Osama wanted to kill Obama, Petraeus: US official

Updated 1 hour ago

 

WASHINGTON: Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America on the 10th anniversary 9/11, according to documents seized by the US Navy SEAL team when they killed the al Qaeda leader during a raid last May.

Investigators discovered a hit list among the information they found in bin Laden's compound. The documents show the 10th anniversary plot was still in the discussion stage.

US officials say bin Laden and his operations chief talked about who would make up the attack team -- militants who had legitimate passports and other travel documents.

Officials also revealed to ABC News that bin Laden wanted to try to fly a small plane into a sporting event to cause mass casualties.

As far as the discovery of a hit list, officials said that bin Laden's primary target was President Obama.

His plan was to kill the president by shooting down Air Force One or Marine One, more than likely during an overseas trip.

Bin Laden also hoped to kill Gen. David Petraeus, then commander of US forces in Afghanistan the same way, either in a helicopter or fixed wing airplane with a missile or rocket-propelled grenade.

Investigators are also learning more about the travels of bin Laden's couriers, from the thumb drives taken from his compound.

Michael J. Morell, the acting director of the CIA, told his staff that one of their top priorities would be to make sure that neither that plan nor any others were carried out.

Bin Laden mulled 9/11 anniversary attack team: Report

By AFP

Published: July 15, 2011

US officials revealed in the days after the May 2 raid that killed Bin Laden that notebooks and computer files seized in the Navy SEAL operation showed he was bent on more attacks against US and Western targets. PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE

WASHINGTON: Slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and a top lieutenant discussed the make-up of a team of militants to attack the United States on this year’s 10th anniversary of 9/11, a report said Thursday.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed US officials, said the “communications” were recovered from Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad but that there was no evidence the “nascent plot” ever went beyond the planning phase.
“Bin Laden and his operations chief, Attiyah Abd al-Rahman, swapped views about the composition of the attack team, with Bin Laden repeatedly rejecting names that Mr. Rahman suggested,” the report said.
US officials revealed in the days after the May 2 raid that killed Bin Laden that notebooks and computer files seized in the Navy SEAL operation showed he was bent on more attacks against US and Western targets.
Bin Laden wanted to strike at major US cities, including Los Angeles, and to hit trains as well as airplanes, and mentioned key dates such as America’s July 4 Independence Day celebrations and the upcoming 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, they said.

Saddam half-brothers to be executed within a month

By AFP

Published: July 15, 2011

A combo of file pool pictures shows two of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's half-brothers Sabawi Ibrahim (L) and Watban Ibrahim Hassan (R) attending court hearings in Baghdad on June 13, 2006 and July 1, 2004 respectively. Five Saddam-era officials, including two of the late dictator's half-brothers, will be executed within a month after being handed over to Iraqi authorities by the US military, an official said on July 15, 2011. PHOTO: AFP

BAGHDAD: Iraq will execute two of Saddam Hussein’s half-brothers within a month along with three other former regime officials, an official said on Friday, after the five were handed over by the US military.
The group, transferred to Iraqi custody on Thursday morning, was among 206 high-value detainees still being held by American forces ahead of a US military pullout due by the end of the year.
“We received the final 206 Iraqi prisoners being held by US forces, including five senior officials from the former regime,” said justice ministry spokesman Haidar al-Saadi. “They (the five officials) will be executed within one month.
“They include Watban Ibrahim Hassan and Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti,” two half-brothers of former dictator Saddam Hussein.
Also among the group handed over and slated to be executed were former defence minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed and ex-generals Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti and Aziz Saleh Numan.
The five had been sentenced to death in different trials from 2007 to 2011.
“Justice Minister Hassan al-Shammari visited with the presidency council earlier this week and they agreed not to delay the ratification of their condemnation to death,” he said.
“We believe that the council will sign the documents within days and they will be executed within one month.”
Under Iraqi law, all death sentences must be formally approved by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, or by either of his two vice presidents.
The 206 prisoners transferred were being held by US forces at a detention facility on Baghdad’s outskirts, formerly known as Camp Cropper. Although the site was handed over to Iraq on July 15, 2010, American soldiers were charged with holding the group of high-value detainees.
Saadi said that of the larger group, the paperwork for 10 had not yet been completed.
Saddam, who was deposed in a 2003 US-led invasion, himself spent three years in Camp Cropper until his execution on December 2006.
Watban Ibrahim Hassan, a former interior minister, was sentenced to death in March 2009 for his involvement in the 1992 execution of 42 merchants accused of food price speculation. He is the only senior Saddam-era official to have publicly apologised for wrongs committed by the dictator’s Baath party.
Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti, a former chief of Saddam’s intelligence service, was condemned to death in the same trial.
Former defence minister Ahmed and ex-general Tikriti were sentenced to death in June 2007 in connection with the repression of Iraq’s Kurds in the 1987-88 Anfal campaign in which 180,000 died.
Numan received his death sentence last month over the violent suppression of an uprising of Shiite Muslims in south Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War.
“As the Iraqi government gains the ability to hold prisoners requiring higher security standards, they are taking physical custody,” said Colonel Barry Johnson, a US military spokesman.
“All detainees are and have been under their (Iraq’s) legal custody. We only retained physical custody.”
Around 47,000 US soldiers remain stationed in Iraq, with all set to withdraw by the end of the year under a bilateral security pact.