La foto diffusa dalle tv è un montaggio - Stampa

 Así mataron a Bin Laden


· Cuatro helicópteros y 20 soldados de élite (SEALS) participaron en la operación

· Desde agosto se sospechaba que se escondía en una mansión de Abbottabad

· Murió de un disparo en la cabeza y también cayeron dos hombres y una mujer

· EEUU asegura que el cadáver será manipulado 'según las tradiciones islámicas'


Cuatro helicópteros sobrevolaron en plena madrugada del domingo la mansión fortificada de Abbottabad, a 60 kilómetros de la capital pakistaní, donde se sospechaba que podía ocultarse Osama Bin Laden.

En medio del revuelo atronador, 20 soldados de elite de la Marina (los temibles SEALS) se abrieron paso con explosivos de mano, potentes rifles de asalto y dispositivos de visión nocturna.

El líder de Al Qaeda fue sorprendido por el ataque. Sus hombres de seguridad poco pudieron hacer contra la avalancha de fuego de los SEALS, que no sólo mataron a Bin Laden, sino también a uno los hijos del terrorista saudí, a otros dos hombres y a una mujer que llegó a ser usada como escudo humano, según relataron fuentes próximas a la operación a la cadena 'ABC'.

Según la Fox, los soldados de elite le dieron a Bin Laden la oportunidad de rendirse antes de dispararle un tiro en la cabeza, concretamente, en su ojo izquierdo. Sin embargo, el líder de Al Qaeda ya había declarado en cierta ocasión que EEUU nunca le capturaría vivo.

Entre las fuerzas norteamericanas no ha habido bajas, aunque un helicóptero estadounidense fue alcanzado y los propios soldados decidieron destruirlo con explosivos cuando su tripulación estaba ya a salvo. Se ha tratado de una operación muy rápida, en total, poco más de 40 minutos.

El Comando Conjunto de Operaciones Especiales, en cooperación con la CIA, dirigió la operación relámpago, aprobada el sábado directamente con el presidente Obama a la vista de los últimos informes de los servicios de inteligencia, que confirmaron la presencia de Bin Laden en la mansión fortificada por muros de casi tres metros, con ventanas altas y contados puntos de acceso.

Por un chivatazo

El 'chivatazo' se recibió al parecer en agosto y se ha venido trabajando intensamente en el plan para llegar al fin del líder de Al Qaeda. Bin Laden había abandonado su 'refugio' en las montañas, en la porosa frontera de Afganistán y Pakistán, para acomodarse en una casa valorada en más de un millón de dólares, ocho veces más grande que cualquier otra en las afueras de Abbottabad, una ciudad de 90.000 habitantes al norte de Islamabad.

La falta de televisión o teléfono, y el hecho de que la basura fuera quemada a diario dentro de los jardines, sirvieron para confirmar que la mansión cumplía las funciones de búnker o escondite.

Nada más conocerse la noticia de la muerte de Bin Laden se extendió el rumor de que podría haber sido abatido en un ataque con aviones no tripulados de Estados Unidos que vigilan habitualmente la frontera. Sin embargo, el presidente Obama confirmó en una declaración al país que se había tratado de una "lucha armada", protagonizada por "un pequeño equipo de americanos que llevaron a cabo la operación con extraordinario coraje".

Obama también confirmó que los soldados que lanzaron el ataque habían "tomado en custodia" el cuerpo de Bin Laden. Fuentes de la Administración aseguraron a la cadena ABC que el cadáver será tratado "de acuerdo con las prácticas y las tradiciones islámicas".

De hecho, según han explicado varias cadenas televisivas, el cuerpo de Bin Laden habría sido ya arrojado al mar después de practicarle la prueba del ADN y respetando escrupulosamente las tradiciones islamicas que indican que hay que enterrar el cuerpo antes de 24 horas.

Las informaciones son todavía contradictorias, pero parece que el ejército y los servicios de inteligencia de Pakistán pudieron cooperar al menos en labores de apoyo. Los méritos de la acción directa, sin embargo, correspondieron a los legendarios SEALS, uno de los cuerpos de elite mejor preparados del mundo, cuyo lema ha cobrado un nuevo valor después de la hazaña bélica: "El dolor es temporal, el orgullo dura toda la vida".
Carlos Fresneda (Corresponsal), Nueva York

www.elmundo.es/

Timeline: Messages from bin Laden

Deceased al-Qaeda leader together with his allies had purportedly broadcast more than 60 messages since 2001

Osama bin Laden, the deceased leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, his second-in-command, and their allies have purportedly broadcast more than 60 messages to the world since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The following is a timeline of the major statements attributed to bin Laden since 2001.

January 21, 2011: In an audio message, bin Laden called for the withdrawal of French troops from Muslim lands in exchange for the release of French hostages being held by al-Qaeda affiliates.

"President Nicolas Sarkozy's refusal to remove his forces from Afghanistan is nothing but a green light for killing the French hostages. We repeat the same message to you: The release of your prisoners in the hands of our brothers is linked to the withdrawal of your soldiers from our country."

October 27, 2010: In a new audio recording, bin Laden justified the kidnapping of five French citizens in Niger in September, calling the abductions the result of French injustices against Muslims and warning they will continue.

"How could it be fair that you intervene in the affairs of Muslims, in North and West Africa in particular, support your proxies [agents] against us, and take a lot of our wealth in suspicious deals, while our people there suffer various forms of poverty and despair?" the recording said.

October 1, 2010: After six months of silence, bin Laden released an audio recording expressing concern about global climate change and the floods in Pakistan.

"The number of victims caused by climate change is very big... bigger than the victims of wars," said the voice, whose authenticity could not be immediately verified and was made available by SITE Intelligence Group.

March 25, 2010: Osama bin Laden in a new audio recording threatened to kill any Americans that al-Qaeda takes prisoner if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered as one of the masterminds behind the September 11 attacks, was executed.

"The day America will take such decision [to execute Mohammed and any others] it would have taken a decision to execute whoever we capture," Bin Laden said on the tape.

January 24, 2010: Al Jazeera obtains a purported audio tape of Osama bin Laden, in which he claims responsibility for the failed attack on a US airliner on December 25.

"The message I want to convey to you through the plane of the hero Omar Farouk [Abdulmutallab], reaffirms a previous message that the heroes of 9/11 conveyed to you," bin Laden says on the tape.

He warns there will be more attacks unless the US finds a solution to the Palestinian situation.

September 25, 2009: Bin Laden calls on European nations to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan in an audio tape, saying they were sacrificing men and money in an unjust US-led war.

The tape, released on the internet with a background picture of bin Laden, has German and English subtitles. The release of the message comes two days before Germany's general election.

September 14, 2009: Bin Laden says Barack Obama, the US president, is "powerless" to stop the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He warns the American people over their government's close ties to Israel, saying it is time for them to free themselves from the grip of neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby.

"The reason for our dispute with you is your support for your ally Israel, occupying our land in Palestine," he says.

June 3, 2009: Bin Laden says in an audio message that Obama has planted the seeds of "revenge and hatred towards America" in the Muslim world and warned Americans to prepare for the consequences.

March 14, 2009: The al-Qaeda leader accuses moderate Arab leaders of plotting with the West against Muslims and being complicit with Israel in the 22-day offensive on Gaza, in an audio recording.

January 14, 2009: Bin Laden, in an audio recording, calls for a new "jihad" to end the Israeli war in Gaza.

He also calls on Muslims to rise in support of Gazans and not to rely on Arab leaders "the great majority of whom are allied with the Crusader-Zionist coalition".

May 18, 2008: Bin Laden urges Muslims to break the Israeli-led blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and fight Arab governments that deal with Israel, in an audiotape posted on the internet.

May 16, 2008: Bin Laden, in an audio tape message posted on the internet, addresses "Western peoples", and calls for the fight against Israel to continue and says the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of the Muslim battle with the West.

March 19, 2008: In an audio recording, bin Laden threatens the European Union with grave punishment over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed.

He also says the best way for Muslims to help Palestinians is to support Iraqis fighting against the government and US forces.

November 29, 2007: Bin Laden urges European countries to end their alliance with US forces in Afghanistan.

September 7, 2007: Osama bin Laden appears in his first videotape in nearly three years, to mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

In a message to the American people, he threatens to escalate the war in Iraq and says the US is vulnerable despite its economic and military power.

May 23 2006: Bin Laden says he masterminded the September 11 attacks and that Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted for the attacks, had no part in them, in a recorded message posted on the internet.

January 19, 2006: Bin Laden threatens a fresh attack against the United States but offers the American people a conditional "long-term truce" in an audiotape message.

The tape came after more than a year of silence from the al-Qaeda leader.

April 15, 2004: Bin Laden delivers a message to European nations, saying, "I present a reconciliation initiative ... to stop operations against all [European] countries if they promise not to be aggressive towards Muslims".

October 18, 2003: Bin Laden speaks out against the Iraq war in an audiotape, saying: "We will go on fighting you and we will carry on martyrdom operations.

"We reserve the right to retaliate... against all countries that take part in this unjust [Iraq] war, namely Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy".

September 9, 2002: In an audiotape, bin Laden evokes the attacks on New York and Washington, saying "we speak of the men who changed the course of history and cleansed the ... filth of treacherous rulers and their subordinates".

December 27, 2001: In a video tape, bin Laden says: "Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people".

October 7, 2001: Bin Laden claims "America has been hit by Allah at its most vulnerable point, destroying, thank God, its most prestigious buildings", in an audiotape referencing the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US.

Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies

Obituary: Osama bin Laden


With his long beard and wistful expression, bin Laden was one of the most instantly recognisable people on earth

In his death on May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden kept a promise made in a 2006 audio message.

Alluding to the United States' hunt for him, the al-Qaeda leader stated his determination to avoid capture: "I swear not to die but a free man."

His death ends the largest manhunt in history that began a decade ago involving thousands of US troops in Afghanistan and tens of thousands of Pakistani soldiers in the rugged mountains along the border.

Whether reviled as a terrorist and mass murderer or hailed as the champion of oppressed Muslims fighting injustice and humiliation, bin Laden changed the course of history.

Challenging the might of the US, the most powerful nation ever, he masterminded a string of attacks against it and then built a global network of allies to wage a war intended to outlive him.

The man allegedly behind the suicide hijack attacks of September 11, 2001, was the nemesis of former US President George Bush, who pledged to take him "dead or alive" and whose two terms were dominated by a "war on terror" against his al-Qaeda network founded in 1988.

With his long grey beard and wistful expression, bin Laden became one of the most instantly recognisable people on the planet. His gaunt face stared out from propaganda videos and framed a US website offering a $25 million bounty. In 2007, that bounty was doubled.

Born in Saudi Arabia in 1957, one of more than 50 children of millionaire businessman Mohamed bin Laden, he lost his father while still a boy.

Osama's first marriage, to a Syrian cousin, came at the age of 17, and he is reported to have at least 23 children from at least five wives. Part of a family that made its fortune in the oil-funded Saudi construction boom, bin Laden was a shy boy and an average student, who took a degree in civil engineering.

Radicalisation

A book by US writer Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens, suggested the death in 1988 of his extrovert half-brother Salem was an important factor in Osama's radicalisation.

The elite Al Thagher Model School in the Saudi city of Jeddah also exposed him to the ideas of political Islam.

Steve Coll wrote that “bin Laden's introduction to Islam as the basis for political, and potentially violent-activism, was through informal sessions run by the Al Thagher's teachers”.

A key influence on Osama was Dr Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian professor and member of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood.

During his stay at Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia, Osama was hugely influenced by Azzam's radical views.

It is believed that Azzam encouraged bin Laden to solicit funds and recruit Arab fighters for the Afghan war against Russians.

The US' Central Intelligence Agency provided a conduit for him to join the fight in Afghanistan.

Osama’s slide away from the US was first observed when he raised objection to US military presence in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf war against Iraq.

The Saudi monarch smelled rebellion in Laden and expelled him 1991. He was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994 and his assets were frozen.

Trail of attacks

He declared war against the very United States which had spent billions of dollars bankrolling the Afghan resistance in which he had fought.

Al-Qaeda embarked on a trail of attacks, beginning with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six and first raised the spectre of Islamist extremism spreading to the United States.

Bin Laden was the prime suspect in bombings of US servicemen in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996 as well as attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 224.

In October 2000, suicide bombers rammed into the USS Cole warship in Yemen, killing 17 sailors, and al-Qaeda was blamed.

Disowned by his family and stripped of Saudi citizenship, bin Laden had moved first to Sudan in 1992 and later resurfaced in Afghanistan before the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996.

With his wealth, largesse and shared radical Muslim ideology, bin Laden soon eased his way into inner Taliban circles as they imposed their rigid interpretation of Islam.

From Afghanistan, bin Laden issued religious decrees against US soldiers and ran training camps where fighters were groomed for a global campaign of violence.

Recruits were drawn from Central, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and even Europe by their common hatred of the United States, Israel and moderate Muslim governments, as well as a desire for a more fundamentalist brand of Islam.

After the 1998 attacks on two of its African embassies, the United States fired dozens of cruise missiles at Afghanistan, targeting al Qaeda training camps. Bin Laden escaped unscathed.

The Taliban paid a heavy price for sheltering bin Laden and his fighters, suffering a humiliating defeat after a US-led invasion in the weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Escape to Pakistan

Al-Qaeda was badly weakened, with many fighters killed or captured. Bin Laden vanished -- some reports say US bombs narrowly missed him in late 2001 as he and his forces slipped out of Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains and into Pakistan.

But the start of the Iraq war in 2003 produced a fresh surge of recruits for al-Qaeda due to opposition to the US invasion.

Apparently protected by the Afghan Taliban in their northwest Pakistani strongholds, bin Laden also built ties to an array of south Asian militant groups and backed a bloody revolt by the Pakistani Taliban against the Islamabad government.

Amid a reinvigorated al-Qaeda propaganda push, operatives or sympathisers were blamed for attacks from Indonesia and Pakistan to Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Spain, Britain and Somalia.

Tougher security in the West and killings of middle-rank al-Qaeda men helped weaken the group, and some followers noted critically that the last successful al Qaeda-linked strike in a Western country was the 2005 London bombings that killed 52.

Diatribes

But, by his own account, not even bin Laden anticipated the full impact of using 19 suicide hijackers to turn passenger aircraft into guided missiles and slam them into buildings that symbolised US financial and military power.

Nearly 3,000 people died when two planes struck New York's World Trade Center; a third hit the Pentagon in Washington, and a fourth crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania after passengers rushed the hijackers.

"Here is America struck by God Almighty in one of its vital organs," bin Laden said in a statement a month after the September 11 attacks, urging Muslims to rise up and join a global battle between "the camp of the faithful and the camp of the infidels".

In video and audio messages over the next seven years, the al-Qaeda leader goaded Washington and its allies. His diatribes lurched across a range of topics, from the war in Iraq to US politics, the subprime mortgage crisis and even climate change.

A gap of nearly three years in his output of video messages revived speculation he might be gravely ill with a kidney problem or even have died, but bin Laden was back on screen in September 2007, telling Americans their country was vulnerable despite its economic and military power.

The vulnerability still remains, as death could make him an even more powerful motivator for his supporters

Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies