The dramatic raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011 delivered far more than the world’s most wanted man – computers, hard drives, notebooks. Secrets of Bin Laden’s Lair, Discovery Channel 2012
Where does al Qaeda stand now? ibid.
Ten hard drives, five computers, and more than a hundred storage devices. ibid.
There was another surprising discovery amongst the material – pornography. A large stash of it was found in the compound. ibid.
The courier they’d heard about eight years earlier in the interrogation led the CIA then the SEALS right to bin Laden’s door. ibid.
Al Qaeda makes its money through crime. ibid.
Another remarkable theory – bin Laden was actually turned in by his own wife. ibid.
They’re the team that carried out the mission to kill Osama bin Laden. They’re the elite of the elite. They’re the men of Seal Team Six. Secrets of Seal Team Six
It was dramatic headline news. And the details of the secret mission were as extraordinary as the news itself. ibid.
On May 1 2011 US Navy Seals Raided Osama bin Laden’s Compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Manhunt, caption, HBO 2013
‘Tonight: I can report to the American people and to the world: the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda.’ ibid. Barak Obama
Cindy Storer began tracking bin Laden for the CIA in 1995. ibid. caption
‘America won’t stop supporting the Jews, who are killing Muslims, until we attack them and raise the banner of Jihad.’ ibid. voice of bin Laden 1993
In the early 90s, bin Laden lived openly, denying all ties to terrorism. Al Qaeda was a secret organisation, unknown to the US government. ibid. caption
John McLaughlin oversaw the CIA analysts. Later he ran the entire CIA. ibid.
In 1995 the CIA created the bin Laden unit. Its codename was Alec Station. ibid.
The FBI was also investigating al Qaeda. In Yemen an FBI team was building a case against bin Laden. Six days after 9/11, they interrogated his former bodyguard. ibid.
He did not know they were tracking his courier. ibid.
For years Al Qaeda and its affiliates have defiled the great religion of peace and justice, and ruthlessly murdered men, women and children of all nationalities and faiths. Indeed, above all, they have killed Muslims. Barack Obama, public address
In the nearly eight years since 9/11 Al Qaeda and its extremist allies have moved across the border to the remote areas of the Pakistani frontier. This almost certainly includes al Qaeda’s leadership – Osama bin Laden. Barack Obama, public address
Tonight I can report to the American people and to the world the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda. Barack Obama press conference 1st May 2011 11.35 p.m.
When Skull & Bonesman George Bush senior became CIA director in the 1980s the CIA recruited Osama bin Laden to train Al Qaeda and Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan. The job of Osama’s trainees was not just to fight the Russian communists, it was run Afghanistan’s multi-billion-dollar opium trade. Ring of Power
A Friday morning in New York. Thousands of people are downtown. But this is a day unlike any other. Because the hunt for the world’s most wanted man begins now. Terrorists attack the World Trade Centre. But this is not 9/11. It’s eight years earlier. A 1,500 truck bomb rips a 100 foot hole through 4 levels of World Trade Centre Tower 1. CIA Declassified s1e3: The Real Zero Dark Thirty, 2014
Al Qaeda: This is their very first strike outside a Muslim nation. ibid.
The team set up in CIA headquarters. ibid.
The now declassified president’s [George W Bush] daily brief reveals the CIA think Bin Laden’s supporters may already be in the US plotting an attack. ibid.
They allow their Afghan allies to take the lead in capturing bin Laden. ibid.
‘He had to have a courier.’ ibid.
Nairobi: a truck drives up to the US embassy ... almost simultaneously another suicide bomb explodes outside the US embassy in Dar es Salaam, the capital of the neighbouring country of Tanzania. CIA Declassified s1e6: Operation Celestial Balance
The suspicion is that a Saudi prince few have heard of called Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks. ibid.
Suddenly a car explodes outside the hotel: sixteen people are killed including ten Kenyans and three Israelis; many more are injured. ibid.
The removal of a major terrorist threat in east Africa. Somalia is closed down as Osama bin Laden’s next refuge. ibid.
August 22nd 2001 John O’Neill, considered the FBI’s leading authority on Al Qaeda, resigns from the FBI. He says it is because of repeated obstruction of his investigations into Al Qaeda. Following his resignation he is offered a job as the head of security for the World Trade Centre. On September 10th he moves into his new office on the 34th floor of the North Tower. 9/11 Connections: Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime
Saudi is the spiritual birth-place of Al Qaeda. Frank Gardner’s Return to Saudi Arabia, BBC 2013
Douglas Farah, an exceptionally talented Washington Post reporter, then uncovered an al-Qaeda network involved in the West African diamond trade. Micha Glenny, McMafia
Prohibition is also a godsend to terrorist networks. Organisations like the Taliban and al-Qaeda fund their activities through the narcotics trade. ibid.
I have not suggested there is a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Dick Cheney, news interview
In September 2013, al-Shabab and al-Qaeda linked terrorist groups from Somalia attacked a shopping mall in neighbouring Kenya. More than a hundred security cameras recorded the attack which left 71 people dead. Terror at the Mall: This World, BBC 2014
They had killed sixty-one including a dozen children and three pregnant women. ibid.
He was the world’s most wanted man. And the CIA operation to track down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was one of America’s greatest intelligence coups. But do we know the whole story? This World: The Bin Laden Conspiracy, BBC 2015
Now a new and controversial account alleges Pakistan’s intelligence service was hiding Bin Laden for years. They just handed him over to the Americans. ibid.
Seymour Hersh says the whole US raid was staged. ibid.
He [bin Laden] and his family moved to a military garrison town. ibid.
Al Qaeda is revealed to be a government creation which has been used as tool of political control over the masses. The Corbett Report, 14 Al Qaeda Doesn’t Exist, James Corbett online 2007
In 1976 Salem bin Laden, Osama’s half brother, co-founded Arbusto Energy with George W Bush. The Corbett Report: The Osama Myth Exposed, James Corbett online 2012
In the weeks after 9/11 the Taliban offered to hand bin Laden over if the US provided proof he was connected to the attack. Bush turned the offer down. ibid.
There are competing narratives about what did or did not happen in May 2011 and before then in regards to the life or death of Osama bin Laden. The Corbett Report: When Did bin Laden Die? James Corbett online 2018
Not the first time that such a death had been announced but the ninth. ibid.
‘We believe that the biggest thieves in the world are Americans and the biggest terrorists on Earth are Americans.’ The Corbett Report: False Flags: The Secret History of Al Qaeda I: Origin Story, James Corbett online 2021, bin Laden
No part of the Muslim world could escape the influence of the British crown … British fingerprints can be found on every aspect of the story. ibid.
On Christmas Eve 1979 Soviet troops began an invasion of Afghanistan. ibid.
What bin Laden needed for his burgeoning terror group to thrive was not more money, it was protection. ibid.
In 2005 former British foreign secretary Robin Cook claimed that Al Qaeda was literally ‘The Database’, that is the computer file of the thousands of Mujahideen who were trained and recruited with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. ibid.
‘The US is 90% certain that bin Laden was responsible for today’s attack.’ The Corbett Report: False Flags: The Secret History of Al Qaeda II: 9/11, James Corbett online, US television news 5.54 p.m.
The popular conception of Al Qaeda that of a topdown organisation with a single leader overseeing its operations was a convenient fiction created by the FBI so they could prosecute bin Laden in absentia for the 1998 bombings of two embassies in East Africa. ibid.
‘The idea … that bin Laden ran a coherent organisation with operatives and cells all around the world of which you could be a member is a myth. There is no Al Qaeda organisation. There is no international network with a leader.’ ibid. Jason Burke, author The Power of Nightmares