By MICHELLE TRAVIERSO – Wed May 4, 5:40 pm ET
A picture of the tail rotor of the chopper that the Navy Seals' Team Six detonated revealed unfamiliar features. Reports say it could be a new, secret helicopter.
When the Team Six members reached Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad one of the choppers made a "controlled but hard landing," according to reports, probably due to higher than expected temperatures.
Temperatures affects the density of the air, and low density makes it harder for the rotor to sustain the weight of the chopper, especially if it was near its maximum weight (being packed with soldiers and fuel to fly in from Afghanistan). Abbottabad is about 1200 meters above the sea level, and altitude also affects air density. (Inside the Osama bin Laden Strike: How America Got Its Man.)
So what machine exactly experienced the hard landing described above? Short answer: we don't know for sure. Long answer: It seems that the tail rotor visible in the picture belongs to a highly modified version of the H-60, the chopper of choice of the special forces for more than 30 years. Aviation Week doesn't beat around the bush, claiming: "A previously undisclosed, classified stealth helicopter apparently was part of the U.S. task force that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1."
Stealth technology on helicopters is not itself new, but the fact that a previously unknown machine was used in this raid is yet another proof of the degree of importance that this mission had for U.S. commanders. (Watch President Obama's announcement of Osama bin Laden's death.)
Aviation Week then goes techie and explains what we can see from that picture: "Photos disseminated via the European PressPhoto agency and attributed to an anonymous stringer show that the helicopter's tail features stealth-configured shapes on the boom and the tail rotor hub fairings, swept stabilizers and a 'dishpan' cover over a five-or-six-blade tail rotor. It has a silver-loaded infrared suppression finish similar to that seen on V-22s."
Low radar visibility was essential, for the Pakistani air force would have either scrambled its jets if an unknown threat to its airspace (and near the country's best military academy!) was detected, or fired its surface to air missiles. It's possibly more proof of the fact that Pakistan really knew nothing about the mission - or at least its first wave of attack - until it ended. (See pictures of Osama bin Laden.)
This would explain why the Seals wasted critically precious time to blew up the mysterious helicopter and why many experts had problems identifying its remains. It's unclear what Pakistan could have made of the downed chopper, but growing ties between Pakistani and Chinese armed forces could have made the destruction of such new machine a must. China and Pakistan, over the past two decades, have developed a multi role combat aircraft called JF-17 and an advanced trainer, the JL-8.
The Navy Seals usually fly in the famed Sikorsky UH-60, popularized by the movie Black Hawk Down, in which two UH-60 were shot down in Somalia, resulting in the death of 18 men.
Black Hawk Down was a scenario, insiders say, that together with first attempt to rescue the hostages held at the U.S. embassy in 1980 in Iran, that's been evoked constantly in the planning phases leading to the May 1 raid, as examples of potentially disastrous outcomes. (Via Aviation Week) See continuing coverage of Osama's death. See TIME's al-Qaeda covers.
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Here are the photos of the burnt out wreckage of the helicopter that the United States Navy seals destroyed and abandoned, following the raid on Osama Bin Laden's house in Abbottsabad. The tail assembly is rather unusual, and could indicate some kind of previously unknown stealth capability perhaps.
............45 minutes ! (kipindi kizima cha mpira kimoja !) walikua wakipigana na OSAMA ! SWALI 1. Alikua na walinzi wa ngapi ? 2. Wangapi waliuawa ? 3. Osama hakuwa na silaha, walishindwaje kumdhibiti !? 4. Aliuawa katika 'ACTION' au baadae katika sehemu waliochagua wao, kwani nini? 5. Kulikuwa na watu kiasi gani ? wanne tu kwa 45 minutes 6. Serikali ya PAKISTAN hailindi anga yake, waliwezaje kuingia na kutoka bila wao (Pakistan) kuretaliete ? Yaaaani......utata mtupu !
....... tulipitia JKT ........ hivi AK 47, au M 16, au G3, ukimpiga mtu kwa close range unaweza kupata miili iko clean kiasi hichi ? au walitumia Dagger ? (visu) kuna kitu kinaitwa '4 bore lines ndani ya mtutu wa bunduki, ulizia kazi yake ndani ya mwili wa binaadamu !
............45 minutes ! (kipindi kizima cha mpira kimoja !) walikua wakipigana na OSAMA ! SWALI 1. Alikua na walinzi wa ngapi ? 2. Wangapi waliuawa ? 3. Osama hakuwa na silaha, walishindwaje kumdhibiti !? 4. Aliuawa katika 'ACTION' au baadae katika sehemu waliochagua wao, kwani nini? 5. Kulikuwa na watu kiasi gani ? wanne tu kwa 45 minutes 6. Serikali ya PAKISTAN hailindi anga yake, waliwezaje kuingia na kutoka bila wao (Pakistan) kuretaliete ? Yaaaani......utata mtupu !
USA hawana na hawakutaka kuwa na osama katika dunia hii-ndio maana waliamua kumuua akiwa unarmed-hata angejisalimisha yeye na wenzake wote ni wa kuua tu-
serikaliya pakistan hata kama inalinda anga lake-USA walitumia aina tofauti ya helicopter ambazo inaamika ni stealth
Here are the photos of the burnt out wreckage of the helicopter that the United States Navy seals destroyed and abandoned, following the raid on Osama Bin Ladens house in Abbottsabad. The tail assembly is rather unusual, and could indicate some kind of previously unknown stealth capability perhaps. View attachment 29338 View attachment 29339
Gaddafi alishampiga tochi Osama bin Laden tangia 1998!
Gaddafi's Libya issued first Bin Laden arrest in 1998.
Published on: Thursday, May 05, 2011 12:46 AM
Libya reminded the United States on Wednesday that Moammar Gaddafi's government, not anyone in Washington,was the first to issue an arrest warrant against Osama bin Laden, back in 1998.
The warrant, approved by Interpol, came after two German anti-terrorism agents were gunned down in the Libyan city of Sirte in 1994, an attack the government in Tripoli blamed on the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a militant organization linked to Al Qaeda.
Five months after the warrant was issued, al-Qaeda carried out coordinated bombings on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than 200 people.
"At the time, they didn't listen to us, because no one listened to Libya then," said one senior Libyan government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Gaddafi's open endorsement of terrorist attacks against Western nations, as well as Libya's involvement in the bombing of a Berlin nightclub in 1986 and the downing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, turned the country into a pariah state and led President Ronald Reagan to nickname its leader "the mad dog of the Middle East."
According to former British intelligence agent David Shayler, eight years after Lockerbie, Britain's MI6 sponsored the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in a 1996 attempt to kill Gaddafi.
It was as a result of this connection, two former French intelligence agents alleged, that the British secret service subsequently thwarted Libya's attempt to turn the spotlight on Libyan Islamists and bin Laden.
After years of U.N. sanctions, Gaddafi gradually repaired relations with the West. His government became an ally in George W. Bush's fight against terrorism after Tripoli surrendered its weapons of mass destruction program in 2003 and diplomatic relations were restored. It is something Libya likes to frequently point out to foreign journalists in Tripoli, as officials portray the rebels they are fighting as led by al-Qaeda and argue that the United States is backing the wrong horse.
Last weekend, less than 36 hours before U.S. commandos surrounded bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan, NATO sent rockets onto a house owned by the Gaddafi family in Tripoli, killing one of Gaddafi's sons and three of his grandchildren, in what the Libyan government described as a deliberate attempt to assassinate its leader.
That left the Gaddafi regime in the slightly tricky diplomatic situation this week of not knowing whether to congratulate the United States for taking out a mutual enemy or condemn President Obama for engaging in a political assassination.
At a news conference early Wednesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim first tried to dodge the question and then drew a distinction between the two events.
"Bin Laden, he was not a head of state, and that's why there is a difference. He was not a head of a political party or political organization. When we come to the definition of ‘political assassination,' we should be a bit careful about whether bin Laden was a political figure or not," he said.
"The Libyan government, it is not its policy to target an individual leader to achieve political gain. But, again, Libya was the first victim of al-Qaeda . . . and Libya was very cooperative in combating al-Qaeda."
Earlier, the Foreign Ministry repeated its allegation about al-Qaeda's increasing involvement on the side of the rebels in the Libyan conflict.
"There is no doubt that defeating al-Qaeda as an organization and an ideology cannot be achieved under the policy conducted by the U.S., Britain and France in Libya and elsewhere in the world," it said in a statement Tuesday.
Although some Islamist radicals have joined the cause of Libya's rebellion, the vast majority of rebel fighters appear to be ordinary Libyans fed up with four decades of repression under Gaddafi's government.
The Germans killed in 1994 were Silvan Becker, said to be one of Germany's foremost experts on Islamist extremism and the Arab world, and his wife, Vera. Becker's slaying is thought by some experts to have affected Germany's ability to spot the Hamburg plotters who coordinated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Becker was also investigating the Berlin nightclub attack and the Lockerbie bombing.
....... tulipitia JKT ........ hivi AK 47, au M 16, au G3, ukimpiga mtu kwa close range unaweza kupata miili iko clean kiasi hichi ? au walitumia Dagger ? (visu) kuna kitu kinaitwa '4 bore lines ndani ya mtutu wa bunduki, ulizia kazi yake ndani ya mwili wa binaadamu !
amekutwa na Uero 500 pakistani alipokuwa anaishi zaidi ya miaka 5!!!!!!!!,
uero pakistani? Uongo wa wadhungu haujatulia kama wa mafisadi wa bongo wee! Kisha kakutwa na mke wa mtu eti! Mh
NEW details indicate that at least 23 children were living with Osama bin Laden at his hideout at Abbottabad in Pakistan.
According to international media reports, after killing Bin Laden, his son and two others, the American commandos took nine women and 23 children away from the compound, according to US officials.
The survivors of the raid are now in safe hands and being looked after in accordance to the law, the Pakistani government said in a statement.
As per policy, they will be handed over to their countries of origin. It did not elaborate. The reports did not say whether some were children of bin Laden.
Those who live nearby said the people in bin Ladens compound rarely strayed outside. Most of them were unaware that bin Laden and his family were living there.
Khurshid Bibi, a neighbour, said one man living in the compound had given her a lift to the market in the rain.
She said her grandchildren played with the kids in the house and that the adults there gave them rabbits as a gift. The neighbours said they knew little about those inside in the compound, but bin Laden apparently depended on two men who would routinely emerge to run errands or to a neighbourhood gathering, such as a funeral. Bin Ladens wife
The White House yesterday identified the woman said to have charged at US Navy SEALs in an apparent desperate last ditch effort to protect bin Laden, his youngest wife, a woman nearly half his age.
The woman, identified by a passport found inside the compound, was 29-year-old Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah.
She was in the room when the SEALs took the final fateful shots at bin Laden and was herself shot in the leg when she rushed, unarmed, at the special operators.
She was treated for her wounds and is in custody in Pakistan, officials said.
Fatah, bin Ladens fifth wife and the only one left living with him in the house, had been gifted to bin Laden by a Yemeni family when she was just a teenager and later had three young children with him. Of his other wives, he had divorced one and three others had moved to Syria.
But bin Ladens children with Fatah are not his only offspring as he was survived by at least 18 children.
None of the sons, however, are in line to succeed their father for leadership of al-qaeda.
most feared terror organisations.
in the world.
"Unlike a lot of Arab governments that are dynastic," said former White House counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, "al Qaeda has not been and his sons have never played a real operational role of any significance. They did not appear to be groomed for leadership roles in al Qaeda."
Binti wa miaka 12 as a witness, stay until her father die, then still alive hizo risasi zilizodumu kwa muda wa dakika 45 za piga nikupige zilikuwa zinachangua watu ............ nina mashaka makubwa kuhusu hili.
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Here are the photos of the burnt out wreckage of the helicopter that the United States Navy seals destroyed and abandoned, following the raid on Osama Bin Laden's house in Abbottsabad. The tail assembly is rather unusual, and could indicate some kind of previously unknown stealth capability perhaps.
