Tribe seeks apology for code name
The leader of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe is asking President Barack Obama for a formal apology for the government's use of the code name "Geronimo" for Osama bin Laden.
Tribal Chairman Jeff Houser sent a letter to the president Tuesday, saying equating the legendary Apache warrior to a "mass murderer and cowardly terrorist" was painful and offensive to all Native Americans.
The letter was posted Wednesday morning on the Oklahoma tribe's website.
"Right now Native American children all over this country are facing the reality of having one of their most revered figures being connected to a terrorist and murderer of thousands of innocent Americans," Houser wrote. "Think about how they feel at this point."
Houser noted Obama was elected on a message of compassion and change. Forever linking the memory of Geronimo to "one of the most despicable enemies this country has ever had" shows neither compassion to Native Americans nor change in perception of Indians or their struggle, he said.
The White House referred questions on the matter to the U.S. Defense Department, which said no disrespect was meant to Native Americans.
The department wouldn't elaborate but said code names typically are chosen randomly so those working on a mission can communicate without divulging any information to adversaries
Meanwhile, news about the code name spread quickly across Indian Country and on social network sites, resulting in a groundswell of criticism against the U.S. government. Other tribes and tribal leaders issued statements of disapproval, while countless Facebook and Twitter users chimed in, some using historical photos of the Apache leader for their profile pictures.
Geronimo is a legend among Apaches and other Indian tribes for the fierce fighting he brought on during the 19th century as he tried to protect his land, his people and their way of life from encroachment by U.S. and Mexican armies.
Stories have been passed down about the Chiricahua Apache leader being able to walk without leaving footprints, helping him evade the thousands of soldiers and scouts who spent years looking for him throughout the Southwest.
In his letter, Houser told Obama that his tribe _ like the rest of the nation _ was ecstatic about learning of bin Laden's death during a raid in Pakistan. But those feelings were tempered as details about the code name emerged.
"Unlike the coward Osama bin Laden, Geronimo faced his enemy in numerous battles and engagements," Houser wrote. "He is perhaps one of the greatest symbols of Native American resistance in the history of the United States."
Geronimo was born in 1829 in what would later become the state of New Mexico. Aside from leading resistance efforts for his people, he was also known as a spiritual leader.
After the families of Geronimo and other Apache warriors were captured and sent to Florida, he and 35 warriors surrendered to Gen. Nelson A. Miles near the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1886.
Geronimo eventually was sent to Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where he died of pneumonia in 1909 after nearly 23 years of captivity. He was buried in the Fort Sill Apache prisoner of war cemetery.
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Many Indians irked but not surprised by code name
Geronimo was known as a legendary Apache warrior whose ability to walk without leaving footprints allowed him to evade thousands of Mexican and U.S. soldiers, much like Osama bin Laden evaded capture for the past decade.
But for Native Americans, there's an important difference: Geronimo was a hero _ not a terrorist.
So to them, the U.S. military's use of the revered leader's moniker as a code name for bin Laden was appalling _ a slap in the face that prompted statements of disapproval from tribal leaders, a flurry of angry comments on social network sites and a letter from the leader of Geronimo's tribe asking President Barack Obama to apologize.
Many Native Americans also say that while they are angered, they are not surprised. They say the code name is yet another insult in a long, tumultuous history with the federal government.
"We've been oppressed for so long, it just doesn't matter anymore," said Leon Curley, a Navajo and Marine veteran from Gallup, N.M. "The government does what it wants when it wants. The name calling is going to stay around forever. But when you think about it, this is an insult."
Even Jeff Houser, chairman of Geronimo's Fort Sill Apache Tribe, noted in his letter to Obama that the decision behind the code name was based not in malice, but an ongoing cultural disconnect.
"We are quite certain that the use of the name Geronimo as a code for Osama bin Laden was based on misunderstood and misconceived historical perspectives of Geronimo and his armed struggle against the United States and Mexican governments," Houser wrote.
"However, to equate Geronimo or any other Native American figure with Osama bin Laden, a mass murderer and cowardly terrorist, is painful and offensive to our Tribe and to all Native Americans."
The White House referred questions on the matter to the U.S. Defense Department, which said no disrespect was meant to Native Americans.
The department wouldn't elaborate on the use of Geronimo's name but said code names typically are chosen randomly and allow those working on a mission to communicate without divulging information to adversaries.
The U.S. military has a long tradition of naming weapons and helicopters after American Indian tribes, chiefs and artifacts, a policy that became official with a 1969 Army regulation. The rule was later rescinded, but a 2009 Army Times article said the tradition continues today "as a way to honor America's war fighter heritage."
The military also has a history with the word "Geronimo" _ American paratroopers in World War II started using it as a war cry in the early 1940s. It's possible they picked up the term from the Paramount Pictures movie "Geronimo!" _ about a West Point grad and his Army regiment's attempt to capture the warrior _ which was released around the same time.
The reason behind the name's use in the bin Laden raid has been the subject of much speculation.
Some think it's because the al-Qaida leader, like Geronimo, was able to elude capture for so many years. Others say it's because the government considered both men terrorists, and some have suggested the guerrilla-style raid on bin Laden's compound was reflective of the Apache's fighting techniques.
Louis Maynahonah, a Navy veteran and chairman of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, said he doesn't believe the code name was meant to be derogatory. He pointed to the name's use as a paratrooper war cry and to the fleets of military aircraft named after Indian tribes, including the Apache helicopter.
"It's symbolic to me of the Army at the time trying to capture Geronimo," he said of the code name. "They had a heck of time because he used to slip back across the Mexican border. This bin Laden has been slipping from us for 10 years."
Whatever the reason behind it, many in Indian Country say the code name was simply a bad choice that reopened old wounds.
"The name Geronimo is arguably the most recognized Native American name in the world, and this comparison only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes about our peoples," the Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs said in a statement issued Tuesday.
"The U.S. military leadership should have known better," the chiefs said.
Morning Star Gali, a member of the Pit River Tribe in California, agreed. Part of Gali's family is descended from Geronimo's tribe, and she has made it a point to share that history with her three young children.
"We definitely try to instill who our heroes were and who Geronimo was and what he represented to our people and the sacrifices and struggles that they made for us to be here today," said Gali, a community liaison coordinator with the International Indian Treaty Council.
Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly said he would like to see the Obama administration and the Pentagon change the code name "so that U.S. history books will not continue to portray negative stereotypes of Native Americans and that America's youth will remember Geronimo as one of our greatest war heroes."
Geronimo is a legend among Apaches and other tribes for the fierce fighting he brought on during the 19th century as he tried to protect his land, his people and their way of life from encroachment by U.S. and Mexican armies.
Stories have been passed down about the Apache leader's ability to walk without leaving footprints, which helped him evade the thousands of soldiers and scouts who spent years looking for him throughout the Southwest.
After the families of Geronimo and other warriors were captured and sent to Florida, he and 35 warriors surrendered to Gen. Nelson A. Miles near the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1886. Geronimo eventually was sent to Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where he died of pneumonia in 1909.
Some Indian leaders say the attention should not be placed on bin Laden but rather on the men and women _ including the many Native Americans _ who are serving in the armed forces in the Middle East.
The Onondaga Nation chiefs and the Navajos described the military record of Native Americans as exemplary. They pointed to the sheer number of American Indian soldiers as well as the code talkers who used their Native languages to develop an unbreakable code during World War II.
Jefferson Keel, an Army veteran and president of the National Congress of American Indians, said that since 2001, 61 American Indians and Alaskan Natives have died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and more than 400 have been wounded.
"Let's be very clear about what is important here," Keel said in a statement. "The successful removal of Osama bin Laden as a threat to the United States honors the sacrifice these Native warriors made for the United States and their people."
He added it was his understanding that bin Laden's code name was "Jackpot," while the operation was called Geronimo. Regardless, associating a Native warrior with bin Laden "undermines the military service of Native people," he said.
The U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee is expected to discuss the code name issue at its oversight hearing Thursday on the impact of racial stereotypes.
Gali hopes the panel presses for remedies, including an apology from the government.
"There are a number of steps that can be taken," she said. "Racism is very ingrained, and there's a long way to go to be able to make it right."
Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.
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New Mexico trial begins in swastika branding case
A man charged with branding a Nazi symbol into the arm of a developmentally disabled Navajo man is to be the first of three defendants to go on trial in the New Mexico case.
State prosecutors have charged William Hatch, 29, with first-degree felony kidnapping, felony conspiracy to commit kidnapping and aggravated battery causing great bodily harm. His trial in Aztec started Wednesday with jury selection.
The Farmington Daily Times reports two other defendants, Paul Beebe, 27, and Jesse Sanford, 25, also face trial in state district court for the April 2010 attack on the 22-year-old man.
The trio branded a swastika onto his arm, shaved the symbol on the back of his head and scrawled messages and images on his body with markers, authorities said.
The three men also face federal charges in the case. They were indicted last November, becoming the first people in the nation to be charged under a new law that makes it easier for the federal government to prosecute people for hate crimes.
Deut 28:50- A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young:
Deut 28:37- And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee.
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Feds suing more abortion activists
The Justice Department under President Barack Obama has taken a harder line against anti-abortion activists accused of trying to block access to clinics, suing at least a half-dozen of them under a federal law that lay mostly dormant during the Bush administration.
The law, written to protect people who seek or provide abortions, was revived after Obama took office and in the wake of the 2009 slaying of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, who was shot to death moments before Sunday services were to begin at his Wichita church.
Since Obama's inauguration, federal lawsuits have been filed against a woman who blocked a car from entering a clinic in West Palm Beach, Fla.; a Texas man who threw his body across the door of a patient waiting area in San Antonio; and a Pennsylvania man who posted on the Internet the names and addresses of abortion providers and extolled his readers to kill them.
Government records obtained by The Associated Press show that in slightly over two years, the Obama Justice Department has filed six lawsuits under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, mostly to seek injunctions and fines. That compares with just one such lawsuit during the entire eight years of George W. Bush.
Tiller's slaying "brought home to many of us the terrible potential for violence and the need to use every legal means at our disposal to prevent it," said Barry Grissom, U.S. attorney for Kansas.
President Bill Clinton signed the law in 1994 after a turbulent period that included massive sit-ins at clinics, clinic bombings and other anti-abortion activities that culminated with Tiller being wounded in a 1993 shooting. The Clinton Justice Department subsequently filed 17 civil lawsuits under the law during his remaining term.
Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who follows the federal judiciary, said Justice Department decisions usually mirror the president's views. He was not surprised to see the government acting more aggressively.
"I think President Bush was pretty clear about his position on that type of issue," Tobias said. "It is less clear what the present administration's position is, but maybe it is partly reflected in their willingness to be more rigorous about enforcing it."
Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, has said protecting abortion providers so they can do their jobs is of the "utmost importance."
The Justice Department "will continue to aggressively enforce the FACE Act against those who seek to violate the rights of their fellow Americans to safely provide or obtain such services," Perez said in announcing the Kansas lawsuit.
The figures do not include criminal prosecutions, which have been more consistent from one White House to the next during the early years of the Bush and Obama administrations.
The law was heavily used in the years immediately after it took effect. During President Bill Clinton's two terms, 37 criminal prosecutions were filed, compared with 18 under Bush and six under Obama. Since the law was enacted, the Justice Department has filed criminal cases against a total of 89 defendants, convicting 86 of them.
In civil court, one of the latest cases is a Kansas lawsuit filed last month against an abortion opponent who allegedly sent a threatening letter to a doctor. The government sued Angel Dillard when she wrote that thousands of people across the nation where watching the doctor and suggested she check under her car daily for explosives.
Citing First Amendment protections, Judge J. Thomas Marten ruled that Dillard's letter was not a "true threat" because she did not personally intend to harm the doctor. He refused to issue a preliminary injunction that would have kept her 250 feet away from the doctor, her clinic and her home.
The lawsuit is still pending while the judge awaits arguments on whether to dismiss the case entirely.
Grissom has said the Justice Department pursued a civil case against Dillard _ rather than criminal charges _ because the legal standard needed for a preliminary injunction is lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt," which is required for a criminal conviction.
In the Pennsylvania Internet case, the government obtained a court order that prohibits the defendant from posting threats against the doctors. The other recent civil cases remain to be resolved.
The sole civil lawsuit filed under the statute during the Bush years was a 2007 complaint against a separate Pennsylvania man who made similar threats on his website.
Hans von Spakovsky was counsel to the assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's civil rights division from 2001 to 2005. He said the fact that the Bush administration filed lots of criminal cases under the clinic law is evidence that the agency was willing to prosecute when the situation deserved it.
Von Spakovsky, now manager of the Civil Rights Reform Initiative for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the Justice Department's decision under Obama to bring numerous civil lawsuits raises two issues: It brings up First Amendment questions because some protests are protected speech. And it suggests authorities are pursuing civil action "because they know they don't have the evidence" to file criminal charges.
Anti-abortion activists harbor the same doubts.
"You don't just go around filing injunctions against people that you believe are proponents of violence," Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said. "Domestic violence cases have proven that little injunctions don't stop people from committing acts of violence. ... They are pretty weak cases all around the country."
Newman _ who along with other defendants was sued in 1998 for blockading a Washington, D.C., clinic _ said that if the Justice Department is serious about stopping abortion violence it should file criminal charges under more broadly written criminal statutes, rather than using an act that specifically targets abortion activists.
Kathy Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, a women's advocacy group that works to protect abortion rights, said the Justice Department needs to do more, given the heightened level of threats now against abortion providers since Obama's 2008 election.
The lawsuits "send a very strong message that extremists are not going to be able to make threats, much less carry out threats, without consequences," Spillar said. "The sooner and more diligent the response, then you don't get a ratcheting up and ultimately a horrific act of violence."
During the Bush years, Congress heard considerable testimony suggesting that the Justice Department _ particularly its civil rights division _ was highly politicized, Tobias recalled.
"I suppose other people would say that in fairness to the other side ... that the Obama administration is just as politicized in its Justice Department as the Bush one was," he said. "That is a fair criticism, I think. All the administrations have different priorities."
Ex 1:15- And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one [was] Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:
Ex 1:16- And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see [them] upon the stools; if it [be] a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it [be] a daughter, then she shall live.
Ex 1:17- But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.
Ex 1:18- And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?
Ex 1:19- And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women [are] not as the Egyptian women; for they [are] lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.
Ex 1:22- And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.
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Egypt Muslim Brotherhood condemns Bin Laden death
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, a conservative organization with links around the Islamic world, has condemned the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces as an "assassination."
The Brotherhood, which seeks the establishment of a state run according to Islamic principles through peaceful means, is Egypt's most powerful and organized political movement.
The statement Monday said the group "is against violence in general, against assassinations and in favor of fair trials."
Bin Laden and his jihadist allies, however, have repeatedly condemned the Brotherhood's more moderate approach and willingness to work within the system.
The Muslim Brotherhood will be competing for half of Egypt's parliamentary seats in September's elections.
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Iran: US should leave Mideast with bin Laden death
The United States has no excuse to keep troops in the Middle East after killing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, a senior Iranian official said Monday.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the U.S. can no longer keep troops to the region under the pretext of fighting terrorism now that Osama bin Laden is dead. The al-Qaida leader was killed in a raid by elite U.S. forces in Pakistan.
"Excuse for alien countries to deploy troops in this region under the pretext of fighting terrorism has been eliminated," he said, according to the state news agency.
"This development clearly shows that there is no need for a major military deployment to counter one individual," he said. "We hope this development will end war, conflict, unrest and the death of innocent people, and help to establish peace and tranquility in the region."
Iran says it cooperated with the U.S. in fighting terrorism but instead of being rewarded, former President George W. Bush placed Iran in his "axis of evil."
Iran claims it has cracked down on al-Qaida operatives, especially along its border with Afghanistan.
Iran opposes U.S. policy in the region, especially the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, on Iran's eastern and western borders.
Iran is a Shiite Muslim-dominated state, while bin Laden's al-Qaida group preaches a hard-line interpretation of the Sunni sect of the Islamic faith. Iran has always considered al-Qaida a threat to its security.
Iran confirmed at one point that it had some 500 al-Qaida operatives, mostly Saudis, in its custody and they were handed over to their home countries.
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Obama: Bin Laden's death makes the world safer
Declaring the killing of Osama bin Laden "a good day for America," President Barack Obama said Monday the world was safer without the al-Qaida terrorist and mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. His administration used DNA testing to help confirm that American forces in Pakistan had in fact killed bin Laden, as U.S. officials sought to erase all doubt.
"Today we are reminded that as a nation there is nothing we can't do," Obama said. He hailed the pride of those who broke out in overnight celebrations as the stunning news spread around the globe.
An elite crews of American forces killed bin Laden during a daring raid on Monday. Bin Laden was shot in the head during a firefight and then quickly buried at sea. White House officials were mulling the merits and appropriateness of releasing a photo.
As spontaneous celebrations and expressions of relief gave way to questions about precisely what happened and what comes next, U.S. officials warned that the campaign against terrorism is not nearly over _ and that the threat of retaliation was real.
Senior administration officials said the DNA testing alone offered near 100 percent certainty that bin Laden was in fact shot dead. Detailed photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation by a woman believed to be bin Laden's wife on site, and matching physical features like bin Laden's height all helped confirmed the identification.
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NYC mayor says city's spirit is stronger than ever
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city's spirit is stronger than ever.
He and other officials spoke Monday at the World Trade Center site after the death of Osama Bin Laden. They paid homage to victims of terrorist attacks there in 1993 and 2001.
Bloomberg also detailed plans for the Sept. 11 memorial and the progress of reconstruction at the site. The mayor says "the forces of freedom and justice have once again prevailed."
The mayor said late Sunday that the killing of the terrorist leader doesn't lessen the suffering Americans experienced but is a "critically important victory" for the nation.
He also said he hopes news of bin Laden's demise will "bring some closure and comfort to all those who lost loved ones" on Sept. 11.
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Obama: Bin Laden's death a 'good day' for America
Proudly declaring the killing of Osama bin Laden "a good day for America," President Barack Obama said Monday the world was a safer place without the world's most hunted terrorist. DNA testing helped confirm that American forces in Pakistan had in fact killed the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. officials said, seeking to erase any doubt about the news that riveted the globe.
Acting on intelligence that bin Laden was holed up in a compound in the city of Abbottabad, Obama ordered a risky, unilateral mission to capture or kill the al-Qaida leader on foreign soil. His counterterror chief, John Brennan, said Monday that Obama had monitored the raid from the White House Situation Room and expressed relief that elite forces had finally gotten bin Laden without losing any more American lives.
"It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time in the lives of the people who were assembled here," Brennan said from the White House. "The minutes passed like days."
The dramatic developments came just months ahead of the 10-year anniversary of the hijacked-airliner assaults on the United States. Those attacks took nearly 3,000 lives, led the U.S. into war in Afghanistan and Iraq and forever pierced the notion that the most powerful country on earth could not be hit on such a ferocious scale.
U.S. officials grimly warned of potential retaliation for bin Laden's killing. Indeed, a top al-Qaida ideologue vowed revenge and said the Islamic holy war against the West was far from over.
The administration was investigating who within Pakistan provided support to bin Laden to allow him to live, remarkably, in a fortified compound in a town, not tucked away in a cave as often rumored. Critics have long accused elements of Pakistan's security establishment of protecting bin Laden, though Islamabad has always denied it, and did so again.
Bin Laden went down firing at the Navy SEALs who stormed his compound, a U.S. official said. Brennan said one of bin Laden's wives was used as a human shield to try to protect him and she was killed, too, as a result. Brennan, speaking of bin Laden, said that revealed "the nature of the individual he was."
The American forces killed bin Laden during a daring raid early Monday, Pakistan time, capping a search that spanned nearly a decade. Bin Laden was shot in the head during a firefight and then quickly buried at sea. White House officials were mulling the merits, consequences and appropriateness of releasing a photo of the slain bin Laden but said that no one should have any doubts regardless.
Senior administration officials said the DNA testing alone offered near 100 percent certainty. Photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation by a woman believed to be one of bin Laden's wives on site, and matching physical features like bin Laden's height all helped confirmed the identification.
"We are reminded that as a nation there is nothing we can't do," Obama said of the news, which was bound to lift his political standing and help define his presidency.
He hailed the pride of those who broke into overnight celebrations as word spread around the U.S. and the globe. Those spontaneous expressions have given way to questions about precisely what happened and what comes next for al-Qaida, for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, for America's strained relations with its Pakistani ally and for the direction of U.S. politics.
U.S. officials warned that the campaign against terrorism was not nearly over _ and that the threat of deadly retaliation against the United States and its allies was real. However, the government said it had no specific or credible threat to share with the American public.
Senior U.S. officials said bin Laden was killed toward the end of the firefight, which took place in a building at a compound north of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. His body was put aboard the USS Carl Vinson and then placed into the North Arabian Sea. An official familiar with the operation said bin Laden fired on U.S. forces and was hit by return fire.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because aspects of the operation remain classified.
The official said two dozen SEALs in night-vision goggles dropped into the high-walled compound in Pakistan by sliding down ropes from Chinook helicopters in the overnight raid.
The SEALs retrieved bin Laden's body and turned the remaining detainees over to Pakistani authorities.
Traditional Islamic procedures for handling the remains were followed, the officials said, including washing the corpse, placing it in a white sheet.
"The fight continues and we will never waver," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at the State Department. Her comments had echoes of President George W. Bush's declaration nearly a decade ago, when al-Qaida attacks against America led to war in Afghanistan and changed the way Americans viewed their own safety.
Turning to deliver a direct message to bin Laden's followers, she vowed: "You cannot wait us out."
U.S. Capitol Police put on a conspicuous show of force Monday morning with 10 vehicles amassed near Constitution Avenue with their lights flashing and doors and trunks open. Officers armed with automatic weapons kept watch on every vehicle that passed.
Obama himself had delivered the news of bin Laden's killing in a dramatic White House statement late Sunday. "Justice has been done," he declared.
Officials say CIA interrogators in secret overseas prisons developed the first strands of information that ultimately led to the killing of bin Laden.
The military operation that ended his life took mere minutes.
U.S. Black Hawk helicopters ferried about two dozen troops from Navy SEAL Team Six, a top military counter-terrorism unit, into the compound identified by the CIA as bin Laden's hideout _ and back out again in less than 40 minutes. Bin Laden was shot after he and his bodyguards resisted the assault, officials said.
The compound is about a half-mile from a Pakistani military academy, in a city that is home to three army regiments and thousands of military personnel. Abbottabad is surrounded by hills with mountains in the distance.
Bin Laden's death came 15 years after he declared war on the United States. Al-Qaida was also blamed for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.
"We have rid the world of the most infamous terrorist of our time," CIA Director Leon Panetta declared to employees of the agency in a memo Monday morning.
Retaliatory attacks against the U.S. and Western targets could come from members of al-Qaida's core branch in the tribal areas of Pakistan, al-Qaida franchises in other countries or radicalized individuals in the U.S. with al-Qaida sympathies, according to a Homeland Security Department intelligence alert issued Sunday and obtained by The Associated Press.
In addition to bin Laden, one of his sons, Khalid, was killed in the raid, as was the wife who shielded him, Brennan said. Also killed were two of bin Laden's al-Qaida facilitators, including one who was apparently listed as the owner of the residence, Brennan said.
As news of bin Laden's death spread, hundreds of people cheered and waved American flags at ground zero in New York, the site where al-Qaida hijacked jets blasted the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Thousands celebrated all night outside the White House gates.
Many people said they were surprised that bin Laden had finally been found and killed. John Gocio, a doctor from Arkansas who was gathering what details he could from TV screens at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, marveled: "After such a long time, you kind of give up and say, `Well, that's never going to happen.'"
The greatest terrorist threat to the U.S. is now considered to be the al-Qaida franchise in Yemen, far from al-Qaida's core in Pakistan. The Yemen branch almost took down a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas 2009 and nearly detonated explosives aboard two U.S. cargo planes last fall. Those operations were carried out without any direct involvement from bin Laden.
The few fiery minutes in Abbottabad followed years in which U.S. officials struggled to piece together clues that ultimately led to bin Laden, according to an account provided by senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operation.
Based on statements given by U.S. detainees since the 9/11 attacks, they said, intelligence officials have long known that bin Laden trusted one al-Qaida courier in particular, and they believed he might be living with him in hiding.
Four years ago, the United States learned the man's identity, which officials did not disclose, and then about two years later, they identified areas of Pakistan where he operated. Last August, the man's residence was found, officials said.
By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear enough that Obama wanted to pursue action, a senior administration official said. Over the next two and a half months, the president led five meetings of the National Security Council focused solely on whether bin Laden was in that compound and, if so, how to get him, the official said.
Obama made a decision to launch the operation on Friday, shortly before flying to Alabama to inspect tornado damage, and aides set to work on the details.
Associated Press writers Ben Feller, Matt Apuzzo, Erica Werner, David Espo, Pauline Jelinek, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Eileen Sullivan and Kimberly Dozier contributed to this story.
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Bin Laden's death could inspire attacks in US
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are warning law enforcement across the country that Osama bin Laden's death will likely inspire homegrown extremists in the U.S. to try to carry out attacks in the near-term.
The agencies issued a joint intelligence bulletin Monday that said the core al-Qaida group is less likely to carry out attacks against the U.S. in the immediate future, but its spinoff groups around the world could use bin Laden's death as an excuse to speed up plans for attacks. The bulletin was obtained by The Associated Press.
The intelligence community has no information of advanced terror plots in the U.S., but believes U.S. cities, aviation, mass transit and U.S. government facilities will continue to be attractive targets for terrorists, according to the joint bulletin.
Isa 47:8- Therefore hear now this, [thou that art] given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I [am], and none else beside me; I shall not sit [as] a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:
Isa 47:11- Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, [which] thou shalt not know.
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'Closure': Americans find comfort in clear ending
To surf American airwaves, to read American comments on the Internet by the thousands, to walk American streets on the day after Osama bin Laden's astonishing demise meant you'd almost certainly hear some variation of a single telling word: "closure."
As in ending. As in end of story _ at least, the primary story arc of Osama bin Laden, which for most Americans began in the eastern United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and ended in Pakistan in the early moments of May 2, 2011, in one of the most dramatic undoings imaginable.
While Americans reveled in the demise of global terrorism's most public face, the prevailing mood was unsurprising for the culture that produced Hollywood: After so many years of uncertainty and mass aggravation over no resolution at all, here, finally, was some kind of coherent ending.
Listen to Republican Rep. Peter King, one of many whose satisfaction in the hours after bin Laden's death focused on resolution and wrap-up. Of the 9/11 victims' families, he said this: "Now they can finally have some sense of closure and some sense of justice."
Or Mike Low of Batesville, Ark., whose flight attendant daughter died aboard American Airlines Flight 11: "It certainly brings an ending to a major quest for all of us."
Or Lisa Ramaci, celebrating early Monday in New York's streets, where the champagne-and-goodbye-chants atmosphere at times resembled that of a major pro sports victory: "We had this 10 years of frustration just building and building, wanting this guy dead, and now he is."
Surely one man's eradication cannot offset survivors' years of pain. But the American hunger for definitive Hollywood endings is boundless _ to the point where we grow deeply irritated if something seems too open-ended. The quick-cut, sound-bite culture so frustrating to politicians and other leaders produces an appetite for resolution that's hard to satisfy.
Add to that the enduring, horrific echoes of 9/11 and two protracted wars that have no discernible endpoints in sight, and you have a populace primed to applaud the end of a major chapter, even if it isn't unfettered victory.
Part of it is the nature of U.S. warfare in recent decades. Americans today are as likely to fight wars against amorphous enemies as they are nation-states. Because of that, conflicts tend to lack distinct endings or formal surrenders like a Yorktown or an Appomattox _ events that say, "Hey, the war's over."
There was no Treaty of Versailles with Saddam Hussein, and certainly no one in America expects ever to have a V-E Day or V-J Day with al-Qaida. In modern U.S.-backed warfare, the big, solemn, identifiable ending is virtually obsolete. So a major milestone like bin Laden's death is, for the United States, a cause for buoyancy in a frustratingly unresolved conflict.
That's how Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer cast it. "The war on terror is not over," he said Monday on MSNBC, "but maybe this was the Saratoga or the Gettysburg where things turned."
But there's something else at play, too. Bin Laden himself was the closest thing the modern world had to a James Bond-style supervillain _ someone who, to hundreds of millions of Westerners, was truly, monochromatically dastardly.
Owen Gleiberman, writing on Entertainment Weekly's website, identified it immediately in a piece called "Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy."
"That perception of 9/11 as big-screen-action-disaster-gone-real, widespread though it was, seemed rather indefensible at the time because to say it, or even to think it, risked trivializing the devastation," Gleiberman wrote.
"Yet 9/11, there's almost no denying it, did live in our minds like a giant motion picture," he wrote, "and part of what made it so wasn't simply the vastness, the sheer terrifying spectacle, of the tragedy. It was that behind it lay a villain of nearly mythological proportion."
And now we get to the heart of the matter. Could it be that, for a worried and weary nation, such a soul-wrenching event as 9/11 required an appropriately cataclysmic resolution for the man who masterminded it? Would a bomb from the air _ or, worse, a revelation years later that he had died _ have been as satisfying?
Would a less sharply defined bin Laden death have allowed for the jubilant summoning of American resoluteness that was being bandied about so freely Monday from the White House to the streets of New York City and Washington?
When you take in the words that people in America used Monday _ "emotionally held hostage," "finally," "a symbol," "an important milestone" _ you realize what the ending of bin Laden means right here, right now: It gives Americans something to pin their feelings on, to carry with us when we say, "What has all this meant?"
It means, for now, that one of the key demands of a story _ that something actually happens that means something _ has just unfolded before our eyes. The fact that the manner of bin Laden's death might have fit perfectly into a pre-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger movie is not incidental.
For the moment, Americans have our resolution _ something to pin our feelings on. We have all-important closure, even though _ in the real, messier, non-cinematic world _ the country of big endings still must wake up tomorrow and fight another day.
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MLK parade bomb suspect in WA seeks trial delay
A man charged with planting an unexploded bomb at a Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Spokane wants a four-month delay in his federal trial for attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.
Defense lawyers said in documents filed Monday that prosecutors intend to present more evidence against defendant Kevin Harpham than the attorneys can process before the current May 31 trial date.
"To date, we have received approximately 3,500 pages of discovery and 13 audio and video CDs," the documents state.
The material indicates federal prosecutors will be presenting highly technical evidence involving DNA in addition to testimony from computer and explosives experts.
Lawyers for Harpham, who has extensive ties to white supremacist activities, also pointed out he could face life in prison if convicted, so they need ample time to prepare.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice said Tuesday that prosecutors do not object to a trial delay. The issue was expected to be discussed during a May 20 court appearance.
Harpham, 36, of Addy was arrested on March 9. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in jail without bail.
He also faces charges of possession of an unregistered destructive device, committing a hate crime and using a firearm during a violent hate crime, which carries a minimum sentence of 30 years.
A grand jury indictment contended Harpham planted the device on the morning of Jan. 17, "because of actual or perceived race, color and national origin" of participants.
Little else is known about the motivation in the case because a request by federal prosecutors to seal court documents about the investigation has been granted.
Prosecutors contend releasing details would hamper an on-going investigation and could taint the jury pool.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has said Harpham made more than 1,000 postings on an Internet site used by racists called the Vanguard News Network. The center has also said Harpham belonged to a neo-Nazi group called the National Alliance.
His father, Cecil Harpham, has said his son talked to racists on the Internet regularly but never acted on racial hate
Zec 11:5- Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed [be] the LORD; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
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Bush declines Obama invitation to ground zero
A spokesman for George W. Bush says the former president has declined an invitation from President Barack Obama to attend an observance at New York's ground zero.
Obama plans to visit the site of the destroyed World Trade Center towers Thursday in the aftermath of a Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The al-Qaida attack, which killed about 3,000 people, occurred in the early months of Bush's presidency in 2001.
The spokesman, David Sherzer, says the former president appreciated the offer to attend but has chosen to remain out of the spotlight during his post-presidency.
Sherzer says Bush celebrates bin Laden's death as an "important victory in the war on terror.
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Billionaires gather in Arizona to discuss giving
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press Donna Gordon Blankinship, Associated Press – Sat May 7, 7:18 am ET
What do dozens of American billionaires talk about when they get together? Their topic this week was of course money; not how to make it, but how to give it away.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Friday that a private gathering was a great chance for the billionaires who have pledged to give away at least half their wealth to meet each other, compare notes, eat and laugh.
The media was banned from Thursday's first meeting of the group that has accepted the giving challenge by Buffett and his friend Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Since last June, 69 individuals or couples have made the giving pledge.
Buffett knew only about 12 of the 61 people at the dinner at the Miraval Resort in Tucson before the famously gregarious Berkshire Hathaway CEO worked the room and made 40 new friends.
"They all more than fulfilled my expectations," Buffett told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said she was delighted by the openness of the virtual strangers. At one point, conversation at her table drifted toward the biggest mistakes people had ever made as philanthropists.
"One of the things about being a philanthropist, in many ways it's rather a lonely job," said Tashia Morgridge, a retired special education teacher.
She works with her husband, Cisco Systems chairman John Morgridge, to give money to improve U.S. education through the Denver-based Morgridge Family Foundation.
George Kaiser, a Tulsa, Okla., philanthropist who aids early childhood education and social services programs, said the giving pledge helps philanthropists who don't want to just throw money at causes and instead want to explore the best ways to invest money to tackle the world's biggest problems.
"Being able to share with other people who are agonizing about the same decisions is extraordinarily useful," said Kaiser, the chairman of BOK Financial Corp who has been an oil and gas industry executive for four decades. He led a session on applying analytical business practices to philanthropy.
The goals of the organization do not include working together to pool philanthropic dollars. Still, the meeting in Tucson that ended Friday included sessions where different philanthropists shared their passion to improve education, the environment and other causes.
Philosophies of giving and ideas for collaboration among the billionaires were also shared throughout the event, said Jean Case, CEO of the family foundation started by her and her husband, America Online founder Steve Case.
"There's a strong desire in this group to learn from each other," said Jean Case, who offered to host the event at their Tucson resort after Melinda Gates talked to her about the possibility of the meeting.
The mother of five children also led a session on children and families in philanthropy. Steve Case gave a talk on using social media to encourage giving. All the sessions at the meeting were led by members of the group.
Some common themes emerged from the event. The participants are looking to do more impactful, more effective philanthropy and to inspire average people to give money away, Jean Case said.
Sharing ideas about giving also took place informally. Melinda Gates said she talked to two people who were devoting money for work on state pension issues and criminal justice — problems Gates had previously not thought about.
Chuck Feeney, a New Jersey philanthropist Buffett called the spiritual leader of the group, spoke about his plans to give all his money to charity.
"He wants his last check to bounce," Buffett said.
Job 20:10- His children shall seek to please the poor, and his hands shall restore their goods.
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Bin Laden's death a tough subject for the pulpit
By BROCK VERGAKIS, Associated Press Brock Vergakis, Associated Press – Sun May 8, 4:07 pm ET
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – The killing of Osama bin Laden, a man who was America's face of evil for nearly a decade, left Christians, Jews and Muslims relieved, proud or even jubilant. For their religious leaders, it was sometimes hard to know just what to say.
There is at least some dissonance between the values they preach and the triumphant response on the streets of New York and Washington to the death of a human being — even one responsible for thousands of killings in those areas and around the world.
"Justice may have been served, but we Catholics never rejoice in the death of a human being," said the Rev. Stephen Mimnaugh.
He did not mention bin Laden during Sunday's morning Mass at Manhattan's St. Francis of Assisi, the church of the late Mychal Judge, chaplain of the Fire Department of New York and the first recorded victim of the Sept. 11 attacks in the city.
After Mass, Mimnaugh cited comments published in America, a weekly Catholic magazine. The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest, wrote that "no matter how monstrous" a person is, "as a Christian, I am asked to pray for him and, at some point, forgive him."
Other religious leaders felt compelled to say at least a few words about bin Laden on the first weekend of worship since he was killed. Some focused on moving on and working toward peace, while others spoke approvingly of a death they said marked a blow for justice.
The Rev. David Howard shouted his approval — in a sense — from outside his church in Virginia Beach, Va.
"OSAMA BIN LADEN, SATAN AND THE FINAL VICTORY OF JESUS," read the marquee outside Brook Baptist Church, publicizing the sermon Howard started writing hours after he heard that a team of Navy SEALs based in Virginia Beach killed the al-Qaida leader.
Howard has no doubt that bin Laden was an instrument of Satan brought to justice with the aid of God, who answered the prayers of millions.
"We should pray for bad people, evil people, that when we pray to God he will change their lives. But if he won't change their lives, especially those who have a lot of power to hurt a lot of people, you pray for their end because they're causing so much pain," he said. "You pray somehow God will take them out. The Bible is very clear that God is in control and every person in power is because God put them there. He can put them there, he can keep them there or he can take them out. That's his prerogative."
The leader of one of the nation's largest mosques was equally direct during prayers Friday.
"There is no doubt that this man was a thug, he was a murderer," Imam Hassan al-Qazwini told worshippers at the Islamic Center of America in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. "His hands were stained by the blood of thousands of innocent people — Muslims and non-Muslims alike."
Qazwini, who delivered his sermon in a large, circular hall filled to capacity, said the Quran is clear that someone who kills one innocent person "is doomed to hell forever." And the imam was particularly incensed that bin Laden "committed atrocities against innocent people ... while he was calling `Allahu akbar,'" or "God is great."
"He's responsible for tarnishing the image of Islam in this country," he said. "We're happy to see the man who caused so much pain for Muslims in this country is gone ... finally."
Before the sermon, Qazwini said Muslims are discouraged from showing jubilation over death, but cheering the news of bin Laden's demise marks an occasion where "justice was served."
At Armitage Baptist Church on Chicago's near west side, Pastor Charles Lyons told his congregation Sunday that sometimes "evil must be stopped."
"We do not rejoice in the death of the man named Osama bin Laden (but) ... truth provides a platform for justice," he said.
Church member Angelia Parker said bin Laden's death should have been a time for contemplation, not cheering in the streets.
"I think that was kind of weird," said Parker, who was passing out roses to mothers after the service. "It was like, `Are you kidding me?' We are celebrating this person's death? We didn't celebrate in the streets when Saddam Hussein was killed."
The Rev. Bill Kelly, priest at Saint Mary of the Assumption in Dedham, Mass., near Boston, said he was taken aback by the celebrations because he detected bloodlust. But he added that the emotional reaction is understandable.
"This is 10 years of pent-up anger, hurt, frustration, especially here in the Boston area because the crimes were initiated here," he said, referring to the two planes that took off from Boston before crashing into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
At Second Baptist Church, the oldest black church in South Los Angeles, church member Goward Horton said he was happy about bin Laden's death and didn't think that conflicted with his beliefs.
"We should be allowed to have relief, happiness, joy. Especially if you were touched by what happened on 9/11," Horton said. "Me, personally, I'm not one to take to the streets in celebration over his death, but I understood when people did it."
The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader and Nobel Peace laureate, said Tuesday in Los Angeles that although bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness as a human being, it is sometimes necessary to take counter-measures.
"Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened," he told students at the University of Southern California.
Reform Rabbi Eric Wisnia, of Princeton, N.J.'s Congregation Beth Chaim, observed that during the Passover holiday that ended April 26, Jews recount the 10 plagues carried out against Egyptian aggressors by dipping their fingers in wine 10 times. But they are forbidden to lick their fingers, lest they take pleasure in the pain of others.
As he left a Quaker meeting in Philadelphia, Fred Koszewnik of Marlton, N.J., said he thought the celebrations were "kind of icky."
"Honestly, I'm glad he's dead, but I don't know that's something to celebrate," he said. "If I understand anything about Quakerism, there's something of God in everyone."
Chuck Esser, who was at the same Quaker meeting, said he understands the relief at bin Laden's death — his own nephew was injured in the New York attacks and had to be pulled from the rubble. But he said he wishes the terror leader had been captured and put on trial.
"It's very strange for our country to be celebrating assassinations," he said. He said bin Laden "embodies a lot of evil things, but our response is not in tune with the best traditions of our country and our God."
At Congregation Neve Shalom, a Conservative Jewish synagogue in Metuchen, N.J., Rabbi Gerald Zelizer said in an interview that according to the Talmud, if someone is trying to kill you, "you are obligated — not permitted — to kill that person before he kills you."
"But that obligation does not carry with it at all the privilege of rejoicing," he added.
As services ended at the synagogue Friday, a heated debate over how to respond broke out. Kathryn Zahler, a compliance administrator from Colonia, N.J., said that taking delight in anyone's death feels un-Jewish.
"For what it's worth, he had a family. He's obviously a very evil man. I think there was a sense of relief, but I wasn't celebrating," Zahler said.
But Mindy Epstein, a medical assistant also from Colonia, said she took joy in bin Laden's death, noting that al-Qaida showed no decency when it released a video of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl being decapitated in 2002.
"I don't care if that makes me a non-Jew or not," Epstein said. "Put it on pay for view for the (Sept. 11) victims."
In his Saturday morning sermon, Zelizer reminded congregants that the day bin Laden was killed was also Holocaust Remembrance Day. He suggested that the phrase often used in reference to Adolf Hitler might also be appropriate for bin Laden: "May his name be blotted out and his memory forgotten."
Isa 14:1- For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
Isa 14:2- And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.
Isa 14:3- And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve,
Isa 14:4- That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
Isa 14:5- The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, [and] the sceptre of the rulers.
Isa 14:6- He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, [and] none hindereth.
Isa 14:7- The whole earth is at rest, [and] is quiet: they break forth into singing.
Isa 14:8- Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, [and] the cedars of Lebanon, [saying], Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.
Isa 14:9- Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet [thee] at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, [even] all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
Isa 14:10- All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?
Isa 14:11- Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, [and] the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.
(all the way to end of the chapter)
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Al Qaeda Vows Revenge on Bin Laden's Death
Al-Qaida confirmed the killing of Osama bin Laden and vowed revenge, saying Americans' "happiness will turn to sadness" in the first statement by the terror network.
According to AP, the confirmation came as newly uncovered documents found in bin Laden's residence revealed al-Qaida plans for derailing an American train on the upcoming 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"America is celebrating Osama bin Laden's killing, but it will be a temporary celebration," said Abdullah Sittar Chishti, a member of the Jamiat Ulema Islam party who attended the rally in Khuchlak. "After the martyrdom of Osama, billions, trillions of Osamas will be born."
Terror experts have said bin Laden's death on Monday was a setback for al-Qaida but the threat of attacks remains and could even spike in coming days from individuals or small extremist groups inspired to take revenge for the killing.
Materials confiscated by the Navy SEALs who killed the al-Qaida leader in Abbotabad, Pakistan, reveal the rail attack planning as of February 2010.
"It is impossible, impossible. Sheik Osama didn't build an organization to die when he dies," read the al-Qaida statement.
"The soldiers of Islam will continue in groups and united, plotting and planning without getting bored, tired, with determination, without giving up until striking a blow."
Whether President Obama would have released Osama's death photos or not, it would have not made a difference. There are more terrorist out there, that will continue to practice what bin Laden taught them.
Job 18:11- Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.
Psalms 73:19- How are they [brought] into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors.
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Bahrain's king orders end to emergency law
Bahrain's king set a fast-track timetable to end martial law-style rule Sunday in a bid to display confidence that authorities have smothered a pro-reform uprising even as rights groups denounced the hard-line measures.
The announcement to lift emergency rule two-weeks early on June 1 came just hours after the start of a closed-door trial accusing activists of plotting to overthrow the Gulf state's rulers.
The decision appears part of Bahrain's aggressive international campaign to reassure financial markets and win back high-profile events. They include the coveted Formula One grand prix that was canceled in March amid deadly clashes and protests by the country's majority Shiites, who are seeking greater rights and freedoms.
But the massive crackdown has come at a high price in the strategic island nation, which hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
At least 30 people have been killed since the protests began in February, inspired by revolts against autocratic leaders in Tunisia and Egypt. But tiny Bahrain also carries a volatile demographic mix. Shiites account for about 70 percent of the population, but claim widespread discrimination and are denied top posts in the government and security forces.
Tensions in the Gulf have soared between Shiite power Iran and the Sunni Arab rulers backing Bahrain. Iran has sharply condemned the three-month emergency rule imposed March 15 just as a 1,500-strong Saudi-led force arrived in Bahrain to support the monarchy. Gulf leaders, in turn, have strongly warned Iran to halt meddling in their affairs.
Meanwhile, watchdog groups _ including the top U.N. rights agency _ have accused Bahraini authorities of overstepping their bounds with closed-door trials and mass detentions of hundreds of protesters, activists and others. A major America labor organization, the AFL-CIO, is asking Washington to withdraw from a free-trade pact with Bahrain as punishment for pressuring Shiite-led unions.
U.S. official have tried to straddle two objectives: rapping Bahrain's leaders for violence and urging for reforms, but making sure there are no serious cracks in one of Washington's most important military alliance in the Gulf.
The declaration to remove the emergency rule gave no details of what would take its place, including whether the nighttime curfew would end or if the numerous checkpoints would be dismantled. Last month, Bahrain's foreign minister said the Saudi-led reinforcements would remain as long as there are perceived threats from Iran.
The latest indication of Bahrain's Iran worries came Sunday when 21 opposition leaders and political activists went on trial in a special security court set up under the emergency rule, which gives the military sweeping powers.
The suspects _ 14 in custody and the others charged in absentia _ are accused of attempting to overthrow the 200-year-old Sunni dynasty and having links to "a terrorist organization abroad working for a foreign country." No additional details were made public, but Bahrain's leaders have claimed that Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah is involved in Bahrain's protests.
Lawyers for those in custody entered not guilty pleas. Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said the closed-door proceedings violated international standards for a fair trial.
Late last month, the security court sentenced four protesters to death for killing two policemen in the unrest. Three other opposition supporters were convicted as accomplices in the murders and were sentenced to life in prison.
Among those charged on Sunday are senior Shiite opposition leaders such as Hassan Mushaima, the leader of Al Haq movement, and some of its senior members including Abdul Jalil al-Singace. Mushaima and al-Singace were among the first political leaders taken into custody after emergency rule was imposed.
Also among the suspects: Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, the kingdom's leading human rights activist; Ibrahim Sharif, a prominent Sunni reform leader, and Ali Abdul Emam, a blogger and founder of a popular discussion forum known as Bahrain-On-Line. Al-Khawaja was beaten unconscious by police in his house in the outskirts of the capital, Manama, according to relatives who witnessed the raid.
Last week, authorities charged 23 doctors and 24 nurses with participating in illegal rallies or attempts to topple the ruling Al Khalifa family.
Some of the medical staff who treated protesters during the unprecedented political unrest will be tried in the same security court. Only select journalists are allowed to cover the trials after authorities put a gag order on legal proceedings against suspected opposition supporters.
Later this month, three former top editors of Bahrain's main opposition newspaper, Al Wasat, will be tried in a criminal court after authorities accused them of unethical coverage of the protests.
Al Wasat was to shut down Sunday, but the paper's board decided to continue publishing despite a significant drop in circulation and revenue since the three editors were forced to resign in April.
The political turmoil forced Bahrain's crown prince, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, to call off the Bahrain Grand Prix scheduled for March 13.
Last week, Formula One's governing body gave Bahrain until June 3 to decide if a new date could be set for this year. The task of persuading F1 overseers may be tough, however.
In an interview posted on the official F1 website, the sport's boss Bernie Ecclestone said officials would need "a guarantee that there won't be any problems" in Bahrain.
"But right now, I don't know how anybody could guarantee that because it might be peaceful now, but who knows in the future," he added
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Mobs set Egypt churches on fire, 10 killed
Muslim mobs set two churches on fire overnight in a Cairo slum during sectarian clashes that left 10 dead and more than 200 injured, deepening religious violence in military-ruled Egypt while the country is already struggling through a chaotic and lawless transition to democracy.
Military authorities arrested 190 people, immediately sending them to military prosecutions and threatened the maximum penalty against anyone attacking houses of worship. It was the military's toughest response yet to a series of violent clashes between the two religious groups and signifies swift justice.
Mobs of ultraconservative Muslims attacked the St. Menas church in the Cairo slum of Imbaba late Saturday following rumors that a Christian woman married to a Muslim man had been abducted. Local residents said a separate mob of youths armed with knives and machetes attacked the Virgin Mary church several blocks away with firebombs the same night.
"People were scared to come near them," said local resident Adel Mohammed, 29, who lives near the Virgin Mary Church. "They looked scary. They threw their fire bombs at the church, and set parts of it on ablaze."
During the 18 day uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak several months ago, there was a rare spirit of brotherhood between Muslims and Christians. They protected each other during prayers by each respective group in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution.
But in months that followed the toppling of Mubarak on Feb. 11, there has been a rise in sectarian tensions, fueled in part by newly active ultraconservative Muslim movement, known as the Salafis.
The once quiescent Salafis have become more assertive post-revolution in trying to spread their ultraconservative version of an Islamic way of life. In particular, they have focused their wrath on Egypt's Christians, who make up 10 percent of the country's 80 million people.
On Friday, a few hundred Salafis marched through Cairo celebrating al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and condemning the U.S. operation to kill him.
Sameh Fawzi, a Coptic scholar, said the new trend of attacks on churches and heightened tension between ultraconservative Muslims and Copts are taking place in the context of a weakened state and increasingly assertive Salafis.
The military rulers' attempts to hold reconciliation sessions, instead of prosecuting those involved, only serves to reinforce the impression of the state's weakness, he said.
"What needs to happen and quickly is that the state implements the law," he said. "This is a crime of thuggery and it should be treated as such."
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--- On Mon, 5/9/11, Ahsh Ahparayam <ahshahparayam@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Ahsh Ahparayam <ahshahparayam@gmail.com>
Subject: News for Radio Show 5/9/2011
To: "yahanna" <yahanna@isupk.org>
Date: Monday, May 9, 2011, 1:59 AM
Tribe seeks apology for code name
The leader of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe is asking President Barack Obama for a formal apology for the government's use of the code name "Geronimo" for Osama bin Laden.
Tribal Chairman Jeff Houser sent a letter to the president Tuesday, saying equating the legendary Apache warrior to a "mass murderer and cowardly terrorist" was painful and offensive to all Native Americans.
The letter was posted Wednesday morning on the Oklahoma tribe's website.
"Right now Native American children all over this country are facing the reality of having one of their most revered figures being connected to a terrorist and murderer of thousands of innocent Americans," Houser wrote. "Think about how they feel at this point."
Houser noted Obama was elected on a message of compassion and change. Forever linking the memory of Geronimo to "one of the most despicable enemies this country has ever had" shows neither compassion to Native Americans nor change in perception of Indians or their struggle, he said.
The White House referred questions on the matter to the U.S. Defense Department, which said no disrespect was meant to Native Americans.
The department wouldn't elaborate but said code names typically are chosen randomly so those working on a mission can communicate without divulging any information to adversaries
Meanwhile, news about the code name spread quickly across Indian Country and on social network sites, resulting in a groundswell of criticism against the U.S. government. Other tribes and tribal leaders issued statements of disapproval, while countless Facebook and Twitter users chimed in, some using historical photos of the Apache leader for their profile pictures.
Geronimo is a legend among Apaches and other Indian tribes for the fierce fighting he brought on during the 19th century as he tried to protect his land, his people and their way of life from encroachment by U.S. and Mexican armies.
Stories have been passed down about the Chiricahua Apache leader being able to walk without leaving footprints, helping him evade the thousands of soldiers and scouts who spent years looking for him throughout the Southwest.
In his letter, Houser told Obama that his tribe _ like the rest of the nation _ was ecstatic about learning of bin Laden's death during a raid in Pakistan. But those feelings were tempered as details about the code name emerged.
"Unlike the coward Osama bin Laden, Geronimo faced his enemy in numerous battles and engagements," Houser wrote. "He is perhaps one of the greatest symbols of Native American resistance in the history of the United States."
Geronimo was born in 1829 in what would later become the state of New Mexico. Aside from leading resistance efforts for his people, he was also known as a spiritual leader.
After the families of Geronimo and other Apache warriors were captured and sent to Florida, he and 35 warriors surrendered to Gen. Nelson A. Miles near the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1886.
Geronimo eventually was sent to Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where he died of pneumonia in 1909 after nearly 23 years of captivity. He was buried in the Fort Sill Apache prisoner of war cemetery.
(RELATED)
Many Indians irked but not surprised by code name
Geronimo was known as a legendary Apache warrior whose ability to walk without leaving footprints allowed him to evade thousands of Mexican and U.S. soldiers, much like Osama bin Laden evaded capture for the past decade.
But for Native Americans, there's an important difference: Geronimo was a hero _ not a terrorist.
So to them, the U.S. military's use of the revered leader's moniker as a code name for bin Laden was appalling _ a slap in the face that prompted statements of disapproval from tribal leaders, a flurry of angry comments on social network sites and a letter from the leader of Geronimo's tribe asking President Barack Obama to apologize.
Many Native Americans also say that while they are angered, they are not surprised. They say the code name is yet another insult in a long, tumultuous history with the federal government.
"We've been oppressed for so long, it just doesn't matter anymore," said Leon Curley, a Navajo and Marine veteran from Gallup, N.M. "The government does what it wants when it wants. The name calling is going to stay around forever. But when you think about it, this is an insult."
Even Jeff Houser, chairman of Geronimo's Fort Sill Apache Tribe, noted in his letter to Obama that the decision behind the code name was based not in malice, but an ongoing cultural disconnect.
"We are quite certain that the use of the name Geronimo as a code for Osama bin Laden was based on misunderstood and misconceived historical perspectives of Geronimo and his armed struggle against the United States and Mexican governments," Houser wrote.
"However, to equate Geronimo or any other Native American figure with Osama bin Laden, a mass murderer and cowardly terrorist, is painful and offensive to our Tribe and to all Native Americans."
The White House referred questions on the matter to the U.S. Defense Department, which said no disrespect was meant to Native Americans.
The department wouldn't elaborate on the use of Geronimo's name but said code names typically are chosen randomly and allow those working on a mission to communicate without divulging information to adversaries.
The U.S. military has a long tradition of naming weapons and helicopters after American Indian tribes, chiefs and artifacts, a policy that became official with a 1969 Army regulation. The rule was later rescinded, but a 2009 Army Times article said the tradition continues today "as a way to honor America's war fighter heritage."
The military also has a history with the word "Geronimo" _ American paratroopers in World War II started using it as a war cry in the early 1940s. It's possible they picked up the term from the Paramount Pictures movie "Geronimo!" _ about a West Point grad and his Army regiment's attempt to capture the warrior _ which was released around the same time.
The reason behind the name's use in the bin Laden raid has been the subject of much speculation.
Some think it's because the al-Qaida leader, like Geronimo, was able to elude capture for so many years. Others say it's because the government considered both men terrorists, and some have suggested the guerrilla-style raid on bin Laden's compound was reflective of the Apache's fighting techniques.
Louis Maynahonah, a Navy veteran and chairman of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, said he doesn't believe the code name was meant to be derogatory. He pointed to the name's use as a paratrooper war cry and to the fleets of military aircraft named after Indian tribes, including the Apache helicopter.
"It's symbolic to me of the Army at the time trying to capture Geronimo," he said of the code name. "They had a heck of time because he used to slip back across the Mexican border. This bin Laden has been slipping from us for 10 years."
Whatever the reason behind it, many in Indian Country say the code name was simply a bad choice that reopened old wounds.
"The name Geronimo is arguably the most recognized Native American name in the world, and this comparison only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes about our peoples," the Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs said in a statement issued Tuesday.
"The U.S. military leadership should have known better," the chiefs said.
Morning Star Gali, a member of the Pit River Tribe in California, agreed. Part of Gali's family is descended from Geronimo's tribe, and she has made it a point to share that history with her three young children.
"We definitely try to instill who our heroes were and who Geronimo was and what he represented to our people and the sacrifices and struggles that they made for us to be here today," said Gali, a community liaison coordinator with the International Indian Treaty Council.
Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly said he would like to see the Obama administration and the Pentagon change the code name "so that U.S. history books will not continue to portray negative stereotypes of Native Americans and that America's youth will remember Geronimo as one of our greatest war heroes."
Geronimo is a legend among Apaches and other tribes for the fierce fighting he brought on during the 19th century as he tried to protect his land, his people and their way of life from encroachment by U.S. and Mexican armies.
Stories have been passed down about the Apache leader's ability to walk without leaving footprints, which helped him evade the thousands of soldiers and scouts who spent years looking for him throughout the Southwest.
After the families of Geronimo and other warriors were captured and sent to Florida, he and 35 warriors surrendered to Gen. Nelson A. Miles near the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1886. Geronimo eventually was sent to Fort Sill in Oklahoma, where he died of pneumonia in 1909.
Some Indian leaders say the attention should not be placed on bin Laden but rather on the men and women _ including the many Native Americans _ who are serving in the armed forces in the Middle East.
The Onondaga Nation chiefs and the Navajos described the military record of Native Americans as exemplary. They pointed to the sheer number of American Indian soldiers as well as the code talkers who used their Native languages to develop an unbreakable code during World War II.
Jefferson Keel, an Army veteran and president of the National Congress of American Indians, said that since 2001, 61 American Indians and Alaskan Natives have died fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and more than 400 have been wounded.
"Let's be very clear about what is important here," Keel said in a statement. "The successful removal of Osama bin Laden as a threat to the United States honors the sacrifice these Native warriors made for the United States and their people."
He added it was his understanding that bin Laden's code name was "Jackpot," while the operation was called Geronimo. Regardless, associating a Native warrior with bin Laden "undermines the military service of Native people," he said.
The U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee is expected to discuss the code name issue at its oversight hearing Thursday on the impact of racial stereotypes.
Gali hopes the panel presses for remedies, including an apology from the government.
"There are a number of steps that can be taken," she said. "Racism is very ingrained, and there's a long way to go to be able to make it right."
Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.
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New Mexico trial begins in swastika branding case
A man charged with branding a Nazi symbol into the arm of a developmentally disabled Navajo man is to be the first of three defendants to go on trial in the New Mexico case.
State prosecutors have charged William Hatch, 29, with first-degree felony kidnapping, felony conspiracy to commit kidnapping and aggravated battery causing great bodily harm. His trial in Aztec started Wednesday with jury selection.
The Farmington Daily Times reports two other defendants, Paul Beebe, 27, and Jesse Sanford, 25, also face trial in state district court for the April 2010 attack on the 22-year-old man.
The trio branded a swastika onto his arm, shaved the symbol on the back of his head and scrawled messages and images on his body with markers, authorities said.
The three men also face federal charges in the case. They were indicted last November, becoming the first people in the nation to be charged under a new law that makes it easier for the federal government to prosecute people for hate crimes.
Deut 28:50- A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young:
Deut 28:37- And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee.
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Feds suing more abortion activists
The Justice Department under President Barack Obama has taken a harder line against anti-abortion activists accused of trying to block access to clinics, suing at least a half-dozen of them under a federal law that lay mostly dormant during the Bush administration.
The law, written to protect people who seek or provide abortions, was revived after Obama took office and in the wake of the 2009 slaying of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller, who was shot to death moments before Sunday services were to begin at his Wichita church.
Since Obama's inauguration, federal lawsuits have been filed against a woman who blocked a car from entering a clinic in West Palm Beach, Fla.; a Texas man who threw his body across the door of a patient waiting area in San Antonio; and a Pennsylvania man who posted on the Internet the names and addresses of abortion providers and extolled his readers to kill them.
Government records obtained by The Associated Press show that in slightly over two years, the Obama Justice Department has filed six lawsuits under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, mostly to seek injunctions and fines. That compares with just one such lawsuit during the entire eight years of George W. Bush.
Tiller's slaying "brought home to many of us the terrible potential for violence and the need to use every legal means at our disposal to prevent it," said Barry Grissom, U.S. attorney for Kansas.
President Bill Clinton signed the law in 1994 after a turbulent period that included massive sit-ins at clinics, clinic bombings and other anti-abortion activities that culminated with Tiller being wounded in a 1993 shooting. The Clinton Justice Department subsequently filed 17 civil lawsuits under the law during his remaining term.
Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor who follows the federal judiciary, said Justice Department decisions usually mirror the president's views. He was not surprised to see the government acting more aggressively.
"I think President Bush was pretty clear about his position on that type of issue," Tobias said. "It is less clear what the present administration's position is, but maybe it is partly reflected in their willingness to be more rigorous about enforcing it."
Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the civil rights division, has said protecting abortion providers so they can do their jobs is of the "utmost importance."
The Justice Department "will continue to aggressively enforce the FACE Act against those who seek to violate the rights of their fellow Americans to safely provide or obtain such services," Perez said in announcing the Kansas lawsuit.
The figures do not include criminal prosecutions, which have been more consistent from one White House to the next during the early years of the Bush and Obama administrations.
The law was heavily used in the years immediately after it took effect. During President Bill Clinton's two terms, 37 criminal prosecutions were filed, compared with 18 under Bush and six under Obama. Since the law was enacted, the Justice Department has filed criminal cases against a total of 89 defendants, convicting 86 of them.
In civil court, one of the latest cases is a Kansas lawsuit filed last month against an abortion opponent who allegedly sent a threatening letter to a doctor. The government sued Angel Dillard when she wrote that thousands of people across the nation where watching the doctor and suggested she check under her car daily for explosives.
Citing First Amendment protections, Judge J. Thomas Marten ruled that Dillard's letter was not a "true threat" because she did not personally intend to harm the doctor. He refused to issue a preliminary injunction that would have kept her 250 feet away from the doctor, her clinic and her home.
The lawsuit is still pending while the judge awaits arguments on whether to dismiss the case entirely.
Grissom has said the Justice Department pursued a civil case against Dillard _ rather than criminal charges _ because the legal standard needed for a preliminary injunction is lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt," which is required for a criminal conviction.
In the Pennsylvania Internet case, the government obtained a court order that prohibits the defendant from posting threats against the doctors. The other recent civil cases remain to be resolved.
The sole civil lawsuit filed under the statute during the Bush years was a 2007 complaint against a separate Pennsylvania man who made similar threats on his website.
Hans von Spakovsky was counsel to the assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's civil rights division from 2001 to 2005. He said the fact that the Bush administration filed lots of criminal cases under the clinic law is evidence that the agency was willing to prosecute when the situation deserved it.
Von Spakovsky, now manager of the Civil Rights Reform Initiative for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the Justice Department's decision under Obama to bring numerous civil lawsuits raises two issues: It brings up First Amendment questions because some protests are protected speech. And it suggests authorities are pursuing civil action "because they know they don't have the evidence" to file criminal charges.
Anti-abortion activists harbor the same doubts.
"You don't just go around filing injunctions against people that you believe are proponents of violence," Operation Rescue President Troy Newman said. "Domestic violence cases have proven that little injunctions don't stop people from committing acts of violence. ... They are pretty weak cases all around the country."
Newman _ who along with other defendants was sued in 1998 for blockading a Washington, D.C., clinic _ said that if the Justice Department is serious about stopping abortion violence it should file criminal charges under more broadly written criminal statutes, rather than using an act that specifically targets abortion activists.
Kathy Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, a women's advocacy group that works to protect abortion rights, said the Justice Department needs to do more, given the heightened level of threats now against abortion providers since Obama's 2008 election.
The lawsuits "send a very strong message that extremists are not going to be able to make threats, much less carry out threats, without consequences," Spillar said. "The sooner and more diligent the response, then you don't get a ratcheting up and ultimately a horrific act of violence."
During the Bush years, Congress heard considerable testimony suggesting that the Justice Department _ particularly its civil rights division _ was highly politicized, Tobias recalled.
"I suppose other people would say that in fairness to the other side ... that the Obama administration is just as politicized in its Justice Department as the Bush one was," he said. "That is a fair criticism, I think. All the administrations have different priorities."
Ex 1:15- And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one [was] Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah:
Ex 1:16- And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see [them] upon the stools; if it [be] a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it [be] a daughter, then she shall live.
Ex 1:17- But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.
Ex 1:18- And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?
Ex 1:19- And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women [are] not as the Egyptian women; for they [are] lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them.
Ex 1:22- And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born ye shall cast into the river, and every daughter ye shall save alive.
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Egypt Muslim Brotherhood condemns Bin Laden death
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, a conservative organization with links around the Islamic world, has condemned the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces as an "assassination."
The Brotherhood, which seeks the establishment of a state run according to Islamic principles through peaceful means, is Egypt's most powerful and organized political movement.
The statement Monday said the group "is against violence in general, against assassinations and in favor of fair trials."
Bin Laden and his jihadist allies, however, have repeatedly condemned the Brotherhood's more moderate approach and willingness to work within the system.
The Muslim Brotherhood will be competing for half of Egypt's parliamentary seats in September's elections.
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Iran: US should leave Mideast with bin Laden death
The United States has no excuse to keep troops in the Middle East after killing al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, a senior Iranian official said Monday.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the U.S. can no longer keep troops to the region under the pretext of fighting terrorism now that Osama bin Laden is dead. The al-Qaida leader was killed in a raid by elite U.S. forces in Pakistan.
"Excuse for alien countries to deploy troops in this region under the pretext of fighting terrorism has been eliminated," he said, according to the state news agency.
"This development clearly shows that there is no need for a major military deployment to counter one individual," he said. "We hope this development will end war, conflict, unrest and the death of innocent people, and help to establish peace and tranquility in the region."
Iran says it cooperated with the U.S. in fighting terrorism but instead of being rewarded, former President George W. Bush placed Iran in his "axis of evil."
Iran claims it has cracked down on al-Qaida operatives, especially along its border with Afghanistan.
Iran opposes U.S. policy in the region, especially the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, on Iran's eastern and western borders.
Iran is a Shiite Muslim-dominated state, while bin Laden's al-Qaida group preaches a hard-line interpretation of the Sunni sect of the Islamic faith. Iran has always considered al-Qaida a threat to its security.
Iran confirmed at one point that it had some 500 al-Qaida operatives, mostly Saudis, in its custody and they were handed over to their home countries.
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Obama: Bin Laden's death makes the world safer
Declaring the killing of Osama bin Laden "a good day for America," President Barack Obama said Monday the world was safer without the al-Qaida terrorist and mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. His administration used DNA testing to help confirm that American forces in Pakistan had in fact killed bin Laden, as U.S. officials sought to erase all doubt.
"Today we are reminded that as a nation there is nothing we can't do," Obama said. He hailed the pride of those who broke out in overnight celebrations as the stunning news spread around the globe.
An elite crews of American forces killed bin Laden during a daring raid on Monday. Bin Laden was shot in the head during a firefight and then quickly buried at sea. White House officials were mulling the merits and appropriateness of releasing a photo.
As spontaneous celebrations and expressions of relief gave way to questions about precisely what happened and what comes next, U.S. officials warned that the campaign against terrorism is not nearly over _ and that the threat of retaliation was real.
Senior administration officials said the DNA testing alone offered near 100 percent certainty that bin Laden was in fact shot dead. Detailed photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation by a woman believed to be bin Laden's wife on site, and matching physical features like bin Laden's height all helped confirmed the identification.
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NYC mayor says city's spirit is stronger than ever
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city's spirit is stronger than ever.
He and other officials spoke Monday at the World Trade Center site after the death of Osama Bin Laden. They paid homage to victims of terrorist attacks there in 1993 and 2001.
Bloomberg also detailed plans for the Sept. 11 memorial and the progress of reconstruction at the site. The mayor says "the forces of freedom and justice have once again prevailed."
The mayor said late Sunday that the killing of the terrorist leader doesn't lessen the suffering Americans experienced but is a "critically important victory" for the nation.
He also said he hopes news of bin Laden's demise will "bring some closure and comfort to all those who lost loved ones" on Sept. 11.
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Obama: Bin Laden's death a 'good day' for America
Proudly declaring the killing of Osama bin Laden "a good day for America," President Barack Obama said Monday the world was a safer place without the world's most hunted terrorist. DNA testing helped confirm that American forces in Pakistan had in fact killed the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. officials said, seeking to erase any doubt about the news that riveted the globe.
Acting on intelligence that bin Laden was holed up in a compound in the city of Abbottabad, Obama ordered a risky, unilateral mission to capture or kill the al-Qaida leader on foreign soil. His counterterror chief, John Brennan, said Monday that Obama had monitored the raid from the White House Situation Room and expressed relief that elite forces had finally gotten bin Laden without losing any more American lives.
"It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time in the lives of the people who were assembled here," Brennan said from the White House. "The minutes passed like days."
The dramatic developments came just months ahead of the 10-year anniversary of the hijacked-airliner assaults on the United States. Those attacks took nearly 3,000 lives, led the U.S. into war in Afghanistan and Iraq and forever pierced the notion that the most powerful country on earth could not be hit on such a ferocious scale.
U.S. officials grimly warned of potential retaliation for bin Laden's killing. Indeed, a top al-Qaida ideologue vowed revenge and said the Islamic holy war against the West was far from over.
The administration was investigating who within Pakistan provided support to bin Laden to allow him to live, remarkably, in a fortified compound in a town, not tucked away in a cave as often rumored. Critics have long accused elements of Pakistan's security establishment of protecting bin Laden, though Islamabad has always denied it, and did so again.
Bin Laden went down firing at the Navy SEALs who stormed his compound, a U.S. official said. Brennan said one of bin Laden's wives was used as a human shield to try to protect him and she was killed, too, as a result. Brennan, speaking of bin Laden, said that revealed "the nature of the individual he was."
The American forces killed bin Laden during a daring raid early Monday, Pakistan time, capping a search that spanned nearly a decade. Bin Laden was shot in the head during a firefight and then quickly buried at sea. White House officials were mulling the merits, consequences and appropriateness of releasing a photo of the slain bin Laden but said that no one should have any doubts regardless.
Senior administration officials said the DNA testing alone offered near 100 percent certainty. Photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation by a woman believed to be one of bin Laden's wives on site, and matching physical features like bin Laden's height all helped confirmed the identification.
"We are reminded that as a nation there is nothing we can't do," Obama said of the news, which was bound to lift his political standing and help define his presidency.
He hailed the pride of those who broke into overnight celebrations as word spread around the U.S. and the globe. Those spontaneous expressions have given way to questions about precisely what happened and what comes next for al-Qaida, for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, for America's strained relations with its Pakistani ally and for the direction of U.S. politics.
U.S. officials warned that the campaign against terrorism was not nearly over _ and that the threat of deadly retaliation against the United States and its allies was real. However, the government said it had no specific or credible threat to share with the American public.
Senior U.S. officials said bin Laden was killed toward the end of the firefight, which took place in a building at a compound north of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. His body was put aboard the USS Carl Vinson and then placed into the North Arabian Sea. An official familiar with the operation said bin Laden fired on U.S. forces and was hit by return fire.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because aspects of the operation remain classified.
The official said two dozen SEALs in night-vision goggles dropped into the high-walled compound in Pakistan by sliding down ropes from Chinook helicopters in the overnight raid.
The SEALs retrieved bin Laden's body and turned the remaining detainees over to Pakistani authorities.
Traditional Islamic procedures for handling the remains were followed, the officials said, including washing the corpse, placing it in a white sheet.
"The fight continues and we will never waver," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at the State Department. Her comments had echoes of President George W. Bush's declaration nearly a decade ago, when al-Qaida attacks against America led to war in Afghanistan and changed the way Americans viewed their own safety.
Turning to deliver a direct message to bin Laden's followers, she vowed: "You cannot wait us out."
U.S. Capitol Police put on a conspicuous show of force Monday morning with 10 vehicles amassed near Constitution Avenue with their lights flashing and doors and trunks open. Officers armed with automatic weapons kept watch on every vehicle that passed.
Obama himself had delivered the news of bin Laden's killing in a dramatic White House statement late Sunday. "Justice has been done," he declared.
Officials say CIA interrogators in secret overseas prisons developed the first strands of information that ultimately led to the killing of bin Laden.
The military operation that ended his life took mere minutes.
U.S. Black Hawk helicopters ferried about two dozen troops from Navy SEAL Team Six, a top military counter-terrorism unit, into the compound identified by the CIA as bin Laden's hideout _ and back out again in less than 40 minutes. Bin Laden was shot after he and his bodyguards resisted the assault, officials said.
The compound is about a half-mile from a Pakistani military academy, in a city that is home to three army regiments and thousands of military personnel. Abbottabad is surrounded by hills with mountains in the distance.
Bin Laden's death came 15 years after he declared war on the United States. Al-Qaida was also blamed for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.
"We have rid the world of the most infamous terrorist of our time," CIA Director Leon Panetta declared to employees of the agency in a memo Monday morning.
Retaliatory attacks against the U.S. and Western targets could come from members of al-Qaida's core branch in the tribal areas of Pakistan, al-Qaida franchises in other countries or radicalized individuals in the U.S. with al-Qaida sympathies, according to a Homeland Security Department intelligence alert issued Sunday and obtained by The Associated Press.
In addition to bin Laden, one of his sons, Khalid, was killed in the raid, as was the wife who shielded him, Brennan said. Also killed were two of bin Laden's al-Qaida facilitators, including one who was apparently listed as the owner of the residence, Brennan said.
As news of bin Laden's death spread, hundreds of people cheered and waved American flags at ground zero in New York, the site where al-Qaida hijacked jets blasted the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Thousands celebrated all night outside the White House gates.
Many people said they were surprised that bin Laden had finally been found and killed. John Gocio, a doctor from Arkansas who was gathering what details he could from TV screens at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, marveled: "After such a long time, you kind of give up and say, `Well, that's never going to happen.'"
The greatest terrorist threat to the U.S. is now considered to be the al-Qaida franchise in Yemen, far from al-Qaida's core in Pakistan. The Yemen branch almost took down a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas 2009 and nearly detonated explosives aboard two U.S. cargo planes last fall. Those operations were carried out without any direct involvement from bin Laden.
The few fiery minutes in Abbottabad followed years in which U.S. officials struggled to piece together clues that ultimately led to bin Laden, according to an account provided by senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operation.
Based on statements given by U.S. detainees since the 9/11 attacks, they said, intelligence officials have long known that bin Laden trusted one al-Qaida courier in particular, and they believed he might be living with him in hiding.
Four years ago, the United States learned the man's identity, which officials did not disclose, and then about two years later, they identified areas of Pakistan where he operated. Last August, the man's residence was found, officials said.
By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear enough that Obama wanted to pursue action, a senior administration official said. Over the next two and a half months, the president led five meetings of the National Security Council focused solely on whether bin Laden was in that compound and, if so, how to get him, the official said.
Obama made a decision to launch the operation on Friday, shortly before flying to Alabama to inspect tornado damage, and aides set to work on the details.
Associated Press writers Ben Feller, Matt Apuzzo, Erica Werner, David Espo, Pauline Jelinek, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Eileen Sullivan and Kimberly Dozier contributed to this story.
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Bin Laden's death could inspire attacks in US
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are warning law enforcement across the country that Osama bin Laden's death will likely inspire homegrown extremists in the U.S. to try to carry out attacks in the near-term.
The agencies issued a joint intelligence bulletin Monday that said the core al-Qaida group is less likely to carry out attacks against the U.S. in the immediate future, but its spinoff groups around the world could use bin Laden's death as an excuse to speed up plans for attacks. The bulletin was obtained by The Associated Press.
The intelligence community has no information of advanced terror plots in the U.S., but believes U.S. cities, aviation, mass transit and U.S. government facilities will continue to be attractive targets for terrorists, according to the joint bulletin.
Isa 47:8- Therefore hear now this, [thou that art] given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I [am], and none else beside me; I shall not sit [as] a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:
Isa 47:11- Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, [which] thou shalt not know.
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'Closure': Americans find comfort in clear ending
To surf American airwaves, to read American comments on the Internet by the thousands, to walk American streets on the day after Osama bin Laden's astonishing demise meant you'd almost certainly hear some variation of a single telling word: "closure."
As in ending. As in end of story _ at least, the primary story arc of Osama bin Laden, which for most Americans began in the eastern United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and ended in Pakistan in the early moments of May 2, 2011, in one of the most dramatic undoings imaginable.
While Americans reveled in the demise of global terrorism's most public face, the prevailing mood was unsurprising for the culture that produced Hollywood: After so many years of uncertainty and mass aggravation over no resolution at all, here, finally, was some kind of coherent ending.
Listen to Republican Rep. Peter King, one of many whose satisfaction in the hours after bin Laden's death focused on resolution and wrap-up. Of the 9/11 victims' families, he said this: "Now they can finally have some sense of closure and some sense of justice."
Or Mike Low of Batesville, Ark., whose flight attendant daughter died aboard American Airlines Flight 11: "It certainly brings an ending to a major quest for all of us."
Or Lisa Ramaci, celebrating early Monday in New York's streets, where the champagne-and-goodbye-chants atmosphere at times resembled that of a major pro sports victory: "We had this 10 years of frustration just building and building, wanting this guy dead, and now he is."
Surely one man's eradication cannot offset survivors' years of pain. But the American hunger for definitive Hollywood endings is boundless _ to the point where we grow deeply irritated if something seems too open-ended. The quick-cut, sound-bite culture so frustrating to politicians and other leaders produces an appetite for resolution that's hard to satisfy.
Add to that the enduring, horrific echoes of 9/11 and two protracted wars that have no discernible endpoints in sight, and you have a populace primed to applaud the end of a major chapter, even if it isn't unfettered victory.
Part of it is the nature of U.S. warfare in recent decades. Americans today are as likely to fight wars against amorphous enemies as they are nation-states. Because of that, conflicts tend to lack distinct endings or formal surrenders like a Yorktown or an Appomattox _ events that say, "Hey, the war's over."
There was no Treaty of Versailles with Saddam Hussein, and certainly no one in America expects ever to have a V-E Day or V-J Day with al-Qaida. In modern U.S.-backed warfare, the big, solemn, identifiable ending is virtually obsolete. So a major milestone like bin Laden's death is, for the United States, a cause for buoyancy in a frustratingly unresolved conflict.
That's how Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer cast it. "The war on terror is not over," he said Monday on MSNBC, "but maybe this was the Saratoga or the Gettysburg where things turned."
But there's something else at play, too. Bin Laden himself was the closest thing the modern world had to a James Bond-style supervillain _ someone who, to hundreds of millions of Westerners, was truly, monochromatically dastardly.
Owen Gleiberman, writing on Entertainment Weekly's website, identified it immediately in a piece called "Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy."
"That perception of 9/11 as big-screen-action-disaster-gone-real, widespread though it was, seemed rather indefensible at the time because to say it, or even to think it, risked trivializing the devastation," Gleiberman wrote.
"Yet 9/11, there's almost no denying it, did live in our minds like a giant motion picture," he wrote, "and part of what made it so wasn't simply the vastness, the sheer terrifying spectacle, of the tragedy. It was that behind it lay a villain of nearly mythological proportion."
And now we get to the heart of the matter. Could it be that, for a worried and weary nation, such a soul-wrenching event as 9/11 required an appropriately cataclysmic resolution for the man who masterminded it? Would a bomb from the air _ or, worse, a revelation years later that he had died _ have been as satisfying?
Would a less sharply defined bin Laden death have allowed for the jubilant summoning of American resoluteness that was being bandied about so freely Monday from the White House to the streets of New York City and Washington?
When you take in the words that people in America used Monday _ "emotionally held hostage," "finally," "a symbol," "an important milestone" _ you realize what the ending of bin Laden means right here, right now: It gives Americans something to pin their feelings on, to carry with us when we say, "What has all this meant?"
It means, for now, that one of the key demands of a story _ that something actually happens that means something _ has just unfolded before our eyes. The fact that the manner of bin Laden's death might have fit perfectly into a pre-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger movie is not incidental.
For the moment, Americans have our resolution _ something to pin our feelings on. We have all-important closure, even though _ in the real, messier, non-cinematic world _ the country of big endings still must wake up tomorrow and fight another day.
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MLK parade bomb suspect in WA seeks trial delay
A man charged with planting an unexploded bomb at a Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Spokane wants a four-month delay in his federal trial for attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.
Defense lawyers said in documents filed Monday that prosecutors intend to present more evidence against defendant Kevin Harpham than the attorneys can process before the current May 31 trial date.
"To date, we have received approximately 3,500 pages of discovery and 13 audio and video CDs," the documents state.
The material indicates federal prosecutors will be presenting highly technical evidence involving DNA in addition to testimony from computer and explosives experts.
Lawyers for Harpham, who has extensive ties to white supremacist activities, also pointed out he could face life in prison if convicted, so they need ample time to prepare.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice said Tuesday that prosecutors do not object to a trial delay. The issue was expected to be discussed during a May 20 court appearance.
Harpham, 36, of Addy was arrested on March 9. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in jail without bail.
He also faces charges of possession of an unregistered destructive device, committing a hate crime and using a firearm during a violent hate crime, which carries a minimum sentence of 30 years.
A grand jury indictment contended Harpham planted the device on the morning of Jan. 17, "because of actual or perceived race, color and national origin" of participants.
Little else is known about the motivation in the case because a request by federal prosecutors to seal court documents about the investigation has been granted.
Prosecutors contend releasing details would hamper an on-going investigation and could taint the jury pool.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has said Harpham made more than 1,000 postings on an Internet site used by racists called the Vanguard News Network. The center has also said Harpham belonged to a neo-Nazi group called the National Alliance.
His father, Cecil Harpham, has said his son talked to racists on the Internet regularly but never acted on racial hate
Zec 11:5- Whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty: and they that sell them say, Blessed [be] the LORD; for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.
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Bush declines Obama invitation to ground zero
A spokesman for George W. Bush says the former president has declined an invitation from President Barack Obama to attend an observance at New York's ground zero.
Obama plans to visit the site of the destroyed World Trade Center towers Thursday in the aftermath of a Navy SEALs raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The al-Qaida attack, which killed about 3,000 people, occurred in the early months of Bush's presidency in 2001.
The spokesman, David Sherzer, says the former president appreciated the offer to attend but has chosen to remain out of the spotlight during his post-presidency.
Sherzer says Bush celebrates bin Laden's death as an "important victory in the war on terror.
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Billionaires gather in Arizona to discuss giving
By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP, Associated Press Donna Gordon Blankinship, Associated Press – Sat May 7, 7:18 am ET
What do dozens of American billionaires talk about when they get together? Their topic this week was of course money; not how to make it, but how to give it away.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Friday that a private gathering was a great chance for the billionaires who have pledged to give away at least half their wealth to meet each other, compare notes, eat and laugh.
The media was banned from Thursday's first meeting of the group that has accepted the giving challenge by Buffett and his friend Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Since last June, 69 individuals or couples have made the giving pledge.
Buffett knew only about 12 of the 61 people at the dinner at the Miraval Resort in Tucson before the famously gregarious Berkshire Hathaway CEO worked the room and made 40 new friends.
"They all more than fulfilled my expectations," Buffett told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said she was delighted by the openness of the virtual strangers. At one point, conversation at her table drifted toward the biggest mistakes people had ever made as philanthropists.
"One of the things about being a philanthropist, in many ways it's rather a lonely job," said Tashia Morgridge, a retired special education teacher.
She works with her husband, Cisco Systems chairman John Morgridge, to give money to improve U.S. education through the Denver-based Morgridge Family Foundation.
George Kaiser, a Tulsa, Okla., philanthropist who aids early childhood education and social services programs, said the giving pledge helps philanthropists who don't want to just throw money at causes and instead want to explore the best ways to invest money to tackle the world's biggest problems.
"Being able to share with other people who are agonizing about the same decisions is extraordinarily useful," said Kaiser, the chairman of BOK Financial Corp who has been an oil and gas industry executive for four decades. He led a session on applying analytical business practices to philanthropy.
The goals of the organization do not include working together to pool philanthropic dollars. Still, the meeting in Tucson that ended Friday included sessions where different philanthropists shared their passion to improve education, the environment and other causes.
Philosophies of giving and ideas for collaboration among the billionaires were also shared throughout the event, said Jean Case, CEO of the family foundation started by her and her husband, America Online founder Steve Case.
"There's a strong desire in this group to learn from each other," said Jean Case, who offered to host the event at their Tucson resort after Melinda Gates talked to her about the possibility of the meeting.
The mother of five children also led a session on children and families in philanthropy. Steve Case gave a talk on using social media to encourage giving. All the sessions at the meeting were led by members of the group.
Some common themes emerged from the event. The participants are looking to do more impactful, more effective philanthropy and to inspire average people to give money away, Jean Case said.
Sharing ideas about giving also took place informally. Melinda Gates said she talked to two people who were devoting money for work on state pension issues and criminal justice — problems Gates had previously not thought about.
Chuck Feeney, a New Jersey philanthropist Buffett called the spiritual leader of the group, spoke about his plans to give all his money to charity.
"He wants his last check to bounce," Buffett said.
Job 20:10- His children shall seek to please the poor, and his hands shall restore their goods.
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Bin Laden's death a tough subject for the pulpit
By BROCK VERGAKIS, Associated Press Brock Vergakis, Associated Press – Sun May 8, 4:07 pm ET
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – The killing of Osama bin Laden, a man who was America's face of evil for nearly a decade, left Christians, Jews and Muslims relieved, proud or even jubilant. For their religious leaders, it was sometimes hard to know just what to say.
There is at least some dissonance between the values they preach and the triumphant response on the streets of New York and Washington to the death of a human being — even one responsible for thousands of killings in those areas and around the world.
"Justice may have been served, but we Catholics never rejoice in the death of a human being," said the Rev. Stephen Mimnaugh.
He did not mention bin Laden during Sunday's morning Mass at Manhattan's St. Francis of Assisi, the church of the late Mychal Judge, chaplain of the Fire Department of New York and the first recorded victim of the Sept. 11 attacks in the city.
After Mass, Mimnaugh cited comments published in America, a weekly Catholic magazine. The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest, wrote that "no matter how monstrous" a person is, "as a Christian, I am asked to pray for him and, at some point, forgive him."
Other religious leaders felt compelled to say at least a few words about bin Laden on the first weekend of worship since he was killed. Some focused on moving on and working toward peace, while others spoke approvingly of a death they said marked a blow for justice.
The Rev. David Howard shouted his approval — in a sense — from outside his church in Virginia Beach, Va.
"OSAMA BIN LADEN, SATAN AND THE FINAL VICTORY OF JESUS," read the marquee outside Brook Baptist Church, publicizing the sermon Howard started writing hours after he heard that a team of Navy SEALs based in Virginia Beach killed the al-Qaida leader.
Howard has no doubt that bin Laden was an instrument of Satan brought to justice with the aid of God, who answered the prayers of millions.
"We should pray for bad people, evil people, that when we pray to God he will change their lives. But if he won't change their lives, especially those who have a lot of power to hurt a lot of people, you pray for their end because they're causing so much pain," he said. "You pray somehow God will take them out. The Bible is very clear that God is in control and every person in power is because God put them there. He can put them there, he can keep them there or he can take them out. That's his prerogative."
The leader of one of the nation's largest mosques was equally direct during prayers Friday.
"There is no doubt that this man was a thug, he was a murderer," Imam Hassan al-Qazwini told worshippers at the Islamic Center of America in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. "His hands were stained by the blood of thousands of innocent people — Muslims and non-Muslims alike."
Qazwini, who delivered his sermon in a large, circular hall filled to capacity, said the Quran is clear that someone who kills one innocent person "is doomed to hell forever." And the imam was particularly incensed that bin Laden "committed atrocities against innocent people ... while he was calling `Allahu akbar,'" or "God is great."
"He's responsible for tarnishing the image of Islam in this country," he said. "We're happy to see the man who caused so much pain for Muslims in this country is gone ... finally."
Before the sermon, Qazwini said Muslims are discouraged from showing jubilation over death, but cheering the news of bin Laden's demise marks an occasion where "justice was served."
At Armitage Baptist Church on Chicago's near west side, Pastor Charles Lyons told his congregation Sunday that sometimes "evil must be stopped."
"We do not rejoice in the death of the man named Osama bin Laden (but) ... truth provides a platform for justice," he said.
Church member Angelia Parker said bin Laden's death should have been a time for contemplation, not cheering in the streets.
"I think that was kind of weird," said Parker, who was passing out roses to mothers after the service. "It was like, `Are you kidding me?' We are celebrating this person's death? We didn't celebrate in the streets when Saddam Hussein was killed."
The Rev. Bill Kelly, priest at Saint Mary of the Assumption in Dedham, Mass., near Boston, said he was taken aback by the celebrations because he detected bloodlust. But he added that the emotional reaction is understandable.
"This is 10 years of pent-up anger, hurt, frustration, especially here in the Boston area because the crimes were initiated here," he said, referring to the two planes that took off from Boston before crashing into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
At Second Baptist Church, the oldest black church in South Los Angeles, church member Goward Horton said he was happy about bin Laden's death and didn't think that conflicted with his beliefs.
"We should be allowed to have relief, happiness, joy. Especially if you were touched by what happened on 9/11," Horton said. "Me, personally, I'm not one to take to the streets in celebration over his death, but I understood when people did it."
The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader and Nobel Peace laureate, said Tuesday in Los Angeles that although bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness as a human being, it is sometimes necessary to take counter-measures.
"Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened," he told students at the University of Southern California.
Reform Rabbi Eric Wisnia, of Princeton, N.J.'s Congregation Beth Chaim, observed that during the Passover holiday that ended April 26, Jews recount the 10 plagues carried out against Egyptian aggressors by dipping their fingers in wine 10 times. But they are forbidden to lick their fingers, lest they take pleasure in the pain of others.
As he left a Quaker meeting in Philadelphia, Fred Koszewnik of Marlton, N.J., said he thought the celebrations were "kind of icky."
"Honestly, I'm glad he's dead, but I don't know that's something to celebrate," he said. "If I understand anything about Quakerism, there's something of God in everyone."
Chuck Esser, who was at the same Quaker meeting, said he understands the relief at bin Laden's death — his own nephew was injured in the New York attacks and had to be pulled from the rubble. But he said he wishes the terror leader had been captured and put on trial.
"It's very strange for our country to be celebrating assassinations," he said. He said bin Laden "embodies a lot of evil things, but our response is not in tune with the best traditions of our country and our God."
At Congregation Neve Shalom, a Conservative Jewish synagogue in Metuchen, N.J., Rabbi Gerald Zelizer said in an interview that according to the Talmud, if someone is trying to kill you, "you are obligated — not permitted — to kill that person before he kills you."
"But that obligation does not carry with it at all the privilege of rejoicing," he added.
As services ended at the synagogue Friday, a heated debate over how to respond broke out. Kathryn Zahler, a compliance administrator from Colonia, N.J., said that taking delight in anyone's death feels un-Jewish.
"For what it's worth, he had a family. He's obviously a very evil man. I think there was a sense of relief, but I wasn't celebrating," Zahler said.
But Mindy Epstein, a medical assistant also from Colonia, said she took joy in bin Laden's death, noting that al-Qaida showed no decency when it released a video of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl being decapitated in 2002.
"I don't care if that makes me a non-Jew or not," Epstein said. "Put it on pay for view for the (Sept. 11) victims."
In his Saturday morning sermon, Zelizer reminded congregants that the day bin Laden was killed was also Holocaust Remembrance Day. He suggested that the phrase often used in reference to Adolf Hitler might also be appropriate for bin Laden: "May his name be blotted out and his memory forgotten."
Isa 14:1- For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
Isa 14:2- And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.
Isa 14:3- And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve,
Isa 14:4- That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
Isa 14:5- The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, [and] the sceptre of the rulers.
Isa 14:6- He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, [and] none hindereth.
Isa 14:7- The whole earth is at rest, [and] is quiet: they break forth into singing.
Isa 14:8- Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, [and] the cedars of Lebanon, [saying], Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.
Isa 14:9- Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet [thee] at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, [even] all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
Isa 14:10- All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?
Isa 14:11- Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, [and] the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.
(all the way to end of the chapter)
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Al Qaeda Vows Revenge on Bin Laden's Death
Al-Qaida confirmed the killing of Osama bin Laden and vowed revenge, saying Americans' "happiness will turn to sadness" in the first statement by the terror network.
According to AP, the confirmation came as newly uncovered documents found in bin Laden's residence revealed al-Qaida plans for derailing an American train on the upcoming 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"America is celebrating Osama bin Laden's killing, but it will be a temporary celebration," said Abdullah Sittar Chishti, a member of the Jamiat Ulema Islam party who attended the rally in Khuchlak. "After the martyrdom of Osama, billions, trillions of Osamas will be born."
Terror experts have said bin Laden's death on Monday was a setback for al-Qaida but the threat of attacks remains and could even spike in coming days from individuals or small extremist groups inspired to take revenge for the killing.
Materials confiscated by the Navy SEALs who killed the al-Qaida leader in Abbotabad, Pakistan, reveal the rail attack planning as of February 2010.
"It is impossible, impossible. Sheik Osama didn't build an organization to die when he dies," read the al-Qaida statement.
"The soldiers of Islam will continue in groups and united, plotting and planning without getting bored, tired, with determination, without giving up until striking a blow."
Whether President Obama would have released Osama's death photos or not, it would have not made a difference. There are more terrorist out there, that will continue to practice what bin Laden taught them.
Job 18:11- Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.
Psalms 73:19- How are they [brought] into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors.
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Bahrain's king orders end to emergency law
Bahrain's king set a fast-track timetable to end martial law-style rule Sunday in a bid to display confidence that authorities have smothered a pro-reform uprising even as rights groups denounced the hard-line measures.
The announcement to lift emergency rule two-weeks early on June 1 came just hours after the start of a closed-door trial accusing activists of plotting to overthrow the Gulf state's rulers.
The decision appears part of Bahrain's aggressive international campaign to reassure financial markets and win back high-profile events. They include the coveted Formula One grand prix that was canceled in March amid deadly clashes and protests by the country's majority Shiites, who are seeking greater rights and freedoms.
But the massive crackdown has come at a high price in the strategic island nation, which hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
At least 30 people have been killed since the protests began in February, inspired by revolts against autocratic leaders in Tunisia and Egypt. But tiny Bahrain also carries a volatile demographic mix. Shiites account for about 70 percent of the population, but claim widespread discrimination and are denied top posts in the government and security forces.
Tensions in the Gulf have soared between Shiite power Iran and the Sunni Arab rulers backing Bahrain. Iran has sharply condemned the three-month emergency rule imposed March 15 just as a 1,500-strong Saudi-led force arrived in Bahrain to support the monarchy. Gulf leaders, in turn, have strongly warned Iran to halt meddling in their affairs.
Meanwhile, watchdog groups _ including the top U.N. rights agency _ have accused Bahraini authorities of overstepping their bounds with closed-door trials and mass detentions of hundreds of protesters, activists and others. A major America labor organization, the AFL-CIO, is asking Washington to withdraw from a free-trade pact with Bahrain as punishment for pressuring Shiite-led unions.
U.S. official have tried to straddle two objectives: rapping Bahrain's leaders for violence and urging for reforms, but making sure there are no serious cracks in one of Washington's most important military alliance in the Gulf.
The declaration to remove the emergency rule gave no details of what would take its place, including whether the nighttime curfew would end or if the numerous checkpoints would be dismantled. Last month, Bahrain's foreign minister said the Saudi-led reinforcements would remain as long as there are perceived threats from Iran.
The latest indication of Bahrain's Iran worries came Sunday when 21 opposition leaders and political activists went on trial in a special security court set up under the emergency rule, which gives the military sweeping powers.
The suspects _ 14 in custody and the others charged in absentia _ are accused of attempting to overthrow the 200-year-old Sunni dynasty and having links to "a terrorist organization abroad working for a foreign country." No additional details were made public, but Bahrain's leaders have claimed that Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah is involved in Bahrain's protests.
Lawyers for those in custody entered not guilty pleas. Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said the closed-door proceedings violated international standards for a fair trial.
Late last month, the security court sentenced four protesters to death for killing two policemen in the unrest. Three other opposition supporters were convicted as accomplices in the murders and were sentenced to life in prison.
Among those charged on Sunday are senior Shiite opposition leaders such as Hassan Mushaima, the leader of Al Haq movement, and some of its senior members including Abdul Jalil al-Singace. Mushaima and al-Singace were among the first political leaders taken into custody after emergency rule was imposed.
Also among the suspects: Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, the kingdom's leading human rights activist; Ibrahim Sharif, a prominent Sunni reform leader, and Ali Abdul Emam, a blogger and founder of a popular discussion forum known as Bahrain-On-Line. Al-Khawaja was beaten unconscious by police in his house in the outskirts of the capital, Manama, according to relatives who witnessed the raid.
Last week, authorities charged 23 doctors and 24 nurses with participating in illegal rallies or attempts to topple the ruling Al Khalifa family.
Some of the medical staff who treated protesters during the unprecedented political unrest will be tried in the same security court. Only select journalists are allowed to cover the trials after authorities put a gag order on legal proceedings against suspected opposition supporters.
Later this month, three former top editors of Bahrain's main opposition newspaper, Al Wasat, will be tried in a criminal court after authorities accused them of unethical coverage of the protests.
Al Wasat was to shut down Sunday, but the paper's board decided to continue publishing despite a significant drop in circulation and revenue since the three editors were forced to resign in April.
The political turmoil forced Bahrain's crown prince, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, to call off the Bahrain Grand Prix scheduled for March 13.
Last week, Formula One's governing body gave Bahrain until June 3 to decide if a new date could be set for this year. The task of persuading F1 overseers may be tough, however.
In an interview posted on the official F1 website, the sport's boss Bernie Ecclestone said officials would need "a guarantee that there won't be any problems" in Bahrain.
"But right now, I don't know how anybody could guarantee that because it might be peaceful now, but who knows in the future," he added
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Mobs set Egypt churches on fire, 10 killed
Muslim mobs set two churches on fire overnight in a Cairo slum during sectarian clashes that left 10 dead and more than 200 injured, deepening religious violence in military-ruled Egypt while the country is already struggling through a chaotic and lawless transition to democracy.
Military authorities arrested 190 people, immediately sending them to military prosecutions and threatened the maximum penalty against anyone attacking houses of worship. It was the military's toughest response yet to a series of violent clashes between the two religious groups and signifies swift justice.
Mobs of ultraconservative Muslims attacked the St. Menas church in the Cairo slum of Imbaba late Saturday following rumors that a Christian woman married to a Muslim man had been abducted. Local residents said a separate mob of youths armed with knives and machetes attacked the Virgin Mary church several blocks away with firebombs the same night.
"People were scared to come near them," said local resident Adel Mohammed, 29, who lives near the Virgin Mary Church. "They looked scary. They threw their fire bombs at the church, and set parts of it on ablaze."
During the 18 day uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak several months ago, there was a rare spirit of brotherhood between Muslims and Christians. They protected each other during prayers by each respective group in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the revolution.
But in months that followed the toppling of Mubarak on Feb. 11, there has been a rise in sectarian tensions, fueled in part by newly active ultraconservative Muslim movement, known as the Salafis.
The once quiescent Salafis have become more assertive post-revolution in trying to spread their ultraconservative version of an Islamic way of life. In particular, they have focused their wrath on Egypt's Christians, who make up 10 percent of the country's 80 million people.
On Friday, a few hundred Salafis marched through Cairo celebrating al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and condemning the U.S. operation to kill him.
Sameh Fawzi, a Coptic scholar, said the new trend of attacks on churches and heightened tension between ultraconservative Muslims and Copts are taking place in the context of a weakened state and increasingly assertive Salafis.
The military rulers' attempts to hold reconciliation sessions, instead of prosecuting those involved, only serves to reinforce the impression of the state's weakness, he said.
"What needs to happen and quickly is that the state implements the law," he said. "This is a crime of thuggery and it should be treated as such."
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