Al Qaida leader killed in US drone attack

[red750]

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/biden-speak-operation-al-qaida-afghanistan-87767574

[Jerry_Atrick]

Good riddance 

[onetrack]

Just have to hand it to the Americans, they never let up on anyone that has attacked them, and their intelligence information is amazing. 

[Yenn]

Yes the Yanks know how to get rid of their enemies/ Pity they don't bring them to trial and prove their case against them. We only have their word that those people are so bad and look at Guantanamo. They say those people are so bad that they cannot be allowed into USA for a trial. Do you really believe Rob Hicks was the worst of the worst?

My  opinion is never trust anyone from the USA.

[onetrack]

Yenn, you mean David Hicks? He was found not guilty by an American court, but he certainly was badly treated in Guantanamo. He should have simply been charged with being a complete dickhead. I just think, that's what he really is.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hicks

[Marty_d]

That was Little Johnny's fault.  He went rabid at Hicks and would have been quite happy for the Yanks to shoot him.

 

I'm not in general a fan of the death penalty but have no problem with them assassinating scum like Al Quaeda leaders - as long as their intelligence has confirmed their guilt and identity beyond any doubt, and they don't cause any "collateral damage" to civilians in the process.

[nomadpete]

Maybe so, Marty. But can you really trust USA secret services, or Russian secret services (or anybody else's)  to be totally fair and unbiased when they choose to make an ex judicial assassination?

 

If the musso's do it, we call it an act of terrorism

[nomadpete]

Yeah, and David Hicks, and Julian Assange are recent proof of how much we can trust our own governents to apply fair unbiased judgements of our own citizens. Neither of those two have caused international deaths. But they were pretty much left to rot anyway.

[facthunter]

It's pretty much established this guy was  their mastermind and  the Taliban had said they wouldn't harbour such people and there he was in the middle of Kabul bold as brass.. Sends a powerful message. You can't hide.  Nev

[nomadpete]

Really?

How can they be certain that they topped the one that they wanted?

From a distance all those wrinkled old afghans wearing turbans and tents look the same to me.

 

And you are suggesting that the yanks only found their victim because one of his mates dobbed him in.

If they can get the US to believe they knocked off their main man, the US might stop being such a nuisance to their 'cause'.

Just sayin....

 

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by nomadpete
had a spell of bad spelling again

[facthunter]

Their record was quite poor a year ago and they knew it. IF this was a mistake you'd have heard about it soon enough. That would discredit their triumph. Yes I do suspect they had reliable confirmation of identity.   Nev

[onetrack]

The Americans are pretty good at encouraging locals to be dobbers (lots of greenbacks helps) - then leaving the dobbers out on a limb, when they get uncovered.

[facthunter]

THEY are not alone there.  Nev

[Yenn]

You can't expect the correct answers from US intelligence. If you think Bin Laden and this later bloke are guilty OK, but you are relying on the same people who destroyed Iraq because there were weapons of mass destruction there.

[Marty_d]

14 hours ago, nomadpete said:

Yeah, and David Hicks, and Julian Assange are recent proof of how much we can trust our own governents to apply fair unbiased judgements of our own citizens. Neither of those two have caused international deaths. But they were pretty much left to rot anyway.

While I agree with your sentiment, Hicks was a misled foot soldier and they're not going to be wasting a drone on every dope who gets fooled by IS/AQ.  Their record on Assange is appalling but so is the Australian government(s) (several of them now) - who haven't stood up for the rights of an Australian citizen.

 

As Nev says, the Yanks are usually very careful with identifying terrorist leaders before they slot them, because of the high level of embarrassment and schadenfreude that would be visited on them if they got the wrong person.

[nomadpete]

Hicks never fired a shot. He was a misguided young bloke who went over to try to sign up because he thought the US was invading a foreign country. But they didn't like him and when he was caught he was already quite worried by the number of rabid psychopaths that were trying to join just to play at killing people. Does that sound like great US intelligence?

My point being that although they didn't waste a bullet on Hicks, their 'superior military intelligence' couldn't tell the difference between the Hicks of the world and the real terrorists.

[Jerry_Atrick]

Sometimes, the optics play a role and they neeed the home population to feel they are safe..

[facthunter]

Saudia was all over 911 and only get away with it because they have OIL under them. It's a form  of Justice to knock off the mastermind of all that (and more). Nev 

[onetrack]

I never cease to be amazed at how the Americans almost continually work on designing new and better ways to kill people - only America's enemies, of course.

It's reported the device used to take out Ayman al-Zawahri was a bladed, non-explosive missile, based on a Hellfire explosive missile. The aim is to have a precise kill with no collateral damage.

It seems hard to imagine that the Americans could kill anyone without flattening an entire city block, just to nail one terrorist - but this time, it looks like they're learning.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-05/hellfire-missile-killed-ayman-al-zawahiri-in-afghanistan/101300634

[Yenn]

They are learning to kill, but not learning how to behave. Bin Laden was murdered while hiding behind women and he was unarmed, at least that is what I read in the write up by the military who were there. This latest bloke has also been murdered. There should be a trial of these so called terrorists and so far the USA has no intention of letting that happen and as I cannot trust the Yanks, to me it is no different from terrorism.

[facthunter]

3.000 Innocent ordinary people DIED  in those towers as well as occupants of 4 civilian Airliners. GET REAL. . Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

And Al Queda claimed responsibility. My guess is it was a true confession as there wasn't any military or law enforcement using standover tactics.

 

BTW, ironically, bin Laden's family are not the radicals he was and wanted nothing to do with him,  is what I have read.

[facthunter]

He's the rebel in the family. His main motivation was to get US  Forces based in Saudia out of it . In HIS position, I might have felt the same but it went on from there,  Nev

[onetrack]

Bin Laden had lost his ability to lead Al Qaeda by the time he was taken out. He was a sick old man, and the other terror leaders in AQ were largely using Bin Laden as a figurehead by 2011.

But one thing's for sure, Bin Laden WAS the chief plotter for AQ in the 1990's and early 2000's. But after 9/11 he had to disappear to survive. The Americans only got him due to the Pakistanis helping them.

 

Seymour Hersh has a pretty accurate rundown of what happened in the Bin Laden elimination, and a lot of what the Americans have told us is BS - particularly about how they got a treasure trove of information and future plots from his computer equipment.

The Americans had to make out Bin Laden was still the operations leader of AQ in 2011, when the true story is much more nuanced, and Bin Laden was essentially in forced retirement due to old age, sickness, and being constantly sh**-scared of the Americans finding him. 

 

https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/united-states-america-death-osama-bin-laden

[Marty_d]

If you're a leader of an organisation whose methods target innocent civilians, then I don't particularly care how you get taken off the board.  Looking at you Putin.