead-dna-test_n_856319.html

 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. used multiple means to confirm the identity of Osama bin Laden during and after the firefight in which he was killed, before placing his body in the North Arabian Sea from aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier, senior U.S. officials said Monday.
The al-Qaida leader was identified by name by a woman believed to be one of his wives – bin Laden had several – who was present at his Pakistan compound at the time of the U.S. raid. He also was visually identified by members of the U.S. raid squad, a senior intelligence official told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. Under ground rules set by the Pentagon, the intelligence official and two senior defense officials could not be identified by name.
The intelligence official also said quite a bit of unspecified material was collected by U.S. forces during the raid. Without describing the material, the official said it is being analyzed by a team of people at the CIA.
The officials said bin Laden was killed toward the end of the firefight, which took place overnight Monday in a building at a compound north of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. His body was put aboard the USS Carl Vinson and placed into the North Arabian Sea.
Traditional Islamic procedures for handling the remains were followed, the officials said, including washing the corpse, placing it in a white sheet. Preparations for at-sea burial began at 1:10 a.m. EDT Monday and were completed at 2 a.m. EDT, one official said.
The intelligence official said the DNA match, using DNA from several family members, provided virtual certainty that it was bin Laden’s body.
Officials did not immediately say where or how the testing was done but the test explains why President Barack Obama was confident to announce the death to the world Sunday night. Obama provided no details on the identification process.
The U.S. is believed to have collected DNA samples from bin Laden family members in the years since the 9/11 attacks that triggered the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. It was unclear whether the U.S. also had fingerprints or some other means to identify the body on site.
Bin Laden was shot in the head during the firefight with members of an elite American counter-terrorism unit that launched a helicopter-borne raid on the al-Qaida leader’s compound, U.S. officials said. Officials said the U.S. special forces who stormed the compound came face to face with their prey.
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U.S. officials also said bin Laden was identified through “facial recognition,” a reference to technology for mapping unique facial characteristics, but it was not clear exactly how the Navy SEAL troops performed the comparison.
The body was photographed before being buried at sea, although no images have been released by the Obama administration.
The U.S. official who disclosed the burial at sea said it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial.
Positive identification of the remains is considered a critically important part of the U.S. operation, given the symbolic importance of bin Laden’s leadership of the Islamic extremist movement that was based in Afghanistan until the U.S. invaded in October 2001.
When al-Qaida’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in June 2006, DNA tests were performed by the FBI to positively identify the remains. The U.S. military also performed an autopsy, in part to dispel allegations in the immediate aftermath of the airstrike that the terrorist leader had been beaten or shot by U.S. soldiers while in American custody.
It was not clear Monday whether the Obama administration intended to release its photos of bin Laden’s body.
In July 2003, when U.S. forces killed Saddam Hussein’s sons, Odai and Qusai, in a gunbattle in northern Iraq, the U.S. military released graphic after-death photographs in an effort to prove to Iraqis that they were dead. Two of the photos showed the first man, identified as Qusai, with bruises and blood spots around his eyes. That face was far more intact than the other, identified as Odai; the mouth was open with the teeth showing.
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Reading While Eating for May 2: Eight In-Depth Looks at bin Laden’s Death

 

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/02/reading-while-eating-for-may-2-eight-in-depth-looks-at-bin-ladens-death/?iid=moreonnf

 

 

Timeline: How the U.S. Found and Killed Osama bin Laden

 

Topics: dead, killed, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, play by play, step by step, terrorism, us, war on terror, world

 

 

 

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/02/timeline-how-the-u-s-found-and-killed-osama-bin-laden/?iid=nfmostpopular

 

CIA led U.S. special forces mission against Osama bin Laden

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-osama-bin-laden-cia-20110502,0,6466214.story

 

The operation that killed Osama bin Laden was led by the CIA, although most of those conducting the raid were military special operations troops, a U.S. official said today. CIA Director Leon Panetta gave the go-order about midday Sunday, after President Obama had signed off on it.

Panetta and other CIA officials monitored the raid via live video on the 7th floor of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. When an operator was overheard confirming that bin Laden was killed, cheers erupted.

Photo gallery: Reactions to Osama bin Laden death

Bin Laden was shot while shooting back, the official reported. Contrary to some reports, the operation was intended to kill or capture bin Laden, although all involved thought capture was unlikely.

“This wasn’t an execution,” the official said.”The assessment going in to it was that it’s highly unlikely that’s he’s going to be taken alive, but if he decided to lay down his arms, he would have been taken captive.”

Crucial information about the trusted courier who owned the compound came years ago from CIA interrogations of 9-11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohamed, the official said. This is significant, because the Al Qaeda mastermind was subject to waterboarding and other brutal interrogation methods.

“We were able to get pieces of information from detainees,” the official said. “That took years and these guys don’t give it up all willingly.”

An option to bomb the compound was rejected in favor of a surgical raid, in part to make sure there was proof Bin Laden was there, and in part to spare the lives of more than a dozen non-combatants living in the compound.

The CIA and other agencies had been watching the compound since August, so they knew a lot about it, the official said.  Mock-ups had been constructed and rehearsals of the raid held while senior officials watched.

The town is not in the area where U.S. Predator drones regularly fly over the tribal areas of Pakistan, so other methods had to be used to gather intelligence on the layout, the official said. The National Security Agency, which has satellites that can eavesdrop on conversations, and the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, which can map buildings and terrain via satellite and other technology, were both involved. The technology is such that the CIA was aware of where people were in the compound during the early morning hours when the raid occurred, the official said.

A tense moment during the raid came when one of the helicopters malfunctioned, but no one was injured and the copter was destroyed.

The official would not say where the body was buried at sea, but said, “We treated him with more respect than he treated a lot of Americans.”

 

21 comments

  • Kyaemon

    May 3, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    US reveals Bin Laden leak fears

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13274176

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    Footage from inside Bin Laden’s compound
    Continue reading the main story
    Death of Bin Laden

    * Osama Bin Laden’s death Live
    * The raid: How it happened
    * How the Bin Ladens lived
    * Q&A: Bin Laden mission

    The head of the CIA has said the US did not tell Pakistan about the operation to capture al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden because it feared the Pakistanis would leak information to the targets.

    CIA director Leon Panetta told Time magazine they decided co-operation “could jeopardise the mission”.

    Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, says it is embarrassed by its failures on Bin Laden.

    Pakistan’s government denied knowledge of the raid before it took place.

    Bin Laden, 54, was the founder and leader of al-Qaeda. He is believed to have ordered the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, as well as a number of other deadly bombings.

    In its article, billed as Mr Panetta’s first interview since Bin Laden was killed, Time magazine says “the CIA ruled out participating with its nominal South Asian ally early on”.

    It quotes Mr Panetta as saying “it was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission. They might alert the targets”.

    Pakistan received $1.3bn (£786m) in US aid last year and provides logistical support for the Nato mission in Afghanistan. However, relations between Islamabad and Washington have been strained by US suspicions that the ISI is covertly backing militants in Afghanistan, and by anger over US drone strikes in Pakistani tribal areas. …

  • Kyaemon

    May 3, 2011 at 6:21 pm

    Pakistan proved hunting point (a good hunting ground) for top 8 al-Qaida leaders since 9/11

    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-05/03/c_13857263.htm

    By Jamil Bhatti

    ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan, May 3 (Xinhua) — The death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan demanded critics who termed Pakistan a safe heaven for al-Qaeda members in the past to change their views as this heaven has been proven as the hunting cage of al-Qaida’s top leadership, Pakistanis said on Tuesday.

    People talking to Xinhua showed their deep concerns over the behavior of Western media to Pakistan in war against terrorism. ” We have lost thousands of our innocent people and billions of dollar assets in this war but even then they are negative about our role,”said a resident in Abbottabad, the city where bin Laden was killed.

    Osama, al-Qaida’s founder and chief, was the latest one of the eight al-Qaida leaders killed or arrested in Pakistan since the 9/ 11 incident, the attack that left over 3,000 people dead in New York and also triggered U.S.-led war against Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

    Osama bin Laden was killed on Monday morning in a direct U.S. army operation in Abbottabad, a cantonment district with a population of over 800,000 some 100 kilometers away from capital Islamabad.

    Here are the details about the other top al-Qaida leaders, who were hounded in Pakistan.

    Seven months after the 9/11 the first top al-Qaida member arrested from Pakistan was a Saudi Arabian national Abu Zubaydah. Pakistani secret intelligence and American FBI, in a joint operation, raided a house in March 2002 in Faisal Town area of country’s industrial city of Faisalabad and arrested him injured.

    Zubaydah was considered as the integral part of the al-Qaida as being the close aid to bin Laden and in-charge of communications in international operations. He has been in U.S. custody since arrest.

    In September 2002, another al-Qaida leader Ramzi bin al-Shibh was also traced and arrested by the Pakistani security agencies from its southern coastal city of Karachi. Shibh is a detainee at Guantanamo Bay as an accused of being the facilitator of 9/11 attacks, and suspect of attacking and destruction of American warship USS Cool in 1998.

    The arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of the al-Qaeda’s top four characters, in March 2003 from Islamabad’s adjacent city of Rawalpindi was the highest profile success of the time.

    The highest importance of 25 million dollar head money man was measured when former U.S. President J.W. Bush announced his arrest and said U.S. has got the mastermind of 9/11 attacks.

    Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the suspect of planning of attacks on U. S. embassy in Kenya in 1998, was handed over to America after Pakistani forces arrested him from the country’s eastern border city of Gujrat in July 2004.

    In May 2005, Pakistani forces succeeded to arrest al-Qaida number three leader Abu Faraj al-Libi, the in-charge of al-Qaida in Pakistan and allegedly responsible of attacks at Pakistan’s then president Pervez Musharraf. Both Pakistan and U.S. had announced head money for his arrest.

    In 2008, American forces raised the number of drone strikes in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas to hunt the al-Qaida militants.

    Abu Lais al-Libi was the first-ever al-Qaida’s main commander who was hit by the drone missile in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region of North Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan, during the last week of January of 2008.

    In May 2010, al-Qaida had to face a big loss when a missile fired from the pilotless U.S. drone killed its senior most leader Mustafa Al Yazid in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal areas. He appeared as the in-charge of operations in Afghanistan, and the number three in rank after the death of Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri following Osama and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

    (The Pakistani author has mentioned some points. Pakistan has helped in certain areas. The clue to Bin Laden’s was gleaned from the 9/11 mastermind, a top aide captured in Pakistan and imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay)

  • Kyaemon

    May 4, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    Contractor of Osama bin Laden’s compound arrested in Pakistan

    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-05/04/c_13858709.htm

    ISLAMABAD, May 4 (Xinhua) — Pakistani security department has arrested the contractor of the compound where the world’s most wanted terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had hidden inside for years, reported local English TV channel Express on Wednesday.
    But the report failed to mention when and where the contractor was arrested. It did not provide detailed information about the identity of the contractor.
    Residents in Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden’s compound is located told Xinhua that the compound was bought by a man they knew as Arshad Khan who is believed to be a resident of Charsadda in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, a militancy rampant area in northwest Pakistan.
    The Nation, an English daily newspaper, reported on Tuesday that the identity card bearing the name of the house owner as Arshad s/o Naqeeb who is said to be a resident of the Tangi Fas area of Charsadda.
    But the report quoted local NADRA office as saying that the identity card of the house owner is a fake one and the residents of the Tangi Fas area also said that no man with such name is residing in the area.
    Earlier Monday morning, a U.S. special task force launched a helicopter raid in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, a small mountainous city located some 100 kilometers north of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. During the raid, Osama bin Laden, together with four other people including his adult son, one woman and two other followers, were shot dead on the spot.

  • Kyaemon

    May 6, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    Al Qaeda confirms bin Laden is dead and vows revenge

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110506/wl_nm/us_obama_statement;_ylt=Altnk_k_WZL5eDnZLf8kA6j9xg8F;_ylu=X3oDMTMyYmw1ZGtiBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwNTA2L3VzX29iYW1hX3N0YXRlbWVudARjY29kZQNwemFndjgEY3BvcwMzBHBvcwMzBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDYWxxYWVkYWNvbmZp

    ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Al Qaeda confirmed Osama bin Laden was dead on Friday, dispelling some of the fog around the killing of the “holy warrior,” and vowed to mount more attacks on the West.

    The announcement by the Islamist network, which promised to publish a taped message from bin Laden soon, appeared likely to silence doubts expressed by some that he had died at all.

    In a statement online, it said bin Laden’s blood “is more precious to us and to every Muslim than to be wasted in vain.”

    “It will remain, with permission from Allah the Almighty, a curse that hunts the Americans and their collaborators and chases them inside and outside their country.”

    Al Qaeda urged Pakistanis to rise up against their government to “cleanse” the country of what it called the shame brought on it by bin Laden’s shooting and of the “filth of the Americans who spread corruption in it.”

    “Before the sheikh passed from this world and before he could share with the Islamic nation in its joys over its revolutions in the face of the oppressors, he recorded a voice recording of congratulations and advice which we will publish soon, God willing,” the militant group said.

    “We warn the Americans not to harm the corpse of the sheikh or expose it to any indecent treatment or to harm any members of his family, living or dead, and to deliver the corpses to their families,” it added. U.S. officials say bin Laden’s body has been buried at sea.

    Anger and suspicion between Washington and Islamabad showed no sign of dispersing.

    A U.S. drone killed 17 in northwest Pakistan, despite warnings from the Pakistani military against the mounting of attacks within its borders. Islamists in the south rallied to vow revenge for the shooting of the “martyr” bin Laden. Afghan Taliban and Islamist Indonesian youths made similar threats.

    “FIVE YEARS” IN COMPOUND

    One of Osama bin Laden’s wives, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, told Pakistani interrogators the al Qaeda leader had been living for five years in the compound where he was killed by U.S. forces this week, a Pakistani security official told Reuters.

    The revelation appeared sure to heighten U.S. suspicions that Pakistani authorities have been either grossly incompetent or playing a double game in the hunt for bin Laden and the two countries’ supposed partnership against violent Islamism.

    Pakistani security forces took between 15 and 16 people into custody from the Abbottabad compound after U.S. forces removed bin Laden’s body, said the security official. Those detained included bin Laden’s three wives and several children.

    Surveillance of bin Laden’s hideout from a CIA safe house in Abbottabad had led to his killing in the Navy SEAL operation, U.S. officials said.

    The U.S. officials, quoted by the Washington Post, said the safe house had been the base for intelligence gathering that began after bin Laden’s compound was discovered last August.

    U.S. officials told the New York Times computer files and documents seized at his compound showed bin Laden had for years orchestrated attacks from the Pakistani town, and may have been planning a strike on U.S. railways this year.

    The fact that bin Laden was found in a garrison town — his compound was not far from a military academy — has embarrassed Pakistan and the covert raid has angered its military.

    On Thursday, the Pakistan army threatened to halt counter-terrorism cooperation with the United States if it conducted any more similar raids.

    It was unclear if such attacks included drone strikes which the U.S. military regularly conducts against militants along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

    On Friday U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles into a house in North Waziristan region on Friday, killing at least 17 suspected militants.

    Pakistani security officials have charged that U.S. troops, after landing by helicopter, shot the unarmed al Qaeda leader in cold blood rather than in a firefight, as U.S. officials first suggested.

    One senior Pakistani official told Reuters on Friday: “We didn’t find any bullet shells inside the house. There is no doubt that no shots were fired from there.”

    Another security official said: “If there was exchange of fire between U.S. Navy SEALS and people inside the house then they (Americans) should prove it. They must have footage of the operation. They should release it.”

    In Washington, people familiar with the latest U.S. government reporting on the raid told Reuters on Thursday only one of four principal targets shot dead by U.S. commandos had been involved in hostile fire.

    U.S. officials originally spoke of a 40-minute firefight. The White House has blamed the “fog of war” for the changing accounts.

    U.N. human rights investigators called on the United States to disclose the full facts “to allow an assessment in terms of international human rights law standards.”

    “It will be particularly important to know if the planning of the mission allowed an effort to capture bin Laden,” Christof Heyns and Martin Scheinin said in a joint statement.

    FEW QUALMS AMONG AMERICANS

    Few Americans appear to have qualms about how bin Laden was killed, and on Thursday people cheered President Barack Obama when he visited the site of New York’s twin towers, leveled by al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.

    But many Americans are questioning how bin Laden could live for years in a town teeming with military personnel, 50 km (30 miles) from Islamabad. Two U.S. lawmakers have complained about the billions in U.S. aid to impoverished Pakistan.

    Seeking to repair ties, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Rome on Thursday that Washington was still anxious to maintain its alliance with Islamabad.

    Friction between Washington and Pakistan has focused on the role of Pakistan’s top security service, the ISI or Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate. Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir denied Pakistani forces had aided al Qaeda.

    Lobbyists for Pakistan in Washington have launched an intense campaign on Capitol Hill to counter accusations that Islamabad deliberately gave refuge to bin Laden.

    (Additional reporting by Erika Solomon in Dubai, Michael Georgy in Islamabad and Reuters bureaux worldwide; writing by Andrew Roche; editing by Angus MacSwan)

  • Kyaemon

    May 7, 2011 at 6:12 pm

    BAJPAEE IS AN INDIAN POLITICAL ANALYST. HE PRESENTS MORE OR LESS AN INDIAN POINT OF VIEW.

    Osama hit a wake-up call for India
    By Chietigj Bajpaee

    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ME07Df02.html

    The killing of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden in Pakistan’s heartland by United States special forces demonstrated American resolve in the decade since the 9/11 attacks to get its man. It has also renewed concerns that the South Asian nation is a hub of Islamic extremist activities that have targeted neighboring India.

    The May 3 hit draws attention to the shallowness of India’s claims to be an emerging “great power” since it caps events in South Asia over the past decade that show India remains incapable of solving problems within its own sub-region, far from acquiring the capability to project influence on a larger scale.

    Death by a thousand cuts
    The Fedayeen (guerilla)-style attacks in Mumbai on November 26-28, 2008, which claimed the lives of nearly 200 people have often

    portrayed in the media as “India’s 9/11”. However, in reality, India has suffered multiple 9/11 moments over the past two decades inflicted by Pakistan-based militant groups, and few of the masterminds behind these attacks have been held accountable as India’s list of demands grows longer with each assault.

    From the multiple bomb strikes targeted at transport infrastructure, religious venues and commercial hubs across major cities in India’s heartland, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Pune, attacks have claimed some 1,000 lives and injured almost 3,000 people. Add to that toll the death of more than 40,000 people in the two-decade insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir state that has seen continued militant infiltration and ceasefire violations along the Line of Control dividing Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

    The incursion of militant elements supported by Pakistani paramilitary forces in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir in mid-1999 could be defined as India’s “Pearl Harbor moment” when the country was caught off-guard by Pakistani aggression. Given that it came mere months after then-Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s much-hailed “bus diplomacy” mission to Pakistan.

    Pakistani military and intelligence services continue to feign ignorance of these plots to destabilize India while drawing distinctions between “good” militants (Kashmiri separatists, Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani group, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir factions of the Pakistan Taliban) and “bad” militants (the Mehsud faction of the Pakistani Taliban, al-Qaeda, Lashkar al-Zil, TNSM) as a means to escape charges of being state sponsors of terrorism.

    Indian interests and citizens have also faced direct threats beyond its shores from Pakistan-based militancy and extremism. In December 1999, India faced what some have described as the “dress rehearsal for 9-11” as five militants hijacked Indian Airlines 814 after it took off from Kathmandu, Nepal and diverted it to Kandahar, Afghanistan after stopovers in Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai…..

    Calm before the storm
    Al-Qaeda’s Arab element is being increasingly displaced from South Asia and back to its heartland in the Middle East and North Africa. This push has been fueled by anti-terrorism operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the emergence of new places of instability as ripe terrorist sanctuaries, which have given rise to such groups as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Islamic Maghreb, and militant groups exploiting ongoing instabilities plaguing the region, such as in the conflict in Libya.

    As such, terrorist leaderships in South Asia are becoming localized, as demonstrated by the proliferation of indigenous militant umbrella organizations such as the Pakistan Taliban (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) and Punjabi Taliban. These groups are likely to return attention to Kashmir, their original grievance, and target their original enemy – India.

    The decapitation of al-Qaeda’s leadership in the Af-Pak region and the planned US withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014 set the stage for a reversion to the original bilateral conflict plaguing regional stability between India and Pakistan. New Delhi cannot afford to be caught off-guard once the dust settles in South Asia and it is once again alone in facing the scourge of terrorism, separatist insurgency and military aggression emanating from Pakistan.

    Chietigj Bajpaee is an Asia analyst. He has worked with several political risk consultancies and public policy think-tanks based in the United States, Europe and South Asia. The views expressed here are his own. He can be reached at cbajpaee@hotmail.com.

  • Kyaemon

    May 9, 2011 at 3:56 am

    Pulling down the bin Laden myth – and brand
    It’s not always about whose army wins. It’s also about whose story wins.
    Pulling down the bin Laden myth – and brand – CSMonitor.com

    http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2011/0503/Pulling-down-the-bin-Laden-myth-and-brand

    By Joseph S. Nye, Contributor / May 3, 2011
    Killing bin Laden does not end terrorism. In the short run, it may even lead to a spurt of decentralized revenge attacks, but in the longer term it deals Al Qaeda a severe blow. Over the past decade, Al Qaeda became a loose network, almost a franchise, where much of the activity was developed by local terrorist entrepreneurs. Now the value of the brand name is diminished, and that makes the franchise less valuable.
    As I describe in The Future of Power, terrorism is not about military strength or military victory. In an information age, it is not always whose army wins, but also whose story wins.
    Terrorists are always weaker on the military dimension. Terrorism is about drama, myth, and a narrative designed to capture media attention and set the agenda of world politics. That is something that bin Laden accomplished brilliantly after 9/11. He appeared to be the strong horse (in his words), and his survival fostered the myth of invincibility that added value to the Al Qaeda franchise. His demise punctures that myth. It is not the end of terrorism, but it is an important milestone.
    This comment first appeared on the Power & Policy blog at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
    Osama bin Laden – All coverage – The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com

    http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Topics/osama-bin-laden

  • paukpauk

    May 9, 2011 at 1:46 pm

    Why you try so stuff of news put into this site in English only?
    Here is not just for English readers.
    Be advised to translate our tongue.
    You are welcome!

  • Kyaemon

    May 11, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    Bin Laden son calls burial at sea ‘humiliating’

    Bin Laden son: Bin Laden’s swift burial at sea, in what his son called a violation of Islamic custom, has stirred anger.

    *

    Omar Bin Laden, son of Osama Bin Laden, talks during an interview with Reuters in a Cairo suburb in this January 23, 2008 file photo.

    http://myanmargazette.net/48005/arts-humanities/history-museums

    Reuters
    Enlarge
    12Share 80 and 25

    By Reuters / May 10, 2011
    LONDON

    A statement purporting to come from a son of Osama bin Laden denounced the al Qaeda leader’s killing as “criminal” and said his burial at sea had humiliated the family, an online monitoring service said.
    Skip to next paragraph
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    * Bin Laden raid: A model for how US should fight Afghanistan war?
    * Is Anwar al-Awlaki’s importance to Al Qaeda overstated?
    * US was prepared for a fight with Pakistan during bin Laden raid

    The statement, attributed to Omar bin Laden, bin Laden’s fourth eldest son, said the al Qaeda chief’s children reserved the right to take legal action in the United States and internationally to “determine the true fate of our vanished father”, the SITE Intelligence Group said.

    There was no independent confirmation of the authenticity of the letter, published on the website of Islamist ideologue Abu Walid al-Masri, although several specialists on militant propaganda said the text appeared genuine.

    Gallery: Osama bin Laden death – reaction

    Omar bin Laden, who has been based in the Gulf in recent years, did not immediately respond to emailed and telephoned requests for comment.

    The letter said, in part: “We hold the American President (Barack) Obama legally responsible to clarify the fate of our father, Osama bin Laden, for it is unacceptable, humanely and religiously, to dispose of a person with such importance and status among his people, by throwing his body into the sea in that way, which demeans and humiliates his family and his supporters and which challenges religious provisions and feelings of hundreds of millions of Muslims.”

    The letter said the U.S. administration had offered no proof to back up its account of the mission. It alleged the goal of raid had been to kill and not arrest, adding that afterwards the American commandos had “rushed to dispose of the body”.

    Some Muslims have misgivings about how U.S. forces killed bin Laden in a raid inPakistan on May 2 and disposed of his body in the ocean.

    Questions have multiplied since the White House said the al Qaeda leader was unarmed when U.S. helicopter-borne commandos raided the villa where he was hiding in the city of Abbottabad.

    Bin Laden’s swift burial at sea, in what many Muslims say was a violation of Islamic custom, has also stirred anger.

    Gallery: Osama bin Laden death – reaction

  • Kyaemon

    May 11, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    US was prepared for a fight with Pakistan during bin Laden raid

    President Obama authorized US troops to fight Pakistani forces if they interfered during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, highlighting the poor state of the US-Pakistan relationship.

    http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2011/0510/US-was-prepared-for-a-fight-with-Pakistan-during-bin-Laden-raid

    • A daily summary of global reports on security issues.

    The American forces who raided Osama bin Laden’s compound were authorized and equipped to fight Pakistani forces and police if they interfered with the operation that killed the terrorist leader.

    The disclosure that the US was willing to risk a military confrontation with its ally is yet another sign of the low trust between the US and Pakistan. Last week American officials said that the US opted not to tell Pakistan about the mission or Mr. bin Laden’s whereabouts beforehand because it could not be sure that Pakistan would not leak the information.

    The US increased the number of forces involved in the mission about 10 days before the operation, after President Obama questioned whether the US would be able to fight its way out if Pakistani forces showed up and tried to block American forces from carrying out the operation, The New York Times reports.

    IN PICTURES: bin Laden’s compound

    “Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out of a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance,” a senior administration official told the Times. “He wanted extra forces if they were necessary.”

    The Guardian reported yesterday that according to unnamed Pakistani and American officials, former Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf and former US President George W. Bush signed an agreement in 2001 that authorized a unilateral American operation to capture bin Laden, much like the one that actually happened – and that afterward, Pakistan would “vociferously protest the incursion.”

    Mr. Musharraf has since denied having either a formal agreement or a verbal understanding with Mr. Bush, according to the Associated Press.

    Indeed, Pakistan has lashed out at the US for acting unilaterally in Pakistani territory – already a source of tension because of US drone attacks in Pakistan and the presence of covert US operatives in the country – and warned of consequences if the US did anything similar in the future. The US has expressed doubts that Pakistani intelligence could have been oblivious to bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, just half a mile away from the Pakistan Military Academy.

    Exacerbating the tension, the CIA station chief in Islamabad was outed in national media Friday and Saturday. US officials say they believe his identity was deliberately leaked by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Washington Post reported.

    American officials said they had no hard proof, but that “past history” supported their suspicions. Paul Pillar, a CIA veteran, told the Los Angeles Times that the leak of the station chief’s name would “have limited effect on the agency’s operations, but it would affect ‘the overall tone of a relationship that has gotten pretty bad.’ ”

    However, US-Pakistan cooperation is so far continuing amid all the accusations. A US official told Reuters that it looks likely that Pakistan will give US intelligence officials access to bin Laden’s three wives, who were taken into Pakistani custody following the raid. The US has also requested access to ISI officials to investigate potential links to Al Qaeda.

    IN PICTURES: bin Laden’s compound

  • Kyaemon

    May 11, 2011 at 9:30 pm

    Bin Laden family condemns killing, while wife says one son escaped

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110511/ts_yblog_thelookout/bin-laden-family-condemns-killing-while-wife-says-one-son-escaped

    Osama bin Laden’s family is taking center stage in the fallout over his death.

    Yesterday, the al Qaeda leader’s sons denounced what they called their father’s “arbitrary killing.” Meanwhile, Pakistani officials believe one of bin Laden’s sons–perhaps one known as “the Crown Prince of Terror”–may be missing after escaping from the U.S. raid.

    In a statement, bin Laden’s sons questioned why their father “was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that the truth is revealed to the people of the world.” It is not known how many of bin Laden’s numerous sons (there are believed to be as many as 17) endorsed the statement.

    “We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems,” the statement continued, adding that “justice must be seen to be done.”

    President Obama has rejected suggestions that the killing was improper, telling “60 Minutes” that anyone who questioned whether bin Laden deserved his fate “needs to have their head examined.”

    The sons’ statement, which also called for bin Laden’s three wives and several children to be released from custody, is said to have been prepared at the direction of Omar bin Laden, 30.

    Omar bin Laden, a metals trader who has been living in Cairo, appears at pains to disassociate himself from his father’s belief in political violence. “We want to remind the world that Omar bin Laden, the fourth-born son of our father, always disagreed with our father regarding any violence and always sent messages to our father, that he must change his ways and that no civilians should be attacked under any circumstances,” the statement said.

    It continued: “Despite the difficulty of publicly disagreeing with our father, he never hesitated to condemn any violent attacks made by anyone, and expressed sorrow for the victims of any and all attacks.”

    In a separate statement posted on a jihadist website yesterday, the sons accused President Obama of ordering “a criminal mission” that “obliterated an entire defenseless family … contrary to the most basic human sentiment.”

    And they objected to the decision to bury their father at sea, which some Islamic scholars also have questioned. “It is unacceptable–humanely and religiously–to dispose of a person with such importance and status among his people, by throwing his body into the sea in that way, which demeans and humiliates his family and his supporters and which challenges religious provisions and feelings of hundreds of millions of Muslims,” the statement read.

    Separately, ABC News reports that one of bin Laden’s wives, who was captured in the U.S. raid, has told Pakistani investigators that one of the terror leader’s sons escaped and is missing. Pakistani officials are said to have done a head count, and to believe it’s true, though U.S. officials say they’re confident no one escaped during or after the raid.

    “Out of 21, one person is not accounted for,” a Pakistani intelligence official told ABC. “I believe that’s the son.”

    Pakistani investigators are probing whether the son could be 22-year-old Hamza bin Laden, known as “The Crown Prince of Terror.” Hamza was credited with writing a poem praising the 2005 London bombings, and was accused by Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto of attempting to assassinate her. Bhutto was killed by Islamic extremists in 2007.

    Bin Laden’s wives are currently being questioned by Pakistani investigators in a safe house. It’s not clear if U.S. officials will be given the chance to question them directly.

  • Kyaemon

    May 13, 2011 at 1:34 am

    Russian FM says killing of bin Laden justified

    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-05/12/c_13871879.htm

    MOSCOW, May 12 (Xinhua) — The United States had a firm judicial base on the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a Moscow newspaper on Thursday.

    According to The Moscow News, Lavrov said the U.S. operation was conducted as a self-defense action in accordance with the UN Charter.

    “No one in the world has any doubts that the terrible terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 and others which were all masterminded by bin Laden,” Lavrov said, stressing that al-Qaida has been responsible for the terror attacks in Russia too.

    For years, Russian authorities have long suspected the al-Qaida has been involved in terror attacks in the volatile North Caucasus region.

    Also in the interview, the foreign minister talked about the situation in Libya and said the coalition’s operation against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’ forces has gone beyond what the UN Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973 mandated.

    “The Coalition openly employs double standards, stopping the commercial ships with humanitarian cargo. The Coalition has also been shifting to support one side in the conflict,” Lavrov said. Meanwhile, he also admitted Gaddafi “has committed crimes and blunders.”

    Lavrov said Moscow has proposed an immediate ceasefire in Libya and start of the mediatory efforts by the African Union and the UN.

    “War till the victorious end will have catastrophic consequences, including break-up of Libya,” he warned.

  • Kyaemon

    May 13, 2011 at 8:59 am

    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/somali_branch_kenya_al_qaeda_threaten_A9cnXTBKKKqeM4QzT7oOtM

    Now it’s personal.

    Security has been increased around the home of President Obama’s step-grandmother in Kenya after al Qaeda terrorists issued a personal threat against her, authorities said today.

    Police in Kenya have begun 24-hour patrols after Al Shabaab, the Somalia-based branch of al Qaeda, threatened the life of Sarah Onyango Obama, ABC News reported on its website.

    The stepped-up security comes nearly two weeks after US commandos shot and killed terror lord Osama bin Laden in his hideout in Pakistan.

    One police chief told ABC News he now has enough officers “to patrol the entire village” of Nyang’oma Kogelo — located some 35 miles west of western Kenya’s main city of Kisumu — where Obama’s step-grandmother lives.

    Sarah Obama, 89, is the third wife of Obama’s paternal grandfather. Although she is not related to President Obama, he has affectionately referred to her as “Granny.”

    Al Shabaab, which has been involved in fierce fighting in Somalia for years, is an Islamist insurgent group that counts as many as 7,000 members. The group is considered part of al Qaeda’s Somali-based branch.

    Since bin Laden’s death, various groups linked to al Qaeda have declared revenge against the US. One branch of the terror organization based in Yemen and led by possible bin Laden successor Anwar al-Awlaki, has said that the US would now “wish for the days of Osama.”

    “Do not dismiss this battle so easily, and give your people false hope that if you kill Osama that it is over,” promised Nasir al-Wahishi, another leader of the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

    “What is waiting for you is far greater and more dangerous, and you will then count your regrets, wishing for the days of Osama.”

    This comes as Obama is set to give a major speech, possibly as early as next week, laying out his new Middle East strategy after the killing of bin Laden and amid upheaval in the Arab world.

    A key sticking point is whether Obama, who gained a boost in global stature with the death of the al Qaeda leader, will also use his coming address to present new proposals for renewed Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, a source familiar with the administration’s internal debate said.

    Obama, who will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on May 20, is considering giving the speech before he leaves on a trip to Europe early in the week of May 22, a senior administration official said.

    Obama spokesman Jay Carney, speaking at the daily White House briefing on Wednesday, said the president would deliver an address on Middle East policy “fairly soon” but declined to provide further details.

    With Reuters

  • Kyaemon

    May 13, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    Exclusive: Pornography found in bin Laden hideout: officials

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110513/wl_nm/us_binladen_porn;_ylt=AttRPJLyK9hD8R.qVj9xX8ln.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTMxMXRwMW1pBGFzc2V0A25tLzIwMTEwNTEzL3VzX2JpbmxhZGVuX3Bvcm4EY2NvZGUDdG9wZ21wZQRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzEEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNleGNsdXNpdmVwb3I-

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A stash of pornography was found in the hideout of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. commandos who killed him, current and former U.S. officials said on Friday.

    The pornography recovered in bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive, according to the officials, who discussed the discovery with Reuters on condition of anonymity.

    The officials said they were not yet sure precisely where in the compound the pornography was discovered or who had been viewing it. Specifically, the officials said they did not know if bin Laden himself had acquired or viewed the materials.

    Reports from Abbottabad have said that bin Laden’s compound was cut off from the Internet or other hard-wired communications networks. It is unclear how compound residents would have acquired the pornography.

    But a video released by the Obama administration confiscated from the compound showed bin Laden watching pictures of himself on a TV screen, indicating that the compound was equipped with video playback equipment.

    Materials carted away from the compound by the U.S. commandos included digital thumb drives, which U.S. officials believe may have been a principal means by which couriers carried electronic messages to and from the late al Qaeda leader.

    Three other U.S. officials familiar with evidence gathered during investigations of other Islamic militants said the discovery of pornography is not uncommon in such cases.

    (Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Tabassum Zakaria; editing by Warren Strobel)

  • Kyaemon

    May 13, 2011 at 9:35 pm

    Four terrorists arrested in Karachi, Pakistan

    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-05/13/c_13873993.htm

    KARACHI, May 13 (Xinhua) — Law Enforcement Agencies arrested four terrorists including a student of a prestigious university in south Pakistani port city of Karachi, impounding a huge cache of weapons from their custody, police said Friday.

    According to police sources, the terrorists were planning to target important and sensitive buildings, installations, and law enforcement agencies.

    Addressing a press conference Senior Superintendent Police Omar Shahid Aamir said that the arrested terrorists were working for the banned outfit of Pakistan Taliban.

    He said that the suspected terrorists were arrested Thursday night after a police encounter from the suburbs of the city, while some of their accomplices managed to escape.

    Police also exposed the impounded cache of arms to media comprising three suicide jackets, around 25 kg of explosive material and a large number of arms and ammunition.

    The arrested terrorists are highly educated and well versed in the use of latest electronic gadgetry, computers, and their use in acts of terrorism. One of the arrested militants is a student of physics department in a prestigious university of the metropolis, he is believed to be involved in distribution of subversive materiel among students, preaching extremism.

    The arrested terrorists revealed that over 150 students are active in various prestigious universities of the city who are prepared to carry out terrorist attacks in the educational institutions of the country.

  • Kyaemon

    May 14, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    Pakistanis seek answers after U.S. raid kills Osama Bin Laden – latimes.com

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/asia/la-fg-pakistan-suspicions-20110505,0,4939376.story?track=rss

    Pakistanis seek answers after U.S. raid kills Osama Bin Laden
    Pakistanis used to admiring their military and spy agencies demand answers. How could the intelligence community have been unaware of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts? Why wasn’t the U.S. raid detected?

    Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan— Pakistan Bin Laden: Pakistanis seek answers after U.S. raid kills Osama Bin Laden

    Pakistan’s security establishment, already pummeled with questions about Osama bin Laden’s lengthy presence in the military city of Abbottabad, faces increasingly sharp scrutiny from another source: its own public.

    Pakistanis accustomed to admiring the country’s vaunted military and spy agencies are uncharacteristically demanding details much like the rest of the world. How could the Pakistani intelligence community have remained unaware of where the leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist group lived, a city teeming with soldiers only about 40 miles north of the capital, Islamabad? Why didn’t Pakistani intelligence know about the raid to get Bin Laden or detect the U.S. helicopters in Pakistani airspace?

    “A lot of people are raising their voices, and I think it’s only going to get worse,” said security analyst Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general. “It’s going to be a very difficult task to satisfy the people of Pakistan as to what the military and intelligence agencies were doing. Were they complicit with Bin Laden, or simply ignorant of his presence in Abbottabad? In either case, the people need an explanation.”

    In an editorial Wednesday, the English-language Dawn newspaper wrote, “Right under our military’s nose was found Osama bin Laden, the most wanted man of the decade, living in relative comfort in a compound with stringent security that somehow went unnoticed.”

    Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, while in Paris on Wednesday to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and business leaders, said “the whole world” and not just Pakistan shares responsibility for the intelligence failures that allowed Bin Laden to remain in Abbottabad for what the CIA says was five years.

    Pakistani officials have denied knowing Bin Laden’s whereabouts and ordered an investigation into Pakistan’s inability to discover the hide-out. Both the civilian government and the country’s security bodies acknowledged that their failure to detect his presence for so many years was embarrassing.

    A Pakistani intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Pakistani security forces carried out a raid on the compound while it was still under construction in 2003 in an attempt to capture Abu Faraj Libbi, a top Al Qaeda operative who had been hiding there. Libbi escaped, but in 2005 was captured by Pakistani security forces about 65 miles to the west in the city of Mardan. The timing of that purported raid in Abbottabad conflicts with aerial photos of the site taken in 2004 and released in the United States this week, which show a vacant tract.

    The Pakistani government also says the country’s primary intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, had passed information about the compound to the CIA since 2009. It did not provide further details.

    A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Pakistani claim of supplying the U.S. information about the compound was not true.

    Pakistan’s security establishment is not accustomed to criticism from a public that has held it in high esteem. Pakistanis credit the military with uprooting Taliban militants from the Swat Valley in 2009. And during last year’s catastrophic floods, survivors hailed the army for its rescue efforts and rapid delivery of aid, while reserving criticism for a government they said was exceedingly slow in responding to the crisis.

    But this week, after Bin Laden’s killing in the raid by U.S. forces, Pakistani frustration with the security establishment was readily apparent.

    Another English-language Pakistani daily, the News International, wrote in an editorial that “the intelligence failure that seems to have occurred must be discussed before the heat we could quite possibly face turns our way and leaves us scrambling for cover.”

    Many Pakistanis upset by their intelligence community’s performance in failing to locate Bin Laden were also angered by their military’s failure to detect the pair of U.S. military helicopters involved in the 40-minute raid at his sprawling compound. CIA Director Leon E. Panetta told Time magazine in an interview that the CIA had ruled out informing Pakistan of the planned raid because of concerns that “they might alert the targets.”

    Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry lashed out at the U.S. for carrying out the raid without first informing Islamabad. “Such actions,” the ministry said in a statement released this week, “undermine cooperation and may also constitute a threat to international peace and security.”

    For Pakistani analysts and commentators, the raid unmasked glaring weaknesses in the military’s ability to defend its airspace.

    Masood, the security analyst, said he was at a conference in the Pakistani city of Karachi this week where retired generals, senior journalists and politicians were extremely disappointed at the military’s failure to detect the helicopters’ incursion.

    “The fact that the U.S. came deep into the country in the middle of the night and killed Bin Laden without Pakistan’s knowledge is very, very embarrassing,” Masood said. “People are just ashamed. The military that they had put their hopes on — look at their failures. Look at the failures of the intelligence community. Whom do [Pakistani citizens] have to look up to now?”

  • Kyaemon

    May 18, 2011 at 1:27 am

    Trouble ahead in Pakistan’s new US phase
    By Syed Saleem Shahzad

    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/ME18Df03.html

    ISLAMABAD – Relations between the United States and Pakistan are at a “make or break” stage, John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate foreign relations committee, said during his fence-mending trip to Pakistan on Monday.

    For now, a break appears to have been averted with the opening of a “new phase” of American operations in the region under a fresh agreement between Washington and Islamabad for the routing of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In a joint statement issued in Islamabad, the countries agreed on Monday to work together in any future actions against “high-value targets” in Pakistan.

    Details of the accord, like all past accords, are unwritten. What will happen though is that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton……….

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