Good shooting, and he was their CW/BW "expert"....Lets hope the ID checks out. While it would have been nice to capture him alive, this way at least we are saving the cost of a lawyer.

Intelligence officials are investigating reports that Al Qaeda's top expert on chemical and biological weapons was among six people killed Monday in a missile strike on Pakistan's tribal areas.

Al Qaeda operative Abu Khabab Al-Masri's wife told authorities that her husband died in the attack in South Waziristan, according to a Pakistani military intelligence official. The woman was wounded and hospitalized, he said.

U.S. officials told FOX News that al-Masri was a key trainer and expert in chemical and biological weapons, likely to have operational knowledge of a liquid explosive bomb plot thwarted two years ago. He is considered a "top 10" Al Qaeda target and was part of the original team with Usama Bin Laden who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The U.S. offers a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

Pakistan's army said it had not confirmed the strike killed al-Masri.

An American official in Washington expressed cautious optimism about the al-Masri reports.

"There is a real sense that this guy is gone," the official. But he cautioned that there was no material evidence yet to confirm al-Masri's death, such as a photograph of the dead man at the bomb site.

One of the Pakistani intelligence officials said al-Masri's body was now in the hands of local militants — complicating efforts to verify its identity.

The U.S. official said al-Masri was not an operations planner for Al Qaeda, but played a crucial role because of his knowledge of explosives and poisons and his death would be a significant blow for the terrorist network.

"Not only does he know about these things, he's trained people on them. He has a role to play, a vital role in external operations. He trains the people who go out to perform them," the official said.

Several Pakistani officials told The Associated Press that missiles hit a compound near Azam Warsak, a village about 2 1/2 miles from the Afghan border. Security officials initially described the building as a religious school, but a local administrator said the school closed years ago.

Al-Masri had been living in that area for some time training suicide bombers and rigging cars with explosives for attacks inside Afghanistan, one intelligence official said, adding that al-Masri's wife, daughter and son were all wounded in Monday's attack and were being treated at a private hospital in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,392762,00.html

Bingo, we did get him....

CAIRO, Egypt — Al Qaeda confirmed in a Web statement Sunday the death of a senior commander known as a top explosives and poisons expert, who is believed to have been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan last week.

The statement said Abu Khabab al-Masri and three other commanders were killed. It did not give details on when or how they were killed, but Pakistani authorities have said they believe al-Masri died in an American airstrike last Monday on a compound near the Afghan border.

Pakistani officials have said six people were killed in that strike, in the country's lawless South Waziristan tribal region.

Al-Masri, an Egyptian militant whose real name is Midhat Mursi, had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States. He is accused of training terrorists to use poisons and explosives, and is believed to have trained homicide bombers who killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,396625,00.html

Only about 5 years late. We should have been doing more of this and less occupation for a long time.

Get in, kill the bad guys, get out. That needs to be our MO, not nation-building.

Why do we keep tracking these guys like it matters. Once we kill Osama Bin Laden, there will be 1000 guys ready to step up and lead. Nothing will change.

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:Only about 5 years late. We should have been doing more of this and less occupation for a long time.

Get in, kill the bad guys, get out. That needs to be our MO, not nation-building.

In this case its:

1. Let a small Special Operations team infiltrate Pakistan and get close to the target.

2. Verify the bad guy is there.

3. Call in the airstrike.

But you are right, it beats an occupation.

Because of my military background and experience in the Middle East, people have asked me how I think we should find Osama bin Laden.

Take our best intel. I'm guessing we probably know where he is within a 20-mile radius or so. Go into the first village in the area, knock on the door of the first house, and ask the guy who answers the door where Osama is. He says he doesn't know. We kill him and everybody else in the house, and burn down the house. Go to the second house, repeat. On the way to the third house, the head of that household meets us in the front yard with a map.

There are people who know where Osama is. They don't tell us because they also know (1) we won't kill them if they don't, and (2) he will kill them if they do. We can only change one of those perceptions. That's hard for Americans to do, because our culture doesn't operate that way. But if we plan on ever winning this "war on terrorism" we are going to have to learn how.

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:Because of my military background and experience in the Middle East, people have asked me how I think we should find Osama bin Laden.

Take our best intel. I'm guessing we probably know where he is within a 20-mile radius or so. Go into the first village in the area, knock on the door of the first house, and ask the guy who answers the door where Osama is. He says he doesn't know. We kill him and everybody else in the house, and burn down the house. Go to the second house, repeat. On the way to the third house, the head of that household meets us in the front yard with a map.

There are people who know where Osama is. They don't tell us because they also know (1) we won't kill them if they don't, and (2) he will kill them if they do. We can only change one of those perceptions. That's hard for Americans to do, because our culture doesn't operate that way. But if we plan on ever winning this "war on terrorism" we are going to have to learn how.

I think there are people in the ISI that know how to find Osama. They may not know where he is at any specific moment, but they know the AQ courier/communications and logistics system. They know who the players are. In fact, they might have helped set the system up. I think we need to start working on the ISI.

If we penetrate this system we would identify the village where to start using the necessary "persuasion"... and if Osama gets wind of it and decides to bolt his hideout, perhaps we could spot the movement.

WMD Owl Wrote:I think there are people in the ISI that know how to find Osama. They may not know where he is at any specific moment, but they know the AQ courier/communications and logistics system. They know who the players are. In fact, they might have helped set the system up. I think we need to start working on the ISI.

If we penetrate this system we would identify the village where to start using the necessary "persuasion"... and if Osama gets wind of it and decides to bolt his hideout, perhaps we could spot the movement.

Agree. Good points.

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:Because of my military background and experience in the Middle East, people have asked me how I think we should find Osama bin Laden.

Take our best intel. I'm guessing we probably know where he is within a 20-mile radius or so. Go into the first village in the area, knock on the door of the first house, and ask the guy who answers the door where Osama is. He says he doesn't know. We kill him and everybody else in the house, and burn down the house. Go to the second house, repeat. On the way to the third house, the head of that household meets us in the front yard with a map.

There are people who know where Osama is. They don't tell us because they also know (1) we won't kill them if they don't, and (2) he will kill them if they do. We can only change one of those perceptions. That's hard for Americans to do, because our culture doesn't operate that way. But if we plan on ever winning this "war on terrorism" we are going to have to learn how.

I agree, let's start playing by their rules and see how they like it. If they want to act like uncivilized animals then that's how we'll treat them, this is, after all, war. The biggest problem standing in our way would be the bleeding hearts in this country and a few others.

We'll catch h*ll from many quarters if we do it that way. But until we do it that way, they are just playing a waiting game. Sooner or later, they're betting we lose interest. When we do, they've won. We've already lost interest in Iraq, and we'll leave some day. Whether it's next week or 100 years from now, they'll consider it a victory, and they're fine with waiting. We probably can't compete with that. What we can do is make the price of waiting higher than they are willing to pay.

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:Take our best intel. I'm guessing we probably know where he is within a 20-mile radius or so. Go into the first village in the area, knock on the door of the first house, and ask the guy who answers the door where Osama is. He says he doesn't know. We kill him and everybody else in the house, and burn down the house. Go to the second house, repeat. On the way to the third house, the head of that household meets us in the front yard with a map.

There are people who know where Osama is. They don't tell us because they also know (1) we won't kill them if they don't, and (2) he will kill them if they do. We can only change one of those perceptions. That's hard for Americans to do, because our culture doesn't operate that way. But if we plan on ever winning this "war on terrorism" we are going to have to learn how.

So you suggest that we actually become the Great Satan, make everything he says about us true. Even in war, there are rules, lines which should not be crossed. Do you honestly believe that everyone in the villages surrounding his hideouts actually knows where bin Laden is? If the third house doesn't know, do you keep murdering (there's no doubt that's what you are suggesting) people, innocent civillians, until someone does? If the first village doesn't know, do you just move on to the next, wipe out the entire country if you have to? Win the war & lose our souls.

Quote:We'll catch h*ll from many quarters if we do it that way. But until we do it that way, they are just playing a waiting game. Sooner or later, they're betting we lose interest. When we do, they've won. We've already lost interest in Iraq, and we'll leave some day. Whether it's next week or 100 years from now, they'll consider it a victory, and they're fine with waiting. We probably can't compete with that. What we can do is make the price of waiting higher than they are willing to pay.

Does bin laden care if we slaughter Afganis or Pakistanis? He certainly doesn't have any problems doing the same to the Iraqis so I don't see any reason how this would increase the price that he has to pay. bin Laden is not the fault, nor the responsibility, of the general Afgani population yet they are the ones paying the price in your scenario.

jh Wrote:Does bin laden care if we slaughter Afganis or Pakistanis? He certainly doesn't have any problems doing the same to the Iraqis so I don't see any reason how this would increase the price that he has to pay. bin Laden is not the fault, nor the responsibility, of the general Afgani population yet they are the ones paying the price in your scenario.

Obama has a plan to catch bin Laden but he ain't upping the details until he's king. If you have a plan I'm all ears.

Remember, Owl said to use our best intel to narrow down whre OBL is hidding. I'd bet if you got within 10 miles of him the people living in the area knows he's there.

jh Wrote:So you suggest that we actually become the Great Satan, make everything he says about us true. Even in war, there are rules, lines which should not be crossed. Do you honestly believe that everyone in the villages surrounding his hideouts actually knows where bin Laden is? If the third house doesn't know, do you keep murdering (there's no doubt that's what you are suggesting) people, innocent civillians, until someone does? If the first village doesn't know, do you just move on to the next, wipe out the entire country if you have to? Win the war & lose our souls.

In YOUR mind, doing that would make us the Great Satan.

In THEIR eyes the humane (to western eyes) approach that we are taking now is what makes us the Great Satan, and not only that, a Great Satan whose fatally flawed strategies mean that they will always win if they just wait us out. Do they care how many people of any nationality die during the wait? Nope, absolutely not, at least as long as they personally aren't one of them.

We've looked at this whole war through American eyes with American prejudices, assuming that the rest of the world thinks the same way. This just in, they don't. What would make us the Great Satan in your mind would not in theirs.

Do I honestly beleive that everyone in the villages knows where Osama is? Maybe not literally everyone, but close enough to make this approach work. That's the war that we have to fight to win. If you don't have the stomach to fight it that way, fine. But then you have to work out a strategy for going forward that recognizes that we will lose any confrontation because we will choose a losing stratgegy.

This is not a strategy to slaughter Iraqis or Afghanis or Pakistanis or whomever. At the end of the day, fewer Iraqis and Afghanis and Pakistanis and others will lose their lives and/or be injured if we go this way than under our present strategy of occupying territory. This is a strategy to find and kill the masterminds of the terrorist organizations, and nothing else, until we have either eliminated all of them or we have eliminated enough that the rest are initimidated. If we're going to fight a war on terror, we're going to have to do things that are distasteful in order to win.

These terrorist leaders know that we have taken certain options off the table, because our culture tells us those approaches are unacceptable. Therefore, they will use our unwillingness to do those things to their advantage. If terrorist leaders choose to use women and children as human shields, we need to be able to go ahead and shoot them and kill them. The first few times, we'll kill a few women and children. After that, women and children won't be used as shields because that strategy will have proved to be ineffective. Putting an end to the practice will ultimately harm fewer women and children.

I don't think the American public is ready to accept this approach. But I firmly believe this is what we have to do to win the war on terrorism. That being the case, the war on terrorism is ultimately unwinnable with our current strategy. So, what do we do?

I'm not necessarily saying that we should go this route. But I think whatever decision we make needs to be made based on reality. And I do believe that this is the reality.

smn1256 Wrote:Obama has a plan to catch bin Laden but he ain't upping the details until he's king. If you have a plan I'm all ears.

Remember, Owl said to use our best intel to narrow down whre OBL is hidding. I'd bet if you got within 10 miles of him the people living in the area knows he's there.

It isn't rocket science... The Tribal Areas where he is hiding is inhabited by Pashtun tribes. AQ is mainly Arab. A group of Arabs, Chechens, Uzbecks look, speak differently (and have different customs) than Pashtuns. That would be noticed.

Any intelligence about a group of 10-20 Arabs moving into a village compound gets checked out. It could be an AQ security team, it could be a logistics team. It also could be opium smugglers.

You have to look at circumstantial evidence. The bad guys know there are “eyes in the sky” so they don’t go outside often where they can be seen. You have to look for signs that there are 20-30 people hiding in the walled compound. Lots of food being brought in, lots of garbage going out, etc.

We can occupy territory, pretend we are in control, and watch our troops and their civilians get picked off a few at at time as the casualty totals mount.

Or we can move aggressively to cut off the heads of the organizations. This will involve killing a few people who might--or might not--be innocent, until we work our way to the head. Right now the heads know we won't do that so they are safe.

Let's assume our options are
1. Bailing out of the middle east and conceding the loss
2. Staying in for another 10 years, or 20, or 100, at current casualty rates
3. Destroying a village or two and eliminating Osama and his top lieutenants in the process

Which do you choose?

In 1991 Colin Powell described our strategy as cutting off the head and then killing the body. I kept waiting for us to adopt that strategy. We never really have.

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:Let's assume our options are
1. Bailing out of the middle east and conceding the loss
2. Staying in for another 10 years, or 20, or 100, at current casualty rates
3. Destroying a village or two and eliminating Osama and his top lieutenants in the process

Which do you choose?

I'll take what's behind curtain #3 - Destroying a village or two and eliminating Osama and his top lieutenants in the process.

Let's end this thing and go home.

smn1256 Wrote:

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:Let's assume our options are
1. Bailing out of the middle east and conceding the loss
2. Staying in for another 10 years, or 20, or 100, at current casualty rates
3. Destroying a village or two and eliminating Osama and his top lieutenants in the process

Which do you choose?

I'll take what's behind curtain #3 - Destroying a village or two and eliminating Osama and his top lieutenants in the process.

Let's end this thing and go home.

One thing for sure. There's not a really good choice on the board.

What is clear to me is that #2 is the worst option. It kills more people. It has less chance of succeeding. It guarantees that we'll find ourselves in the same situation over and over--Vietnam yesterday, Iraq today, guess where tomorrow.

Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:Only about 5 years late. We should have been doing more of this and less occupation for a long time.

Get in, kill the bad guys, get out. That needs to be our MO, not nation-building.

....and if we'd have left Germany after kicking their asses, we'd have yet another Hitler. Our policies after WWI allowed that to happen. Japan? Same damn way. I'm not a fan of nation-building, but it DOES serve a purpose.

You go to war with a country, beat the ever-living-**** out of'em, and just leave, you leave a nation of pissed off people. You're a smart guy. I don't know why that's hard to understand for you.

Rebel Wrote:....and if we'd have left Germany after kicking their asses, we'd have yet another Hitler. Our policies after WWI allowed that to happen. Japan? Same damn way. I'm not a fan of nation-building, but it DOES serve a purpose.

You go to war with a country, beat the ever-living-**** out of'em, and just leave, you leave a nation of pissed off people. You're a smart guy. I don't know why that's hard to understand for you.

Difference is that here we didn't go to war with a country, or at least shouldn't have. We should have gone after who we wanted to get and left the rest of the country relatively unscathed.

I woul argue that our occupation has increased the prospects for another Saddam, or anther bin Laden, more than if we'd just gone in, killed them, and left.

We didn't do that with Germany or Japan, because we couldn't, although I suppose that if we'd somehow found a way to get in and assassinate Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, et al, and get out, that war would have ended quickly.

This is a different kind of enemy. The old way of fighting won't work. We need to learn the way to fight this enemy, because we are going to have to keep fighting it. Capturing and occupying territory was the way to win WWII. Those things mean nearly nothing in this war.

This is hard to understand, because it's so different from what we've dealt with in the past. It's just not the way Americans think. But it is the way the enemy thinks.

Absolutely remarkable how war is conducted today. 60 years ago blanket bombing of entire towns, and now Hellfires targeted down tailpipes and through windows.




Do any reward programs offer or support American citizenship for honest and workable intelligence?

Cause I think (wonder) if the promise of American citizenship and $5 mil, plus the support of, for instance, the Witness Protection Program, would be quite attractive. Especially to a ISI agent with a little overheard intel. As trite as this sounds, a little gas station / c-store in Helena, MT or Greenville, SC wouldn't be such a bad life.

Hell, lets cash in some world chits and say the guy is living in the States as an American citizen, with $5 mil in his pocket. But he is actually living in New Zealand / Scotland / Hong Kong with twice the cash and and a brand new Kiwi passport.