31 Dead, US Helicopter Attacked by Taliban Insurgents

Thirty-one American soldiers have been killed as insurgents shot down a NATO Chinook transport helicopter early Saturday. That one incident made it the deadliest day for U.S. troops since the Afghan war began in 2001.

The service members were on a night-raid mission in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province when a rocket-

propelled grenade, a coalition officer said, brought down their helicopter.

The official said the military does “not have any indication that it was anything other than militant fire that brought the helicopter down.

Of the thirty-one soldiers killed about twenty of them were Navy SEALS, five were Army air crew, and several U.S. airmen. Seven Afghan troops and one interpreter also died when the helicopter went down.

“The numbers are high,” said one official. “It’s a big loss.”

The SEALS were part of the SEAL Team Six, the unit that carried out the raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden. However, none of those killed in the crash were members of the actual SEALs mission that killed bin Laden.

President Obama issued a statement on the tragedy, saying, “My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and loved ones of the Americans who were lost earlier today in Afghanistan.”

“Their deaths are a reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices made by the men and women of our military and their families,” he said.

It is rare for Western helicopters to be taken down by hostile fire; more helicopters are lost to mechanical problems or bad weather.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack and said its fighters had ambushed the American soldiers after learning about the night raid.

Abdul Qayuum Baqizoi, Wardak police chief, said the U.S. strike was aimed at a meeting of insurgent leaders in a really dangerous district.

“This area isn’t even safe for security forces to travel in,” Baqizoi said.

Zabiullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman attested the “martyrdom” of eight Taliban fighters in what was described as a violent fight before shooting the helicopter down.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has not said how the incident occurred and it is not clear if the helicopter incident and raid are connected. Officials are keeping details under-wraps because recovery operations are still in progress. Also body identifications and family notifications are just starting, said a U.S. military official.

ISAF commander Gen. John R. Allen said, “No words describe the sorrow we feel in the wake of this tragic loss. All of those killed in this operation were true heroes who had already given so much in the defense of freedom.”

Targeted night time strikes have been the most successful tactic, and have usually been carried out by U.S. special-operations forces. These night time raids have caused considerable damage to the field-command structure of the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

Pakistan shuts down U.S. 'intelligence fusion' cells

Pakistan also tells the U.S. to cut back its troops in the country, in a move amid deepening mistrust after the U.S. raid to kill Osama bin Laden and a CIA contractor's shooting of two Pakistani men. Joints Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen heads to Pakistan for talks. In a clear sign of Pakistan's deepening mistrust of the United States, Islamabad has told the Obama administration to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the country and has moved to close three military intelligence liaison centers,

setting back American efforts to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries in largely lawless areas bordering Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. The liaison centers, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the United States to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and allied forces. U.S. special operations units have relied on the three facilities, two in Peshawar and one in Quetta, to help coordinate operations on both sides of the border, senior U.S. officials said. The U.S. units are now being withdrawn from all three sites, the officials said, and the centers are being shut down. It wasn't immediately clear whether the steps are permanent. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew Thursday to Pakistan for a hastily arranged meeting with Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the head of the Pakistani army. A Pentagon official said the two will probably discuss Pakistan's demands for a smaller U.S. military presence. The closures, which have not been publicly announced, remove U.S. advisors from the front lines of the war against militant groups in Pakistan. U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus spearheaded the effort to increase the U.S. presence in the border areas two years ago out of frustration with Pakistan's failure to control the militants. The collapse of the effort will probably hinder the Obama administration's efforts to gradually push Pakistan toward conducting ground operations against insurgent strongholds in North Waziristan and elsewhere, U.S. officials said. The Pakistani decision has not affected the CIA's ability to launch missiles from drone aircraft in northwest Pakistan. Those flights, which the CIA has never publicly acknowledged, receive assistance from Pakistan through intelligence channels separate from the fusion centers, current and former officials said. The move to close the three facilities, plus a recent written demand by Pakistan to reduce the number of U.S. military personnel in the country from approximately 200, signals mounting anger in Pakistan over a series of incidents. In January, Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor, shot dead two men in Lahore who he said were attempting to rob him. He was arrested on charges of murder but was released and left the country in mid-March, prompting violent protests in several cities. Soon after, Pakistan ordered several dozen U.S. special operations trainers to leave the country in what U.S. officials believe was retaliation for the Davis case, according to a senior U.S. military officer. Then, on May 2, five U.S. helicopters secretly entered Pakistani airspace and a team of U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden and four others at a compound in Abbottabad, a military garrison city near the capital, Islamabad. The raid deeply embarrassed Pakistan's military and inflamed anti-U.S. sentiment across the country. Javed Hussain, a retired Pakistani brigadier, blamed the decision to close the three intelligence centers on the mistrust that has plagued U.S.-Pakistani relations in recent months. Washington's decision to carry out the raid against Bin Laden without informing Pakistan's security establishment brought that mistrust to a new low, he said. "There is lot of discontent within Pakistan's armed forces with regard to the fact they've done so much in the war on terror, and yet they are not trusted," Hussain said. "Particularly after the Abbottabad raid … the image of the armed forces in the eyes of the people has gone down. And they hold the U.S. responsible." The two intelligence centers in Peshawar were set up in 2009, one with the Pakistani army's 11th Corps and the other with the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which are both headquartered in the city, capital of the troubled Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. The third fusion cell was opened last year at the Pakistani army's 12th Corps headquarters in Quetta, a city long used by Taliban fighters to mount attacks in Afghanistan's southern provinces. U.S. troops have staffed the Quetta facility only intermittently, U.S. officials said. The closures have effectively stopped the U.S. training of the Frontier Corps, a force that American officials had hoped could help halt infiltration of Taliban and other militants into Afghanistan, a senior U.S. military officer said. The Frontier Corps' facility in Peshawar, staffed by a handful of U.S. special operations personnel, was located at Bala Hissar, an old fort, according to a classified U.S. Embassy cable from 2009 that was recently made public by WikiLeaks. The cable, which was first disclosed by Pakistan's Dawn newspaper, hinted at U.S. hopes that special operations teams would be allowed to join the paramilitary units and the Special Services Group, a Pakistani army commando unit, in operations against militants. "We have created Intelligence Fusion cells with embedded U.S. Special Forces with both the SSG and Frontier Corps" at Bala Hissar, Peshawar, the 2009 cable says. "But we have not been given Pakistani military permission to accompany the Pakistani forces on deployments as yet. Through these embeds, we are assisting the Pakistanis [to] collect and coordinate existing intelligence assets." Another U.S. Embassy cable said that a "U.S. Special Operations Command Force" was providing the Frontier Corps with "imagery, target packages and operational planning" in a campaign against Taliban insurgents in Lower Dir, an area of northwest Pakistan considered an insurgent stronghold. In September 2009, then U.S. ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, wrote in another classified message that the fusion cells provided "enhanced capacity to share real-time intelligence with units engaged in counter-insurgency operations" and were "a significant step forward for the Pakistan military." The intelligence fusion cell in Quetta was not nearly as active as the facilities in Peshawar, current and former U.S. officials said. Pakistan has long resisted pressure to intensify operations against Taliban militants in Quetta. The city, capital of Baluchistan, is outside the tribal area, which explains Pakistan's reluctance to permit a permanent U.S. military presence, a U.S. official said. Despite the ongoing tensions, Pakistani authorities have agreed to allow a CIA team to inspect the compound where Bin Laden was killed, according to a U.S. official. The Pakistanis have signaled they will allow U.S. intelligence analysts to examine documents and other material that Pakistani authorities found at the site. A U.S. official briefed on intelligence matters said the reams of documents and electronic data that the SEALs seized at the compound have sparked "dozens" of intelligence investigations and have produced new insights into schisms among Al Qaeda leaders.

Osama Bin Laden: Al-Qaeda releases posthumous message

A recording purported to have been made by Osama Bin Laden shortly before he died has been released by al-Qaeda.

In the message, he praises the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and speaks of a "rare historic opportunity" for Muslims to rise up.

The 12-minute audio message appeared on a video posted on Islamist websites, and has been translated by the US monitoring group SITE intelligence.

Bin Laden was shot dead by US Navy Seals at a Pakistan compound on 1 May.

In the recording, Bin Laden refers to the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt but makes no mention of the uprisings in Syria, Libya and Yemen.

"I think that the winds of change will blow over the entire Muslim world, with permission from Allah," he says.

"There is a serious crossroads before you, and a great and rare historic opportunity to rise up with the Ummah (Muslim community) and to free yourselves from servitude to the desires of the rulers, man-made law, and Western dominance," he also says.

"So, what are you waiting for? Save yourselves and your children, because the opportunity is here".

Al-Qaeda is generally perceived to have been caught off guard by the Arab Spring uprisings that began in January in Tunisia and swiftly followed in Egypt - toppling the long-time leaders of both countries.

Analysts say that while both al-Qaeda and the West back the uprisings sweeping across several Arab nations, they seek very different outcomes. The West hopes they will lead to democratic reforms, while al-Qaeda wants to see new governments based on their interpretation of Islamic law.

Navy SEALs forgot to bring a tape measure

The odds that Osama bin Laden was the mysterious figure seen walking around the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan were estimated by U.S. intelligence at between 60 and 80 percent. When the Navy SEALs shot the tall figure on the upper floor of the compound, fatally hitting him in the chest and near his right eye, the next step was to get a positive ID. They planned to use several reference points, including facial recognition and eventually DNA when the body was transported back to Bagram airbasein Afghanistan.

Another measurement was to determine the height of the corpse. Bin Laden is listed on his FBI most wanted poster as being between 6-feet 4-inches and 6-feet 6-inches and weighing about 160 pounds.

Special Section: The Killing of Osama bin Laden

However, the heavily-armed, electronically wired SEALs didn't come with a tape measure to get an accurate height reading. According to reports, a Navy SEAL of about 6-feet laid out next to bin Laden's corpse to gauge the Al Qaeda leader's height. The corpse was several inches taller.

The Washington Post's legendary reporter Bob Woodward came up with some inside the Situation Room conversation while the raid was underway and the president and his team were watching a muted feed of the action.

After Mr. Obama learned of the improvised height measurement technique, he reportedly said, "We donated a $60 million helicopter to this operation. Could we not afford to buy a tape measure?"

The helicopter in his remark was the stealth technology-outfitted bird that crash-landed as the raid began and had to be destroyed by the SEALs.

Woodward also learned that bin Laden was named "the Pacer" as the intelligence gathering proceeded. Satellite imagery showed a person walking in the compound daily, but the face and exact height of the pacer were not identifiable.

In addition, Woodward learned some specifics about the phone call by the courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti that led U.S. intelligence to bin Laden's Abbottabad lair. Speaking to a friend as the U.S. was recording the conversation, al-Kuwaiti said, "I'm back with the people I was with before."

U.S. officials combing data from bin Laden compound, Holder says

Attorney General Eric Holder predicted Wednesday more names will be added to U.S. terrorist watch lists as law enforcement agencies review the evidence gathered in Pakistan after the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound on Monday.

"The material that was seized from that residence is being reviewed by an inter-agency team: CIA, Justice, other intelligence agencies, other law enforcement agencies are contributing people and machines to go through that material. As we glean information from that material, we will make appropriate decisions with regard to who might we add to the terrorist watch list, the No Fly list, all those things," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, asked, "You expect you probably will add people as a result of what you got?"

Holder replied, "My guess is that we probably will."

The attorney general also told lawmakers the Justice Department is looking at the possibilities of retaliation from terrorists in the short term.

"I had a conference call with all of the United States attorneys, I believe on Tuesday maybe on Monday, going through with them 'think steps' that we wanted them to take, making sure they as well as all the federal investigative agencies, were on their toes and being mindful of the fact that this is a difficult time for this nation after the death of bin Laden," Holder said.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also told Congress Wednesday a "number of actions" have been taken in response to the killing of bin Laden, among them "surging some resources" to U.S. ports, airports and borders.

"These include issuing advisories to fusion center directors, Homeland Security advisers, major city chief intelligence commanders, private sector critical infrastructure owners and operators and other law enforcement entities. We are and have been reviewing all open cases of potential al Qaeda core, AQAP (al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) and AQIM (al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) operatives possibly in the U.S. in conjunction with the FBI," she said at a Senate hearing.

"We are continuing to strengthen our recurrent vetting for visa, asylum and other benefit applicants and recipients in cooperation with the intel community. We are deploying additional officers to non-secured areas at our large airports, the so called category X airports and we are providing additional info to all air carriers," Napolitano added.

Sen. Joe Leiberman, the Connecticut Independent who is chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, asked Napolitano about the data removed by the Navy SEALs from the bin Laden compound. "I assume that as this material is gone over, anything related to Homeland Security will be shared immediately with your department?" he asked. Napolitano responded, "It is being shared (already)."

The new National Terrorism Advisory System, which replaced the color-coded terrorist threat alert last month, has not been changed in the aftermath of last weekend's raid and recovery of computers, hard drives, DVDs, thumb drives and storage devices.

"Right now, we do not have any specific or credible intel that would lead us to issue an alert under this new system, realizing that under this new system the baseline is already elevated," Napolitano said. "In other words, the baseline assumes a continuing and evolving terrorist threat against the United States. We continue to review on an ongoing basis all materials seized during the operation as well as new intel that may be coming in, and I stand ready to issue an alert should intel or information emerge that warrants it under the advisory, the new advisory system," she added.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, questioned the purpose of the new system. "If we're always on the same constant level of alert, that just degrades over time. Again, I'm just kind of scratching my head," he said.

Napolitano responded, "If I might, senator. That was the problem with the color code, because we were always at orange and nobody paid any attention. The purpose of the advisory, in my view, is to communicate facts and information so people know what to do. So if we elevate the advisory it will be followed by information, what are the facts that we can disclose, what can people do to protect themselves and their families, where can people go to get updated information, how can people help us help them. So it's not just to be alert.

"We are always on alert, that's the elevated base, but now we would be providing additional facts based on the intel we receive that tells people what to do."

It's a post-bin Laden world. Now what?

Terrorism still exists, and America and its allies will still be a target. That doesn't change the fact that in the post-9/11 world, we are now entering a completely new phase, the post-bin Laden one. The death at the hands of U.S. Navy Seals in Pakistan is important -- it is not an end, but it is a significant change in the "War on Terror" we've been engaged in since 2001.

Two issues most immediately surfaced after the killing. And it was a significant one:

Osama bin Laden was the world's most notorious terrorist mastermind -- the head of al Qaeda, a charismatic recruiter, and the man most able to inspire those who would fund that organization. He still had the potential to bring great harm to innocent people all over the world.

The knowledge that bin Laden was not dwelling in some uncomfortable cave in a tribal area of Pakistan -- long the suspicion -- gave a lot of people pause. His comfortable compound and its location make the belief that Pakistan's government, or some within it, were clueless as to his location seem implausible.

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., told MSNBC on Tuesday that the aid received by Pakistan by the United States -- an estimated $3 billion a year -- could become conditional if that rather complicated ally isn't more "forthcoming" with our intelligence agencies. Udall serves on both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee.

It's worth noting, too, that the boots on the ground in Afghanistan are also an extremely risky, expensive endeavor. And while a vast network of intelligence found bin Laden's lair, a very small team of well-trained Seals took him out. The justification for war in Afghanistan is all but vanished.

President Barack Obama told the "60 Minutes" broadcast -- portions of which aired Wednesday night -- that his administration has decided not to release the gory photographs of bin Laden after he had been shot to death. The rest of the interview will air on Sunday, one week after the stunning U.S. commando-style raid in Pakistan.

"It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence. As a propaganda tool. You know, that's not who we are ... And -- I think that given the -- the graphic nature of these photos -- it would -- create some national security risk," he said.

We applaud this decision, as using the gory image of bin Laden -- considered a martyr by many already -- is not something the world needs. Nor do we want to see it emblazoned on the T-shirts of anyone swept up in jubilation over the death, rather than just somber relief.

Of course, conspiracy theorists have had their fires stoked by the president's birth certificate of late, so we've heard many cries to show the photos just to shut them up.

That was answered best by House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) on Wednesday. "The risks of release outweigh the benefits," Rogers said in a prepared statement. "Conspiracy theorists around the world will just claim the photos are doctored anyway."