Osama bin Laden has been tracked down by a group of sleuths to one of three buildings in the northwestern Pakistani city of Parachinar, and the trail was determined by the employment of assumptions that have been used successfully in past manhunts.
First, based on two geographic principles, it was assumed that the world's most wanted fugitive would locate to the largest, closest area to where he had previously been living. Second, for the purpose of safety, the building he would be in was assumed to require walls at least ten feet high with enough room to house Bin Laden and his bodyguards. And third, the building would need, among other things, electric power for his kidney dialysis machine.
Bin Laden's previously known location was in an area known as Tora Bora, a mountainous region in Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border, which provided cover as a result of its intricate cave systems. However, because of his medical needs and security considerations it has long been concluded that he had left that region and moved into Pakistan.
The Pakistani tribal region of Kurram is only a two-mile hike from Tora Bora, and the largest city in that area is Parachinar, with a population of 500,000.
Leaning heavily on satellite imagery, the search for Bin Laden ended up focusing on two residential-appearing compounds and a third installation, described as having towers on its corners, which was assumed to have been a prison or an army officer's club.
The methodology employed, which is somewhat more complex than described here, has previously been successfully used in tracking down fugitives in the United States.
The "sleuths" involved in this instance were UCLA geographers and their results were published last Tuesday in the MIT International Review. They were also provided to the FBI which, so far, has declined to comment.
Assuming that Bin Laden's location is even roughly close to the conclusions in this study, an interesting aspect would relate to the likely reactions within the military/industrial/political complex. President Obama has said he would pursue the fugitive into Pakistan if he knew the location. But there are also those who would have strong feelings, based on obvious motivations, that this, the principle carrot-on-the-stick for getting us into Afghanistan in the first place, should not be removed.
Meanwhile, the Department of Defense, this week, released the obituaries of three military personnel killed in Iraq, ranging in age from 19 to 41.
According to the website icasualties.org, U.S. deaths in Iraq now stand at 4,247, including two whose families are being notified today.
The Department of Defense also released the obituaries of three military personnel killed in Afghanistan, ranging in age from 24 to 35.
Total U.S. deaths in Afghanistan were 582 as of February 19, according to the Pentagon.
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Comments: 45
Would you blast him and all his children. If they can get him alive that will be good.
I think we have problems to solve that killing him would not help in that area of the world.
Interesting information! I would doubt that the military has not tried already, the means employed by the students in their effort to locate the man. And even if they believe him to be there, what is the next move? It would be tough to get a covert group in there to do anything in that manner and it is getting politically expensive to bomb first and apologize later.
If we would have gone into that area with books, money, food, medicine and tools for the needy instead of bombing the bejesus out of of their country, we wouldn't have even MORE enemies now!
I saw this on MSNBC and thought it was very interesting.
The Bush policy of shoot first ask questions later has elevated Bin Laden to mythic status. Unless he is discredited as the psycopath he truly is, his death will only serve the radicals. That mean the whole approach to the Middle East has to change. That is happening as we speak. We shall live to see the day Osama is dead via airstrike with info freely given by his closest friends and associates, and we will have Barack Obama to thank for it.
I don't know what the U.S. objectives are in Afpak because President Bush never announced them. Over a period of years, our objectives seemed to be "democracy", stopping heroin production, killing UBL, sealing the Pakistan border, etc.
Hopefully, President Obama will reach clear objectives for Afpak with the military commanders, and will share them with the multiple government agencies involved there (who will then leak them to the New York Times) (who will then distort and criticize them in its "news" pages). But, in the meantime, the military can do its job without interference.
Additionally, I'm sure the amount of data they have (aka declassified) is much less than the DHS (and all it's subsidiaries in the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI) has. They're using old data and still they have the audacity to narrow their results down to 3 houses? To me that sounds like a publicity stunt to grab headlines (and maybe another grant for their work) more than anything.
Finally, why make this info public? If this is truly where bin Laden is, do you think he's going to hang around there now that his cover is publicly blown? Everybody knows he keeps up on the western media...if we know this, he certainly does as well.
SO...there is an old saying...." A bird in the hand is better than two in a bush"
Insofar as upsetting the overall supporters of bin laden by killing him off and eventually suffering retaliations perhaps even on our soil,we have it seems we have become paralyzed with fear and are justifying not killing him with alot of excuses.
Overall I am a pacifist. In this case though, I truly believe that we shouldn't take our eyes off the ball and do what is necessary.
How long can a person live on dialysis? In a cave?? You would think that someone could spot a 6' 5" man with a turban, a beard, and a dialysis machine. They were able to find Saadam in a hole in the ground!
Failure can be acute, or chronic. If acute, due to trauma, kidney function will return. If chronic, kidney function will not return.
Either way, dialysis is the same for anyone that receives it-- no viable kidneys, so either you get hemo, which requires a machine, and electricity, or you get peritoneal, which requires only gravity to be achieved.
I hope if Obama decides to do him there, he does it successfully and has the balls to take the heat for what will be a controversial decision among his own supporters.
The interviewer asked her if she had any clues as to who may have been responsible for trying to kill her; she started rattling off names of people who she said she knew wanted her dead, and one of those names she followed with -- rather matter-of-factly -- "the man who murdered Osama bin Laden," and then continued on speaking, uninterrupted. The interviewer must have been unimpressed by such a statement; must be common knowledge in some circles.
Interestingly, when the BBC website first aired this interview, they aired it in its entirety -- except for one 3 second edit; when Ms. Bhutto made the statement about bin Laden having been murdered.
I guess they must have caught a raft of doodoo from people accusing them of being involved in a cover-up (couldn't have been that many people, though; not a single major media network in the U.S. so much as uttered a peep about this), because they eventually restored the missing 3 seconds to their video of the interview on their website, and released this written statement:
Well, that about clears things up, don't it?
It "seemed most likely that she had mis-spoken." Riiight. I'm sure that such a woman, having "mis-spoken" when uttering a name like *Osama bin Laden*, wouldn't have immediately realized the mistake, and recognized the potential ramifications of such a mistake, and immediately made it a point to correct herself.
Sir David Frost, likely MI5 asset that he is, probably was already well aware that bin Laden is dead, and probably just didn't know how to react to the woman spilling the beans on the air such as she did, and decided it was the best course of action to let it go and just pretend like he didn't hear it; as if she never said it. Or maybe he forgot that that little tidbit of info was something that not everyone else was privy to. Who knows?
Please be sure and post all of your photos, posts and videos to the group and don't forget to stop by and comment on group content!
As outlined clearly above, and as can be easily Googled, the Benzir Bhutto YouTube video is there for all to see. She's not the only high level politician to speak about his death. There have been many.
Needless to say, the power elite within Washington need to keep him alive, even if he is dead. You're playing into their hands and are intelligent enough to know better. Either way, I always appreciate your editorial, even this one.
Having gone back to read all of the comments here it just amazes me!
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/osama_dead.html
Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader. "The Coalition troops are engaged in a mad search operation but they would never be able to fulfill their cherished goal of getting Usama alive or dead," the source said. A prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement announced yesterday the death of Osama bin Laden, the chief of al-Qa'da organization, stating that binLaden suffered serious complications in the lungs and died a natural and quiet death.
Translation of Funeral Article in Egyptian Paper:
al-Wafd, Wednesday, December 26, 2001 Vol 15 No 4633
News of Bin Laden's Death and Funeral 10 days ago:
Pakistan's president says he thinks Osama bin Laden is most likely dead because the suspected terrorist has been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease.
[A Bush administration official] said U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis every three days and "it is fairly obvious that that could be an issue when you are running from place to place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in a mountain hideout." [CNN]
Renal dialysis -- talking about hemodialysis -- is something that really is reserved for patients in end-stage renal failure. That means their kidneys have just completely shut down. The most common cause of something like that would be something like diabetes and hypertension. Once that's happened, if you're separated from your dialysis machine -- and incidentally, dialysis machines require electricity, they're going to require clean water, they're going to require a sterile setting -- infection is a huge risk with that. If you don't have all those things and a functioning dialysis machine, it's unlikely that you'd survive beyond several days or a week at the most. [CNN]
Karzai: bin Laden 'probably' dead
Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead, but former Taliban leader Mullah Omar is alive, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said. [CNN]
FBI: Bin Laden 'probably' dead
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, says he thinks Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead. [BBC]
Magazine runs what it calls bin Laden's will
The editor-in-chief of a London-based Arab news magazine said a purported will it published Saturday was written late last year [2001] by Osama bin Laden, and shows "he's dying or he's going to die soon." [CNN]