Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). US District Judge Lewis Kaplan imposes the maximum sentence. In November 2010, Ghailani was convicted of conspiracy to destroy buildings or property of the United States. The verdict included a special finding that his conduct caused at least one death. But this was only one of the 285 charges against him, and he was acquitted of 273 counts of murder or attempted murder. Ghailani was captured in Pakistan in 2004 (see July 25-29, 2004), kept in the CIA’s secret prison system, and then was held in the US prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, starting in late 2006 (see September 2-3, 2006). He was transferred to the mainland of the US in 2009. He was the first former Guantanamo prison to be tried in a US civilian court, and his trial has been widely seen as a test case on whether other prisoners held outside the US legal system should be tried in US courts. Critics argue that Ghailani’s verdict shows the other prisoners still in Guantanamo should be tried in military tribunals there. But others point to the verdict as an example of the fairness of the US justice system. Prosecutors had been seeking life in prison for Ghailani, and that is the sentence he ultimately receives, even though he is only convicted of one count. His defense lawyers didn’t try to argue that Ghailani had no role in the embassy bombings, but instead argued that he was duped by other people and didn’t really know what he was doing. [Christian Science Monitor, 1/25/2011]
Mid-February 2011: US Leaders Decide Intelligence on Hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Is Good Enough for Action
By mid-February 2011, top US officials are convinced that a “high-value target” is hiding in the recently discovered compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan (see August 2010-May 2, 2011). If Osama bin Laden is not hiding there, someone nearly as important is. Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan will later say: “They were confident and their confidence was growing: ‘This is different. This intelligence case is different. What we see in this compound is different than anything we’ve ever seen before.‘… I was confident that we had the basis to take action.” President Obama decides he wants to take action. However, Obama still has to decide what to do exactly. The situation is a difficult one, because the compound is located deep inside Pakistan. He and his advisers will discuss options later in the month (see February 25, 2011). [Associated Press, 5/2/2011]
February 25, 2011: US Leaders Discuss Intelligence on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad Compound
A meeting about Osama bin Laden’s possible hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan (see 2003-Late 2005 and January 22, 2004-2005), is held at CIA headquarters. The attendees include commander of Joint Special Operations Command Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers, vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General James Cartwright, CIA Director Leon Panetta, and other senior CIA officials. They meet around a large and highly accurate scale model of the suspect Abbottabad compound built by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency from satellite imagery. They discuss the intelligence about the compound and possible courses of action. Three choices of action are discussed: a Stealth bomber bomb strike; a Special Forces helicopter raid; and a joint operation raid with the Pakistani government. Analysts have concluded that there is a high-value target in the compound (which is now called Abbottabad Compound One, or AC1), and there is a strong possibility that the target is bin Laden. However, it is also possible the target could be someone else important like al-Qaeda number two leader Ayman al-Zawahiri or top Taliban leader Mullah Omar, or bin Laden’s family could be there without him. To be more certain, a “red team” analysis is ordered, which means that analysts so far unaware of the compound are given the evidence and asked to critically appraise it. [Wall Street Journal, 5/23/2011; ABC News, 6/9/2011] Three months later, a US strike force will assault the compound and kill bin Laden (see May 2, 2011).
March 14, 2011: Obama Narrows Options on Plan to Raid Bin Laden’s Abbottabad Hideout
President Obama heads a National Security Council meeting to discuss possible courses of action against Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Obama is presented with three basic courses of action that he can take:
Bombing Option – One is to have B-2 stealth bombers drop a few dozen 2,000-pound guided bombs on the compound. The stealth bombers would bomb the compound thoroughly to make sure bin Laden was killed, that all of the people in the compound, including women and children, would be killed, and many neighbors would probably be killed as well. The odds are good that nothing would remain of bin Laden, so it would be unlikely to find any of his DNA to firmly conclude he was killed.
Special Forces Option – The other is to have US Special Forces arrive by helicopter and then assault the compound on the ground. This is considered the riskier option, because many things could go wrong and US soldiers could be killed. As ABC News will later comment: “The helicopters could be detected coming in. Bin Laden might be warned a few minutes out, and he could go into a hole, escape, set off a suicide vest, set a booby-trap bomb, prepare for a firefight.”
Pakistani Government Participation – Another option is a joint raid with Pakistani government forces. The US and Pakistan have successfully worked together on high-profile captures in the past, such as the capture of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Pakistan in 2003 (see February 29 or March 1, 2003). However, in recent years, the US has stopped giving the Pakistani government advanced warning about the targets of drone strikes on militant leaders in Pakistan’s tribal region, because of incidents where it appeared the targets were tipped off.
No Final Decision Yet – Obama decides not to involve Pakistan in the raid or even warn it in advance. He does not make up his mind between the remaining two options, the bombing raid and the Special Forces raid. He tells his advisers to act quickly with further preparations on both. He also rules out using more invasive measures to gather better intelligence on the compound, figuring that the potential gain is not worth the risk of discovery. [New York Times, 5/2/2011; Wall Street Journal, 5/23/2011; ABC News, 6/9/2011]
March 29, 2011: President Obama Prefers Special Forces to Raid Bin Laden’s Abbottabad Hideout
President Obama meets again with the National Security Council to decide how to act on intelligence that Osama bin Laden is probably hiding in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan (see 2003-Late 2005 and January 22, 2004-2005). Two weeks earlier, he had narrowed down the options to two: bomb the compound with stealth bombers and thus completely destroy it, or send in US Special Forces by helicopter and kill bin Laden with a ground assault (see March 14, 2011). Since that meeting, CIA analysts have been unable to rule out the possibility that there is a tunnel network under the compound. To be sure tunnels could not be used to escape, the amount of bombing on the compound would need to be greatly increased. At least one nearby house would be in the blast radius and probably a dozen or so neighbors would be killed. Furthermore, the heavy bombing would make it even less likely that DNA evidence could be acquired to prove that bin Laden had been killed. By the end of the meeting, Obama rules out the bombing option, leaving only the Special Forces helicopter raid option. He tells Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven, commander of Joint Special Operations Command, to come back to him by April 18 with a more detailed helicopter raid plan and an opinion on how likely such a plan would be successful. [New York Times, 5/2/2011; Wall Street Journal, 5/23/2011; ABC News, 6/9/2011] Five weeks later, a US strike force will assault the compound and kill bin Laden (see May 2, 2011).
March 30-April 19, 2011: US Special Forces Prepare for Raid on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad Hideout
The US military prepares a Special Forces helicopter raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan (see 2003-Late 2005 and January 22, 2004-2005). On March 29, President Obama tasked Navy Vice Admiral William McRaven, commander of Joint Special Operations Command, with preparing the raid (see March 29, 2011). McRaven picks members of Red Squadron, one of four squads on Navy SEAL Team Six, to take part in the raid. The team members chosen have relevant language experience and are veterans of secret operations into Pakistan. On April 7 and April 13, the SEALs stage two rehearsals in the US on a replica of the compound. The participants still do not know the target of the planned raid. On April 19, McRaven briefs President Obama on how the plan is developing (see April 19, 2011). [New York Times, 5/2/2011; Wall Street Journal, 5/23/2011; ABC News, 6/9/2011] Less than a month later, the strike force will assault the compound and kill bin Laden (see May 2, 2011).
March 30, 2011: Key Militant Arrest in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Is Made Public; Bin Laden Does Not Move
The Associated Press makes public for the first time the arrest of an Indonesian militant named Umar Patek in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on January 25, 2011. It will later turn out that Osama bin Laden is in hiding in Abbottabad at this time, and Patek may have been there to meet with him (see January 25, 2011). The Associated Press claims that the information was provided by Indonesian and Philippine intelligence officials one day earlier, and then it was confirmed by Pakistani officials before publication. [Associated Press, 3/30/2011] News reports two weeks later even reveal that an “alleged al-Qaeda facilitator” and Abbottabad resident named Tahir Shehzad was arrested as well, after he gave up Patek’s location. Plus, it is reported that Shehzad had been monitored by Pakistani intelligence for a year before that. [Associated Press, 4/14/2011; Associated Press, 4/14/2011]
Who Is to Blame? – Bin Laden does not immediately move from Abbottabad after these reports come out. After he is killed in May 2011 (see May 2, 2011), the Pakistani government will register displeasure that Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd confirmed the information about the arrest on March 30. But Rudd’s confirmation comes after the Associated Press article has been published. A Pakistani official will say that an attempt was made to keep the arrest a secret for fear that “subsequent leads would all go dead.”
No Reaction from Bin Laden? – The Australian will later note, “Many security experts have… expressed surprise that the leaking of Patek’s arrest in Abbottabad did not trigger alarm bells in the bin Laden compound and prompt [bin Laden] to flee the area.” [Australian, 5/6/2011]
April 10, 2011: Congressperson Rohrabacher: Pakistan Played US ‘for Suckers All Along’
Congressperson Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) is quoted as saying that he now realizes the Pakistani government has been “playing [the US] for suckers all along.… I used to be Pakistan’s best friend on the Hill but I now consider Pakistan to be an unfriendly country to the US. Pakistan has literally been getting away with murder and when you tie that with the realization that they went ahead and used their scarce resources to build nuclear weapons, it is perhaps the most frightening of all the things that have been going on over the last few years. We were snookered. For a long time we bought into this vision that Pakistan’s military was a moderate force and we were supporting moderates by supporting the military. In fact, [its] military is in alliance with radical militants. Just because they shave their beards and look Western they fooled a lot of people.” [London Times, 4/10/2011] Rohrabacher has been dealing with Pakistan as a congressperson since the 1980s, and even visited the mujahedeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1988 (see September 9, 2001).
April 11, 2011: Heads of CIA and ISI Meet to Cool Tensions between US and Pakistan
CIA Director Leon Panetta meets with Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency. The meeting, at CIA headquarters, is meant to help repair relations between tUS and Pakistan. A CIA contractor named Raymond Davis caused a major diplomatic crisis after he shot and killed two Pakistanis in disputed circumstances. He was held in Pakistan for two months and released on March 16. Pasha asks Panetta to be more forthcoming about what the CIA is doing in Pakistan. Panetta promises to respond to Pasha’s concerns. But at the time, the US government is secretly planning to raid Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan (see March 30-April 19, 2011), and Panetta does not say a word about this. His goal is to appease Pasha so relations with Pakistan will be improved by the time the bin Laden raid takes place. [Wall Street Journal, 5/23/2011] Bin Laden will be killed less than a month later (see May 2, 2011).
April 14, 2011: Imam to 9/11 Hijackers’ Hamburg Cell Is Pardoned in Morocco
Mohammed Fazazi, the imam to some of the 9/11 hijackers in Hamburg, Germany, is freed in Morocco as part of a larger pardon of prisoners. Fazazi was the imam at the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg, Germany, in the 1990s up until not long before the 9/11 attacks (see 1993-Late 2001). Most of the al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg, including 9/11 hijackers like Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, frequently attended that mosque. Later, Fazazi was convicted in Morocco for a role in the 2003 Casablanca bombings and sentenced to 30 years in prison (see May 16, 2003). In April 2011, Morocco’s King Mohammed VI pardons or reduces the sentences of 190 prisoners, most of them allegedly linked to Islamist militancy. The move is believed to be in response to increased pressure for political reform and openness. After his release, Fazazi says he used to preach jihad, but he no longer supports violent attacks. He claims he never knew any of the 9/11 hijackers or their plans, and he denies having any connection to the Casablanca bombings. [New York Times, 4/27/2011]
