That Pakistan has been an unreliable ally to the U.S. is hardly news: just as Osama bin Laden was hiding in plain sight in Abbottabad, so has Pakistan’s security establishment scarcely bothered to conceal the fact that it pursues an agenda quite different from that of the U.S. While that establishment has helped the U.S. roll up hundreds …
Terrorism
Most Unwanted: William and Kate and the Specter of Bin Laden
“Of course it explains why the royal couple postponed their honeymoon to Abbottabad,” joked Jimmy Kimmel, one of the first U.S. television hosts to start mining Osama Bin Laden’s death for comedy. The funniest thing about Kimmel’s quip was that it appeared to contain a grain of truth. The announcement, the day after the wedding of the …
China Welcomes bin Laden’s Death, but Concerns About U.S. Focus Emerge
The online reactions in China to the death of Osama bin Laden have been diverse, with some celebrating the death of the terrorist, while a few mourned the passing of someone who challenged the global dominance of the U.S. Officially the Chinese government welcomed news that an American military team took out the Qaeda leader in Pakistan …
Avenging Bin Laden’s Killing: Terrorists Will Need Time
As yesterday’s story following Osama Bin Laden’s death indicated, security officials in Europe don’t foresee the demise of the al Qaeda leader sparking an immediate flurry of retaliation terror strikes by his followers. The logic behind that thinking doesn’t under-estimate the desire for revenge jihadists everywhere are doubtless …
Why Pakistan is Bin Laden’s Lone Success Story
Which world leader has the biggest headache caused by the death of Osama bin-Laden? That would have to be General Ashfaq Kayani, commander of Pakistan’s military and, as such, the most powerful man in the country where al-Qaeda’s fugitive leader had been hiding in plain sight.
Kayani now faces an escalation of the already crisis-level …
In a Zero-Sum Relationship, Obama’s bin Laden Bump is Bibi’s Loss
Few if any nations follow American domestic politics more avidly than Israel, so reaction here to the death of Osama bin Laden arrived laced with worried warnings to Bibi, as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is universally known. So strained are relations between his government and Barack Obama that the American President’s political …
Could Bin Laden’s Death Speed The End To The Afghan War?
As accumulating press reports confirm, intelligence agencies, security officials, and independent experts around the globe agree the death of Osama Bin Laden in no way lowers the curtain on his al Qaeda organization, nor extinguishes the myriad radical groups and individuals sharing its ideology of international jihad. But if there’s …
Who’s the Other Islamic Militant Nabbed This Year in Abbottabad?
In January of this year, in the same Pakistani town of Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden met his demise, a senior Indonesian militant named Umar Patek was arrested. One of the leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), Patek is believed to have helped coordinate the 2002 bombings on the Indonesian …
When Bad Guys Die, What Happens to the Bodies
Among the ironies surrounding the discovery and death of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan is the location of his final resting place: according to reports, the arch-terrorist who we’ve imagined for years skulking in caves and stalking the arid, rugged badlands of the Af-Pak border is now sleeping with the fishes of the Arabian …
Abbottabad: The Beautiful Place Where Bin Laden Died
The idyllic, verdant town where Osama bin Laden had been in hiding — and where the terrorist-in-chief met his end yesterday — is now under a particularly glaring spotlight. As we now know, bin Laden took sanctuary in a compound here, lying amid an affluent community which includes numerous prominent retired Pakistani army staff. The …
What Ghost Will Emerge from Bin Laden’s Watery Grave?
While the U.S. indulges in its fit of euphoria over the killing Osama Bin Laden, attention is rightly falling on how the death of the world’s most wanted terrorist will play out in countries where he once enjoyed a modicum of sympathy, if not outright support. His alleged “burial” at sea seems a rather desperate, blatant attempt to …
Bin Laden’s Death: What This Means for Pakistan’s ISI
When U.S. President Obama called Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to tell him the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. citizens in a lightening raid not far from the Pakistani capital last night, he also instructed his team to similarly inform their Pakistani counterparts. The question is, who was surprised when they …
Why Bin Laden’s Death No Longer Really Matters
Before leaving for a vacation in South Africa in December of 2001, my editor asked me to prepare an obituary for Osama bin Laden for TIME.com on the assumption that he might well be killed in Afghanistan while I was on the beach in Cape Town. Almost ten years later there was finally a reason to call up the old file: President Barack …