“Failure to attack when he was holed up in Tora Bora has had far-reaching effects”
As Barack Obama prepares to increase troops in Afghanistan, the US Senate has released a report saying the Americans missed the golden chance to attack al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputies when they were holed up in the mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan three months after the 9/11 twin tower attacks.
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
The Senate report categorically states that Bin Laden was unquestionably in Tora Bora when the United States should have mounted a swift assault.
Review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants “removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp,” says the report.
On or about 16 Dec.2001, Bin Laden and his deputies, however, “walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area,” where he is still believed to be based, it says, asserting that the failure to kill or capture Bin Laden has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. The al-Qaeda leader’s escape laid the foundation for today’s reinvigourated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan.
“Removing the al-Qaeda leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat,” the report says. “But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed Bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism.”
The report by the Committee on Foreign Relations is part of US Senate’s continuing examination of the conflict in Afghanistan.
“When we went to war less than a month after the attacks of Sept.11, the objective was to destroy Al Qaeda and kill or capture its leader, Osama bin Laden, and other senior figures in the terrorist group and the Taliban, which had hosted them. Today, more than eight years later, we find ourselves fighting an increasingly lethal insurgency in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan that is led by many of those same extremists. Our inability to finish the job in late 2001 has contributed to a conflict today that endangers not just our troops and those of our allies, but the stability of a volatile and vital region,” says Committee Chairman John F. Kerry.
Read the full report here or the excerpt below:
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EXCERPT: “Bin Laden expected to die. His last will and testament, written on December 14, reflected his fatalism. … But the Al Qaeda leader would live to fight another day. Fewer than 100 American commandos were on the scene with their Afghan allies and calls for reinforcements to launch an assault were rejected. Requests were also turned down for US troops to block the mountain paths leading to sanctuary a few miles away in Pakistan. … On or around December 16, two days after writing his will, bin Laden and an entourage of bodyguards walked unmolested out of Tora Bora and disappeared into Pakistan’s unregulated tribal area. Most analysts say he is still there today. … For American taxpayers, the financial costs of the conflict have been staggering. The first eight years cost an estimated $243 billion and about $70 billion has been appropriated for the current fiscal year—a figure that does not include any increase in troops. But the highest price is being paid on a daily basis in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where 68,000 American troops and hundreds of US civilians are engaged in the ninth year of a protracted conflict and the Afghan people endure a third decade of violence. So far, about 950 US troops and nearly 600 allied soldiers have lost their lives in Operation Enduring Freedom, a conflict in which the outcome remains in grave doubt in large part because the extremists behind the violence were not eliminated in 2001.”
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And had it not been the irresponsible bar brawl, guns wouldn’t have been out against the playboy son of the influential parents, who had also neutralized the media against reporting about their worthless lad coming out of jail on parole way back in September.
CIA is paying hundreds of millions of dollars to ISI since the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers, accounting for as much as one-third of the US spy agency’s annual budget.
The payments to Pakistan are authorized under a covert programme initially approved by then-President Bush and continued under President Obama but the extent of the financial underpinnings have never been publicly disclosed. Officials said the CIA has also routinely brought ISI operatives to a secret training facility in North Carolina, US.
Cricket legend Wasim Akram has taken up his wife Huma’s death with Pakistan government which has ordered a three-member committee to investigate the medical care provided to her in Lahore.
On the former captain’s complaint to the federal government and on the directives of the premier, the federal health ministry has formed a three-member committee comprising top medical professionals who will probe the causes of Huma Akram’s death. The federal health investigators have also been provided with a detailed eight-page medical report of the late Huma. The report also carries a death certificate issued by the Apollo Hospital along with Huma’s medical history. The enquiry team is expected to submit its findings within 10 days.
One year ago, Barack Obama was elected as the US President on a message most succinctly defined by a single word: ‘change’.
The Festival of Lights – Diwali – has always meant CELEBRATIONS – rows of lighted lamps and colourful bulbs, bursting of crackers, new clothes, exchanging gifts, festive meals, cleaning home thoroughly and opening doors and windows to welcome the Goddess of Wealth Mother Lakshmi.
Here’s an interesting twist.
“We are all locked in Chambers—200 of us.” That exaggerated number was quickly passed to Indian TV. “There are reports of hundreds locked in Chambers,” Barkha Dutt announced. Within moments, handlers watching in Pakistan appeared to have alerted the terrorists, and a hail of bullets was fired at Chambers.
Lata Mangeshkar turns 80 on Monday, September 28.
Hitler may be the ugliest face you can use to show evil but you cannot make a point like this – that AIDS, like Hitler, is a mass murderer. Oh! C’mon.
Stating that Ishrat and three others were killed in a fake encounter by the police for personal interests, promotions and appreciations, Tamang appended a list of top police officers running into about two pages who he held responsible for the fake encounter. Tamang report said the police “kidnapped” Ishrat and three others from Mumbai on June 12, 2004 and brought them to Ahmedabad. The four were killed on the night of June 14 in police custody, but the police claimed that an “encounter” took place on the morning of June 15 near Kotarpur water works on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. It said the explosives, rifles, and other weapons allegedly found in their car were all “planted” by the police after the encounter.
“The point is that we will never know whether they were terrorists. The killings made it impossible for their guilt or innocence to be established in a court of law,” wrote senior journalist Vir Sanghvi in The Hindustan Times on Sept.12, 2009. “Are we prepared to live with the situation where a policeman is prosecutor, judge and executioner?”
