CIA operates drone base in Saudi Arabia

A new secret reveled that the CIA conducts lethal drone strikes against al-Qaida militants inside Yemen from a remote base in Saudi Arabia, including the strike that killed the US-born al-Qaida operative Anwar al-Awlaki.

The location of the base was first disclosed by New York Times online on Tuesday night.

Associated Press first reported the construction of the base in June 2011 but withheld the exact location at the request of senior administration officials.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because portions of the military and CIA missions in Yemen are classified.

Any operation by US military or intelligence officials inside Saudi Arabia is politically and religiously sensitive.

Al-Qaida and other militant groups have used the Gulf kingdom's close working relationship with US counterterrorism officials to stir internal dissent against the Saudi regime.

Anti-al-Qaeda militia killed in new Iraq attack

At least 19 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack in central Iraq aimed at pro-government militia, officials say.

More than 40 people were injured in the blast in the town of Taji, about 20km (12 miles) north of Baghdad.

The majority of the victims were members of the Sunni Sahwa militia, which has been fighting al-Qaeda.

The attack comes a day after at least 16 people were killed in a raid on a police HQ in Kirkuk, northern Iraq.

 

'Pools of blood'

Monday's blast happened at about 11:00 local time (08:00 GMT), as the militiamen gathered to collect their pay.

The attacker is believed to have detonated his explosives belt among the crowd.

Army soldiers were also among the victims.

"We got a call there had been a huge blast at the Sahwa headquarters," local police officer Furat Faleh told Reuters news agency.

"People were lying bleeding all around and cash was scattered in pools of blood," he added.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Sahwa - or Awakening Council - are comprised of Sunni tribal members who sided with the US against al-Qaeda in 2006.

They have been often targeted by al-Qaeda-linked militants, who regard them as traitors.

How al-Qaeda got to rule in Tripoli

His name is Abdelhakim Belhaj. Some in the Middle East might have, but few in the West and across the world would have heard of him. Time to catch up. Because the story of how an al-Qaeda asset turned out to be the top Libyan military commander in still war-torn Tripoli is bound to shatter - once again - that wilderness of mirrors that is the "war on terror", as well as deeply compromising the carefully constructed propaganda of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) "humanitarian" intervention in Libya. 

Muammar Gaddafi's fortress of Bab-al-Aziziyah was essentially invaded and conquered last week by Belhaj's men - who were at the forefront of a militia of Berbers from the mountains southwest of Tripoli. The militia is the so-called Tripoli Brigade, trained in secret for two months by US Special Forces. This turned out to be the rebels' most effective militia in six months of tribal/civil war.

Already last Tuesday, Belhaj was gloating on how the battle was won, with Gaddafi forces escaping "like rats" (note that's the same metaphor used by Gaddafi himself to designate the rebels). Abdelhakim Belhaj, aka Abu Abdallah al-Sadek, is a Libyan jihadi. Born in May 1966, he honed his skills with the mujahideen in the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. He's the founder of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and its de facto emir - with Khaled Chrif and Sami Saadi as his deputies. 

After the Taliban took power in Kabul in 1996, the LIFG kept two training camps in Afghanistan; one of them, 30 kilometers north of Kabul - run by Abu Yahya - was strictly for al-Qaeda-linked jihadis. After 9/11, Belhaj moved to Pakistan and also to Iraq, where he befriended none other than ultra-nasty Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - all this before al-Qaeda in Iraq pledged its allegiance to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and turbo-charged its gruesome practices. In Iraq, Libyans happened to be the largest foreign Sunni jihadi contingent, only losing to the Saudis.

Moreover, Libyan jihadis have always been superstars in the top echelons of "historic" al-Qaeda - from Abu Faraj al-Libi (military commander until his arrest in 2005, now lingering as one of 16 high-value detainees in the US detention center at Guantanamo) to Abu al-Laith al-Libi (another military commander, killed in Pakistan in early 2008). Time for an extraordinary rendition The LIFG had been on the US Central Intelligence Agency's radars since 9/11. 

In 2003, Belhaj was finally arrested in Malaysia - and then transferred, extraordinary rendition-style, to a secret Bangkok prison, and duly tortured. In 2004, the Americans decided to send him as a gift to Libyan intelligence - until he was freed by the Gaddafi regime in March 2010, along with other 211 "terrorists", in a public relations coup advertised with great fanfare. The orchestrator was no less than Saif Islam al-Gaddafi - the modernizing/London School of Economics face of the regime. LIFG's leaders - Belhaj and his deputies Chrif and Saadi - issued a 417-page confession dubbed" corrective studies" in which they declared the jihad against Gaddafi over (and illegal), before they were finally set free. A fascinating account of the whole process can be seen in a report called "Combating Terrorism in Libya through Dialogue and Reintegration". [1] Note that the authors, Singapore-based terrorism "experts" who were wined and dined by the regime, express the "deepest appreciation to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation for making this visit possible". 

Crucially, still in 2007, then al-Qaeda's number two, Zawahiri, officially announced the merger between the LIFG and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM). So, for all practical purposes, since then, LIFG/AQIM have been one and the same - and Belhaj was/is its emir. In 2007, LIFG was calling for a jihad against Gaddafi but also against the US and assorted Western "infidels". Fast forward to last February when, a free man, Belhaj decided to go back into jihad mode and align his forces with the engineered uprising in Cyrenaica. Every intelligence agency in the US, Europe and the Arab world knows where he's coming from. 

He's already made sure in Libya that himself and his militia will only settle for sharia law. There's nothing "pro-democracy" about it - by any stretch of the imagination. And yet such an asset could not be dropped from NATO's war just because he was not very fond of "infidels". The late July killing of rebel military commander General Abdel Fattah Younis - by the rebels themselves - seems to point to Belhaj or at least people very close to him. It's essential to know that Younis - before he defected from the regime - had been in charge of Libya's special forces fiercely fighting the LIFG in Cyrenaica from 1990 to 1995. 

The Transitional National Council (TNC), according to one of its members, Ali Tarhouni, has been spinning Younis was killed by a shady brigade known as Obaida ibn Jarrah (one of the Prophet Mohammed's companions). Yet the brigade now seems to have dissolved into thin air. Shut up or I'll cut your head off Hardly by accident, all the top military rebel commanders are LIFG, from Belhaj in Tripoli to one Ismael as-Salabi in Benghazi and one Abdelhakim al-Assadi in Derna, not to mention a key asset, Ali Salabi, sitting at the core of the TNC. It was Salabi who negotiated with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi the "end" of LIFG's jihad, thus assuring the bright future of these born-again "freedom fighters". It doesn't require a crystal ball to picture the consequences of LIFG/AQIM - having conquered military power and being among the war "winners" - not remotely interested in relinquishing control just to please NATO's whims. 

Meanwhile, amid the fog of war, it's unclear whether Gaddafi is planning to trap the Tripoli brigade in urban warfare; or to force the bulk of rebel militias to enter the huge Warfallah tribal areas. Gaddafi's wife belongs to the Warfallah, Libya's largest tribe, with up to 1 million people and 54 sub-tribes. The inside word in Brussels is that NATO expects Gaddafi to fight for months if not years; thus the Texas George W Bush-style bounty on his head and the desperate return to NATO's plan A, which was always to take him out. Libya may now be facing the specter of a twin-headed guerrilla Hydra; Gaddafi forces against a weak TNC central government and NATO boots on the ground; and the LIFG/AQIM nebula in a jihad against NATO (if they are sidelined from power). Gaddafi may be a dictatorial relic of the past, but you don't monopolize power for four decades for nothing, and without your intelligence services learning a thing or two. 

From the beginning, Gaddafi said this was a foreign- backed/al-Qaeda operation; he was right (although he forgot to say this was above all neo-Napoleonic French President Nicolas Sarkozy's war, but that's another story). He also said this was a prelude for a foreign occupation whose target was to privatize and take over Libya's natural resources. He may - again – turn out to be right. The Singapore "experts" who praised the Gaddafi regime's decision to free the LIFG's jihadis qualified it as "a necessary strategy to mitigate the threat posed to Libya". Now, LIFG/AQIM is finally poised to exercise its options as an "indigenous political force". Ten years after 9/11, it's hard not to imagine a certain decomposed skull in the bottom of the Arabian Sea boldly grinning to kingdom come.

We will kill new al-Qaeda chief Zawahiri just like Osama: US

Ayman al-Zawahiri 'lacks a peculiar charisma that Osama bin Laden had', says US officials.

US officials have said that new al-Qaeda Chief Ayman al-Zawahiri ‘lacks a peculiar charisma that Osama bin Laden had’, but warned that he would face the same fate as his predecessor.

Al-Qaeda named Egyptian born Ayman al-Zawahiri as the successor to bin Laden on Thursday. Calling the 59-year-old long-time number two as an "armchair general", the officials said that Zawahiri not only lacks combat experience, but is also a divisive figure who could divide al-Qaeda.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen warned Zawahiri to expect the same treatment like that of bin Laden, who was killed by US Special Forces in his Abbottabad hideout, Pakistan, on May 2. "As we did both seek to capture and kill – and succeed in killing – bin Laden, we certainly will do the same thing with Zawahiri," The Telegraph quoted Mullen, as saying.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned that the announcement should serve as a reminder of the continuing al-Qaeda threat. "First of all I think we should be mindful that this announcement by al-Qaeda reminds us that despite having suffered a huge loss... al-Qaeda seeks to perpetuate itself, seeks to find replacements for those who have been killed, and remains committed to the agenda that bin Laden put before them," he said.

"Bin Laden has been the leader of al-Qaeda essentially since its inception. In that particular context he had a peculiar charisma that I think Zawahiri does not have. I think he was much more operationally engaged than we have the sense Zawahiri has been," Gates added.

Al Qaeda operative key to 1998 U.S. embassy bombings killed in Somalia

The death of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, mastermind of the deadly Kenya and Tanzania embassy attacks, is said to be a major disruption of Al Qaeda's efforts in the Horn of Africa.

Al Qaeda's longest-serving and most senior operative in East Africa has been confirmed dead in Somalia, adding to the leadership vacuum in the global terror organization since the killing of Osama bin Laden last month.

The death in Mogadishu of Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the mastermind of the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, is a major disruption of Al Qaeda's efforts to expand its hold on havens in the Horn of Africa, U.S. officials and counter-terrorism experts said Saturday.

No leader of Al Qaeda has emerged since Navy SEALs shot and killed the world's most-wanted terrorist. Ayman Zawahiri, long reputed to be Bin Laden's chief deputy, released a video last week condemning Bin Laden's slaying, but he did not make a clear announcement about taking control of the group.

"It's been a bad spring for Al Qaeda," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy, a Washington-based think tank.

Senior members of the Obama administration, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan, were quick to trumpet the killing of one of Al Qaeda's most important — if lesser-known — operatives in what seemed to be an attempt to reclaim some of the public accolades the White House received in the days after the Bin Laden killing.

President Obama's approval ratings softened in recent weeks on economic news, down from the highs after the death of Bin Laden, polls have shown.

Mohammed, an East African by birth, was crucial in bringing such groups as the extremist Shabab in Somalia into the Al Qaeda fold, as well as attracting militant movements from other parts of Africa.

He also was a key link between militants in Africa and Al Qaeda's most dangerous affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, immediately across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia.

In recent weeks, violent protests in Yemen have continued to weaken the hold of the U.S.-allied government there. In May, local Islamic militants captured the southern port of Zinjibar.

U.S. intelligence officials are concerned that the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen will be able to operate more freely as the government loses control of more of the country.

In early May, U.S. forces in Yemen fired a missile from a drone aircraft targeting one of the Al Qaeda affiliate's most influential leaders, American-born Anwar Awlaki. He has been linked to active plots against the United States, including mail-bomb packages targeting cargo planes heading to the U.S. in October and the disrupted plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009.

Somali security forces did not immediately identify Mohammed when he was killed during a shootout Tuesday at a checkpoint northwest of Mogadishu. His identity was not confirmed until Saturday.

A Kenyan national, Mohammed had expert computer skills and a preference for baseball caps, according to a State Department report.

Counter-terrorism chief Brennan said in a statement Saturday that Mohammed's death was a "huge setback" for Al Qaeda.

"It is a just end for a terrorist who brought so much death and pain to so many innocents," Clinton said in a statement released during a visit to Tanzania on Saturday.

The 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and injured more than 5,000 people.

The State Department had offered a $5-million reward for information leading to Mohammed.

White House officials praised the Somali transitional government's security forces for killing Mohammed. The weak, United Nations-backed administration is trying to bring stability to a country that hasn't been run by a central government since 1991.

A suicide bomber killed the Somali interior minister last week. Shabab claimed responsibility for that attack.

Shabab has been at the forefront of radicalizing and recruiting first- and second-generation Somali Americans to join the fight against the Somali government.

Over the last 10 years, Al Qaeda has placed "great emphasis" on expanding its operations into ungoverned regions of East Africa, said Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University.

"Mohammed found ways to take those [militant groups] with more nationalist regional aims and pull them into the broader global jihad," Cilluffo said.

In East Africa, Al Qaeda will have trouble finding a leader with Mohammed's standing and savvy, said Rick Nelson, a counter-terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

"He will be replaced, but not by another individual with his type of experience and his competence," Nelson said.

There is no indication that information taken from the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, led to the shootout in Somalia that killed Mohammed.

"It's not a bad thing to be lucky every once in a while," said Nelson.

Bin Laden death photos to be shown to some members of Congress

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, as well as those in the equivalent House committees, will be allowed to view the photographs taken of Osama bin Laden after he was killed, a U.S. official told reporters Tuesday.


The viewings will take place at CIA headquarters in northern Virginia at a time to be decided, the official said.

U.S. Navy SEALs killed the al Qaeda leader last week in an attack on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, confirmed that the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee would be give the opportunity.

Asked whether she planned to avail herself of it, she told reporters, "I actually haven't thought much about it, but I likely will."

Feinstein is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
President Barack Obama decided on Wednesday that he would not release photos of the body.

"It is not in our national security interest ... to allow these images to become icons to rally opinion against the United States," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at the time. "We have no need to publish those photographs to establish that Osama bin Laden was killed."

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Taliban also confirmed Osama's death
Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan by U.S. forces

Bin Laden's young Yemeni bride was confident, conservative

When 18-year-old Amal al-Sadah became the fifth wife of 43-year-old Osama bin Laden in 2000, she was "a quiet, polite, easygoing and confident teenager" who came from a big, conservative family in Yemen, a relative tol in an exclusive interview.


The relative, Ahmed, who knew al-Sadah growing up, said she came from a traditional family in Ibb, Yemen -- established and respectable but certainly with no militant views paralleling the al Qaeda leader's terrorism.
The family had no connection to al Qaeda prior to the arranged marriage, Ahmed told during an interview in Ibb on Friday.

While some accounts say a matchmaker put the couple together, the relative wasn't sure of that report, adding he heard many stories about how the two were betrothed.
"She was a very good overall person," Ahmed told reporters. "The Sadah family is a big family in Ibb. The family of Amal was like most Yemeni families. They were conservative but also lived a modern life when compared to other families.

"The family is a respected family and is well known. The family had no extremist views, even though they came from a conservative background," Ahmed said, referring to al-Sadah's parents and siblings.
The Yemeni government is apparently pressuring the family not to speak publicly about their notorious in-law, bin Laden, Ahmed said.

"From what I know, the government would give the Sadah family an extremely difficult time and always warns them from talking to the media," Ahmed said. "The government tells them that the information or comments they give would be misunderstood or misinterpreted and could hurt the family more than the government."

An al Qaeda figure in Yemen named Sheikh Rashed Mohammed Saeed Ismail said he arranged the marriage and told the Yemen Post in 2008 that he was "the matchmaker" and that al-Sadah was one of his students, describing her as "religious and pious enough."

Ismail, whose brother spent time as a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, accompanied the young bride-to-be to Afghanistan in July 2000, where she and bin Laden were married after he gave her family a $5,000 dowry.
The marriage was apparently a political alliance to shore up bin Laden's support in the land of his ancestors.
"I was told after they got married that Osama did not want to cut his ties with his ancestral home, Yemen," Ahmed said.

Back in Yemen, al-Sadah was barely spoken of again, Ahmed told reporters.
"After her marriage, we heard a little about her, and her direct family knew the dangers of talking about such topics," Ahmed said. "Even if anyone asked them about her, they would avoid talking about the issue."
At first, Yemeni authorities didn't seem aware that they were giving al-Sadah a passport in 2000 for the purpose of marrying bin Laden in Afghanistan, Ahmed said.

"Only a small number of people knew about the story of the marriage in the start, so it wasn't difficult to travel," Ahmed said. "The Yemeni government gave the family a hard time after she left Yemen. The family is still being watched and have been interrogated dozens of times. Her father also went through a lot."

The marriage was immediately fruitful, and al-Sadah and bin Laden gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Safiyah, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the weeks after 9/11.

According to Pakistani officials this week, Safiyah was inside the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound where bin Laden was killed Monday by U.S. Navy SEALs, and she probably saw her father shot dead.

Ahmed asserted that al-Sadah and bin Laden also bore other children, but he couldn't provide details in his brief interview with reporters.

After 9/11, bin Laden told Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir that he had plans for his youngest daughter, Safiyah.

"I became a father of a girl after September 11," he said. "I named her after Safiyah who killed a Jewish spy at the time of the Prophet. (My daughter) will kill enemies of Islam like Safiyah."

In the aftermath of bin Laden's death, al-Sadah has told interrogators that for five years, she didn't venture outside the walled compound, according to a Pakistani military spokesman.

Al-Sadah, now 29, who was wounded in the raid, said she lived in the compound in Abbottabad with eight of bin Laden's children and five others from another family, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told this week.

All of them have been in Pakistani custody since the pre-dawn U.S. commando raid Monday that killed bin Laden, and they will eventually be returned to their country of origin, Abbas said.

With five wives, bin Laden had a total of 20 children, and one of his adult sons was also reported killed in the commando assault.

Al-Sadah is the youngest of the five wives.

Taliban also confirmed Osama's death

The Taliban, one of Osama bin Laden's closest allies, confirmed late Friday that the al Qaeda founder had been killed by U.S. commandos during a raid in Pakistan.

The admission by the Taliban comes on the heels of one earlier in the day by al Qaeda, removing any question about whether bin Laden's closest allies and his terror network believed he was dead.

Bin Laden "embraced martyrdom as per the Will of the Almighty Allah during an abrupt attack by the American invading soldiers," according to a statement released by the Afghan Taliban, which had for years allowed bin Laden's terror network to operate in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama announced Sunday that bin Laden had been killed by U.S. commandos during a raid on a compound in Abbottabad, about 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

On Friday, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met privately with members of the Navy SEAL Team 6, the unit that conducted the raid.


Among the SEALs that Obama met at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was the one who fired the fatal shots at bin Laden, but he was not singled out to the president, a senior administration official said.

Obama and Biden thanked the commandos and were briefed on the operation by the unit members who conducted it, according to a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official was not authorized to release the details of the meeting.

Officials have said bin Laden was shot twice -- once in the head, once in the chest. He was buried at sea in what U.S. officials have described as a proper Islamic burial.

Obama decided earlier this week not to release any photos of bin Laden's body, saying he did not want to inflame Arab passions or appear to gloat.

The decision drew sharp criticism from many, who wanted proof of the terrorist leader's death. Others, including many in the town where bin Laden was killed, said they did not believe he was dead.

But Friday's acknowledgement by al Qaeda and the Taliban put to rest questions about whether bin Laden's closest allies believed he had been killed by Navy SEALs.

Al Qaeda confirmed its leader's death in a Web statement and used that opportunity to taunt and threaten the United States.

"Sheikh Osama didn't build an organization that will vanish with his death or fades away with his departure," according to the statement.

The statement, which congratulates the "Islamic Nation on the martyrdom of their devoted son Osama," repeated themes and threats made over the years in prior statements by the terror group.

Al Qaeda's statement surfaced as protesters packed the streets of Abbottabad in a rally organized by Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest Islamist party. The demonstrators denounced the U.S. and Pakistani governments.

The statement also expressed disdain for the efforts and motives of the United States, saying that the Americans managed to kill bin Laden "by disgrace and betrayal."

"Men and heroes only should be confronted in the battlefields but at the end, that's God's fate. Still we ask, will the Americans be able -- through their media outlets, their agents, their instruments, soldiers, intelligence services and their might -- be able to kill what Sheikh Osama lived for and was killed for? How far! How impossible!"

According to the statement, bin Laden recorded an audio message a week prior to his death regarding the revolutions sweeping the Muslim world and offering advice and guidance. Al Qaeda indicated that the release of this message is forthcoming.

Meanwhile, the Taliban statement said bin Laden's death will reinvigorate the "jihad," or holy war, against the United States and its allies.

Bin Laden and the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, were said to have a close friendship.
The Taliban said bin Laden has achieved martyrdom, something he had long worked toward.

"He reached his ambition with bravery, dedication and commitment in the last moments of his life," the Taliban statement said.

Meanwhile, investigators poring over material seized by the SEAL team found details about a possible attack on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and the intelligence led Thursday to a nationwide alert regarding rail security.

Al-Qaeda 'confirms Bin Laden's death'

Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of its leader, Osama Bin Laden, according to a statement attributed to the group and posted on jihadist internet forums.

The statement said his blood would not be "wasted" and al-Qaeda would continue to attack the US and its allies.

Bin Laden's death would be a "curse" for the US and urged an uprising in Pakistan, the statement added.
The militant was shot dead on Monday when US commandos stormed his compound in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad.

The covert raid was carried out without the prior knowledge of the Pakistani authorities, increasing tension between the two countries.

Several rallies were held in Pakistan on Friday in protest.
'Revolt'
 
The statement published on jihadist web forums, signed by "the general leadership" of al-Qaeda, said an audiotape would be released of Bin Laden speaking a week before his death.

"[His blood] will remain, with permission from Allah, the Almighty, a curse that chases the Americans and their agents, and goes after them inside and outside their countries," it warned.

"Their happiness will turn into sorrow, and their blood will be mixed with their tears. We call upon our Muslim people in Pakistan, on whose land Sheikh Osama was killed, to rise up and revolt.

"Before the sheikh passed from this world and before he could share with the Islamic nation in its joys over its revolutions in the face of the oppressors, he recorded a voice recording of congratulations and advice which we will publish soon, God willing."

Although US forces buried Bin Laden's body at sea, the statement warned the US that "multiple gates of evil" would be opened on them if they failed to hand over the corpse to his family. It incited Muslims to take action should the Americans mistreat the body or any of his captive family members.

It acknowledged the US was responsible for his death, and also noted that he had been killed by "treacherous infidel bullets".

The statement attracted a high number of online comments, all of which seemed to accept the death of Bin Laden as fact.

Correspondents say this contrasts starkly with the scepticism that followed President Obama's announcement on Monday of the al-Qaeda leader's death. The scepticism had led to calls for the US to release pictures of his corpse - a move resisted by President Obama.

Earlier, Pakistani Islamist groups, led by the Jamaat-e-Islami, denounced the covert US military operation in Abbottabad as a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty.

They were also critical of Pakistan's government for allowing the commando operation to happen, although officials deny they were told.

Hundreds of people gathered in central Abbottabad following Friday prayers. They set fire to tyres, blocked a main road and shouted "down, down USA!" and "terrorist, terrorist, USA terrorist".

Anti-American sentiment also appeared to be high at a similar protest in the south-western city of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

However, a BBC correspondent in Rawalpindi says the anti-US protest there was much smaller than expected with about 50 people turning up.

Monday's helicopter-borne raid by US special forces has further strained relations between the US and Pakistan.

On Thursday, Pakistani military leaders warned they would review co-operation with the US if there were any more unilateral raids.

Officials also admitted "shortcomings" for failing to locate Bin Laden in a compound that was in a suburb of Abbottabad about a kilometre from the Pakistan Military Academy, and said an investigation would be launched.

Meanwhile, reports from the US says documents found at Osama Bin Laden's compound suggest he was planning further attacks on the US, including on the 10th anniversary of 11 September 2001.

One plan was to target a US rail route, officials said, although no imminent threat was detected.

Officials are examining computers, DVDs, hard-drives and documents seized from the compound where Bin Laden is believed to have been hiding for about six years.

One of Bin Laden's wives being interrogated by Pakistani security officials said she had never left the upper floors of the compound the entire time she was there.

She and Bin Laden's other two wives were taken into custody following Monday's raid.

Pakistani authorities are also holding eight or nine children who were found there, but it is not clear how many of them are Bin Laden's.

Al Qaeda threats, terror plans surface

Saber-rattling al Qaeda warnings against the United States emerged on Friday as the killing of Osama bin Laden continued to yield a trove of ominous intelligence, including details about a possible attack on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
Al Qaeda, the bin Laden terror network that masterminded the deadly attack 10 years ago, confirmed its leader's death on Friday in a Web statement and used that opportunity to taunt and threaten the United States.
"Sheikh Osama didn't build an organization that will vanish with his death or fades away with his departure," according to the statement, which CNN could not independently authenticate.
The statement, which congratulates the "Islamic Nation on the martyrdom of their devoted son Osama," repeated themes and threats made over the years in al Qaeda statements, before and after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
"The blood of the mujahid sheikh, Osama bin Laden, may God have mercy on him, is very dear to us and more precious to us and to every Muslim from being shed in vain," the statement said. A mujahid is defined as a Muslim engaged in what he considers to be jihad.

"This blood will be a curse that will chase the Americans and their agents, a curse that will pursue them inside and outside their country, and soon -- with God's help -- we pray that their happiness turns into sorrow and may their blood mix with their tears and let Sheikh Osama's resonate again."
Al Qaeda frequently cites the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in its pronouncements, and it did so again, saying America "will neither enjoy nor live in security until our people in Palestine live it and enjoy it."
"The soldiers of Islam in groups and as individuals will continue to plan and plot without any fatigue, boredom, despair, surrender or indifference until you receive from them a cunning misfortune that will gray the hair of the child even before he gets old," the statement said.
Pakistanis were urged to revolt and "rise up," cleansing the "disgrace that was brought upon them by a handful of traitors and thieves" and "their country from the filth of the Americans who have wreaked havoc in the land."
The statement surfaced as protesters packed the streets of Abbottabad -- where bin Laden was shot and killed -- in a rally organized by Jamrat-E-Islami, Pakistan's largest Islamist party. The demonstrators denounced the U.S. and Pakistani governments.
Also, the statement disdained the United States, both its efforts and its motives, saying that the Americans managed to kill bin Laden "by disgrace and betrayal." Bin Laden was slain in a U.S. Navy SEAL raid on a compound early Monday in Abbottabad, a military garrison town north of the capital of Islamabad.
"Men and heroes only should be confronted in the battlefields but at the end, that's God's fate. Still we ask, will the Americans be able through their media outlets, their agents, their instruments, soldiers, intelligence services and their might be able to kill what Sheikh Osama lived for and was killed for? How far! How impossible!"
After bin Laden was shot and killed, he was buried at sea in what U.S. officials described as a proper Islamic burial.
But the statement said if Americans treat the bodies of bin Laden or his family members improperly, either dead or alive, or do not hand over the bodies to families, there will be retribution.
"Any offense will open unto your doors of multitudes of evil for which you will only have yourselves to blame."
According to the statement, bin Laden recorded an audio message one week prior to his death, regarding the revolutions sweeping the Muslim world and offering advice and guidance. Al Qaeda indicated that the release of this message is forthcoming.
Meanwhile, investigators poring over material seized in the Monday raid found details about a possible attack on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and the intelligence led to a nationwide alert regarding rail security.
As early as February 2010, al Qaeda members discussed a plan to derail trains in the United States by placing obstructions on tracks over bridges and valleys, the alert said, according to one law enforcement official.
The plan was to be executed later this year, coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, though no specific rail system was identified, the official said.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed a notice went out to federal, state, local and tribal authorities.
"We have no information of any imminent terrorist threat to the U.S. rail sector, but wanted to make sure our partners are aware of the alleged plotting; it is unclear if any further planning has been conducted since February of last year," spokesman Matt Chandler said.
Rail agencies across the United States were taking no chances.
The Chicago Transit Authority re-issued security bulletins, "reminding employees of what activities to look for and what steps to take should they encounter any suspicious or criminal activity during the course of their duties," said Wanda Taylor, a CTA spokeswoman.
Amtrak employees also were on a heightened "state of vigilance," said spokesman Marc Magliari.
A U.S. official said that "valuable information has been gleaned already" from the cache gathered at bin Laden's compound, though no specific plots or terrorist suspects were identified.
But the material suggests that al Qaeda was particularly interested in striking Washington, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, according to the law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
U.S. authorities have found that al Qaeda appears especially interested in striking on significant dates like July 4, Christmas and the opening day of the United Nations.
The cache from the compound included audio and video equipment, suggesting bin Laden may have taped makeshift messages there, a U.S. official said.
Ten hard drives, five computers and more than 100 storage devices, such as disks and thumb drives, were also found, a senior U.S. official told CNN.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the CIA had a safehouse in Abbottabad "for a small team of spies" who performed surveillance on the compound.
Citing U.S. officials, the effort "relied on Pakistani informants and other sources to help assemble a 'pattern of life' portrait of the occupants and daily activities at the fortified compound where bin Laden was found."
It was "mobilized after the discovery of the suspicious complex last August that involved virtually every category of collection in the U.S. arsenal, ranging from satellite imagery to eavesdropping efforts aimed at recording voices inside the compound," the Post reported.
Dozens of people in Abbottabad have been arrested because of their suspected connections to the compound where Osama bin Laden was shot and killed, a Pakistani intelligence official said Friday. Investigators want to know whether any of the people are al Qaeda members or sympathizers.
The United States and Pakistan have been allies in the war on terror for years, but there have been strains lately over suspected U.S. drone attacks killing innocent civilians and American concerns that Pakistanis haven't been robust enough in the fight against Islamic militants. Another suspected drone strike killed 12 suspected militants on Friday in the Pakistani tribal region.
Questions in Washington remain over why and how Pakistani intelligence officials could not have known bin Laden was hiding out in a compound in the city, which has a military academy and a strong military presence.
Pakistani armed forces chiefs issued a statement Thursday admitting that there had been "shortcomings in developing intelligence" on the terror leader's presence in the country.
The army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, also "made it very clear that any similar action, violating the sovereignty of Pakistan, will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States," the statement said.

Pakistan has ordered U.S. military personnel on its territory drawn down to the "minimum essential" level in the wake of the raid, the statement said.