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In 2000, before the September 11 attacks, Paul Bremer characterized the Clinton administration as correctly focused on Bin Laden, while Robert Oakley criticized their obsession with Osama.
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September 11 attacks
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God knows it did not cross our minds to attack the Towers, but after the situation became unbearable—and we witnessed the injustice and tyranny of the American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon—I thought about it. And the events that affected me directly were that of 1982 and the events that followed—when America allowed the Israelis to invade Lebanon, helped by the US Sixth Fleet. As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me punish the unjust the same way: to destroy towers in America so it could taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women.
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— Osama bin Laden, 2004
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U.S. president George W. Bush received an intelligence report on 6 August 2001, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." On 11 September 2001 (the "September 11 attacks" or "9/11"), the U.S. was attacked by al-Qaeda, who used four commercial airplanes as missiles against various targets. Two planes, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, were crashed into the North and South Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. American Airlines Flight 77 was crashed into the Pentagon. United Airlines Flight 93 did not reach its intended destination, as its passengers overtook the plane, which crashed in Pennsylvania. The Twin Towers eventually collapsed. At least 2,750 people died from the attacks.
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On the day of the attacks, the National Security Agency intercepted communications that pointed to Bin Laden's responsibility, as did German intelligence agencies. At 11:30 p.m., Bush wrote in his diary: "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today... We think it's Osama bin Laden." The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that classified evidence linking al-Qaeda and Bin Laden to the September 11 attacks is clear and irrefutable. The UK Government reached a similar conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Bin Laden's culpability for the September 11 attacks, although the government report noted that the evidence presented is not necessarily sufficient to prosecute the case. Identified motivations of the September 11 attacks include the support of Israel by the United States, presence of the U.S. military in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. enforcement of sanctions against Iraq.
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Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the attacks. On 16 September 2001, he read a statement, later broadcast by Al Jazeera, denying responsibility for the attack. In a videotape recovered by U.S. forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, Bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicates foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on 13 December 2001. The merits of this translation have been disputed. Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini stated: "This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
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In the 2004 video, Bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it, he said he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, Bin Laden accused George W. Bush of negligence in the hijacking of the planes on September 11. He said he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War. Through two other tapes aired by Al Jazeera in 2006, Bin Laden announced, "I am the one in charge of the nineteen brothers. ... I was responsible for entrusting the nineteen brothers ... with the raids" (23 May 2006). In the tapes, he was seen with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, as well as two of the 9/11 hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, as they made preparations for the attacks (videotape broadcast 7 September 2006).
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Manhunt and activities after the September 11 attacks
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Bush administration
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In response to the attacks, the United States launched the war on terror to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks. The CIA's Special Activities Division was given the lead in tracking down and killing or capturing Bin Laden. U.S. officials named Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On 13 July 2007, the Senate voted to double the reward to $50 million, although the amount was never changed. The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association offered an additional $2 million reward.
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While referring to Bin Laden in a CNN film clip on 17 September 2001, then-president George W. Bush stated, "I want justice. There is an old poster out west, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or alive'". Subsequently, Bin Laden retreated further from public contact to avoid capture. Numerous speculative press reports were issued about his whereabouts or even death; some placed Bin Laden in different locations during overlapping time periods.
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On 10 October 2001, Bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the George W. Bush administration and based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of 13 fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 attack. He remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists. Despite these multiple indictments, the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden. However, they did offer to try him before an Islamic court if evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 attacks was provided. It was not until eight days after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial, in return for the U.S. ending the bombing. This offer was rejected by George W. Bush, stating that this was no longer negotiable: "there's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."
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Bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the White Mountains (Spin Ghar) in Afghanistan's east, near the Pakistani border. According to The Washington Post, the US government concluded that Bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, in late 2001, and according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge, failure by the U.S. to commit enough U.S. ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the U.S. in the war against al-Qaeda. Intelligence officials assembled what they believed to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that Bin Laden began the Battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
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On 11 December 2005, a letter from Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda leadership were based in the Waziristan region of Pakistan at the time. In the letter, translated by the United States military's Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Atiyah instructs al-Zarqawi to send messengers to Waziristan so that they meet with the brothers of the leadership. Al-Rahman also indicates that Bin Laden and al-Qaeda are weak and have many of their own problems. The letter has been deemed authentic by military and counterterrorism officials, according to The Washington Post.
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The Washington Post also reported that the CIA unit composed of special operations paramilitary forces dedicated to capturing Bin Laden was shut down in late 2005.
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U.S. and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora between 14 and 16 August 2007. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al-Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al-Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Bin Laden or al-Zawahiri.
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Al-Qaeda continued to release time-sensitive and professionally verified videos demonstrating Bin Laden's continued survival, including in August 2007. He claimed sole responsibility for the September 11 attacks and specifically denied any prior knowledge of them by the Taliban or the Afghan people.
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Obama administration
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On 7 October 2008, in the second debate of that year's U.S. presidential election, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged, "We will kill Bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority." Upon being elected, Obama expressed his plans to renew and ramp up the U.S. search for Bin Laden. Obama rejected the Bush administration's policy on Bin Laden that conflated all terror threats from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah, replacing it with a covert, narrow focus on al-Qaeda and its direct affiliates.
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In 2009, a research team led by Thomas Gillespie and John A. Agnew of UCLA used satellite-aided geographical analysis to pinpoint three compounds in Parachinar as Bin Laden's likely hideouts. In March 2009, the New York Daily News reported that the hunt for Bin Laden had centered in the Chitral District of Pakistan, including the Kalam Valley. Author Rohan Gunaratna stated that captured al-Qaeda leaders had confirmed that Bin Laden was hiding in Chitral. Pakistan's prime minister Gillani rejected claims that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan.
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Early in December 2009, a Taliban detainee in Pakistan said he had information that Bin Laden was in Afghanistan that year; he said that in January or February 2009, he met a trusted contact who had seen Bin Laden in Afghanistan about 15 to 20 days earlier. However, on 6 December 2009, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that the United States had had no reliable information on the whereabouts of Bin Laden in years. On 9 December, General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said that al-Qaeda would not be defeated unless Bin Laden were captured or killed, thus indicating that the U.S. high command believed that he was still alive. Testifying to the U.S. Congress, he said that Bin Laden had become an iconic figure, whose survival emboldens al-Qaeda as a franchising organization across the world, and that Obama's deployment of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan meant that success would be possible. He said killing or capturing Bin Laden would not spell the end of al-Qaeda, but the movement could not be eradicated while he remained at large.
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In a 2010 letter, Bin Laden chastised followers who had reinterpreted al-tatarrus—an Islamic doctrine meant to excuse the unintended killing of non-combatants in unusual circumstances—to justify routine massacres of Muslim civilians, which had turned Muslims against the extremist movement. Of the groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, Bin Laden condemned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for an attack on members of a hostile tribe, declaring that the operation is not justified, as there were casualties of noncombatants. Bin Laden wrote that the tatarrus doctrine needs to be revisited based on the modern-day context and clear boundaries established. He asked a subordinate to draw up a jihadist code of conduct that would constrain military operations in order to avoid civilian casualties. In Yemen, Bin Laden urged his allies to seek a truce that would bring the country stability, or would at least show the people that they were careful in keeping Muslims safe on the basis of peace. In Somalia, he called attention to the extreme poverty caused by constant warfare, and he advised al-Shabab to pursue economic development. He instructed his followers around the world to focus on education and persuasion rather than entering into confrontations with Islamic political parties.
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On 2 February 2010, Afghan president Hamid Karzai arrived in Saudi Arabia for an official visit. The agenda included a discussion of a possible Saudi role in Karzai's plan to reintegrate Taliban militants. During the visit, an anonymous official of the Saudi Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that the kingdom had no intention of getting involved in peacemaking in Afghanistan unless the Taliban severed ties with extremists and expelled Osama bin Laden. On 7 June 2010, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported that Bin Laden was hiding out in the mountainous town of Sabzevar, in northeastern Iran. On 9 June, The Australian's online edition repeated the claim. This report turned out to be false.
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On 18 October 2010, an unnamed NATO official suggested that Bin Laden was alive, well, and living comfortably in Pakistan, protected by elements of the country's intelligence services. A senior Pakistani official denied the allegations and said that the accusations were designed to put pressure on the Pakistani government ahead of talks aimed at strengthening ties between Pakistan and the U.S.
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In April 2011, various U.S. intelligence outlets traced Bin Laden to Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was previously believed that he was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was found 160 km (100 mi) away in a three-story mansion in Abbottabad at 34°10′9.51″N 73°14′32.78″E / 34.1693083°N 73.2424389°E / 34.1693083; 73.2424389, 1.3 km (0.8 mi) southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy. Imagery from Google Earth indicates that the compound was built between 2001 and 2005.
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Death and aftermath
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Osama bin Laden was shot and killed by Navy Seal operatives in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on 2 May 2011, shortly after 1:00 AM local time (4:00 PM Eastern Time on 1 May 2011) by a U.S. military special operations unit. The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by Barack Obama in April 2011 and carried out in a CIA operation by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or informally by its former name, SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground.
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The raid on Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, reports at the time stated that U.S. forces had taken Bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for positive identification, then buried it at sea, in accordance with Islamic law, within 24 hours of his death. Subsequent reporting has called this account into question—citing, for example, the absence of evidence that there was an imam on board the USS Carl Vinson, where the burial was said to have taken place. On 15 June 2011, U.S. federal prosecutors officially dropped all criminal charges against Bin Laden.
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Pakistani authorities later demolished the compound in February 2012 to prevent it from becoming a neo-Islamist shrine. In February 2013, Pakistan announced plans to build a PKR 265 million (US$30 million) amusement park in the area, including the property of the former hideout. In an interview in 2019, Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan claimed that Pakistani intelligence led the CIA to Osama bin Laden.
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It was widely reported by the press that Bin Laden was fatally wounded by Robert J. O'Neill; however, it has also been widely discredited by witnesses, who claim that Bin Laden was possibly already dead by the time O'Neill arrived, having been injured by an anonymous SEAL Team Six member referred to under the pseudonym "Red". According to Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, Bin Laden was struck by two suppressed shots to the side of the head from around ten feet away after leaning out of his bedroom doorway to survey Bissonnette and a point man. Once the Navy SEALs entered the bedroom, his body began convulsing and Bissonnette along with another SEAL responded by firing multiple shots into his chest.
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On 29 March 2012, Pakistani newspaper Dawn acquired a report produced by Pakistani security officials, based on interrogation of his three surviving wives, that detailed his movements while living underground in Pakistan.
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Allegations of Pakistan support and protection of Bin Laden
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Bin Laden was killed within the fortified complex of buildings that were probably built for him, and had reportedly been his home for at least five years. The compound was located less than 2 kilometres (1 mi) from the Pakistan Military Academy and less than 100 kilometres (62 mi) from Pakistan's capital. While the United States and Pakistan governments both claimed, and later maintained, that no Pakistani officials, including senior military leaders, knew Bin Laden's whereabouts or had prior knowledge of the U.S. strike, Carlotta Gall, writing in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, reported that ISI Director General Ahmad Shuja Pasha knew of Bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. In a 2015 London Review of Books article, investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh asserted—citing U.S. sources—that Bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Pasha knew of the U.S. mission in advance, and authorized the helicopters delivering the SEALs to enter Pakistani airspace; and that the CIA learned of Bin Laden's whereabouts from a former senior Pakistani intelligence of Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who was paid an estimated $25 million for the information. Both stories were denied by U.S. and Pakistani officials.
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Mosharraf Zia, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that Bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state." Pakistan's U.S. envoy, Ambassador Husain Haqqani, promised a "full inquiry" into how Pakistani intelligence services could have failed to find Bin Laden in a fortified compound so close to Islamabad. "Obviously Bin Laden did have a support system", he said. "The issue is, was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan, or within the society of Pakistan?"
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Others argued that Bin Laden lived in the compound with a local family, and never used the internet or a mobile phone, which would have made him much easier to locate. Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari denied that his country's security forces sheltered Bin Laden, and called any supposed support for Bin Laden by the Pakistani government baseless speculation. Government officials said that the country's limited resources had been committed to its war against the Pakistan Taliban, and other insurgents who posed an active threat to it, rather than to finding or sheltering Bin Laden. Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of Bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad. Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that Bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
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Reception and legacy
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During the early 2000s, despite condemnations from U.S-allied governments in the Arab world, anti-American protestors from Pakistan to Palestinian territories used his portraits during their protests, speeches and public campaigns. His popularity in the Muslim world reached its apex through the course of the Iraq War; during which opinion polls conducted in some countries gave him 50% – 60% favourable ratings. However, at his death, Arab reaction was described as "muted", overshadowed by the beginning of the Arab Spring. The Pew Research Center found in 2011 that support for Bin Laden and al-Qaeda had declined steadily across a number of Muslim countries, and was as low as 1% in Lebanon, describing him as "discredited". Latin American political leaders expressed opposition to Bin Laden, with Peruvian president Alan García calling him "demonic"; however, at his death, some leftist Latin American leaders also denounced the United States for violating Pakistani sovereignty to target Bin Laden. His death was celebrated in India, and the fact that he was found in Pakistan was regarded as cause for concern due to the complex Indo-Pakistani relationship. During a June 2020 Pakistani parliament session, Prime Minister Imran Khan denounced Bin Laden's killing, labelling it as "an embarrassing moment" in their country's history, and also praised Bin Laden as a Shaheed (martyr).
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Bin Laden is a reviled figure in the Western world, where he is regarded as a terrorist and mass murderer. His obituary in the New York Times referred to him as "the North Star" of global terrorism, seen by Americans as equivalent to "Hitler or Stalin." Mark Hosenball wrote:
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In history's long list of villains, bin Laden will find a special place. He ha[d] no throne, no armies, not even any real territory, aside from the rocky wastes of Afghanistan. But he ha[d] the power to make men willingly go to their deaths for the sole purpose of indiscriminately killing Americans—men, women and children. He [was] an unusual combination in the annals of hate, at once mystical and fanatical—and deliberate and efficient.
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— Mark Hosenball, 2001
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Allegations of CIA assistance to Osama bin Laden
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