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“In his televised statement [on May 1, 2011, President] Mr [Barack] Obama said that Bin Laden was killed in a helicopter raid by a small group of Navy Seals who stormed his mansion in an affluent area 80 miles from Islamabad [Pakistan]. They were working on a tip which first surfaced last August after ‘years of painstaking work’ from the CIA and had taken months to run it into the ground. ‘Last week I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action and authorised an operation to get Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice,’ Mr Obama said. ‘Today at my direction the U.S. launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. After a firefight they killed Osama Bin Laden and took custody of his body.’ ”

 – “Incredible Pictures Show President and Inner Circle Watching live TV Feed as Special Forces Shoot Dead the World’s Most Wanted Man,” Daily Mail, May 3, 2011

“Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the 11 September 2001 attacks and the world’s most wanted man, has been killed in a US operation in north-western Pakistan, [President] Barack Obama has announced. ‘Justice has been done,’ the US president said in a statement that America has been waiting a decade to hear. A US official said Bin Laden had already been buried at sea.”

 – Declan Walsh, Ewen MacAskill, and Jason Burke, “Osama bin Laden Killed in US Raid on Pakistan Hideout,” The Guardian, May 2, 2011

Regarding the raid that killed Osama bin Laden: “[President Barack] Obama tapped two dozen members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six to carry out a raid with surgical accuracy. Before dawn Monday morning [May 2, 2011], a pair of helicopters left Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. The choppers entered Pakistani airspace using sophisticated technology intended to evade that country’s radar systems, a U.S. official said. …The helicopters lowered into the compound, dropping the SEALs behind the walls. No shots were fired, but shortly after the team hit the ground, one of the helicopters came crashing down and rolled onto its side for reasons the government has yet to explain. None of the SEALs was injured, however, and the mission continued uninterrupted. With the CIA and White House monitoring the situation in real time–presumably by live satellite feed or video carried by the SEALs–the team stormed the compound. Thanks to sophisticated satellite monitoring, U.S. forces knew they’d likely find bin Laden’s family on the second and third floors of one of the buildings on the property, officials said. The SEALs secured the rest of the property first, then proceeded to the room where bin Laden was hiding. In the ensuing firefight, Brennan said, bin Laden used a woman as a human shield. The SEALs killed bin Laden with a bullet to the head. Using the call sign for his visual identification, one of the soldiers communicated that ‘Geronimo’ had been killed in action, according to a U.S. official.”

 – Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan, Ben Feller, and Kathy Gannon, “One Unwary Phone Call Led U.S. to bin Laden,” Associated Press, May 2, 2011

“Senior US administration officials…said that after 9/11 the CIA chased various leads about Bin Laden’s inner circle, in particular his couriers. One of these couriers came in for special attention, mentioned by detainees at Guantánamo Bay by his nom de guerre. He was said to be a protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, and one of the few couriers Bin Laden trusted. Officials said they were initially unable to identify him but finally did so four years ago. …Two years ago, the CIA found the rough location where the courier and his brother lived in Pakistan, and in August last year they narrowed it down to a compound in Abbottabad… They realised immediately this was no normal residence. The walls of the 3,000 sq ft compound were 12-18ft high, topped with barbed wire. There were two security gates, and access to the compound was severely restricted. The main part of the residence was three storeys high but had few windows, and a third-floor terrace was shielded by a privacy wall. Built around five years ago, it was valued at about $1m but had no phone or internet connection. The two brothers had no known source of income, adding to CIA suspicions. The CIA learned too that there was a family living with them, and that the composition of this family matched Bin Laden’s.”

 – Ewen MacAskill, “Osama bin Laden: it Took Years to Find Him but Just Minutes to Kill Him,” The Guardian, May 2, 2011

“Officials say CIA interrogators in secret overseas prisons developed the first strands of information that ultimately led to the killing of bin Laden [on May 2, 2011]. 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided the nom de guerre of one of bin Laden’s most trusted aides. The CIA got similar information from Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both were subjected to harsh interrogation tactics inside CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.”

 – “Incredible Pictures Show President and Inner Circle Watching live TV Feed as Special Forces Shoot Dead the World’s Most Wanted Man,” Daily Mail, May 3, 2011

“Osama bin Laden, the elusive terror mastermind killed by Navy SEALs in an intense firefight [at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan], was hunted down based on information first gleaned years ago from detainees at secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe, officials disclosed Monday [May 2, 2011].”

 – Adam Goldman and Chris Brummitt, “Bin Laden’s Demise: US Rejoices After a Decade,” Associated Press, May 3, 2011

“In a secret CIA prison in Eastern Europe years ago, al-Qaida’s No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, gave authorities the nicknames of several of bin Laden’s couriers, four former U.S. intelligence officials said. Those names were among thousands of leads the CIA was pursuing. One man became a particular interest for the agency when another detainee, Abu Faraj al-Libi, told interrogators that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed as al-Qaida’s operational leader he received the word through a courier. Only bin Laden would have given al-Libi that promotion, CIA officials believed. If they could find that courier, they’d find bin Laden. The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA’s so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history. ‘We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day,’ said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden. Mohammed did not reveal the names while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He identified them many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.”

 – Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan, Ben Feller, and Kathy Gannon, “One Unwary Phone Call Led U.S. to bin Laden,” Associated Press, May 2, 2011

“Osama bin Laden was buried at sea from the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier because there was no alternative to bury him on land within the 24 hours required by Islamic law, President Barack Obama’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser said Monday [May 2, 2011]. ‘The disposal of–the burial of bin Laden’s remains was done in strict conformance with Islamic precepts and practices. It was prepared in accordance with the Islamic requirements,’ adviser John Brennan told reporters at a White House briefing. ‘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 strictest conformance.’ ”

 – Chris Lawrence, “‘No Land Alternative’ Prompts bin Laden Sea Burial,” CNN, May 2, 2011

In the hunt for bin Laden, “A new lead emerged when post-9/11 detainees gave investigators a glimpse into the al Qaeda chief’s inner circle, the [senior Obama Administration] official said. During questioning, detainees repeatedly mentioned the nickname of a man they said was one of the few couriers bin Laden trusted. …Investigators knew the courier–a protege of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [KSM]–was ‘important,’ because a number of detainees held out on providing information about him, the senior U.S. official said. When interrogators pushed Mohammed on the courier’s identity, he ‘lied to protect his protege,’ the official said. ‘We knew he was lying, because we already knew (the courier) was a KSM protege,’ the official said. In fact, other detainees indicated that the courier could have been working for bin Laden, the official added. While Mohammed held back on information, that in itself made intelligence personnel more interested in the courier because they knew Mohammed was lying, the official said. U.S. intelligence uncovered the courier’s identity four years ago ‘from a different part of the world,’ the senior U.S. official said. He declined to say where.”

 – Gloria Borger, Barbara Starr, Adam Levine, Nick Paton Walsh, Pam Benson, and Suzanne Kelly, “Trail Leading to bin Laden began with His Trusted Courier,” CNN, May 2, 2011

“As intelligence officials disclosed the trail of evidence that led to the compound in Pakistan where Bin Laden was hiding, a chorus of Bush administration officials claimed vindication for their policy of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ like waterboarding. Among them was John Yoo, a former Justice Department official who wrote secret legal memorandums justifying brutal interrogations. ‘President Obama can take credit, rightfully, for the success today,’ Mr. Yoo wrote Monday [May 2, 2011] in National Review, ‘but he owes it to the tough decisions taken by the Bush administration.’ ”

 – Scott Shane and Charlie Savage, “Bin Laden Raid Revives Debate on Value of Torture,” The New York Times, May 3, 2011

“Asked if harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay played a role in obtaining intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts, [Former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld declares: ‘First of all, no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo Bay. That’s a myth that’s been perpetrated around the country by critics. The United States Department of Defense did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.’ ”

 – Jim Meyers and Ashley Martella, “Rumsfeld Exclusive: There Was No Waterboarding at Gitmo,” Newsmax, May 2, 2011

“Leon Panetta, the CIA chief, said that Pakistan had not been prewarned of the raid [that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011] because ‘it was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission–they might alert the targets.’ ”

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 8

Following the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, “A rash of statements from world leaders and the international media held the Pakistan Army either totally culpable in hiding Bin Laden or totally incompetent in not discovering his whereabouts, leading to further public outrage and despair. For years, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan had told the United States and NATO that Pakistan was hosting Al Qaeda and the Taliban; now he lashed out at them for not believing him: ‘Year after year, day after day, we have said the fighting against terrorism is not in the villages of Afghanistan… [but] is in safe havens. It proves that Afghanistan was right.’ ”

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 10

Following the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011, journalist Fareed Zakaria said: ” ‘…a number of people are saying that this does not mean that al Qaeda has been destroyed. Some argue that the organization may, in fact, be thriving. …I understand why officials have to say this. They want to be cautious. They don’t want to overpromise. But the truth is this is a huge, devastating blow to al Qaeda, which had already been crippled by the Arab Spring. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the end of al Qaeda in any meaningful sense of the word.’ ”

 – Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Bin Laden’s Legacy, Page 1

While enhanced interrogation techniques may have provided the information needed to track down Osama bin Laden through one of his couriers, “Glenn L. Carle, a retired C.I.A. officer who oversaw the interrogation of a high-level detainee in 2002, said in a phone interview Tuesday [May 3, 2011], that coercive techniques ‘didn’t provide useful, meaningful, trustworthy information.’ He said that while some of his colleagues defended the measures, ‘everyone was deeply concerned and most felt it was un-American and did not work.’ ”

 – Scott Shane and Charlie Savage, “Bin Laden Raid Revives Debate on Value of Torture,” The New York Times, May 3, 2011

On May 3, 2011, al Qaeda’s General Command released a statement on bin Laden’s death. It read: ” ‘…we in al-Qaeda vow to God the Exalted and seek His support to help us go forward on the path of jihad that was trekked by our leaders, headed by Sheikh Osama. We will not relent or hesitate; we will not stray or quit until God judges between us and our enemies by the truth, He indeed is the fairest of judges. We stress that Sheikh Osama’s blood, God bless his soul, is more precious to us and to every Muslim to go in vain. It will, God willing, remain a curse that will chase and haunt the Americans and their agents inside and outside the country. Very soon, God willing, their joy will turn into mourning and their blood will be mixed with their tears. We will fulfil Sheikh Osama’s oath, God bless his soul: *America and anyone who lives in America will not enjoy peace until our people in Palestine enjoy it.* ‘ ”

 – “Excerpts from ‘al-Qaeda’ Statement on Bin Laden’s Death,” BBC News, May 6, 2011

“Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA’s counterterrorism center who oversaw the use of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ gave his first public interview to Time magazine this week [early May 2011] to defend the role the use of techniques like waterboarding played in the operation against Osama bin Laden. The question of the role such techniques played in this mission arose after reports revealed that two key terror detainees–Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [KSM] and Abu Faraj al-Libi–gave American officials the nickname of a courier who ultimately led U.S. intelligence officials to bin Laden. The two detainees gave the initial information up at foreign CIA ‘black sites,’ where waterboarding–historically considered a form of torture by the U.S.–and other ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques were used. ‘Information provided by KSM and Abu Faraj al-Libi about Bin Laden’s courier was the lead information that eventually led to the location of [bin Laden’s] compound and the operation that led to his death,’ Rodriguez told Time.”

 – Stephanie Condon, “Bush’s Counterterror Chief Defends Harsh Interrogations,” CBS News, May 4, 2011

In an article about enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs), which may have provided the information needed to track down Osama bin Laden through one of his couriers, “Former George W. Bush officials say the use of EITs is misunderstood. ‘The main thing that people misunderstand about the program is, it was intended to encourage compliance,’ says John McLaughlin, deputy director of the CIA during the period in which waterboarding was used. ‘It wasn’t set out to torture people. It was never conceived of as a torture program.’ ”

 – Massimo Calabresi, “Ex-CIA Counterterror Chief: EIT’s Led to Osama,” Time, May 4, 2011

In an article about enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs), which may have provided the information needed to track down Osama bin Laden through one of his couriers, “One former senior intelligence official says that ‘once KSM [9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] decided resistance was unwise, he started spilling his guts to the agency and started providing lots of info, like the noms de guerre of couriers and explaining how al-Qaeda worked.’ [Former head of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center Jose] Rodriguez says, ‘It’s a mistake to say this was about inflicting pain. These measures were about instilling a sense of hopelessness, and that led them to compliance.’ None of the Bush officials made a clear distinction between inducing compliance and torture.”

 – Massimo Calabresi, “Ex-CIA Counterterror Chief: EIT’s Led to Osama,” Time, May 4, 2011

“[A]sked about whether waterboarding played a role in finding Bin Laden, John Brennan–counter-terrorism adviser to [President] Obama and, it’s worth remembering, a key figure in the CIA under Bush–replied: ‘Not to my knowledge. The information that was collected over the course of nine years or so came from many different sources: human sources, technical sources, as well as sources that detainees provided. It was something as a result of the painstaking work that the analysts did. They pieced it all together that lead us to the compound last year and resulted in the very successful operation [on] Sunday [May 1, 2011].’ ”

 – Clare Algar, “Torture Did Not Lead us to Osama bin Laden,” The Guardian, May 5, 2011

“Documents seized in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound [in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011] have yielded a bonanza of new intelligence, from names and locations of terrorist suspects to chilling details of al-Qaeda plots to attack targets in the United States and beyond, U.S. officials said Thursday [May 5, 2011]. Among the files recovered from captured computers and flash drives were documents detailing a previously unknown plan to attack the U.S. commuter rail network, intelligence officials confirmed. The plan, which described a sabotage attack to occur on this year’s 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was being actively considered as recently as February 2010, Obama administration officials said.”

 – Joby Warrick, “Al-Qaeda Data Yield Details of Planned Plots,” The Washington Post, May 5, 2011

Following the May 2, 2011 raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, on “May 5, after meeting with his nine top generals, called the Corps Commanders, [General Ashfaq Parvez] Kayani issued a blistering statement. Calling the raid ‘a misadventure,’ he said that ‘any similar action violating the sovereignty of Pakistan will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States.’ He would immediately reduce ‘to the minimum essential’ the number of U.S. military trainers, contractors, and CIA personnel in the country. He ignored the issue of Bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan and instead made paramount the issue of the breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty; he and other generals wanted to protect Pakistan’s honor.”

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Pages 8-9

“Pakistan’s security establishment has long been accused of playing a double game: taking billions in U.S. aid while secretly backing select jihadi militants in Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s tribal region. Even al-Qaeda types were expected to play ball. Says the Arab woman formerly connected to al-Qaeda: ‘There was an understanding with the Pakistani army. We would get a tip-off that the army planned to raid one of our houses in the tribal area. We would flee but leave some *evidence* behind so that the army could show to the Americans that we’d been there.’ ”

 – Tim McGirk, “The Real Housewife of Abbottabad: What bin Laden’s Spouse Knows,” Time, May 6, 2011

“CIA Director Leon Panetta said this week [early May 2011] that ‘either [the Pakistanis] were involved [in hiding bin Laden] or incompetent. Neither is a good place to be.’ ”

 – Tim McGirk, “The Real Housewife of Abbottabad: What bin Laden’s Spouse Knows,” Time, May 6, 2011

“On May 6th [2011], Al Qaeda confirmed bin Laden’s death and released a statement congratulating ‘the Islamic nation’ on ‘the martyrdom of its good son Osama.’ The authors promised Americans that ‘their joy will turn to sorrow and their tears will mix with blood.’ ”

 – Nicholas Schmidle, “Getting Bin Laden,” The New Yorker, Aug. 8, 2011

The hunt for bin Laden at “Tora Bora [Afghanistan] taught both sides important lessons. The Americans learned, as a top intelligence official said, ‘that it was a bad idea to *outsource* something as important as capturing or killing bin Laden.’ Mutual mistrust kept the Pakistani military and Afghan fighters from embracing the Americans’ search for bin Laden.”

 – Peter Finn, Ian Shapira, and Marc Fisher, “The Hunt, Chapter 2: Lessons Learned,” The Washington Post, May 6, 2011

Following the death of Osama bin Laden, “On May 6 [2011], a U.S. government official told CNN that bin Laden ‘worked at the operational and even tactical levels. …He was clearly issuing directions at all levels.’ From his strategically placed compound, with couriers and assistants to help, he was also apparently overseeing the details of a planned attack on U.S. public rail transportation to coincide with the tenth anniversary of 9/11.”

 – Foreign Affairs, The U.S. vs. al Qaeda, Page 247

According to an Associated Press article on May 6, 2011, “analysts who examined this information [seized from the raid which killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011] came to believe that bin Laden ‘was a lot more involved in directing al Qaeda personnel and operations than sometimes thought over the last decade’ and that he had been providing strategic guidance to al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Somalia.”

 – Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Bin Laden’s Legacy, Page 2

From a Financial Times article on May 11, 2011: “According to Robert Blackwill, a former Republican U.S. ambassador to India, ‘the Pakistani military is not an ally, not a partner, not a friend of the US.’ “

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 176

“Waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques were not a factor in tracking down Osama bin Laden, a leading Republican senator [John McCain] insisted Thursday [May 12, 2011]. …In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, the Arizona Republican said former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and others who back those tactics were wrong to claim that waterboarding al-Qaida’s No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, provided information that led to bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. … McCain said he asked CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and that the hunt for bin Laden did not begin with fresh information from Mohammed. In fact, the name of bin Laden’s courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, came from a detainee held in another country. ‘Not only did the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden’s courier, Abu Ahmed, it actually produced false and misleading information,’ McCain said. He called on Mukasey and others to correct their misstatements.”

 – Donna Cassata, “McCain: Torture did not lead to bin Laden death,” Associated Press, May 12, 2011

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) claimed that enhanced interrogation techniques did not lead to the tracking of Osama bin Laden. “In a statement, [former Attorney General Michael] Mukasey said McCain ‘is simply incorrect,’ on the bid Laden leads and interrogation. Mukasey said [9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh] Mohammed disclosed the nickname of the courier [of bin Laden] ‘along with a wealth of other information, some of which was used to stop terror plots then in progress.’ He said another detainee, captured in Iraq, disclosed that the courier was a trusted operative of Mohammed’s successor [Abu Faraj al-Libi]. Mukasey…said former intelligence officials have said that up to 2006 valuable leads came from prisoners who were subjected to harsh techniques, including waterboarding. ‘Harsh interrogation techniques were both effective and lawful,’ Mukasey said.”

 – Donna Cassata, “McCain Says Torture did not Lead to bin Laden,” Associated Press, May 12, 2011

Senator John “McCain [R-AZ] said he opposes waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, and any form of torture tactics. He said that they could be used against Americans and that their use damages the nation’s character and reputation. ‘I do not believe they are necessary to our success in our war against terrorists, as the advocates of these techniques claim they are,’ he said. ‘Ultimately, this is about morality. What is at stake here is the very idea of America–the America whose values have inspired the world and instilled in the hearts of its citizens the certainty that, no matter how hard we fight, no matter how dangerous our adversary, in the course of vanquishing our enemies we do not compromise our deepest values,’ he said. ‘We are America, and we hold ourselves to a higher standard. That is what is really at stake.’ ”

 – Donna Cassata, “McCain Says Torture did not Lead to bin Laden,” Associated Press, May 12, 2011

In Pakistan, “A pair of Taliban suicide bombers attacked paramilitary police recruits eagerly heading home for a break after months of training, killing 80 people Friday [May 13, 2011] in the first act of retaliation for the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden. In claiming responsibility, the al-Qaida linked militant group cited anger at Pakistan’s military for failing to stop the American incursion on their soil. …’We have done this to avenge the Abbottabad incident,’ Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, told The Associated Press in a phone call. He warned that the group was also planning attacks on Americans living inside Pakistan.”

 – Riaz Khan, “Pakistan Suicide Bombs Kill 80 to Avenge bin Laden,” Associated Press, May 13, 2011

“Pakistan’s intelligence chief, Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, admitted ‘negligence’ on the part of authorities in failing to find bin Laden during a closed session in Parliament on Friday [May 13, 2011], a government spokeswoman told reporters.”

 – Riaz Khan, “Pakistan Suicide Bombs Kill 80 to Avenge bin Laden,” Associated Press, May 13, 2011

“On May 13 [2011], the Pakistani Taliban took revenge for the death of Bin Laden by carrying out a double suicide attack at an FC [Frontier Corps] training camp in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province that killed 80 cadets and wounded 140.”

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 178

“Afghanistan’s former intelligence chief says he knew Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan four years ago, but Pakistan’s leaders rejected his claims. In an interview broadcast Sunday [May 15, 2011] on CBS’ ’60 Minutes,’ Amrullah Saleh says Afghan intelligence thought bin Laden was in the Pakistani city of Mansehra–about 12 miles away from Abbottabad, where the terrorist leader was eventually found and killed by U.S. Navy SEALs.”

 – “Ex-Afghan Spy Chief: I Knew Where bin Laden Was,” Associated Press, May 15, 2011

 – Ishaan Tharoor, “Al-Qaeda’s Alleged New Leader: Who Is Saif al-Adel?,” Time, May 17, 2011

“Britain’s eight years of military commitment in Iraq will finally and formally come to an end on Sunday [May 22, 2011], when the remaining forces in the south of the country will withdraw. The announcement to bring to an end one of the most controversial military campaigns in recent history was made on Wednesday [May 18, 2011] in a statement to the Commons by the defence secretary, Liam Fox. In total, the UK still has about 170 mostly naval personnel in Iraq, helping to train the fledgling Iraqi navy from the port of Umm Qasr.”

 – Nick Hopkins, “UK’s Eight-Year Military Presence in Iraq to End on Sunday,” The Guardian, May 18, 2011

“The UK’s military operation in Iraq officially ended at midnight [on May 22, 2011], the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. It came after the Royal Navy completed its training of Iraqi sailors, with the last personnel leaving the country on Friday [May 20]. While Operation Telic, the name for the UK mission in Iraq since 2003, ended, a handful of staff will remain at the British embassy in Baghdad.”

 – “UK’s Operation Telic Mission in Iraq Ends,” BBC News, May 22, 2011

As stated in "The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary:" "Departure of the last UK naval training team from Iraq."

 – Commissioned by the Prime Minister The Right Honourable Gordon Brown MP, “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry: Executive Summary,” IraqInquiry.org.uk, May 22, 2011,

“The US Congress, racing the clock and rejecting demands for additional safeguards of civil liberties, passed a bill on Thursday [May 26, 2011] to renew three expiring provisions of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act. [President] Barack Obama…signed it into law shortly before the provisions were set to expire at midnight. …Obama acted shortly after the Republican-led House of Representatives and the Democratic-led Senate approved the bill overwhelmingly. It passed the House, 250-153, hours after it cleared the Senate, 72-23. …The provisions empower law enforcement officials to get court approval to obtain ‘roving wiretaps’ on suspected foreign agents with multiple modes of communications, track non-US nationals suspected of terrorism, and obtain certain business and even library records. ‘Although the Patriot Act is not a perfect law, it provides our intelligence and law enforcement communities with crucial tools to keep America safe,’ said the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid [D-NV].”

 – Thomas Ferraro, “Congress Votes to Renew Anti-Terrorism Steps,” Reuters, May 27, 2011

“Osama bin Laden considered seeking a deal with Pakistan under which al Qaeda leaders in the country would be protected and, in return, al Qaeda would refrain from attacking Pakistan, a U.S. official told CNN Friday [May 27, 2011]. The revelation surfaced as American agents analyzed the documents that were seized in the May 2 raid of bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, according to the official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. The documents show the al Qaeda leader communicated with his operations chief, Atiya Abdul Rahman, about a possible deal with Pakistan, the official said. …The official said there is no evidence an approach was ever made to any Pakistani officials to try to cut such a deal. ‘This appeared to be a discussion inside al Qaeda,’ the official said.”

 – Carol Cratty, “Bin Laden Considered Seeking Deal with Pakistan, U.S. Official Says,” CNN, May 27, 2011

According to information in a Washington Post article on June 2, 2011: “Since 2009, the United States has spent over $100 billion a year on the troop surge in Afghanistan, while in 2011 the U.S. defense budget has reached a staggering $671 billion. Between 2001 and 2010, the United States spent a total of $444 billion in Afghanistan, including $25 billion each for economic development and for Afghan security forces.”

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 17

“Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s number two, has warned that Osama Bin Laden will continue to ‘terrify’ the US from beyond the grave. The statement was posted on Jihadist websites. …This is the first time al-Zawahiri has spoken publicly since Bin Laden’s death. …’The sheikh has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice,’ Zawahri says. ‘Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or a group, but a rebelling nation, which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance.’ ”

 – “Al-Qaeda Posts Fresh Warning from al-Zawahiri to US,” BBC News, June 8, 2011

“Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s long-time number two, has vowed in a video eulogy to Osama bin Laden that he will pursue his late leader’s jihad against the West, SITE [Search for International Terrorist Entities] Intelligence Group reported on Wednesday [June 8, 2011]. ‘We will pursue the jihad until we expel the invaders from Muslim lands,’ he was quoted as saying in the eulogy to bin Laden who was killed in a US raid in Pakistan on May 2. ‘The man who terrified America in his life will continue to terrify it after his death,’ he added in the video message titled ‘The Noble Knight Dismounted,’ which SITE said was posted on jihadist online forums on Wednesday. ‘You will continue to be troubled by his famous vow: You shall not dream of security until we enjoy it and until you depart the Muslims’ lands,’ added the Egyptian militant, who was in white garb and a turban with a machinegun behind him.”

 – “Al Qaeda Deputy Vows Jihad in bin Laden Eulogy,” Agence France-Presse, June 8, 2011

“During an unannounced trip to Pakistan’s capital [Islamabad] on Friday [June 10, 2011], [CIA Director] Mr. [Leon] Panetta met with the leader of the Pakistani intelligence service, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, and showed him satellite photographs and other evidence of what the C.I.A. believes to be two facilities for the manufacture of bombs used by militants based in Pakistan against American forces in Afghanistan, the official said. The bomb facilities were in the northwestern districts of North and South Waziristan, both havens for militants. The official said Mr. Panetta was compelled to confront General Pasha after the C.I.A. alerted the Pakistanis about the existence of the bomb-making facilities several weeks ago and asked them to raid the locations. But when the Pakistani Army showed up, the militants were gone, making the C.I.A. suspicious that the militants had warning from someone on the Pakistani side. ‘The targets seem to have been tipped off,’ the American official said, adding, ‘There are indications that some senior Pakistani officials aren’t happy about it, and neither are we, of course.’ ”

 – Elizabeth Bumiller, “C.I.A. Director Warns Pakistan on Collusion with Militants,” The New York Times, June 11, 2011

“Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Al Qaeda’s leader in East Africa and the mastermind of the American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, was killed in a late-night shootout at a security checkpoint in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, Somali and American officials said Saturday [June 11, 2011]. …’Fazul’s death is a significant blow to Al Qaeda, its extremist allies and its operations in East Africa,’ Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said. …Mr. Mohammed, who was one of the most wanted men in Africa and had a $5 million bounty on his head from the United States government, and another militant mistakenly drove up to a checkpoint run by Somali government soldiers late on Tuesday night. The Somali soldiers fired on their truck…and the men fired back, Somali officials said. Seconds later, Mr. Mohammed and the other militant were dead. …’This was lucky,’ a Somali security official said Saturday night. ‘It wasn’t like Fazul was killed during an operation to get him. He was essentially driving around Mogadishu and got lost.’ ”

 – Jeffrey Gettleman, “Somalis Kill Man Behind Bombings Of U.S. Embassies,” The New York Times, June 11, 2011

“Some $6.6bn (£4bn) flown into Iraq eight years ago may have been stolen, according to a US official investigating fraud in the country. The missing money may represent ‘the largest theft of funds in national history,’ investigator Stuart Bowen told the Los Angeles Times newspaper. …The cash, which belonged to Iraq, was intended to pay for reconstruction. The money came from a special fund set up by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York with Iraq’s own money, which was previously withheld from the country under harsh economic sanctions imposed against Saddam Hussein’s regime. The funds were airlifted aboard C-130 military cargo planes by the Bush administration in shrink-wrapped bricks, as part of a $20bn reconstruction package.”

 – “US: Iraq Reconstruction Billions ‘May Have Been Stolen,'” BBC News, June 14, 2011

“A former senior C.I.A. official says that officials in the Bush White House sought damaging personal information on a prominent American critic of the Iraq war in order to discredit him. Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war. In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted ‘to get’ Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.”

 – James Risen, “Ex-Spy Alleges Bush White House Sought to Discredit Critic,” The New York Times, June 15, 2011

“A letter Wednesday [June 15, 2011] from 27 senators to [President] Obama called for revising the Afghanistan mission, starting with a ‘significant and sizable’ reduction in U.S. forces there beginning in July. ‘According to our own intelligence officials, al Qaeda no longer has a large presence in Afghanistan, and, as the strike against bin Laden demonstrated, we have the capacity to confront our terrorist enemies with a dramatically smaller footprint,’ said the letter signed by 24 Democrats, two Republicans and one independent who caucuses with the Democrats. ‘The costs of prolonging the war far outweigh the benefits. It is time for the United States to shift course in Afghanistan.’ It urged Obama ‘to follow through on the pledge you made to the American people to begin the redeployment of U.S. forces from Afghanistan this summer, and to do so in a manner that is sizable and sustained, and includes combat troops as well as logistical and support forces.’ ”

 – Charlie Keyes, “Gates, Mullen Say U.S. Must Work with Pakistan Despite Rocky Road,” CNN, June 16, 2011

“The World Bank, in a [June] 2011 report, said that 97 percent of Afghanistan’s economy was related to international military spending and that once troops pulled out, it would experience a massive depression.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 92

In a report released in June 2011, “The Costs of War project at Brown University estimates that since 2001, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan have killed 225,000 people, including soldiers, and created more than 7.8 million refugees. The total cost is estimated at $4 trillion.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 55

“Al Qaeda’s long-serving number two, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri, has taken over the leadership after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the group said on Islamist websites on Thursday [June 16, 2011]. Bin Laden’s lieutenant and the brains behind much of al Qaeda’s strategy, Zawahri vowed this month to press ahead with its campaign against the United States and its allies. ‘The general leadership of al Qaeda group, after the completion of consultation, announces that Sheikh Dr. Ayman Zawahri, may God give him success, has assumed responsibility for command of the group,’ the network said in a statement posted on Islamist websites which it often uses. A U.S. counter-terrorism official told Reuters the United States believed the announcement was genuine, but the State Department was dismissive of its significance. ‘Frankly, it barely matters,’ spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.”

 – Sara Anabtaw, “Bin Laden Deputy Zawahri to Lead al Qaeda,” Reuters, June 16, 2011

“The US will hunt down and kill new al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri as it did Osama Bin Laden, Washington’s top military officer has vowed. Adm Mike Mullen said al-Qaeda still posed a threat to the US. ‘As we did both seek to capture and kill–and succeed in killing–Bin Laden, we certainly will do the same thing with Zawahiri,’ he said.”

 – “US Vows to ‘Capture and Kill’ Ayman al-Zawahiri,” BBC News, June 16, 2011

Following the June 16, 2011, announcement that Ayman al-Zawahiri would replace Osama bin Laden as the leader of al Qaeda, “An unnamed US official said earlier that Zawahiri had ‘nowhere near’ Bin Laden’s credentials. ‘His ascension to the top leadership spot will likely generate criticism if not alienation and dissention with al-Qaeda,’ the Obama administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He added that Zawahiri, 59, would find it difficult to lead while focusing on his own survival. ‘The bottom line is that Zawahri [sic] has nowhere near the credentials that [Osama Bin Laden] had,’ said the official.”

 – “US Vows to ‘Capture and Kill’ Ayman al-Zawahiri,” BBC News, June 16, 2011

“US prosecutors have asked a judge to drop terrorism charges against Osama Bin Laden, arguing his killing by US forces last month voids the case. Bin Laden was indicted in federal court in 1998 in connection with the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people in August 1998.”

 – “Osama Bin Laden: US Drops Embassy Bomb Terror Charges,” BBC News, June 17, 2011

“Outgoing US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has confirmed that the US is holding ‘outreach’ talks with members of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Mr Gates said talks were ‘preliminary’ but that a political solution was the way ‘most of these wars end.’ It is the first time the US has acknowledged such contact and comes a day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai said peace talks had started. …’There’s been outreach on the part of a number of countries, including the United States,’ Mr Gates told CNN, without naming other countries involved. ‘I would say that these contacts are very preliminary. My own view is that real reconciliation talks are not likely to be able to make any substantive headway until at least this winter.’ ”

 – “Robert Gates Confirms US-Taliban Talks in Afghanistan,” BBC News, June 19, 2011

President Barack “Obama announced Wednesday night [June 22, 2011] that 10,000 U.S. troops would leave Afghanistan this year and all 33,000 forces sent as part of a 2009 surge would return home by the summer of 2012.”

 – “Karzai welcomes U.S. troop withdrawal,” CNN.com, June 23, 2011

Regarding the troop surge he announced in December 2009, President Barack Obama said, in an address to the nation on June 22, 2011: ” ‘We’ve inflicted serious losses on the Taliban and taken a number of its strongholds. Along with our surge, our allies also increased their commitments, which helped stabilize more of the country. Afghan security forces have grown by over 100,000 troops, and in some provinces and municipalities we’ve already begun to transition responsibility for security to the Afghan people. In the face of violence and intimidation, Afghans are fighting and dying for their country, establishing local police forces, opening markets and schools, creating new opportunities for women and girls, and trying to turn the page on decades of war.’ ”

 – Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Little America, Page 326

President Barack Obama addressed the nation on June 22, 2011. Regarding Afghanistan, he said: " '…tonight, we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding.' …'America,' he said, 'it is time to focus on nation building here at home.' "

 – Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Little America, 326

“Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday [June 23, 2011] welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama’s plans for a U.S. troops drawdown and said it’s a sign that Afghanistan is ready to take control of security in the war-torn nation. ‘The number of troops that he has announced to be withdrawn is a sign that Afghanistan is taking over its own security and is trying to defend its territory by its own means,’ Karzai said. ‘So we are happy about the announcement.’ ”

 – “Karzai Welcomes U.S. Troop Withdrawal,” CNN.com, June 23, 2011

“The Taliban has issued a chilling threat to carry out a series of attacks against 10 targets in Britain, American and France to avenge the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. ‘Soon you will see attacks against America and Nato countries, and our first priorities in Europe will be France and Britain,’ deputy Pakistani Taliban leader Wali-ur-Rehman said in a videotape aired on Al Arabiya over the weekend [June 25, 2011]. The Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, which swears allegiance to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, is blamed for many of the suicide bombings across the country and remains highly dangerous despite a series of army offensives against its strongholds in the north-west of the country, on the Afghan border.”

 – “Taliban Issues Chilling Threats Against TEN Targets in UK, U.S. and France to Avenge bin Laden,” Daily Mail, June 28, 2011

“The U.S. military already spends at least $50 billion yearly on ‘expenditures related to oil,’ according to the American Security Project, a bipartisan Washington think tank.”

 – Thom Patterson, “Can One Idea be Energy’s Holy Grail?,” CNN, June 27, 2011

President Barack "Obama's new counterterrorism strategy, released in June [28] 2011, charted a course for the second decade of the war on terror. Bin Laden's recent death and the revolutions sweeping the Middle East, it said, had 'changed the nature of the terrorist threat,' because they had diminished 'the relevance of al-Qa'ida and its ideology.' It called on the United States to keep the pressure on al Qaeda be encouraging responsive government and respect for rights and the rule of law. It would also be important for the United States to dismantle terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, from which al Qaeda continued to husband its strength and plan future attacks."

 – Foreign Affairs, The U.S. vs. al Qaeda, 271

“The cost of U.S. military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will run to at least $3.7 trillion, a study has revealed today [June 29, 2011]. The staggering figure could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, with the deaths of up to 258,000 people, according to research by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. In human terms, 224,000 to 258,000 people have died directly from warfare–including 125,000 civilians in Iraq. Many more have died indirectly, from the loss of clean drinking water, health care and nutrition. Another 365,000 have been wounded and 7.8 million…have been displaced.”

 – “The Cost of U.S. Military Action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will Run to at Least $3.7 Trillion,” Daily Mail, June 29, 2011

“The Afghan government on Wednesday [June 29, 2011] blamed an al Qaeda-linked militant group based in Pakistan for the siege on a Kabul hotel that left 12 victims and all nine attackers dead. The attackers, all of whom were prepared to carry out suicide bombings, were with the Haqqani network, a group of terrorists loyal to the warlord Siraq Haqqani, a spokesman for the Afghanistan Interior Ministry said. …Falak Merzahi, a spokesman for the Afghanistan Interior Ministry, said the attackers came into Afghanistan from Pakistan. …Six of the attackers ended up detonating their explosives; three were shot and killed on the roof of the hotel, Afghan officials said. …A Taliban spokesman claimed the Taliban was behind the attack.”

 – Reza Sayah, Matiullah Mati, Barbara Starr, Larry Shaughnessy, Elise Labott, Jerome Starkey, Fazel Reshad, and Jonathan Boone, “Afghanistan Blames Militant Network for Hotel Siege,” CNN, June 29, 2011

 – Deborah Baum, “Estimated cost of post-9/11 wars: 225,000 lives, up to $4 trillion,” Brown.edu, June 29, 2011

“U.S. officials…have completed an exhaustive review of the trove of bin Laden files collected at his compound after the May 2 [2011] U.S. raid that killed him. …Analysts at the CIA and other agencies are likely to continue poring over the bin Laden files for years. But the multi-agency task force that was set up to review what officials have described as the largest cache of terrorism records recovered to date finished its job and was disbanded last month. ‘We believe the materials will continue to yield new insights on al-Qaeda for years to come,’ said a U.S. counterterrorism official familiar with the task force’s work. ‘But the task force is done.’ ”

 – Greg Miller, “Bin Laden Document Trove Reveals Strain on al-Qaeda,” The Washington Post, July 1, 2011

“A Somali man suspected of assisting al Qaeda was held abroad on a U.S. Navy ship for questioning for over two months without being advised of any legal rights, an [Obama] administration official said. The man, identified as Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, was brought to New York City on July 4 [2011] to face charges in a U.S. criminal court. He appeared in a New York court on Tuesday morning [July 5, 2011] and pleaded not guilty to providing material support to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Somali group Al Shabaab, prosecutors in Manhattan said on Tuesday. Warsame was arrested in April by the U.S. military in the Gulf, he was questioned about anti-terrorism ‘for intelligence purposes for more than two months’ before being read his Miranda rights, the prosecutors said in a statement. …Warsame, said to be in his mid-20s, was indicted on nine charges, including providing material support from at least 2007 to April 2011 to Somali militants al Shabaab and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), two groups designated by Washington as terrorist organizations.”

 – Grant McCool, Basil Katz, and Jeremy Pelofsky, “Somali Man Held Two Months Faces Charges,” Reuters, July 6, 2011

“Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are using more sophisticated weapons than in the past to target U.S. troops and military installations in Iraq, according to senior U.S. officials. James F. Jeffrey, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said Tuesday [July 5, 2011] that fresh forensic testing on weapons used in the latest deadly attacks in the country bolsters assertions by U.S. officials that Iran is supporting Iraqi insurgents with new weapons and training. ‘We’re not talking about a smoking pistol. There is no doubt this is Iranian,’ Jeffrey said in an interview. ‘We’re seeing more lethal weapons, more accurate weapons, more longer-range weapons,’ Jeffrey added. ‘And we’re seeing more sophisticated mobile and other deployment options, and we’re seeing better-trained people.’ In some cases, insurgents made no effort to remove from the weapons identification numbers suggesting that they came from Iran, ‘which in itself is troubling,’ Jeffrey said.”

 – Ed O’ Keefe and Joby Warrick, “Weapons Prove Iranian Role in Iraq, U.S. Says,” The Washington Post, July 5, 2011

“In recent weeks, [U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James F.] Jeffrey and U.S. military officials have blamed three Shiite militia groups–the Promised Day Brigade, Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah–for a wave of violence that resulted in the bloodiest month for U.S. forces here in two years. The groups have been trained and supplied by Iranian Revolutionary Guard special forces, and Iranian special agents have crossed into Iraq to provide some of the training and materials, officials said. Jeffrey provided details of the forensic testing after Gen. Lloyd Austin, commanding general of U.S. forces in Iraq, declined to do so earlier in the day. In a brief exchange, Austin said only that the weapons ‘are coming in from Iran, we’re certain of that.’ ”

 – Ed O’ Keefe and Joby Warrick, “Weapons Prove Iranian Role in Iraq, U.S. Says,” The Washington Post, July 5, 2011

“The U.S. government has warned domestic and international airlines that some terrorists are considering surgically implanting explosives into humans to carry out attacks, The Associated Press has learned. There is no intelligence pointing to a specific plot, but the U.S. shared its concerns last week with executives at domestic and international carriers.”

 – “Alert: Terrorists Look to Implant Bombs in Humans,” Associated Press, July 6, 2011

“On Saturday [July 9, 2011], after meeting in Kabul with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the Pentagon chief [Leon Panetta] told reporters–twice–that 70,000 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan through the end of 2014.”

 – Craig Whitlock, “Panetta: U.S. ‘Within Reach’ of Defeating al-Qaeda,” The Washington Post, July 11, 2011

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta “said that following the killing of Osama Bin Laden, key leaders in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere had been identified and would be targeted. …Speaking to journalists, Mr Panetta revealed that US analysts had determined that following the death of Bin Laden in May, killing or capturing ‘around 10 to 20 key leaders’ of al-Qaeda and its offshoots would cripple the network. ‘We’re within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda,’ he said. ‘The key is that, having gotten Bin Laden, we’ve now identified some of the key leadership within al-Qaeda, both in Pakistan as well as in Yemen and other areas. If we can be successful at going after them, I think we can really undermine their ability to do any kind of planning, to be able to conduct any kind of attack,’ he added. ‘That’s why I think it’s within reach.’ ”

 – “US ‘Within reach of strategic defeat of al-Qaeda,'” BBC News, July 9, 2011

“The Obama administration is suspending and, in some cases, canceling hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the Pakistani military, in a move to chasten Pakistan for expelling American military trainers and to press its army to fight militants more effectively. …Altogether, about $800 million in military aid and equipment, or over one-third of the more than $2 billion in annual American security assistance to Pakistan, could be affected, three senior United States officials said.”

 – Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez, “U.S. Is Deferring Millions in Pakistani Military Aid,” The New York Times, July 9, 2011

“Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday [July 11, 2011] appeared to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq as part of the war against al-Qaeda, an argument controversially made by the Bush administration but refuted by President Obama and many Democrats. Panetta made his remarks during his inaugural visit to Iraq as Pentagon chief. Speaking to about 100 soldiers at Camp Victory, the largest U.S. military installation in Baghdad, he said his primary goal as defense secretary was to defeat al-Qaeda worldwide. ‘The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked,’ Panetta told the troops. ‘And 3,000 Americans–3,000 not just Americans, 3,000 human beings, innocent human beings–got killed because of al-Qaeda. And we’ve been fighting as a result of that.’ His statement… put Panetta at odds with President Obama, the 9/11 Commission and other independent experts, who have said there is no evidence al-Qaeda had a presence in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.”

 – Craig Whitlock, “Panetta: U.S. ‘Within Reach’ of Defeating al-Qaeda,” The Washington Post, July 11, 2011

“A judgment by MI5 [U.K.’s counterintelligence and security agency] and the police that a Mumbai-style attack in the UK is now less likely led to a reduction on Monday [July 11, 2011] of the terrorist threat from ‘severe’ to ‘substantial,’ Whitehall sources have told the Guardian. …The threat level was increased to severe in January 2010 after the failed attempt by the so-called ‘underpants’ bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to bring down a Detroit-bound passenger aircraft. …The change in the official threat assessment–first made public in 2006—means that an attack in Britain is no longer classified as ‘highly likely’ but is instead regarded as ‘a strong possibility.’ Theresa May, the home secretary, said: ‘The change in the threat level to substantial does not mean the overall threat has gone away–there remains a real and serious threat against the United Kingdom.’ …The threat level was last at critical in June 2007, following an attack at Glasgow airport and failed car bombings in central London.”

 – Richard Norton-Taylor and Alan Travis, “MI5 and Police Reduce UK Terror Threat From ‘Severe’ to ‘Substantial,'” The Guardian, July 11, 2011

“The Transportation Security Administration [TSA] has suffered more than 25,000 security breaches in U.S. airports in the past ten years, House subcommittee on National Security chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said today [July 13, 2011]. Chaffetz made the comments during the opening of a hearing on the TSA and Airport Security. Of the 25,000 breaches, more than 14,000 people were able to access sensitive areas of the airport and some 6,000 passengers and carry-on luggage were able to make it past government checkpoints without proper scrutiny. ‘[And] these are just the ones we know about,’ Chaffetz said. …In a statement to ABC News, the TSA said the 25,000 breaches ‘represent a tiny fraction of one percent’ of the billions of passengers screened at the nation’s airports since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. ‘Airports today are safer than ever before,’ the statement said.”

 – Lee Ferran, “25,000 Airport Security Breaches Since 2001: Congress,” ABC News, July 13, 2011

“Osama bin Laden had no plans for terrorist attacks at the time of his death, according to new evidence. The last Al Qaeda attack he was involved in planning was the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005 where he was in close contact with other terrorists. Although bin Laden remained a figure head for extremists, he had little involvement during his final years holed up in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Information found at the hide-out, where the Al Qaeda chief was killed on May 2 [2011] by U.S. troops, suggested that bin Laden also had advance knowledge of several plots that failed. …One official said: ‘Bin Laden was absolutely a detail guy. We have every reason to believe that he was aware of Al Qaeda’s major plots during the planning phase, including the airline plot in 2006 and the London 7/7 attacks.’ ”

 – “How bin Laden Died Dwelling on Past Glories: CIA Reveals He had ‘No Hand in Planning Attacks After 2005 and 7/7 was His Last,'” Daily Mail, July 13, 2011

Regarding the legality of assassinating Osama bin Laden: “Others dispute whether the intelligence [on bin Laden’s whereabouts] was good enough. ‘The problem was the CIA always knew where he was yesterday but not tomorrow,’ argues [former counterterrorism czar] Richard Clarke.”

 – Gordon Corera, “Dead or Alive? US Indecision over Killing Bin Laden,” BBC News, July 15, 2011

Osama "Bin Laden may have been losing his grip on control of the terror group [al Qaeda]. According to other materials in the treasure trove of documents found at his Abottabad [Pakistan] lair during the May 2 [2011] raid, he was often ignored by his henchmen. 'What we found was that he was very isolated, and it is clearly the case he was struggling to continue to hold on to the type of influence and to direct operations in ways he may have been able to do in the past,' a U.S. official said."

 – Amy Oliver and Daniel Bates, “Osama Bin Laden was Planning to Shoot Down Air Force One with Obama Inside,” Daily Mail, July 15, 2011,

In Pakistan, “As of July, 2011, 250 drone strikes have killed between 1,500 and 2,300 people; of those died, only an estimated 33 were known terrorist leaders.” [The 15th of the month used for date-sorting purposes only.]

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 55

“General John Allen today [July 18, 2011] took over command of Western forces in Afghanistan from General David Petraeus in a ceremony in Kabul. The new commander admitted that the international military campaign faced ‘tough days’ ahead, but said he wanted to ‘maintain the momentum of the campaign.’ Petraeus steps down after a mixed one-year stint in charge of the more than 140,000 international troops in the country.”

 – “‘There Will be Tough Days Ahead’: General John Allen Takes the Reins as U.S. Commander in Afghanistan as Petraeus Steps Down,” Daily Mail, July 18, 2011

“Citing ‘significant progress,’ the Department of Homeland Security [DHS] Thursday [July 21, 2011] released a report looking at how far the U.S. has come in the past seven years to fulfilling specific 9/11 Commission recommendations. ‘Over the past decade, we have made great strides to secure our nation against a large attack or disaster, to protect critical infrastructure and cyber networks, and to engage a broader range of Americans in the shared responsibility for security,’ said DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano in a statement released by the department.”

 – Jim Barnett, “DHS Releases Status Report on 9/11 Recommendations, Cites Progress,” CNN, July 21, 2011

“A year-long military-led investigation has concluded that U.S. taxpayer money has been indirectly funneled to the Taliban under a $2.16 billion transportation contract that the United States has funded in part to promote Afghan businesses. The unreleased investigation provides seemingly definitive evidence that corruption puts U.S. transportation money into enemy hands, a finding consistent with previous inquiries carried out by Congress, other federal agencies and the military. Yet U.S. and Afghan efforts to address the problem have been slow and ineffective, and all eight of the trucking firms involved in the work remain on U.S. payroll. …According to a summary of the investigation results…the military found ‘documented, credible evidence…of involvement in a criminal enterprise or support for the enemy’ by four of the eight prime contractors. Investigators also cited cases of profiteering, money laundering and kickbacks to Afghan power brokers, government officials and police officers. Six of the companies were found to have been associated with ‘fraudulent paperwork and behavior.’ ‘This goes beyond our comprehension,’ said Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), who last summer was chairman of a House oversight subcommittee that charged that the military was, in effect, supporting a vast protection racket that paid insurgents and corrupt middlemen to ensure safe passage of the truck convoys that move U.S. military supplies across Afghanistan.”

 – Karen DeYoung, “U.S. Trucking Funds Reach Taliban, Military-Led Investigation Concludes,” The Washington Post, July 24, 2011

“More than 40 Americans have been recruited and radicalised by Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in Somalia and have gone there to fight, it emerged today [July 27, 2011]. The U.S. government has said at least 21 Americans are believed to have travelled to Somalia to join the terror group al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab has expanded its focus over the years and has aligned itself with other anti-Western terror groups, including Al Qaeda. …[Congressman] Mr [Peter] King [R-NY] said al-Shabaab is ‘engaging in an ongoing, successful effort to recruit and radicalise dozens of Muslim-American jihadis, who pose a direct threat to the U.S.’ ”

 – “Al Qaeda-Linked Terror Group ‘Recruits 40 Americans to Fight in Somalia,'” Daily Mail, July 27, 2011

“The United States has accused Iran of providing sanctuary to an al Qaeda network that provides help to jihadists moving between the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. Department of the Treasury Thursday [July 28, 2011] announced the designation of six members of the network, including its alleged leader Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, and described Iran as a ‘critical transit point for funding to support al-Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.’ ‘This network serves as the core pipeline through which al-Qaeda moves money, facilitators and operatives from across the Middle East to South Asia,’ the U.S. Treasury said in a statement. ‘We are illuminating yet another aspect of Iran’s unmatched support for terrorism,’ said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David S. Cohen. ‘Today’s action also seeks to disrupt this key network and deny al-Qaeda’s senior leadership much-needed support.’ ”

 – Tim Lister, “U.S. Accuses Iran of Sheltering al Qaeda Network,” CNN, July 28, 2011

“A top US adviser on Iraq has accused the US military of glossing over an upsurge in violence, just months before its troops are due to be withdrawn. Iraq is more dangerous now than a year ago, said a report issued [on July 30, 2011] by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Stuart W Bowen Junior. He said the killing of US soldiers and senior Iraqi figures, had risen, along with attacks in Baghdad. …’Iraq remains an extraordinarily dangerous place to work,’ Mr Bowen concluded in his quarterly report to Congress. ‘It is less safe, in my judgment, than 12 months ago.’ The report cited the deaths of 15 US soldiers in June [2011]–the bloodiest month for the American military in two years–but also said more Iraqi officials had been assassinated in the past few months than in any other recent period. While the efforts of Iraqi and American forces may have reduced the threat from the Sunni-based insurgency, Shia militias are believed to have become more active, it said.”

 – “Iraq Less Safe Than a Year Ago: US Watchdog,” BBC News, July 30, 2011

“A top-secret document revealing how MI6 [British foreign intelligence service] and MI5 [British domestic security service] officers were allowed to extract information from prisoners being illegally tortured overseas has been seen by the Guardian. The interrogation policy–details of which are believed to be too sensitive to be publicly released at the government inquiry into the UK’s role in torture and rendition–instructed senior intelligence officers to weigh the importance of the information being sought against the amount of pain they expected a prisoner to suffer. It was operated by the British government for almost a decade. A copy of the secret policy showed senior intelligence officers and ministers feared the British public could be at greater risk of a terrorist attack if Islamists became aware of its existence. One section states: ‘If the possibility exists that information will be or has been obtained through the mistreatment of detainees, the negative consequences may include any potential adverse effects on national security if the fact of the agency seeking or accepting information in those circumstances were to be publicly revealed. For instance, it is possible that in some circumstances such a revelation could result in further radicalisation, leading to an increase in the threat from terrorism.’ The policy adds that such a disclosure ‘could result in damage to the reputation of the agencies,’ and that this could undermine their effectiveness.”

 – Ian Cobain, “UK’s Secret Policy on Torture Revealed,” The Guardian, Aug. 4, 2011

“A top-secret document revealing how MI6 [British foreign intelligence service] and MI5 [British domestic security service] officers were allowed to extract information from prisoners being illegally tortured overseas has been seen by the Guardian. …Entitled ‘Agency policy on liaison with overseas security and intelligence services in relation to detainees who may be subject to mistreatment,’ it was given to intelligence officers handing over questions to be put to detainees. …The document set out the international and domestic law on torture, and explained that MI5 and MI6 do not ‘participate in, encourage or condone’ either torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. Intelligence officers were instructed not to carry out any action ‘which it is known’ would result in torture. However, they could proceed when they foresaw ‘a real possibility their actions will result in an individual’s mistreatment’ as long as they first sought assurances from the overseas agency.”

 – Ian Cobain, “UK’s Secret Policy on Torture Revealed,” The Guardian, Aug. 4, 2011

“A judge is allowing an Army veteran who says he was imprisoned unjustly and tortured by the U.S. military in Iraq to sue former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld personally for damages. The veteran’s identity is withheld in court filings, but he worked for an American contracting company as a translator for the Marines in the volatile Anbar province before being detained for nine months at Camp Cropper, a U.S. military facility near the Baghdad airport dedicated to holding ‘high-value’ detainees. The government says he was suspected of helping get classified information to the enemy and helping anti-coalition forces enter Iraq. But he was never charged with a crime and says he never broke the law. …Chicago attorney Mike Kanovitz, who is representing the plaintiff, says it appears the military wanted to keep his client behind bars so he couldn’t tell anyone about an important contact he made with a leading sheik while helping collect intelligence in Iraq. ‘The U.S. government wasn’t ready for the rest of the world to know about it, so they basically put him on ice,’ Kanovitz said in a telephone interview. ‘If you’ve got unchecked power over the citizens, why not use it?’ “

 – Nedra Pickler, “Judge Allows American to Sue Rumsfeld Over Torture,” Associated Press, Aug. 4, 2011

“On August 6 [2011], the Taliban exacted a kind of revenge [for the death of Osama bin Laden] when they shot down a Chinook transport helicopter, killing forty people aboard, including thirty-two U.S. military personnel. It was the largest death toll of Americans in a single day in the war and included seventeen SEALS–some of whom belonged to the SEAL team that had taken down Bin Laden.”

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 11

“A lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of personal responsibility for U.S. forces allegedly torturing two American whistleblowers who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm will be allowed to move forward, a federal appeals court ruled Monday [August 8, 2011]. …Monday’s ruling rejected arguments that Rumsfeld should be immune from such lawsuits for work performed as a Cabinet secretary. The U.S. Supreme Court sets a high bar for those suing a top government official, mandating that they show the acts in question are tied directly to a violation of constitutional rights and that the official clearly understood they were violations. ‘There can be no doubt that the deliberate infliction of such treatment on U.S. citizens, even in a war zone, is unconstitutional,’ U.S. Circuit Judge David Hamilton wrote in Monday’s opinion. …In their lawsuit, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel claim U.S. forces detained them in 2006 after they alleged illegal activities by the Iraqi-owned company they worked for, Shield Group Security. Among the methods of torture used against them during several weeks in military camps was sleep deprivation and a practice known as ‘walling,’ in which subjects are blindfolded and walked into walls, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges Rumsfeld personally participated in approving the methods for use by the U.S. military in Iraq, making Rumsfeld responsible, it argues, for what happened to Vance and Ertel.”

 – “Court Clears Way for Torture Suit Against Rumsfeld,” Agence France-Presse, Aug. 8, 2011

“At least 10,000 firefighters, police officers and civilians exposed to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center have been found to have post-traumatic stress disorder, and in a kind of mass grieving, many of them have yet to recover, according to figures compiled by New York City’s three 9/11 health programs.”

 – Anemona Hartocollis, “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder From 9/11 Still Haunts,” The New York Times, Aug. 9, 2011

From information in an August 12, 2011, article in The New York Times: “According to news reports, the CIA believes that drones have killed six hundred militants but not a single civilian–a claim that is patently unbelievable to any Afghan or Pakistani.”

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 173

In a video that surfaced on August 15, 2011, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri “urged ‘Muslim brothers everywhere’ to continue to target the United States, and to avenge bin Laden’s death. ‘America today is staggering,’ said Zawahiri. ‘Hunt her down wherever you may encounter her. Hunt her down to cut what is left of her corruption’s tail.’ ”

 – Rym Momtaz and Mark Schone, “Zawahiri Celebrates ‘Defeat’ of America in New Video,” ABC News, Oct. 11, 2011

“Al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, has been killed in Pakistan, delivering another major blow to a terrorist group that the US believes to be on the verge of defeat, a senior Barack Obama administration official has claimed. The Libyan national who was the network’s former operational leader, rose up the chain of command after the US killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden during a raid on his Pakistan compound in May. …Rahman was killed on 22 August [2011] in the lawless tribal region of Waziristan in Pakistan, according to the official, who insisted on anonymity.”

 – Matt Apuzzo, “Al-Qaida’s No. 2 Reported Killed by US in Pakistan,” Associated Press, Aug. 27, 2011

“Al Qaeda central has suffered one blow after another this year. Besides the death of Osama bin Laden, drone strikes have taken out several top al Qaeda commanders in Pakistan, most recently Atiyah al Rahman, al Qaeda’s chief of operations [on August 22, 2011]. A senior U.S. counter-terrorism official told CNN that from an operational standpoint the death of al Rahman was a more severe blow to the terrorist organization even than the death of bin Laden.”

 – Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister, “Al Qaeda 2.0: What the Next 10 Years will Bring,” CNN, Sep. 12, 2011

On August 22, 2011, “a U.S. drone missile fired into North Waziristan in Pakistan and killed Al Qaeda’s newly appointed number two, the Libyan-born Atiya abd al-Rahman. He was considered a key aide first to Bin Laden and now to his successor, Ayman al-Zawahri, and his death was a major blow.”

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 11

“…in August [29] 2011, after secret talks had begun with the Americans, [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar admitted for the first time that talks were going on. He said that in the interest of a peaceful Afghanistan, ‘every legitimate option can be considered in order to reach this goal,’ and he accepted that ‘all’ ethnic groups ‘will have participation’ in governing Afghanistan–a clear message to non-Pashtuns.”

 – Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 118