Osama

PARK CITY, Utah -- Since opening in theaters last month, the Osama bin Laden manhunt film “Zero Dark Thirty” has intrigued audiences with its inside look at how CIA officers do their jobs. But the employees of the agency who tracked the Al Qaeda leader say that while they understand the need for dramatic license, the  Kathryn Bigelow film gets a number of details about their professional and personal lives wrong. “The individual hunches [are what] came through on 'Zero Dark,' and that's not exactly how it happens,” said Nada Bakos, who spent years as a CIA target officer, gathering intelligence that helped lead to the elimination of suspected terrorists.

BEIRUT - The leader of Al Nusra Front, militant Islamist fighters whose role in the Syria uprising has raised concerns in Washington, acknowledged Wednesday for the first time his group's affiliation with Al Qaeda and the extremist movement's Iraq affiliate. In a seven-minute audio message posted online, Abu Mohammed Jolani pledged Al Nusra Front's loyalty to Al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahiri and acknowledged its ties to the Islamic State of Iraq, or ISI. However, the Syrian militant expressed surprise at a statement by ISI late Monday of a merger between the the front and ISI. He said the leadership of Al Nusra Front, or Jabhat al Nusra, “had no prior knowledge of this [announcement]

The critical acclaim for the new Kathryn Bigelow movie "Zero Dark Thirty" has renewed the debate on the efficacy of torture. The movie dramatizes the decade-long effort to find and eventually kill Osama bin Laden. In a riveting opening section, the film obliquely credits the discovery of the key piece of information in the search for Bin Laden to the torture of an Al Qaeda prisoner held by the CIA. This is at odds with the facts as they have been recounted by journalists reporting on the manhunt, by Obama administration intelligence officials and by legislative leaders.

NEW YORK - In jailhouse blues, hands cuffed behind his back, the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden pleaded not guilty in Manhattan on Friday to a federal charge of conspiring to murder Americans - reigniting the debate over where alleged terrorists should be prosecuted. Sulaiman abu Ghaith, a 47-year-old senior Al Qaeda leader who for the last decade had been hiding in Iran, now may become the first defendant to be tried in a U.S. civilian court on charges related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, just blocks from where the World Trade Center towers were destroyed.

No Easy Day The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer Dutton: 315 pp., $26.95 Former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette did not put the first slug into Osama bin Laden when SEALs raided the terrorist's lair in Pakistan last year in May. But he fired follow-up shots quickly and without remorse, as he describes in vivid, gruesome detail in "No Easy Day," written under the pseudonym Mark...

The dramatic killing of Osama bin Laden after a 40-minute gun battle in a Pakistani hill station mansion is, as President Obama rightly said, a triumph of justice. It is a symbolic and historic milestone in the war on terror, marking the end of a frustrating, decade-long manhunt. By continuing to pursue Bin Laden years after 9/11, the United States sought to demonstrate that it has staying power and won't be outlasted by its enemies, including Bin Laden and his successors. That's an important message from a country with a reputation for losing interest in its overseas entanglements before they are fully resolved.

Republicans not only have to compete with the star power of Michelle Obama, it just may be that they have set a trap for themselves by making the central question of the 2012 presidential campaign, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" At their convention in Charlotte, N.C., this week, the Democrats, from the first lady on down, are responding to that question with some pretty sharp answers. Here's the most succinct one: "GM is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead. " It's a great bumper sticker line and has the added advantage of deeper resonance.

WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden was devising a strategy for overthrowing Afghan President Hamid Karzai and controlling Afghanistan once the U.S. left the country, said a former U.S. official familiar with the cache of notes and letters that were seized last year in the raid on the terrorist leader's compound. Bin Laden had discussed his plans with the Taliban leadership council, known as the Quetta Shura, and the Haqqani network, which controls the North Waziristan tribal area in Pakistan, said the former official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity while discussing the intelligence.

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon and CIA are reviewing a forthcoming book by a retired Navy SEAL who was on the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and they are considering legal action against the author for failing to submit his account for security review, officials said. U.S. intelligence officials are scrutinizing "No Easy Day" by former SEAL Matt Bissonnette to see if it reveals sensitive sources and techniques or operational details, a process that could take weeks. The book, due to go on sale next week and already on bestseller lists, has sparked a fierce debate in the close-knit special operations community about whether the long-standing ethic to stay silent for those who carry out America's most sensitive military operations is breaking down after a decade of war. PHOTOS: The death of Osama bin Laden Several U.S. officials who have read the book said it apparently does not quote from clearly classified documents, such as intelligence reports about Bin Laden's whereabouts or after-action reports about the raid.

Did the torture of detainees lead the U.S. to Osama bin Laden? Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee say no. A major new film that was researched with high-level CIA access, however, shows torture as yielding a big break and setting in motion the chase that ended in the terrorist's death in Pakistan last year. The Hollywood drama, "Zero Dark Thirty," is intensifying a sharp political debate in Washington about the value of "enhanced interrogation techniques. " Although the filmmakers say they never intended to take sides in the debate and the movie is not a documentary, "Zero Dark Thirty" implies that torture can be effective.

WASHINGTON - The FBI and CIA helped capture an alleged Al Qaeda spokesman who was Osama bin Laden's son-in-law and have flown him to New York City to face numerous terrorism-related charges, according to U.S. officials. Sulaiman abu Ghaith was taken into U.S. custody in Jordan, where he was stopped while being deported from Turkey to Kuwait, his native country, under a scheme orchestrated by U.S. authorities. He is believed to have spent most of the last decade in Iran. He has been providing information to U.S. interrogators since his arrest, said a former U.S. official who was briefed on the case.

The fog of Abbottabad strikes again. On Tuesday, confusion continued to swirl around Esquire magazine's cover story about the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden during the instantly legendary May 2011 raid on the terrorist leader's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The article, which was published online Monday, is framed around the premise that the SEAL, dubbed the Shooter, got "nothing" from the government after his retirement, including no healthcare coverage. According to officials and experts, that claim was incorrect : All Iraq and Afghanistan veterans get five years of healthcare benefits after retirement.

The American raid to kill Osama bin Laden may be the most famous top-secret mission of all time, and the latest petal of secrecy was peeled away by Bin Laden's killer himself. On Monday, Esquire and the Center for Investigative Reporting co-released a gloomy profile of the unidentified Navy SEAL who says he killed Bin Laden with two shots to the forehead during the May 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Now, the SEAL is struggling to adjust to civilian life. The story, written by Phil Bronstein, recounts that the SEAL he calls "the Shooter" has survived a stretch of suicidal thinking, seen his marriage fall apart and his family live in fear since the White House identified SEAL Team 6 as the team that killed Bin Laden.

PARK CITY, Utah -- Since opening in theaters last month, the Osama bin Laden manhunt film “Zero Dark Thirty” has intrigued audiences with its inside look at how CIA officers do their jobs. But the employees of the agency who tracked the Al Qaeda leader say that while they understand the need for dramatic license, the  Kathryn Bigelow film gets a number of details about their professional and personal lives wrong. “The individual hunches [are what] came through on 'Zero Dark,' and that's not exactly how it happens,” said Nada Bakos, who spent years as a CIA target officer, gathering intelligence that helped lead to the elimination of suspected terrorists.

Re "The Afghan formula," Opinion, Jan. 17 Max Boot's assessment that the war in Afghanistan "shows no sign of ending any time soon" is right. Afghanistan is basically a lawless frontier that will not be tamed any time soon. Hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to completely subdue the country. America's mission to kill or capture Osama bin Laden and chase Al Qaeda out has been accomplished. To turn Afghanistan into a pacified Western democracy is a neoconservative pipe dream.

Under fire for the accuracy of "Zero Dark Thirty," director Kathryn Bigelow is defending the film's depiction of torture in the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and other lawmakers have criticized "Zero Dark," saying the film is "grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location" of Bin Laden. The lawmakers asked studio Sony Pictures to attach a disclaimer that the film is fictional. In her most explicit comments on the controversy to date, Bigelow conceded that there are disagreements over certain specifics of the manhunt but insisted that torture was an undeniable part of the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks of Sept.

Director Kathryn Bigelow hasn't yet called "action" on her movie about the capture of Osama bin Laden, but the project is already stirring up controversy. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter to the CIA and the Defense Department on Tuesday asking for an investigation into whether the White House has granted Bigelow and Sony Pictures access to confidential information for the project. "I'm very concerned that any sensitive information could be disclosed in a movie," King said in a phone interview.

The American raid to kill Osama bin Laden may be the most famous top-secret mission of all time, and the latest petal of secrecy was peeled away by Bin Laden's killer himself. On Monday, Esquire and the Center for Investigative Reporting co-released a gloomy profile of the unidentified Navy SEAL who says he killed Bin Laden with two shots to the forehead during the May 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Now, the SEAL is struggling to adjust to civilian life. The story, written by Phil Bronstein, recounts that the SEAL he calls "the Shooter" has survived a stretch of suicidal thinking, seen his marriage fall apart and his family live in fear since the White House identified SEAL Team 6 as the team that killed Bin Laden.

The hunt for Osama bin Laden last year proved a bigger draw for this past weekend's moviegoers than a battle against organized crime 70 years ago. The thriller "Zero Dark Thirty" had a decisive victory at the box office, grossing $24 million in the United States and Canada, according to an estimate from distributor Sony Pictures. Despite a bigger budget and more famous stars, such as Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, "Gangster Squad" opened to a disappointing $16.7 million.

WASHINGTON - Nearly a decade after the last Al Qaeda detainee was waterboarded, Americans still know little about what the CIA did to its prisoners, or whether it worked. President Obama decided against an investigation to hold accountable George W. Bush administration and CIA officials who conceived and carried out what he and others believed were acts of torture. And a criminal investigation ended last year with no charges and no public report. But now, a Hollywood movie has put renewed pressure on CIA officials to reveal whether simulated drowning and other harsh techniques elicited valuable intelligence, as the agency has long contended.