Pakistan top spy blasted the U.S. raid on bin Laden in a Parliament meeting on Friday—but admitted his agency's own slip-ups, too, and offered his resignation.
Plus, more updates below and full coverage here.
Pakistan Spy Chief Admits Intel Failure
Pakistan’s top spy issued a strong denouncement of the United States is a secret, 11-hour, closed-door session of Parliament on Friday, sources said. The spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, also denied that Pakistan had any links with militant groups and said there was an intelligence failure that prevented Pakistan from knowing that Osama bin Laden was hiding. Pasha said he offered his resignation twice to the head of the army, but it apparently has not been accepted. A resolution was passed at the session that said Pakistan will revisit its relationship with the U.S. to make sure Pakistan’s “national interests were fully respected” and the Pakistani intelligence agency will not allow the CIA to conduct any more missions without Pakistan’s support.
Photos: Inside bin Laden's Compound
Bin Laden's Porn Stash
So far, U.S. officials have released information about several materials the Navy SEALs found in bin Laden's Abbottabad compound, including Pepsi, Vaseline, and Avena syrup—a sexual stimulant. Today, Reuters reported that officials also found a fairly extensive and modern porn stash amidst the digital thumb drives and electronics recovered from the raid. They did not say whether bin Laden himself was privy to the videos or if they were passed around in the house. Given that the compound was not connected to the Internet or other communications networks, it's not clear how bin Laden or his couriers would have acquired the materials. One idea is that the porn came to them through thumb drives, along with other electronic messages carried by couriers to and from the al Qaeda leader.
Aside from the dirty secrets, the thumb drives promise to out a whole new class of al Qaeda operatives. Sources say bin Laden used the drives to communicate with his terror network, meaning that active al Qaeda members could soon find themselves confronted with damning evidence.
SEAL Helmet Cams Caught Osama Running for His Life
Officials are still reviewing the footage from all 25 Navy SEAL helmet cameras that recorded the 40-minute raid on bin Laden's compound, and have released new details on the videos. Bin Laden was wearing a white undershirt and tan robe when the SEALS took aim at the terror leader on the main house's third floor landing, before he fled into his bedroom. The first SEAL followed him and pushed bin Laden's daughters out of harm's way. Then a second entered and was met by bin Laden's wife, who either tried to shield her husband from his attacker or was pushed toward him. The second SEAL pushed her aside and shot bin Laden in the chest, and a third SEAL shot him in the head. Other information has been released from the al Qaeda leader's diary—he apparently wrote that his couriers need not focus on attacking the vice president of the United States because he's "not important," and that Obama was their main target.
Bush: Killing bin Laden Was a 'Good Idea'
Former President George W. Bush has finally opened up about his reaction to bin Laden's death. "I was eating a soufflé at Rise Restaurant with Laura and two buddies," Bush said at a conference of hedge fund managers in Las Vegas on Wednesday, when asked what he was doing when President Obama called with the news. The president recounted in detail the raid on bin Laden's compound to G.W. Bush, who was in office during the 9/11 attacks. The former president nodded his head in agreement and told Obama, "Good call." He spoke candidly at the conference and to CNBC, saying, "The Guy is dead. That is good." But he added that he was "not overjoyed" by the news, and that he firmly believed the ploy to assassinate bin Laden was not done "out of hatred but to exact judgement." Bush has chosen to stay out of the spotlight since bin Laden's death, and gave the intelligence team the most credit for successfully taking down the leader of the war on terror.
80 Killed in Taliban Retaliation Bombings
Two suicide bombings at a Pakistan military training center killed 80 people and injured at least 120, police say. As cadets were boarding buses for a short leave after finishing their training, a bomber drove a motorcycle onto the base and set off his bomb. Then, when people came to help the injured, another bomber on a motorcycle drove in and set off his bomb. The Pakistani Taliban say they launched the attacks to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden. "It's the first revenge for the martyrdom of... bin Laden. There will be more," said Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan.
U.S. Grills bin Laden Wives
U.S. officials have finally interrogated three widows of Osama bin Laden, sources told CNN on Thursday night. The three women, who were living with the late al Qaeda chief in his Abbottabad compound when he was killed, were described as “hostile” toward America during the questioning. U.S. authorities reportedly had difficulty in getting access to the women, and were only allowed to interview them all at once—with members of Pakistan’s intelligence agency present—despite wishing to talk to them separately. (They are still in Pakistani custody.) The youngest widow, 29-year-old Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, was shot in the U.S. raid.
Bin Laden Raid on Tape
America’s most horrifying home videos: New details pertaining to the U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden are emerging from officials who have seen a complete recording of the attack. The Navy SEAL team that went to Pakistan wore tiny cameras on their helmets, recording the entire ordeal from every angle.
No one in the Abbottabad compound’s main building got a shot in, the tapes show, though some had weapons nearby, and there was a brief shoot-out in a guest building. The SEALs first got a glimpse of bin Laden on a third floor landing, but he escaped their gunshots and retreated into a bedroom. The first SEAL to follow him into the room cleared his daughters from harm’s way before two gunshots killed the al Qaeda chief. The second SEAL to enter was forced to shove aside bin Laden’s wife, who either lunged at him or was pushed by bin Laden. The SEAL then shot the al Qaeda leader in the chest. The team then swept through the house gathering intel into garbage bags. The operation lasted 40 minutes.
No Escape Plan
U.S. officials said Thursday that Osama bin Laden had become “complacent” in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan—and was so comfortable that he had no escape plan. In fact, the officials said, he had only three men with him at the compound for security and had made no attempt to destroy any of his intelligence. “There is a lot more material than we expected to find here,” said one of the officials. But officials also emphasized they had no evidence that the Pakistani government officially supported bin Laden, and there was no indication that local citizens provided support for him.
McCain: Torture Didn’t Find bin Laden
Senator John McCain is taking a stand against those who credit “enhanced interrogation” with the killing of Osama bin Laden. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, McCain calls out former attorney general Michael Mukasey for claiming that waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided information leading to bin Laden. McCain writes that he spoke with CIA Director Leon Panetta and found that none of the detainees who were waterboarded provided important information leading to the courier who ultimately led the U.S. to bin Laden. The key facts were “obtained through standard, non-coercive means.” Later, McCain gave an impassioned speech before Congress, where he called on Mukasey to “correct his misstatement,” saying the debate over torture must be conducted without each side “making up its own facts.” McCain’s speech drew praise from several Democratic senators, including Harry Reid, who—referring to McCain’s experience in a Vietnam prison camp—said, "No one in the Senate could have given this speech.”
Bin Laden Fixed on U.S. Attack
Maybe this is why he had no escape plan: Osama bin Laden was so preoccupied with staging another terrorist attack on U.S. soil that it began to chafe some of his followers, who focused on operations in places like Yemen and Somalia instead. According to his journal and files recovered from his compound, bin Laden wanted al Qaeda to recruit non-Muslims “who are oppressed in the United States”—especially African Americans and Latinos—to help with attacks and suggested targeting cities other than New York and Washington. He seemed to care little about operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. collected what amounts to millions of pages of documents from bin Laden’s compound; scans, so far, have taken the form of keyword searches of things like city names and al Qaeda names.
Al Qaeda Threatens Obama’s Grandmother
Can’t we leave Barack Obama’s grandma out of this? Kenya has deployed additional police officers to protect Obama’s step-grandmother, Sarah, after al Qaeda’s Somalia-based branch threatened her life. Security was boosted already around her home after bin Laden’s death and was increased again after the threat. Police now have enough officers to “patrol the entire village,” a police chief tells ABC News.
