A.) Question: Did they, or did they not, see the kill?

President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser John Brenner said to journalists on Monday afternoon/evening — not even 20 hours after the announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, then buried somewhere [north Arabian Sea?] at sea — that President Obama and his advisers watched the American operation that killed Ben Laden “in real time”. That’s what we thought was confirmed in this photo later released by the White House [Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the only one showing any emotional reaction here]:

.

Here, now, is a very useful graphic published by the Washington Post, in an article published here, entitled “Breaking Down the Situation Room“, with contributions from a number of the WPost’s “in-house experts”:

1. Vice President Biden
2. President Obama
3. Brig. Gen. Marshall B. Webb
4. Deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough
5. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
6. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates
7. Adm. Mike Mullen, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman
8. National security adviser Thomas E. Donilon
9. White House chief of staff Bill Daley
10. Antony Blinken, national security adviser to Biden
11. Audrey Tomason, director for counterterrorism
12. John O. Brennan, assistant to Obama for counterterrorism
13. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.

[For some interesting excerpts from some of the WPost's staff's comments on this photo, see our page here.]

But, CIA Director Leon Panetta later said that the execution was, in fact,  not witnessed live in Washington, in an interview on the PBS Newshour program on Tuesday evening, which can be watched here.  Panetta told Newshour’s‘s Jim McNeil that: “Since this was a what’s called Title 50 Operation, which is a covert operation and it comes directly from the President of the United States … that direction goes to me, and I am the person who commands the mission … But having said that I have to tell you that the real director was [Vice] Admiral [William] McCraven, because he was on-site and he was actually in charge of the military operation that went in and got Osama Bin Laden … We had set up an operations post here at the CIA and I was in direct communication with Admiral McRaven who was located in Afghanistan, and we were in direct contact as the mission went forward … We had live-time intelligence information that we were dealing with, during the operation itself”.

Q: But did you actually see Obama Bin Laden get shot?
A: “No, no, not at all”...

Q: What about at the White House situation room, where President Obama was?
A: “I think they were viewing some of the real time aspects of this as well, in terms of the intelligence that we were getting”…

Q: So, do you think, did the President see the shots fired at Obama Bin Laden?
A: “No,  no, not at all … Once those teams went into the compound, I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn’t know just exactly what was going on, and there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information”…

B.) Question: Was Osama Bin Laden armed and resisting, or … ?

In his interview with PBS, Leon Panetta responded to further pointed questions about the actual death.

Q: Did Obama Bin Laden say anything to the American Seal commandos?
A: “To be frank, I don’t think he had a lot of time to say anything. It was a firefight going up that compound, and by the time they got to the third floor, and found Bin Laden, I think this was all split-second action on the part of the Seals”.

Q: Was Osama Bin Laden armed, was he shooting back?
A: “I don’t believe so, but obviously there were some firefights that were going on as these guys were making their way up the staircase in that compound and when they got up there there were some threatening moves that were made that clearly represented a clear threat to our guys, and that’s the reason they fired”.

Q: And that was fine with the United States government that they went ahead and shot this guy, right?
A: “The authority here was to kill Bin Laden … Obviously, under the rules of engagement, if he had in fact thrown up his hands, surrendered, and didn’t appear to represent any kind of threat, then they were to capture him, but they had full authority to kill him … Obviously, we’re still getting the feedback from the Seals themselves as to just exactly what took place during that mission, but as far as I know there was no communication … They had to breach three or four walls to get into the compound… they fought their way up to the third floor … You know, Jim, the thing that gives me the greatest degree of confidence is that these teams conduct these kinds of operations two and three times a night in Afghanistan, they’ve got tremendous experience with how to do this, and how to do it well, and so they moved in on the same basis … they do every night in Afghanistan and I think that gave all of us the confidence that they knew exactly what to do and what problems they would face in the mission”…

According to a subsequent report in the New York Times, here, “Leon E. Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said the Seal commandos went into the mission with only a 60 percent to 80 percent certainty that Bin Laden was in the compound. Mr. Panetta said the commandos made the ‘split-second decision’ to shoot him — the unarmed Qaeda founder had a rifle within reach, an American official said Wednesday — when they found him in his third-floor bedroom”…

C.) Question:  What about those Navy Seals who carried out the operation?

The NYTimes report said that “Former Seal members said this week that the unit — officially renamed the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or Devgru — was chosen for the bloody Bin Laden raid, the most high-profile operation in the history of the Seals, because of the group’s skills in using lethal force intelligently in complex, ambiguous conditions … They serve in what is unofficially called Seal Team 6, a unit so secretive that the White House and the Defense Department do not directly acknowledge its existence. Its members have hunted down war criminals in Bosnia, fought in some of the bloodiest battles in Afghanistan and shot three Somali pirates dead on a bobbing lifeboat during the rescue of an American hostage in 2009 … Inside the Navy, there are regular unclassified Seal members, organized into Teams 1 to 5 and 7 to 10. Then there is Seal Team 6, the elite of the elite, or, as Mr. Roberti put it [Lalo Roberti, 27, a former Seal member who teaches at Extreme Seal Experience, a private training school in Chesapeake, Virginia, and took part in a gruesome rescue mission in Afghanistan in 2005], ‘the all-star team’.”

The story added that “Seals — the term stands for Sea-Air-Land teams — were created by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 as a way to expand unconventional warfare. Seal Team 6 came later as a reaction to the botched mission to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980, when the Pentagon saw the need for what became today’s Special Operations Command, with a special Navy unit focused on counterterrorism. Seal Team 6 has historically specialized in war on the seas, but in the decade since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it has increasingly fought on land in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its size is classified, but Team 6 is thought to have doubled to nearly 300 since then. Over all, there are now about 3,000 active-duty Seal members, split between odd-numbered teams in Coronado and even-numbered teams in Virginia Beach. Team 6, which is based in an area separate from all the others, at the Dam Neck Annex of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, has many members in their mid-30s, a decade or more older than the 20-year-olds who populate the military … Reflecting the growing importance of special operations and guerrilla-type warfare, Seal members have risen since the Sept. 11 attacks to higher levels of prominence within the military … The officer who designed and oversaw the Bin Laden raid, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, is a Seal member who is soon to take over leadership of the military’s Special Operations Command from Adm. Eric T. Olson, also a Seal member. On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward Jr., another Seal member, would become deputy commander of United States Central Command, making him the second-highest-ranking American officer for the Middle East”.

The NYTimes said that according to another former Seal, Don Shipley, 49, a former Seal member who runs the Extreme Seal Experience school in Virginia: “If that thing had gone bad, the conversation you and I would be having would be completely different … There’s only two ways to go in these operations — zero or hero”.

Question:  And, what about the dog who accompanied the Navy Seals?

In another report, here, the NYTimes discussed the one dog that is said to have accompanied the 79-member military team that carried out this operation [some 25 actually entered the compound, Leon Panetta said on PBS]: “Even its breed is the subject of great interest, although it was most likely a German shepherd or a Belgian Malinois, military sources say. But its use in the raid reflects the military’s growing dependence on dogs in wars in which improvised explosive devices have caused two-thirds of all casualties. Dogs have proved far better than people or machines at quickly finding bombs … The military uses a variety of breeds, but by far the most common are the German shepherd and the Belgian Malinois, which ‘have the best overall combination of keen sense of smell, endurance, speed, strength, courage, intelligence and adaptability to almost any climatic condition’, according to a fact sheet from the military working dog unit”.

The NYTimes said that according to Major William Roberts, commander of the Defense Department’s Military Working Dog Center at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, “Dogs are very good at detecting people inside of a building”. The NYTimes added that “another use may have been to catch anyone escaping the compound in the first moments of the raid. A shepherd or a Malinois runs twice as fast as a human”.

Also in this NYTimes rerport on the dog. “Tech Sgt. Kelly A. Mylott, the kennel master at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, called dogs ideal for getting someone who is running away without having to shoot them. ‘When the dogs go after a suspect, they’re trained to bite and hold them’, Sergeant Mylott said. Some dogs are big enough that, when they leap on a suspect, the person tends to drop to the ground, Sergeant Mylott said. Others bite arms or legs. ‘Different dogs do different things,” she said. “But whatever they do, it’s very difficult for that person to go any further’. Finally, dogs can be used to pacify an unruly group of people — particularly in the Middle East. ‘There is a cultural aversion to dogs in some of these countries, where few of them are used as pets’, Major Roberts said. ‘Dogs can be very intimidating in that situation’. Sergeant Mylott said that dogs got people’s attention in ways that weapons sometimes did not. ‘Dogs can be an amazing psychological deterrent’, she said. There are 600 dogs serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that number is expected to grow substantially over the next year, Ensign Brynn Olson of the United States Central Command said. Particularly popular with the troops are the growing number of Labrador retrievers who wander off-leash 100 yards or more in front of patrols to ensure the safety of the route … The training of dogs in Navy Seal teams and other Special Operations units is shrouded in secrecy. Maj. Wes Ticer, a spokesman for United States Special Operations Command, said the dogs’ primary functions ‘are finding explosives and conducting searches and patrols’. ‘Dogs are relied upon’, he continued, ‘to provide early warning for potential hazards, many times, saving the lives of the Special Operations Forces with whom they operate’. Last year, the Seals bought four waterproof tactical vests for their dogs that featured infrared and night-vision cameras so that handlers — holding a three-inch monitor from as far as 1,000 yards away — could immediately see what the dogs were seeing. The vests, which come in coyote tan and camouflage, let handlers communicate with the dogs with a speaker, and the four together cost more than $86,000. Navy Seal teams have trained to parachute from great heights and deploy out of helicopters with dogs”…

What happened to her, and to any others wounded, or simply present, inside the compound?

Apparently, the U.S. special forces [Navy Seals???] took “computers” from the compound to search them for leads.

Does it make any sense that if, as U.S. officials said, they will be pursuing other al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan or elsewhere, they would have left anybody in the compound?

UPDATE: Reports Tuesday night say that a wounded women and Usama’s children who were in the room with him when he was killed “resisting” are now in Pakistani custody. [A woman seized as a hostage by another man -- not Obama -- in another room was killed, together with the man who grabbed her...]

The Associated Press reported Tuesday night that “The White House says Osama bin Laden was not armed when a Navy SEAL raiding party confronted him during an assault on his compound in Pakistan. White House press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged that bin Laden did not have a weapon even though administration officials have said that bin Laden resisted during the raid. Carney said resistance does not require a firearm. Bin Laden was shot in the head and in the chest during the encounter. Carney said that a woman in the room with bin Laden confronted the U.S. forces and was shot but not killed”. This report is posted here.

UPDATE TWO: The Atlantic magazine has published a post by Garance Franke-Ruta entitled “The Slippery Story of the bin Laden Kill”, here, which notes that “the history of misstatements from U.S. government officials about various combat operations raises questions about whether briefers also were subjecting us to a counterterrorism strategy and not just completely confused in their initial statements”.

Avner Cohen posted the link on Facebook, with this comment: “Does the Slippery Story of OBL killing matter? Yes, it does! Slipping the truth on this matter undermines the very credibility and the moral ground of the United States, the very raison d’etre of this act.”

For full transparency and disclosure, I’ll post below my own comments in participation and interaction on this thread:

Marian Houk: I agree completely with Avner’s reservations — which are more than reservations, they are objections. The “rule of law” is out the window, as it has been since Guantanamo naval base became a detention center for people, many of them apparently innocent, who were stripped of all rights. The argument that it would have been inconvenient or messy to put him on trial is specious and shameful. Israel captured Eichmann and put him on trial — and this is a far better model for what should have, and could have been done, in this case. The “fog of war” does not excuse the “slippery slope” behavior, especially coming from a group of people who watched the operation “in real time”. Some elaborate diplomatic concern for not publicly embarrassing Pakistan is a more likely justification for some of the misrepresentations. Sneering at the dead seems to be another.

Donald Nathan: This is an entirely different and far more complex series of issues

Donald Nathan: ?@ Marian. I respectfully disagree. Eichmann was captured 15 years after WWII was done. He had no forum in the dock, no audience to appeal to when facing charges. AQ operatives do, and had OBL been taken alive and tried with all the accords . of “Due Process” we give to citizens (why on God’s green earth would we do that?), he would have a bully pulpit to foment yet more violence across the planet from his “followers”. It made no sense under the circumstances to take him alive. Needless to say, it may be years before the truth of the matter winnows out; that is, we may not know if the order had been to take him dead rather than alive. I doubt I will live long enough to find out. But one way or the other, I’m pleased at his elimination and the pluck of Obama for having ordered and shepherded the mission.

Marian Houk: So, you are saying that giving anyone more rights is a justification to deny them completely? Better no trial than one in which the accused might speak? Because might he “spew hatred” or make a caIl for more “violence across the planet”? This is really advocating no law at all. The Nuremburg Tribunal, the Eichmann trial, dealt with the murders of millions of people, and with extremely complex issues. However imperfect they might have been, they were at least an attempt to conduct human affairs with some dignity and under law. What was done in Abbotabad — and what is still going on in Guantanamo Detention Center — is the antithesis of that.

Donald Nathan: Nuremburg went on after the conclusion of World War II. So too did the Eichmann trial. In fact, Eichmann was tried in 1962. There were no exigencies of war to dictate a need to abridge civil rights in those situations. With AQ, we are at war of some sort. It isn’t of the same sort we were at war with Germany, but it is a war. When at war, we do not accord enemy combatants the same rights we do after the war is done. It just doesn’t happen that way. With all respect, Marian, Hitler during World War II would not have been given Due Process in his hideaway. Not even Eva Braun would have been.

Marian Houk: Don’t know that you can say that, Donald. The “war” that Bush declared, which was on terror, is an open-ended and peculiar state of affairs. Obama, who changed the terminology for stylistic reasons, has called what he is pursing a “war on al-Qaeda”. But wars are for for something, and against something. Security and/or supremacy of lifestyles is not sufficient or satisfactory justification for tossing out important and often-vaunted principles of democracy, including Due Process — not even under the hypothetical of what would have happened with Hitler, or Eva Braun.

Donald Nathan: I expect there would be very few who might share your opinion among even the most progressive of us civil libertarians. War creates exigencies that demand extraordinary measures be taken. I don’t care who “declared” it, although the struggle was well under way long before the Bush years. As a former prosecutor, I regard myself as having been a Minister of Justice with a duty to see to it that rights of the accused are preserved scrupulously. But OBL was not just an “accused”. He had achieved the status of a monster, and the circumstances we now face are far more akin to warfare than they are to anything else. I expect you and I are never going to agree on this point although I do understand and respect your feelings.

Marian Houk: Declaring that a person has achieved “the status of a monster” and therefore has no rights is exactly how crimes such as committed in World War Two, or on 9/11, have happened.

Postscript: I am mildly surprised by the use of this as a tactic, but still not influenced by estimations that very few might share my opinions, even among “the most progressive” of “civil libertarians”…

President Obama’s counterterrorism Adviser John Brenner said to journalists this afternoon/evening that President Obama and his advisers watched the American operation that killed Ben Laden “in real time”, as is shown in this photo just released by the White House [Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the only one showing any emotional reaction here]:

Some 24 hours after the deed, the UN Security Council is convening in consultations about a possible statement.   Matthew Lee of Inner City Press, at the front lines outside the UNSC chambers, has just tweeted that there are going to be changes in a draft text, and/as the  French Ambassador didn’t like the French version…

UPDATE:  Sometime around 3am Jerusalem time, the American Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, Tweeted (@AmbassadorRice): “This afternoon, the Security Council passed a statement welcoming the news that #UBL [Usama Bin Laden] will never again perpetrate acts of terrorism”.

This statement is not yet posted on the website of the US Mission to the UN, and it is difficult to find even on the official UN website.  It is buried down at the bottom of a UN News Centre report on remarks made to the media outside the UN Security Council.  The report says that “Ambassador Gérard Araud of France, which holds the rotating Security Council presidency this month, read out a presidential statement in which the 15-member panel welcomed the news that Mr. bin Laden ‘will never again be able to perpetrate such acts of terrorism’.   The statement urged all countries to remain vigilant and intensify their efforts to defeat terrorism, including by working together to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of terrorist attacks.  ‘The Security Council stresses… that terrorism will not be defeated by military force, law enforcement measures and intelligence operations alone, and can only be defeated by a sustained and comprehensive approach involving the active participation and collaboration of all States, and relevant international and regional organizations and civil society to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism and to impede, impair, isolate and incapacitate the terrorist threat’.”

This Presidential Statement by the UNSC is contained in a UN press release which “also reaffirmed that terrorism could not and should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization or group”.

The press release also says that “States must ensure that any measures taken to combat terrorism comply with all their obligations under international law, in particular international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law”.

According to the UN press release, “The meeting began at 5:30 p.m. and ended at 5:35 p.m”. The full text is posted here.

Meanwhile, here, for the record, is what John Brenner said at the briefing in Washington on  Monday, especially about the burial at sea:

“MR. BRENNAN: I have been following bin Laden for 15 years, been after this guy, and I have the utmost confidence in the people, particularly at CIA, who have been tracking him. They were confident and their confidence was growing: This is different. This intelligence case is different. What we see in this compound is different than anything we’ve ever seen before. I was confident that we had the basis to take action. I also, though, had the confidence that the U.S. team that went in there has exceptional skill to do this very capably. So I was a supporter and I know a number of other people were supportive to do this. But the President had to look at all the different scenarios, all the different contingencies that are out there — what would have been the downsides if, in fact, it wasn’t bin Laden? What would have happened if a helicopter went down? So he decided that this is so important to the security of the American people that he was going to go forward with this.

Q Can you tell us more about the role that the U.S. — more of the role of how the U.S. is interacting with Pakistan and are we actively investigating what they knew and didn’t know about Osama bin Laden being there or not?

MR. BRENNAN: Well, a couple things. One, the President mentioned yesterday that he spoke to President Zardari, and a number of senior U.S. officials are in regular contact now with their Pakistani counterparts. We are continuing to engage with them — we’re engaging with them today — as we learn more about the compound and whatever type of support system bin Laden had. I would point out that we’ve had differences of view with the Pakistani government on counterterrorism cooperation, on areas of cooperation, and what we think they should and shouldn’t be doing. At the same time, I’ll say that Pakistan has been responsible for capturing and killing more terrorists inside of Pakistan than any country, and it’s by a wide margin. And there have been many, many brave Pakistani soldiers, security officials, as well as citizens, who have given their lives because of the terrorism scourge in that country. So although there are some differences of view with Pakistan, we believe that that partnership is critically important to breaking the back of al Qaeda and eventually prevailing over al Qaeda as well as associated terrorist groups.

Q John, can you tell us about the burial at sea? Where did it happen? When did it happen?

MR. BRENNAN: The disposal of — the burial of bin Laden’s remains was done in strict conformance with Islamist precepts and practices. It was prepared in accordance with the Islamic requirements. We early on made provisions for that type of burial, and we wanted to make sure that it was going to be done, again, in strict conformance. So it was taken care of in the appropriate way. I’m not going to go into details about sort of the where, but that burial has taken place. It took place earlier today our time.

Q And why?

Q When was that decision made?

MR. BRENNAN: I’m sorry?

Q When was that decision made that he would be buried at sea if killed?

Q Can you explain why –

MR. CARNEY: One at a time.

Q Was it thought through years ago? Was this part of the plan all along?

MR. BRENNAN: The COAs — the course of action and the subsequent decisions that would have to be made have been developed over the course of the last several months. Senior officials, and there was a working group that was working this on a regular basis, if not a daily basis, over the last several weeks, looking at every decision and based on what type of scenario would unfold, what actions and decisions would be made. It was looked at from the standpoint of if we captured him, what will we do with him? Where would he go? If he was killed, what will we do with him, and where would he go? And it was determined that it was in the best interests of all involved that this burial take place, again, according to Islamic requirements, at sea.

Q Why at sea?

Q Can you just tell us why that was a good idea?

MR. BRENNAN: It was determined that that — there is the requirement in Islamic law that an individual be buried within 24 hours. Went inside of Pakistan, carried out the operation, he was killed, he was removed from Pakistan. There were certain steps that had to be taken because of the nature of the operation, and we wanted to make sure we were able to do that in the time period allotted for it. Going to another country, making those arrangements, requirements, would have exceeded that time period, in our view. And so, therefore, we thought that the best way to ensure that his body was given an appropriate Islamic burial was to take those actions that would allow us to do that burial at sea.

Q John, did you consult a Muslim expert on that?

MR. BRENNAN: We consulted the appropriate specialists and experts, and there was unanimity that this would be the best way to handle that.

Q And last question. Do you know if detainees at Gitmo have been informed of what has happened to –

MR. BRENNAN: I do not know.

Q There are reports that he was wrapped in a weighted white sheet. How secure is that? Are you confident the body is not going to –

MR. BRENNAN: Burials at sea take place on a regular basis. The U.S. military has the ability to ensure that that burial is done in a manner that is, again, consistent with Islamic law, as well as consistent with what the requirements are for a burial at sea. And so that burial was done appropriately.

Q And so today lawmakers are urging — possibly reconsidering or reevaluating aid to Pakistan, maybe attaching strings to military aid there. Was the White House –

MR. BRENNAN: I think people are raising a number of questions, and understandably so. Again, we’re in just the first day after the operation, and he was found in Abbottabad outside of Islamabad. I’m sure a number of people have questions about whether or not there was some type of support that was provided by the Pakistani government. So I think people are raising these questions and how we’re going to have to deal with them.

Q Is there a visual recording of this burial?

MR. CARNEY: We’ve got to get other people a chance here. Mara.

Q Just a quick question about the burial and then something else. Was there an imam there? Was there a religious –

MR. BRENNAN: It was done appropriately with the appropriate people there.

Q Okay. And a question — I don’t know if this is for you or for Jay. The President is going to speak to the bipartisan leadership tonight at this dinner. What is he going to say about this that’s different than what he said before and that’s particularly geared to them? Can you just give us a preview?

MR. BRENNAN: Well, you’re going to have another 20 hours of information that has been acquired since what he said to the nation last night. I think what he’s going to try to do is to give the congressional visitors here an update on that. Last night, we didn’t have some of the analysis that was done. Now, we can say with 99.9 percent confidence that this was bin Laden. So it’s those types of things, as well as to explain to the Congress, in many respects, some of the unique features of this mission, which were the extreme compartmentation of it; how it was kept so closely held within our government; why it was done in a unilateral fashion — and so things along those lines.

Q There’s been some reporting that the burial — that the U.S. offered the body to the Saudis for a burial, but they declined. Is that true?

MR. BRENNAN: We, after we had confidence that it was bin Laden and that he was dead, we took the steps that we had agreed to in the interagency that were necessary to ensure that that burial entity was the most appropriate thing to do. And so we touched base with the right people. I’m not going to go into any details about who we might have consulted with in the aftermath of his death and before his burial” …

Can we go back to life the way it was before?

Because, for sure, there’s no way to ask any questions about this.

[Though, there are probably videos that will be shown later...]

U.S. President Obama said it was a “targetted operation”… which “took care to avoid civilian casualties”.

After 9/11, our time of grief, Americans came together, Obama said. “We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda, an organization headed by Osama Bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. So, we went to war against Al-Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends and our allies … In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government which had given Bin Ladan and Al-Qaeda safe haven and support, and around the globe, we worked to capture or kill scores of Al-Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot”, he said. “Shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the Director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of Osama Bin Laden the top priority in our war against al-Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle or defeat his network”…

Obama never once said the word “terrorist” or “terror” [this was one of the significant style changes in his administration]. No, this is a war against Al-Qaeda, Obama said, several times.

“There is no doubt that Al-Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us”, Obama added, so the U.S. “must be vigilant, at home and abroad”…

The U.S. then issued a worldwide travel alert and advisory to all U.S. citizens.

A warden message received on Monday afternoon from the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem says: “Given the uncertainty and volatility of the current situation, U.S. citizens in areas where recent events could cause anti-American violence are strongly urged to limit their travel outside of their homes and hotels and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations … We urge U.S. citizens to keep in regular contact with family and friends”.

In his announcement, Obama also said that Bin Laden’s “demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity … justice has been done”.

Osama Bin Laden has been killed, somehow, in a “showdown with U.S. forces” in a luxurious villa in a heavily-fortified compound in Pakistan — a country which insisted he was not there, and where U.S. forces have been operating for years, while supposedly searching for Osama Bin Laden and his amorphous Al-Qaeda Organization, which any misfit or rebel who wanted to antagonize could claim to be part of (whether true or not, claims were accepted, usually without question, if convenient).

The villa was reportedly in, or on the outskirts of, Abbotabad, about two hours north of Islamabad. [And, the villa was reportedly about 800 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy.]

According to a report in The Guardian, here, the villa was identified last August, the U.S. was certain in February that Bin Laden and family were there, and Obama gave the order to get him on 29 April.

The same report added that “It was a surgical operation, he said, carried out by a small team and lasted only 40 minutes … The US force ran into a problem with one of their helicopters which had to be abandoned, but only after being destroyed by explosives set by the American troops”.

Some Pakistani forces reportedly accompanied the U.S. soldiers.  Now, they say they’re not sure who fired the shot that actually killed Osama Bin Laden.  But, there can never be another autopsy, a forensic examination, because, the U.S. says, his body has been “buried at sea” — according to Muslim tradition (which is NOT to bury a dead person at sea, but in the earth).

This happened within a very few hours — at 0200 in Washington DC time — and that would be according to Muslim (and Jewish) tradition which prefers burial (in earth) within 24 hours. The military operation apparently started just after 8pm, and Obama made his announcement after 10:30 pm, the time it was supposed to take place …

The U.S. took charge ["custody", Obama said] of the body, and then said no country was willing to take the body for burial…

That’ll make it easy, they must have thought.

UPDATE: At a White House briefing after 9pm Monday night (Jerusalem time), with the White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and John Brennan of the President’s National Security team, Brennan said that “we were able to monitor it [the operation] in real time”. He said the COAs [Course of Actions] were determined over the past couple of months: if he’s captured, what do we do with him? And, if he’s killed what do we do. Arrangements for the burial were ready. The appropriate people were there. A decision was taken that the burial in the way it was done was the appropriate thing to do. He would not say exactly where it happened. He said that there have been differences between the U.S. and Pakistan on counterterrorism policy, and that the Pakistani authorities were briefed immediately after the operation. They were appreciative of the fact that there were no Pakistani casualties”.

Brennan, a “counterterrorism” advisor, said that “we are talking to the Pakistanis” about the location where Bin Laden was found, but initially “they seemed as surprised as we were”…

Brennan said that Bin Laden did participate in the firefight when the U.S. raid occurred, but when asked specifically, Brennan said he didn’t know if Bin Laden got his hand on a weapon or fired any rounds.

Others died, too, including “the two al-Qaeda facilitators” [two brothers], one of his sons [Khaled], and “a woman being used as a hostage shield”… presumed to be one of Osama Bin Laden’s wives, Brennan later said, adding that he did not know how it was she was interposed in the line of fire in front of Bin Laden, including whether she put herself in that position herself.

It is not clear whether Bin Laden was buried alone, at sea, or with this wife, and his son…

But, in the best post-Second-World-War American tradition, the U.S. is leader of “the free world”, and no questions can be asked.  [Or, as happened on Monday evening, there will be a press conference with dozens of questions, and not too many full answers...]

There will be no trial.  Osama will not be water-boarded in Camp Guantanamo to extract “the facts” in a full investigation.  We will never know what really happened, and we will believe what suits us.

There is no body to show = no need to know:  just accept our word, we’re the “good guys”?

Just trust the leaders. Or, what’s wrong with you — get the hell out! Go… to Gaza!

On Twitter, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, tweeted (@husainhaqqani) just after 1:15 in the afternoon, Jerusalem time:
**”Official Pakistan statement being released in Islamabad on our US bringing Osama bin Laden to justice 14 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®”
**”Pak statement: In intelligence driven op, Osama Bin Ladin was killed in the surroundings of Abbotabad in the early hours of Mon morning”
**”Operation was conducted by US forces in accordance with declared US policy”
**”Earlier 2day, President Obama telephoned President Zardari on the successful US operation which resulted in killing of OBL”
**”Al-Qaeda had declared war on Pakistan. Scores of Al-Qaeda sponsored terrorist attacks resulted in deaths of 1000s of innocent Pakistanis”

.

He is being accompanied on the flight “by officers from the Metropolitan Police Counter-terrorism Command, a uniformed police escort team and a doctor”, but is not expected to be detained once he arrives in the U.K., according to a report by The Times of London. He will reportedly report regularly to U.K. police and will be kept under surveillance, but will be able to live at home. At one time he was accused — perhaps without sufficient basis, it now appears — of working with others [including Jose Padilla] while in Pakistan on the construction of an “improvised radioactive bomb” or a “dirty bomb” that would be detonated in the U.S.

Arrested at Karachi airport Pakistan on 10 April 2002 while attempting to fly out using a fake or false passport — he said his had been lost — Mohamed has since “been held in US custody for a total of eight years”, according to the report in The Times published here — first in Pakistan, then taken in extraordinary rendition to Morocco, Afghanistan, and, finally, September 2004, in Guantanamo.

His detention was never reviewed by a court or tribunal.

Almost none of the nearly 770 people who have passed through Guantanamo in the last seven years have been granted this right.

He was also held incommunicado and without access to a lawyer from the date of his arrest until May 2004, according to the Judgment handed down in British Court on 21 August 2008 ordering the release to his lawyers of documents held by the British government that are believed to substantiate his claims of having been tortured.

The Judgment also says that there is a total absence of information about Mohamed’s whereabouts — he disappeared — for two years, from May 2002 until May 2004. Mohamed himself believes he was transferred to Morocco on 22 July 2002 and tortured there by masked persons until 22 January 2004, according to the Judgment, when he was transferred, again by “extraordinary rendition”, to Bagram airbase, then in May 2004 to Kabul, Afghanistan.

While he was still in the air en route to the UK after his release today, Reuters has reported that “In a statement statement issued via his lawyers after his release, he accused the U.S. government of orchestrating his torture. ‘I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares … Before this ordeal, “torture” was an abstract word for me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim. It is difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways — all orchestrated by the United States government … For myself, the very worst moment came when I realized in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence … “I had met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realized, had allied themselves with my abusers”. The United States agreed to release Mohamed last week after 18 months of pressure from the British government. He is the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be released since President Barack Obama came to power”. The full Reuters report can be read here.

According to The Times, “his family and friends were due to take him to ‘a quiet place to recover from his ordeal’, the statement added, while a press conference was held in London by his lawyers”.

The British Court Judgment has stated that there is independent evidence of a deterioration in his mental health.

While in Morocco, Mohamed was apparently severely beaten, subjected to sleep deprivation, and his penis and “private parts” were cut by a scalpel — on a regular basis.

There is apparently documentary evidence confirming his torture, which the British and American governments do not want released, according to a report published on 14 February in the Daily Mail.

The Reuters report, here , says that “Mohamed was detained in Pakistan in April 2002 … taken to Morocco on a CIA flight in July 2002, his lawyers say, and again subjected to torture and abuse. Morocco has denied holding him and the U.S. government has denied that he was subjected to ‘extraordinary rendition”.

And, here is the final result, the UNSC’s Presidential Statement, read out by the current SC President for the month of December, Ambassador Marcello Spatafora of Italy:

“The Security Council condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist suicide attack by extremists that occurred in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on 27 December 2007, causing the death of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and numerous other casualties, and expresses its deep sympathy and condolences to the victims of this heinous act of terrorism and their families, and to the people and the Government of Pakistan. The Security Council pays tribute to former Prime Minister Bhutto.

“The Security Council calls on all Pakistanis to exercise restraint and maintain stability in the country.

“The Security Council underlines the need to bring perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism to justice, and urges all States, in accordance with their obligations under international law and resolution 1373 (2001) and consistent with resolution 1624 (2005), to cooperate actively with the Pakistani authorities in this regard.

“The Security Council reaffirms that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious threats to international peace and security, and that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed.

“The Security Council further reaffirms the need to combat by all means, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts. The Council reminds States that they must ensure that any measures taken to combat terrorism comply with all their obligations under international law, in particular international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law.

“The Security Council reiterates its determination to combat all forms of terrorism, in accordance with its responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations.”

This statement is contained in a UN press release here.

And, as the UN press release says, the meeting started at 2 p.m. and ended at 2:05 p.m.

The same AP story reported that Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema, who gave the press conference saying — preposterously — that Benazir died from banging her head on a lever of the sun roof in the car in which she was riding, “stood by the government’s version of events, and said Bhutto’s party was free to exhume her body for an autopsy…[And he] defended the government’s ability to carry out its investigation. He said an independent judicial probe should be completed within seven days of the appointment of its presiding judge. ‘This is not an ordinary criminal matter in which we require assistance of the international community. I think we are capable of handling it’, he said”.

At-largely here shows photos shown on Pakistan’s Dawn TV of the assassin – clean-shaven, in a suit, with sunglasses (could it be a woman, Larisa asks?). Comments on democraticunderground here say that the suicide bomber, with white fabric over his(?) head, stays right behind the person with the gun:

Meanwhile, the same AP story added, “White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Pakistan had not officially requested U.S. help. ‘It’s a responsibility of the government of Pakistan to ensure that the investigation is thorough. If Pakistani authorities ask for assistance we would review the request’, he said. A senior U.S. official, however, said Pakistan was already ‘discussing with other governments as to how best the investigation can be handled’. With the United States, the discussions ‘are about what we can offer and what the Pakistanis want. Having some help to make sure international questions are answered is definitely an option’, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because no agreement had yet come from the discussions. There was no immediate confirmation from Pakistani officials”. This AP report is posted here.

One of the things I’ve been wondering about is why Benazir studied for two Bachelor’s degrees — the first from Harvard, the second from Oxford in the U.K. — instead of going for a Master’s. Then, a New York Times story made me realize that it was all about networking, about making contacts, rather than earning one degree or another. (But a second bachelor’s degree would also be a bit easier than going for a Master’s … especially if Benazir is one of those girls who just want to have fun.)

The NYTimes article today, entitled How Bhutto Won Washington, reported that “Ms. Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader and two-time prime minister, who was assassinated in Rawalpindi on Thursday as she campaigned for the office a third time, had a more extensive network of powerful friends in the capital’s political and media elite than almost any other foreign leader. Over the years, she scrupulously cultivated those friends, many from her days at Harvard and Oxford. She was rewarded when her connections — at the White House, in Congress and within the foreign policy establishment — helped propel her into power in Pakistan … She arrived at Harvard in the fall of 1969 as a primly dressed 16-year-old, bewildered by American customs … But Ms. Bhutto adapted, and quickly befriended not only Mr. [Peter W. Galbraith, identified in the NYTimes piece as "a former United States ambassador and a longtime friend of Ms. Bhutto’s"] Galbraith but E. J. Dionne and Michael Kinsley, now both columnists for The Post, and Walter Isaacson, the president of the Aspen Institute and a former managing editor of Time. By the time she got to Oxford, Ms. Bhutto drove a sports car, and she soon became president of the Oxford Union debating society. ‘I remember her being very intense’, Mr. Isaacson recalled. ‘But she had this really big smile, and she had this ability to be charming’. Ms. Bhutto’s first important trip to Washington was in the spring of 1984, when Mr. Galbraith, then a Democratic staff member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, acted as her host and tutor. By then she was 30 years old and scarred from the bloody politics back home. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had been president and prime minister of Pakistan but was hanged in 1979 on the orders of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, Pakistan’s military ruler. Ms. Bhutto, who had spent months in prison and years under house arrest, was now leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party of her father and determined to oust General Zia. Her goal in Washington was to persuade conservative Reagan administration officials that they would be better off with her in power. It was not going to be easy: Ms. Bhutto’s father was known for his fiery anti-Western rhetoric, and she had marched against the Vietnam War at Harvard. ‘What she was up against was her reputation of being this anti-American radical’, Mr. Galbraith said. ‘So we spent a lot of time talking about what messages she needed to convey’. In meetings with key members of Congress at the time — among them Senator Charles H. Percy, the Illinois Republican who was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Representative Stephen J. Solarz of Brooklyn, who was a senior Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee — Ms. Bhutto, under Mr. Galbraith’s tutelage, expressed her support for democracy and the mujahedeen ‘freedom fighters’ who were battling the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. ‘She was this completely charming, beautiful woman who could flatter the senators, and who could read their political concerns, who could persuade them that she would much better serve American interests in Afghanistan than Zia’, Mr. Galbraith said. On that same trip, Mr. Galbraith introduced Ms. Bhutto to Mark Siegel, a political operative who had been executive director of the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Siegel was taken with Ms. Bhutto and supported her cause. He became a lobbyist for the government of Pakistan when Ms. Bhutto was in power. Most recently he was her collaborator on a book scheduled for publication in 2008. ‘I started to walk the halls of Congress with her in 1984, and she developed poise and confidence and maturity’, Mr. Siegel said. ‘She also understood how important these relationships were’. Still, he said, ‘I would have dinner parties at my house in the beginning, and it was not so easy to get journalists and congressmen and senators to come’. That changed in November 1988, when Ms. Bhutto’s party won a plurality in Parliament in the Pakistani elections but fell short of a majority. As Mr. Galbraith tells it, Reagan administration officials went to Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Pakistan’s acting president, and told him that since Ms. Bhutto commanded the most votes, he would have to invite her to form a government. Ms. Bhutto became prime minister on Dec. 2. ‘And that was the direct result of her networking, of her being able to persuade the Washington establishment, the foreign policy community, the press, the think tanks, that she was a democrat, that she was a moderate, that she was going to be against the Soviets in Afghanistan’, Mr. Galbraith said … Although Ms. Bhutto was twice expelled from office on charges of corruption, she kept up her visits to Washington, usually several a year. She would call on administration officials and members of Congress willing to see her as well as reporters and editors at The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Soon her American Christmas card list, excluding people in government and Congress, was up to 375 names. ‘She understood the nature of political life, which is to stay in touch with people whether you’re in or out of office’, said Karl F. Inderfurth, the former assistant secretary of state for South Asia who attended a dinner for Ms. Bhutto at the Willard Hotel on her last trip to Washington, in September. ‘She was a superb political operative’. Like other foreign leaders, Ms. Bhutto engaged a public relations firm to arrange meetings for her with administration officials, members of Congress and journalists. For the first six months of 2007, the firm Burson-Marsteller took in fees of close to $250,000 for work on behalf of Ms. Bhutto”. This NYTimes analysis is published here.

Another NYTimes article, an opinion piece, said that “Much has been made since her death of her apparent recklessness. But she had done her calculations and reached the conclusion that the only way she could rally her supporters was by going to them. ‘She wasn’t as reckless as people are making her out to be’, the former police officer told me over the phone. ‘The bulge that you saw under her shalwar kameez wasn’t extra pounds that she had put on during exile. She always wore a bulletproof vest in public’.”

Well, but she also put on some extra pounds, and you don’t need to look at her midriff to see it — it was evident in her face, and neck, and hands.

Anyway, this same NYTimes piece reported that “In the London press conference [just before her return], she was asked about her deal with Mr. Musharraf, which was going to allow her to return without facing charges for the rampant corruption that occurred under her watch. It was a question that had become the bane of her existence. Suddenly, her calculated, irritated voice mellowed and she spoke like the naïve, passionate activist I had seen as a child: ‘I lost my father. Both my brothers were killed violently. Scores of my party workers have died in the struggle for democracy, and now our citizens are being killed indiscriminately every day. We have to stop this. And in order to stop this I’ll talk to anyone that I have to‘ … Throughout her career there were attempts to portray her as a Westernized woman of questionable character. Shortly after her death, I was talking with another friend, one who had never thought much of her. ‘Remember those leaflets we used to collect before her election?’ he asked. He was referring to the 1988 election campaign, when her political rivals hired planes to throw leaflets with photographs that were doctored to show her wearing bikinis and miniskirts and dancing at college parties. It did not stop the people from voting her into power. For Pakistan’s military-mullah establishment, she always remained a bad girl. Not just any ordinary privileged heir to a political dynasty, but a girl half the nation swooned over; a sharp political operator, a speaker who even in her stilted Urdu could have a million people dance to the wave of her hand. And she was not a revolutionary by a long shot — but she could bring people to her rallies, and more important, polling stations by promising them jobs and reasonable electricity bills. On Thursday a heartbroken Bhutto-lover called and left a teary message on my voice mail. He just wanted to share his grief, but reminded me of something else: ‘She might have lost her political battle, but look at it this way. She raised three kids, took care of an ailing mother and still managed to stay in South Asia’s most notorious arranged marriage’.” This opinion piece in the NYTimes is published here.

Therefore, I call on President Musharraf and the Pakistani government to realize that this is in the interests of Pakistan to understand whether or not it was al Qaeda or some other offshoot extremist group that is attempting to further destabilize and even overthrow the Pakistani government, or whether it came from within, either explicitly or implicitly, the security forces or the military in Pakistan. The thing I’ve not been able to understand, Wolf – I have met with President Musharraf, I obviously knew Benazir Bhutto and admired her leadership – is that President Musharraf, in every meeting I have had with him, the elites in Pakistan who still wield tremendous power plus the leadership of the military act as though they can destabilize Pakistan and retain their positions; their positions of privilege, their positions of authority. That is not the way it will work. I am really calling on them to recognize that the world deserves the answer; the Bhutto family deserves the answer, but this is in the best interest of the Pakistani people and the state of Pakistan …

Blitzer: Senator, just to be precise; you want a United Nations international tribunal, or commission of inquiry, whatever you want to call it, along the lines of the investigation into the assassination of Rafik Hariri?

HRC: There are other institutions that are international that have credibility, like INTERPOL and others. It doesn’t have to be the exact model of the Hariri investigation but it needs to be international, it needs to be independent, it needs to have credibility and nothing that would happen inside of Pakistan would. I’m reluctant to say it should be an American investigation where we send our law enforcement personnel, because I’m not sure that would have credibility for a different reason. So that’s why I’m calling for an independent international investigation”...

Juan Cole adds: “Barack Obama objected to Clinton’s call for a UN special inquiry, saying that ‘It is important to us to not give the idea that Pakistan is unable to handle its own affairs’. While Obama’s concern for Pakistani sovereignty is admirable, Clinton’s suggestion of a United Nations commission would, I think, be quite popular in Pakistan except in military circles … And it is certainly the case that the Pakistani public would be more likely to believe a UN commission than it would to believe Pervez Musharraf on this issue”.  Juan Cole’s comments on Clinton’s and Obama’s response to Benazir Bhutto’s assassination are posted here.

Yesterday, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported that Benazir died from a severe wound to her left temple, from which brain matter was oozing.

The American television network, ABC, showed video (now posted on its website — see sidebar on this page here) of Benazir’s last moments in which, as the anchor explains, three gunshots are clearly audible.

(ABC says the video was shown at the press conference given by Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior — in which the preposterous hitting-her-head-on-the-sunroof theory was advanced.)

Angry Arab wrote today that “The brilliant Interior Minister of Pakistan said that Bhutto died from hitting her head against the car roof, but in the same press conference it was said that Al-Qa`idah killed her. So are we being told that somebody from al-Qa`idah pushed her head against the car, now that the death is thus explained?” See his 29 December post here.

An anonymous Pakistani journalist wrote in The Guardian’s Comment is Free today that: “I spoke with some of the house owners [in Rawalpindi] about the incident. ‘Political rallies are apt to happen around these parts, and the police always ask us if they can depute officers from our roof to survey the situation. They didn’t this time. When I asked them about it prior to BB’s arrival, they told me to stay inside and bolt my gate‘, one resident told me. The former chief of the ISI Hamid Gul spoke on a segment on Dawn News TV, where he asked, rhetorically, why the scene of the assassination washed out and cleaned up [video clip] before forensics were allowed to assess it. Even within the supposedly monolithic intelligence agency there are ongoing questions and dissent being voiced. Where does that leave us? Pakistan’s Interior Ministry held a press conference on Friday night, stating the official government line about the assassination. They said Benazir was killed after smashing her head on her car’s sunroof while trying to duck, and that no bullet or shrapnel was found inside her. This statement was delivered by spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema, who was dripping with sweat when journalists at the press conference began needling his statements. Cheema boasted that the government had intercepted a telephone conversation between tribal leader Baitullah Masood and an Al Qaeda militant, in which Masood congratulated him on the killing. Journalists were skeptical. If the conversation could so easily be intercepted afterwards, why couldn’t they have been intercepted earlier? And to what extent does Pakistan’s intelligence agency maintain links with Taliban and Baitullah Masood? Both of these questions were posed, to which Cheema robustly recited that we should trust our military intelligence agencies upon which the rest of the world depends. ‘Rest of the world’, in this case, must mean America. And it’s very convenient for this government to blame the assassination on Islamic terrorists. When local governments were faced with student agitation about the state of emergency, or striking farmers organising in Okara, local police were quick to charge activists with terrorism. There is a pattern of this administration trying to invoke terrorism whenever its legitimacy is challenged locally or abroad”.

Comment from SharifL: “…All political assassinations in Pakistan remain inexplicable since the truth about them has never been investigated or investigated but not made public. Most of the conservative Muslims, and I include AlQuida and taliban in this group, consider it a hideous act to kill women. Subjugate them, treat them differently is acceptable, in fact not uncommon, but not killing. Sherry Rehman, a leader of PPP, and a woman, has countered the Government claim that BB died of bomb blast. Sherry says she was sitting next to Bb and saw two bullets hitting her neck and head. If this is true then it shows that the protection given to Benazir was not sufficient. My question is this: You see a guy, or may be more than one, take out a gun, aim at Bb and shoot. Any nobody from the security was able to stop it and for them it is easier to deny this, since this might show that either the agencies were involved or the protection was not there. I do not want to start the blame game, but the fact is when I saw the street where it took place, being washed and blood cleared a few hours after the ac, i knew the investigation will not get anywhere”. The article and the comment on it from SharifL are posted here.

THe McClatchy newspaper group is reporting that “In Pakistan, the shifting government explanations and Bhutto’s burial without autopsy aroused suspicion. Babar Awan, a senior official of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, said of the sunroof theory: ‘That is a false claim’. He said he’d seen her body after the attack and there were at least two bullet marks, one in the neck and one on the top of the head: ‘It was a targeted, planned killing. The firing was from more than one side’. Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Mohammadmian Soomro, told the Cabinet that Bhutto’s husband had insisted on no autopsy. But according to a leading lawyer, Athar Minallah, an autopsy is mandatory under Pakistan’s criminal law in a case of this nature. ‘It is absurd, because without autopsy it is not possible to investigate. Is the state not interested in reaching the perpetrators of this heinous crime or there was a cover-up?’ Minallah said. The scene of the attack also was watered down with a high-pressure hose within an hour, washing away evidence”. This McClatchy report is published here.

Another McClatchy story reported that: “The election rally had been long and lackluster, but on viewing the crowd gathered at the gates of Liaquat Bagh park, Bhutto turned to her deputy, Amin Fahim, and said she wanted to wave, Fahim recounted. The sunroof was opened and she stood up. Three to five shots were fired at her, witnesses said. She was hit in the neck and slumped back in the vehicle. Blood poured from her head, and she never regained consciousness. Moments after the shooting, there was a huge explosion to the left of the vehicle. Witnesses said that Bhutto’s bodyguards pounced on the assassin, who then blew himself up, shredding those around him. Ambulance crews collected pieces of flesh from the scene. The road turned red with pools of blood. I was standing near the rally stage, about 30 to 40 yards away from the scene of the shooting. There was pandemonium. On hearing the shots, I started running toward the scene. Then came the explosion … The assassination occurred in this garrison city housing the headquarters of the Pakistan army, an institution that has always seemed opposed to Bhutto. A couple of miles away across Rawalpindi, a previous military regime had executed her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s first democratically elected prime minister, in 1979, when she was 26. Police officers had frisked the 3,000 to 4,000 people attending Thursday’s rally when they entered the park, but as the speakers from Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party droned on, the police abandoned many of their posts. As she drove out through the gate, her main protection appeared to be her own bodyguards, who wore their usual white T-shirts inscribed: ‘Willing to die for Benazir’.” This report is published here.

But — suppose that the assassin (who could hardly be an assassin if Benazir died by hitting her head on the a lever in the sunroof of the car, he would merely then be an assailant) did not blow himself up — suppose he was blown up, as a cover-up?

A story in Counterpunch noted that “She had been addressing an election rally in Liaquat Bagh. This is a popular space named after the country’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was killed by an assassin in 1953. The killer, Said Akbar, was immediately shot dead on the orders of a police officer involved in the plot“. This account is posted here.

The Associated Press reported today that “Bhutto’s spokeswoman Sherry Rehman, who was in the vehicle with her boss, disputed the government’s version. ‘To hear that Ms. Bhutto fell from an impact from a bump on a sunroof is absolutely rubbish. It is dangerous nonsense, because it implies there was no assassination attempt’, she told the BBC. ‘There was a clear bullet wound at the back of the neck. It went in one direction and came out another’, she said. ‘My entire car is coated with her blood, my clothes, everybody — so she did not concuss her head against the sun roof’. The government said it was forming two inquiries into Bhutto’s death, one to be carried out by a high court judge and another by security forces”. This AP report can be seen here.