Travel alert issued in response to bin Laden killing.

The U.S. Department of State alerts U.S. citizens traveling and residing abroad to the enhanced potential for anti-American violence given recent counter-terrorism activity in Pakistan. Given the uncertainty and volatility of the current situation, U.S. citizens in areas where recent events could cause anti-American violence are strongly urged to limit their travel outside of their homes and hotels and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations. U.S. citizens should stay current with media coverage of local events and be aware of their surroundings at all times. This Travel Alert expires August 1, 2011.

U.S. Embassy operations in affected areas will continue to the extent possible under the constraints of any evolving security situation. U.S. government facilities worldwide remain at a heightened state of alert. These facilities may temporarily close or periodically suspend public services to assess their security posture. In those instances, U.S. Embassies and Consulates will make every effort to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens. U.S. citizens abroad are urged to monitor the local news and maintain contact with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate.

Media coverage of local events may cause family and friends to become concerned for their loved ones traveling and residing abroad. We urge U.S. citizens to keep in regular contact with family and friends. U.S. citizens living or traveling abroad are encouraged to enroll in the Department of State's Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP), to receive the latest travel updates and information and to obtain updated information on travel and security issues. U.S. citizens without Internet access may register directly with the appropriate U.S. Embassy or Consulate. By enrolling, U.S. citizens make it easier for the U.S. Embassy or Consulate to contact them in case of emergency.

Travel information is also available at travel.state.gov. Up-to-date information on security can also be obtained by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll-free in the United States and Canada or, for callers outside the United States and Canada, a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444.

bin Laden raid lead by Seal Team 6 and JSOC Night Stalkers

THE NATION: The team of US Special Operations Forces who killed Osama bin Laden in a pre-dawn raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, were led by elite Navy SEALS from the Joint Special Operations Command. Operators from SEAL Team Six, also known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or just DevGru, are widely considered to be the most elite warriors in the US national security apparatus.

Col. W. Patrick Lang, a retired Special Forces officer with extensive operational experience throughout the Muslim world, described JSOC’s forces as “sort of like Murder, Incorporated.” He told The Nation: “Their business is killing Al Qaeda personnel. That’s their business. They’re not in the business of converting anybody to our goals or anything like that.” Shortly after the operation was made public, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey called JSOC’s operators the “most dangerous people on the face of the earth.”

“They’re the ace in the hole. If you were a card player, that’s your ace that you’ve got tucked away,” said Gen. Hugh Shelton, who was the Chair of the Joint Chiefs on 9/11, in an interview with The Nation. Shelton, who also headed the Special Operations Command during his career, described JSOC as “a surgical type of unit,” adding “if you need someone that can sky dive from thirty miles away, and go down the chimney of the castle, and blow it up from the inside—those are the guys you want to call on.”

Shelton added, “They are the quiet professionals. They do it, and do it well, but they don’t brag about it. Someone has to toot their horn for them, because they won’t, normally.”

JSOC, which is headquartered at Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, is an all-star team made up of the Army’s Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, Army Rangers and the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known as the “Night Stalkers.” JSOC performs strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas and special intelligence missions.

More recently, JSOC added a Targeting and Analysis Center in Rosslyn, Virginia, to its list of key facilities. For much of the Bush administration, JSOC was headed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Its job was to hunt down and kill individuals designated as “High Value Targets.” McChrystal’s successor at JSOC, Vice Admiral William McRaven, is himself a former SEAL.

The current commander of SOCOM, Admiral Eric Olson, is a former SEAL Team Six commander. McRaven was recently been tapped to replace Olson as SOCOM commander. Several Special Operations sources have described for The Nation a very close relationship between President Obama and JSOC. Some allege Obama has used them to “hit harder” than President Bush.

Marc Ambinder described the bin Laden raid in his excellent report on National Journal: “From Ghazi Air Base in Pakistan, the modified MH-60 helicopters made their way to the garrison suburb of Abbottabad, about 30 miles from the center of Islamabad. Aboard were Navy SEALs, flown across the border from Afghanistan, along with tactical signals, intelligence collectors, and navigators using highly classified hyperspectral imagers. After bursts of fire over 40 minutes, 22 people were killed or captured.

One of the dead was Osama bin Laden, done in by a double tap—boom, boom—to the left side of his face. His body was aboard the choppers that made the trip back. One had experienced mechanical failure and was destroyed by US forces.”

It remains unclear what, if any, role Pakistan’s military or intelligence forces played in the operation to kill bin Laden. US officials have said only that Pakistani intel aided the eventual operation. “We shared our intelligence on this bin Laden compound with no other country, including Pakistan,” said an unnamed senior administration official. “That was for one reason and one reason alone: We believed it was essential to the security of the operation and our personnel.”

The fact that bin Laden’s compound was a stone’s throw from a Pakistani military installation in an urban area raises disturbing questions about how Pakistan’s military or intelligence services would not be aware of his location. As of this writing, the White House has not commented on this fact.


READ MORE AT THE NATION HERE

RELATED: Bin Laden's skull blown apart:


by EILEEN SULLIVAN
Associated Press
Posted on May 2, 2011 at 7:01 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. official says Osama bin Laden was shot above his left eye, blowing away part of his skull.

The precision kill shot was delivered by a member of Navy's elite SEAL Team Six during a pre-dawn raid Monday on bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan.

Photos of bin Laden's injuries were transmitted to Washington as proof that the mission was a success. The administration wasn't releasing the photos Monday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

New details on Osama raid:

CNN: [Updated 12:27 p.m. ET] Senior defense officials said that for a majority of the 40 minute operation at the Abbottobad compound, special forces were involved in a firefight - clearing their way through two other floors before they reached Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden was not killed until the last five to ten minutes of the firefight, officials said.

Bin Laden and his family lived on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the 3-story building, and those floors were cleared last, the official said. The official says one of bin Laden’s own wives identified his body to U.S. forces, after the team made visual identification themselves.

U.S. forces also recovered what a senior Intelligence official is calling “quite a bit of material.”

“There’s a robust collection of materials we need to sift through, and we hope to find valuable intelligence that will lead us to other players in al Qaeda," a senior intelligence official said.

The official added a Task Force has been set up “because of the sheer volume of material collected. That material is currently being exploited and analyzed.”

Bin Laden sleeps with the fishes ...

CAIRO — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was buried at sea from the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the north Arabian Sea after being washed according to Islamic custom during a religious funeral, a U.S. defense official said on Monday.
"Preparations for at-sea burial began at 1:10 a.m. EST and were completed at 2 a.m. EST," the official said. "Traditional procedures for Islamic burial were followed."

The official described the procedure to NBC News as follows:
The deceased's body was washed and then placed in a white sheet.
The body was placed in a weighted bag.

A military officer read prepared religious remarks which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker.

After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased's body eased into the sea from the USS Vinson.
The rites sparked a debate about Islamic customs, with some Muslim clerics calling the procedure humiliating and others saying it was proper.

A U.S. official said that the burial decision was made after concluding that it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. There also was speculation about worry that a grave site could have become a rallying point for militants.

President Barack Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial.

U.S. officials told NBC News that the Koran is not specific about burials, as long as the body of the diseased is cleansed quickly. There is no single authoritative Islamic text on burial, they said.

The standard Muslim practice is placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca, some clerics said. Sea burials can be allowed, they said, but only in special cases where the death occurred aboard a ship.

"The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don't think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration," said Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric in Lebanon.

Khalid Latif, executive director and chaplain for the Islamic Center at New York University (NYU), disagreed.

"I think the White House showed an immense amount of wisdom in the manner they decided to bury him," Latif told msnbc.com.

Latif, also a New York Police Department chaplain, said that under Islamic law it would be important to weigh the impact that bin Laden's burial anywhere on land would have on most people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

"Given the fact that this person was one of the most hated individuals who ever lived, we have to be mindful of what his burial means to people on the whole of the earth," he said. "I wouldn’t want my brother, my father, my loved one to be buried anywhere near him."

"My bigger concern is not the treatment of his body … my bigger concern here is what impact (the burial) has on people as a whole."

Latif said he hoped bin Laden's death would mean the end to a painful chapter for Muslim and non-Muslim relations.

"Muslims really hated this man," he said. "He has caused so many problems for Muslims in general.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE AT MSNBC.COM

The Bin Laden Raid: The Where and the How:

BBC:
Details are emerging of how al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was found and killed at a fortified compound on the outskirts of Abbottabad in north-west Pakistan.

The compound is just "a stone's throw" and less than 200 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy, an elite military training centre, which is Pakistan's equivalent to Britain's Sandhurst, one local journalist from Abbottabad told the BBC.

Other reports have put the distance at 800 yards.

But the compound lies well within Abbottabad's military cantonment - it is likely the area would have had a constant and significant military presence and checkpoints.

Pakistan's army chief is a regular visitor to the academy for graduation parades.

The operation began at about 2230 (1730 GMT) and lasted about 45 minutes, military sources told BBC Urdu. Two or three helicopters were seen flying low over the area. Witnesses say it caused panic among local residents.

But an IT consultant living in Abbottabad posted on twitter at about 0100 (2100 GMT) that a helicopter was hovering above Abbottabad. It is thought that he unintentionally tweeted details of what he could hear of the operation as it happened.

Barbed wire and cameras
The target of the operation was the compound, which had at its centre a large three-storey building.

When the helicopters landed outside, men emerged from the aircraft and spoke to locals in Pashto, witnesses told BBC Urdu.

People living in the area, known as Thanda Choha, were told to switch off their lights and not to leave their homes.

Shortly afterwards residents said they heard shots being fired and the sound of heavy firearms.

At some point in the operation one of the helicopters crashed, either from technical failure or having been hit by gunfire from the ground. (Note: US now reports a mechanical failure brought down the helicopter and it landed hard outside the compound. It was destroyed on site by special forces operatives.

The compound was about 3,000 sq yards in size but people from the area told the BBC that it was surrounded by 14ft-high walls, so not much could be seen of what was happening inside.

The walls were topped by barbed wire and contained cameras.

There were two security gates at the house and no phone or internet lines running into the compound, the Associated Press (AP) reports.

'Waziristan Mansion'

After the operation witnesses said all they could see was flames snaking up from inside the house.

The forces conducting the operation later emerged from the compound, possibly with somebody who had been inside, local residents told the BBC.

They said that women and children were also living in the compound.

One local resident told the BBC Urdu service that the house was built by a Pashtun man about 10 or 12 years ago and he said that none of the locals were aware of who was really living there

According to one local journalist, the house was known in the area as Waziristani Haveli - or Waziristan Mansion.

The journalist said it was owned by people from Waziristan, the mountainous and inhospitable semi-autonomous tribal area close to the Afghan border, which until now most observers believed to be the hiding place for bin Laden.

This house was in a residential district of Abbottabad's suburbs called Bilal Town and known to be home to a number of retired military officers from the area.

Intelligence officials in the US are quoted by AP as saying that the house was custom-built to harbour a major "terrorist" figure.



It says CIA experts analysed whether it could be anyone else but they decided it was almost certainly Bin Laden.

Pakistani troops arrived at the scene after the attack and took over the area.

BBC correspondents say US troops were probably operating out of a base used by US Marines in Tarbela Ghazi, an area close to Abbottabad.

Details emerge on Bin Laden operation

CNN) -- DNA matching is under way on samples from the body of slain terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden, a U.S. government official told CNN on Monday.

There are photographs of the body with a gunshot wound to the side of the head that shows an individual who is not unrecognizable as bin Laden, the official said.

No decision has yet been made on whether to release the photographs and if so, when and how.
The mastermind of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil was killed by U.S. forces Monday in a mansion in Abbottabad, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, U.S. officials said.

Four others in the compound also were killed. One of them was bin Laden's adult son, and another was a woman being used as a shield by a male combatant, the officials said.

Bin Laden's body was later buried at sea, an official said. Many Muslims adhere to the belief that bodies should be buried within one day.


The official did not release additional details about the burial, but said it was handled in keeping with Muslim customs.

The death of the founder and leader of al Qaeda comes almost 10 years after the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed about 3,000 people.

In an address to the nation Sunday night, U.S. President Barack Obama called bin Laden's death "the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al Qaeda." Washington is nine hours behind Pakistan.

"Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan," Obama said. "A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."

A congressional source familiar with the operation said bin Laden was shot in the head.
The killing of bin Laden was the culmination of years of intelligence work and months of following a specific lead, senior U.S. administration officials said.

The key break involved one of the few couriers trusted by bin Laden, according to the officials. About two years ago, intelligence work identified where the courier and his brother lived and operated in Pakistan, and it took until August to find the compound in Abbottabad that was raided, they said.

According to the senior administration officials, intelligence work determined at the beginning of 2011 that bin Laden might be located at the compound.

Obama chaired five National Security Council meetings from mid-March until late April, with the last two on April 19 and April 28 -- last Thursday.

On Friday morning -- even as he visited Alabama's tornado-ravaged areas -- Obama gave the order for the mission, the officials said.

Senior Obama administration officials believe the compound was built five years ago for the specific purpose of hiding bin Laden. U.S. forces carried out several so-called "practice runs" in order to minimize casualties.

Footage that aired Monday on CNN affiliate GEO TV showed fire and smoke spewing from the compound where bin Laden was killed.

One resident in the city of Lahore said Monday she was stunned to hear bin Laden was in the country.

"But was it really him?" the woman said.
A senior national security official told CNN that officials had multiple confirmations that the body was bin Laden's, saying they had the "ability to run images of the body and the face."

A resident in Abbottabad, who did not want to be fully identified, said he was wary of making any personal statements or giving his reaction to the news. But he said the house where bin Laden allegedly was killed has been occupied by many people for the past five years.

Half a world away, the scene outside the White House was one of pure jubilation.
Hundreds reveled through the night, chanting "USA! USA!" Others chanted "Hey, hey, hey, goodbye!" in reference to the demise of bin Laden. Many also spontaneously sang the national anthem.
In New York, a cheering crowd gathered at ground zero -- the site where the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood before bin Laden's terrorist group flew two planes into the buildings on September 11, 2001. Strains of "God Bless America" could be heard intermittently trickling through the crowd.

One former New York firefighter -- forced to retire due to lung ailments suffered as a result of the dust from ground zero -- said he was there to let the 343 firefighters who died in the attacks know "they didn't die in vain."

"It's a war that I feel we just won," he said. "I'm down here to let them know that justice has been served."

Bob Gibson, a retired New York police officer, said the news of bin Laden's death gave him a sense of "closure."

"I never thought this night would come, that we would capture or kill bin Laden," he said. "And thank the Lord he has been eliminated."

The news also brought some relief to family members of those killed on 9/11.
"This is important news for us, and for the world," said Gordon Felt, president of Families of Flight 93, which crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on 9/11. "It cannot ease our pain, or bring back our loved ones. It does bring a measure of comfort that the mastermind of the September 11th tragedy and the face of global terror can no longer spread his evil."

Bin Laden eluded capture for years, once reportedly slipping out of a training camp in Afghanistan just hours before a barrage of U.S. cruise missiles destroyed it.

He had been implicated in a series of deadly, high-profile attacks that had grown in their intensity and success during the 1990s. They included a deadly firefight with U.S. soldiers in Somalia in October 1993, the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed 224 in August 1998, and an attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in October 2000.
In his speech, Obama reiterated that the United States is not fighting Islam.

"I've made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims," Obama said.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, welcomed the death of bin Laden.

"As we have stated repeatedly since the 9/11 terror attacks, bin Laden never represented Muslims or Islam. In fact, in addition to the killing of thousands of Americans, he and al Qaeda caused the deaths of countless Muslims worldwide," the statement said.

While the death of bin Laden "is a significant victory," the war on terrorism is not over, said Frances Fragos Townsend, former Homeland Security adviser to President George W. Bush.

"We've been fighting these fractured cells. We've seen the U.S. government, military and intelligence officials deployed around the world," Townsend said. "By no means are these other cells nearly as dangerous as he is, but we will continue to have to fight in chaotic places."
U.S. diplomatic facilities around the world were placed on high alert following the announcement of bin Laden's death, a senior U.S. official said, and the U.S. State Department issued a "worldwide caution" for Americans.

The travel alert warned of the "enhanced potential for anti-American violence given recent counter-terrorism activity in Pakistan." Some fear al Qaeda supporters may try to retaliate against U.S. citizens or U.S. institutions.

But for now, many Americans were soaking up the historic moment.
"It's what the world needed," said Dustin Swensson, a military veteran Iraq and joined the revelers outside the White House. "(I'll) always remember where I was when the towers went down, and I'm always going to remember where I am now."