Officials: Bin Laden eyed small cities as targets

Although hunted and in hiding, Osama bin Laden remained the driving force behind each recent al-Qaida terror plot, U.S. officials say, citing his private journal and other documents recovered in last week's raid.

Awaiting Navy SEALs killed him a week ago, bin Laden dispensed chilling advice to the leaders of al-Qaida groups from Yemen to London: Hit Los Angeles, not just New York, he wrote. Target trains as well as planes. If possible, strike on major dates, such as the Fourth of July and the impending 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Over all, he urged, kill added Americans in a single attack, to drive them from the Arab world.

Bin Laden's written words illustrate that counterterrorist officials worldwide underestimated how key he remained to running the organization, shattering the conservative thinking that he had been summary from side to side separation to being an inspiring figurehead, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

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Bin Laden's demise: US rejoices after a decade

After almost a decade of anger and fear, America rejoice Monday at the termination of Osama bin Laden, the terror brain at the rear the horrific 9/11 attacks. Navy SEALs who killed the world's most-wanted terrorist held a trove of al-Qaida documents to pore over, and President Barack Obama laid plans to visit New York's ground zero.

Bin Laden, killed in a passionate firefight in a daring raid at his prepared hideout in Pakistan, was hunted down based on in sequence first gleaned years ago from prisoner at secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe, officials disclose.

His body was speedily taken away for burial at sea, except not before a DNA match was done to prove his identity. A U.S. official said there also was photos presentation bin Laden with the fatal wound above his left eye, a firing that tore away part of his skull. The photos were not without delay released.

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US embassy cables: 'Reviewing our Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy'

A number of teams of US Special Forces soldiers have been clandestinely fixed with Pakistani military forces in the ethnic belt, helping to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida armed forces and co-ordinate drone strikes, the embassy cable reveal.

The numbers concerned are small – just 16 soldiers in October 2009 – but the deployment is of enormous political significance, described in a cable that provides an extraordinary glimpse into underground American operations in the world's most violent al-Qaida hotbed.

The first American Special Forces group of four soldiers was deployed to an old British colonial fort in the northern half of the tribal belt in September 2009, helping Frontier Corps paramilitaries to carry out armaments strikes on a rebellious base.

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Suspected US missiles kill 20 in NW Pakistan

MIR ALI, Pakistan – supposed American missiles slam into a home and a speeding vehicle near the Afghan boundary Tuesday, killing 20 alleged militants as the U.S. ramps up unmanned drone strikes in northwestern Islamist stronghold, Pakistani official said.

The eighth projectile attack this month in Pakistan killed target in North Waziristan, a mountainous tribal district that is a base for Taliban and al-Qaida-linked fighters accountable for many of the attacks on U.S. and NATO forces across the boundary in Afghanistan.

The U.S. has launched 100 such strikes in Pakistan so far this year, a major surge over preceding years for the drone program that is rarely officially known by Washington. Nearly all have hit in North Waziristan, where Muslim extremist run a virtual mini-state external the Pakistani government's control

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Philippine leader hits US, allies on terror alert

The Philippine president lashed out at the United States and five other Western allies on Friday for subject what he said were unproven warnings of a possible terrorist attack in the Southeast Asian nation at a time when it is trying to boost its dreary tourism industry.

President Benigno Aquino III said the Western nations issued the travel warning last week without consulting his government. The warnings came less than two weeks before the open of a new government sightseeing campaign, Aquino told a business meeting on the sidelines of a yearly Pacific Rim financial peak in the Japanese harbor city of Yokohama.

The U.S., Britain, Australia, France, Canada and New Zealand issued similar alert last week that expanded previous journey warnings for the volatile southern Philippines, where Muslim rebels and al-Qaida militant are active, to comprise Manila, the capital.

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NATO official: Bin Laden living comfortably in Pakistan

Osama bin Laden is living comfortably in northwest Pakistan, secluded by local tribes people and some members of the country's cleverness service, a NATO official has told CNN. The news undercuts the U.S. government's description of the al-Qaida leader as on the run, one terror professional tells The Upshot.

U.S. brainpower officials have long alleged that bin Laden is living in the remote tribal region of northwest Pakistan. But at times, the government has also claim that the al-Qaida leader has had to move often from one safehouse to another, impair his ability to plot attacks.

The NATO official's commentary undermine that claim, Michael Scheuer, a former particular adviser to the chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit, told The consequence.

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Taliban set preconditions for formal peace talks

Taliban administrators have busy in periodic, discreet contacts with Afghan and U.S. officials for months but are reluctant to move to formal peace negotiations until the U.S. agrees to a schedule for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, according to a Pakistani cleverness official and members of a newly formed Afghan calm council.

The White House said Wednesday that President Barack Obama ropes attempts by the Afghan government to open calm talks with Taliban leaders, but still wants the rebellious to give up violence and their support of al-Qaida.

Though, press secretary Robert Gibbs said the United States was not taking part in any such talks. "This is about Afghanistan," he said. "It has to be done by the Afghans."

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US’ worst terror threat goes unmatched

Presidents hardly ever tell us everything they recognize about the topic they are telling us about.

So it perhaps isn’t shocking news to find out President Barack Obama held back some key info that is no longer top clandestine in his Aug. 31 Oval Office address announcing the battle phase of the Iraq war had ended on timetable, as promised.

Obama went on to speak about the urgent threat US’ still face from terrorists to give details why we must carry on the fight in Afghanistan and Pakistan:

“And no confront is more necessary to our security than our fight against al-Qaida … As we speak, al-Qaida continues to plot against us, and its leadership leftovers anchored in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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