Bin Laden Follow-Up: Waking Up to the Realities of Pakistan and Iran

Hamid Karzai, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Asif Ali ZardariThe real question now is whether the US and its allies will understand how deeply involved Tehran and Islamabad are in rejuvenating a dying insurgency in Afghanistan and turning it into a formidable force.

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Bin Laden Follow-Up: Obama Administration Frets About Withdrawal from Afghanistan & Tensions with Pakistan (But, Hey, We Sure Showed Iran)

UPDATE 0730 GMT: The Obama Administration's top journalist accomplices this morning? Reveal yourself, the editors and reporter Joshua Partlow of The Washington Post....

The headline blares, "Afghans Worry Bin Laden’s Death Could Weaken U.S. Resolve", and Partlow writes, "One persistent worry repeated here was that U.S. support for the war could erode at an accelerated pace now that America’s most wanted man is dead. With that decade-long goal achieved, Afghan officials said, the case for troop withdrawal becomes that much more convincing for Americans."

And how many Afghans does Partlow quote in what is effectively a PR piece for a continued US military presence?

Two. A "senior Afghan official" says, "Americans will forget Afghanistan again.” And Hanif Atmar, Afghanistan’s former interior minister, declares, “A warning to the United States and the rest of our NATO allies. This should not be seen as mission accomplished.”

Indeed, so intent is The Post on pushing this case that it includes, without apparent recognition, a quote that says something completely different:

President Hamid Karzai, who praised American troops for killing bin Laden, used the opportunity to reiterate his message that the locus of terrorism remains beyond Afghan borders. “For years we have said that the fight against terrorism is not in Afghan villages and houses. Stop bombarding Afghan villages and searching Afghan people.”

For some reason, I think that statement sends a far different message to the US military than "Please. Stay."

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Bin Laden Top 10 List: His Death and What's Next

1. His importance to the story of Al Qa'eda can’t be underestimated. Last summer at a private gathering, I heard a journalist who met bin Laden in the 1990s say that he had underestimated bin Laden’s central role, not just as the money man and spiritual leader of the organization but also in determining strategy.

2. Osama bin Laden was no longer central to the continuing threat of Al Qa'eda and AQ-inspired terrorism. 

9/11 ensured that. A massive gamble to shift the status quo in the Middle East, it ultimately shifted the focus of Al Qa'eda, as the organisation dispersed, with its leaders’ priority on survival. Those inspired by Al Qa'eda and bin Laden now in many ways represent the biggest threat.

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Snap Reaction: The Significance of Killing Bin Laden

Will this development make a significant difference? Al Qa'eda's main symbol is now dead, but the movement may already have been dying --- its leadership structure in tatters, and the Muslim world turning away from terrorism and towards democracy, their influence was already waning.

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Guantanamo WikiLeaks Feature: The Youngest Detainee

Video of Omar Khadr's interrogation at Guantanamo

Detainee continues to provide valuable information on his father's associates, and on non-governmental organizations that he worked with in supporting Al-Qaida, as well as other major facilitators of interest to the US. Detainee has also provided valuable information on the Derunta, Al-Farouq and Khalden training camps, indicating that the detainee has been to and likely trained at these locations; and he continues to provide valuable information on key Al -Qaida and Taliban members.

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Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Dragging Out the Day

2045 GMT: Doctors have suggested that regime forces in Yemen used a form of nerve gas on pro-democracy protesters in Sanaa in a violent clash on Tuesday night.

The soldiers fired warning shots into the air before shooting gas and, it is claimed, live bullets into the crowd, killing one and injuring at least 75.

“The material in this gas makes people convulse for hours. It paralyzes them. They couldn’t move at all. We tried to give them oxygen but it didn’t work,” said Amaar Nujaim, a field doctor who works for Islamic Relief.

“We are seeing symptoms in the patient’s nerves, not in their respiratory systems. I’m 90 percent sure its nerve gas and not tear gas that was used,” said Sami Zaid, a doctor at the Science and Technology Hospital in Sanaa.

Mohammad Al-Sheikh, a pathologist at the same hospital, said that some of the victims had lost their muscular control and were forced to wear diapers.

“We have never seen tear gas cause these symptoms. We fear it may be a dangerous gas that is internationally forbidden,” Al-Sheikh said.

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Pakistan: "Top NATO Official" (Petraeus?) Blames Islamabad for Sheltering Bin Laden

Sometimes Twitter misses the story.

The sub-140-character flash this morning was "Bin Laden Hiding in Northwest Pakistan". And I'm thinking, "This is news to whom?"

But then I click the link, to CNN's website,  just to confirm the bleedin' obvious: "NATO official: Bin Laden, deputy hiding in northwest Pakistan". Still nothing to break a yawn.

Then, in the third paragraph, the significant news jumps out: "Al Qaeda's top leadership is believed to be living in relative comfort, protected by locals and some members of the Pakistani intelligence services, the official said."

Whoa. Someone from NATO just threw petrol on the fire: Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are not only surviving but free from imminent challenge. The deadly duo can put their feet up, not just because of the "tribes" in the "autonomous" areas beyond Islamabad's control --- the story-line for most of the past eight years --- but because some people in Islamabad are supporting them.

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US War on Terror: Who Are the Remaining Prisoners in Guantanamo? (Worthington)

Andy Worthington writes in the first of an eight-part series profiling the 176 detainees still at Guantanamo Bay:

The 20 prisoners listed below were the first group of prisoners seized crossing from Afghanistan to Pakistan in December 2001. They have been identified as the “Dirty Thirty,” because of allegations that they served as bodyguards for Osama bin Laden, although these allegations have long been challenged by the prisoners and their attorneys, and by those who have studied the stories in detail, for three reasons: firstly, because the majority of the men had been in Afghanistan for such a short amount of time that it is inconceivable that they would have been trusted with such an important role; secondly, because one source of the allegations is Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was tortured at Guantánamo, and who later withdrew his false allegations; and thirdly, because two other sources of the allegations are Sharqwi Abdu Ali al-Hajj and Sanad Yislam Ali al-Kazimi, whose false confessions were recently exposed in a US court, in the habeas corpus petition of Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman.

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