Review: Bin Laden: Shoot to Kill (Channel 4 On Demand)

A new Channel 4 docudrama on the Bin Laden raid premiered last night and provides new details on the covert op. It also features interview with senior U.S. government officials, a former Seal Team Six member, and a rather candid interview with President Obama. The trailer is embedded below; full video here.

One interesting element from the White House spin which comes through in the video is President Obama's repeated reference to there only being a 50-50 chance of Bin Laden being in the compound, and that this operation was basically a 'gamble'. President Obama has come under a lot of criticism of late for being too risk averse, so from a messaging and political strategy point of view it could be helpful for the President to beef up his risk taking image.

However, the natural question is whether this is the right spot politically for Obama to be positioning himself as a risk taker? I see two potential problems: first, by emphasizing the 50-50 gamble it makes Obama appear like he got lucky. Second, as opposed to gambling on financial regulatory or budget reform here his gamble here involved the lives of military personnel as well as a Pakistani military backlash.

From a military strategy perspective I can see advantages to emphasizing Obama's willingness to take risk on convert raids in terms of the message it sends to both U.S. enemies and 'frenemies' alike. Americans may also prefer that their President be 'lucky' rather than or in addition to being 'good'.

Overall it's an intriguing messaging strategy and the video is well worth a watch.

Bin Laden: Shoot to Kill (Channel 4 trailer) from Nutopia on Vimeo.

Channel 4's Description:

A stellar cast of White House insiders speak on camera about the operation to find and kill Osama Bin Laden, including the first - and extraordinary - documentary interview with President Barack Obama on the subject. 

From the anxiety-drenched minutes in the White House Situation Room to the deadly stairwells of Bin Laden's secret labyrinth, cinematic dramatisations take viewers deep inside one of the most important moments of our era, showing the US Navy Seals coming face to face with the most wanted man in history. 

Based on high-level CIA and White House briefings, and packed with exclusive stories and fresh insights, the film reveals that President Obama received a downbeat last-minute intelligence assessment, which caused many of his senior advisors to turn against the operation.

Pakistan 101: Bhutto Movie Review and Trailer

Pakistan is complex, messy, and an absolutely crucial place for the world to better understand.

Pakistan is described as a military that happens to have have a country attached to it. The Economist recently argued that the Pakistani-Indian border is the world's most dangerous (although I'd argue back that the North Korean-South Korean border is perhaps equally if not more dangerous). The country has nuclear weapons and has trafficked nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran and Libya. It is also perhaps ground zero in the War on Terror.

In the U.S., many questions have arisen since Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan about just how reliable a friend is Pakistan? Since 2002 the U.S. has sent nearly $20 billion in military and other aid to the country, with another $3 billion slated for 2011. How is that aid being used? Is this policy helpful or harmful to not only the U.S.'s interests, but Pakistan's?

The film Bhutto, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year, is well made, engaging, informative, and highly recommended. While it perhaps can justifiably be accused of painting a positively-biased picture of Benazir Bhutto, it does not shy away from interviewing her critics and pointing out at least some of the accusations of corruption made against Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, the current President of Pakistan.

This film is a recommended piece of edutainment for anyone interested in learning more about Pakistan and who likes learning through movies. It provides a helpful introduction to the history of Pakistan and the significant role the Bhutto clan have played.

Even more highly recommended is the book Ghost Wars by Steve Coll (who is interviewed in the film), which you can find on the right side of this blog in the Good Books and Films section.

Investment Implications of Bin Laden's Death

Osama bin Laden was living not just within the borders of Pakistan, butwithin a mile of arguably the heart of the country's military establishment. Conspiracy theories abound, but it seems clear thatPakistan knew a lot more than it was letting on to its U.S. and NATO 'allies' operating in the region.

From 2002 to 2010, the U.S. gave $20 billion in aid to Pakistan ($13.3 billion in military and $6 billion for economic development). Over $3 billion has been requested for 2011.

At a time when Congress is sharpening its fiscal pencil, it's no surprise to see that Senators are pushing to cut Pakistan's aid. Expect calls for U.S. forces to pull-out of Afghanistan to only grow louder, which in turn will have a destabilizing effect on Pakistan and the wider region.

Investment Implications

Pakistan is classified as a 'frontier economy', and the range of pure play investment options that foreigners can easily make are limited. At present there are no U.S.-exchange traded Pakistan ETFs. However, the Aberdeen Emerging Markets Telecommunications and Infrastructure Fund, Inc. (ETF), and Guggenheim Frontier Markets ETF (FRN) both have Pakistan allocations. And not surprisingly, both have traded down since Monday's news.

Continue reading the full article at SeekingAlpha here.

Photo: War Dog from Operation Neptune Spear (Bin Laden Raid)

Update: the Bin Laden raid dog was a Belgian Malinois named Cairo. More recently released details on the dog and raid, including an interview with President Obama, here.

We don't yet know the name, or even the breed (most likely a German shepherd or a Belgian Malinois), of the amazing dog which accompanied the Seal Team Six members on the Bin Laden raid.

But here are some amazing photos and more info, from Foreign Policy, about the role man's best friend plays in the U.S. military:

Yep, that's a dog strapped to the parachuter

Daredevil dogs: The question of how the dog got into bin Laden's compound is no puzzle -- the same way the special ops team did, by being lowered from an MH-60s helicopter. In fact, U.S. Air Force dogs have been airborne for decades, though the earliest flying dogs accompanied Soviet forces in the 1930s.

Dogs usually jump in tandem with their trainers, but when properly outfitted with flotation vests they can make short jumps into water on their own. A U.S. Navy SEAL, Mike Forsythe, and his dog, Cara -- pictured above -- recently broke the world record for "highest man/dog parachute deployment" by jumping from 30,100 feet.

Above, a U.S. soldier with the 10th Special Forces Group and his dog leap off the ramp of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter during water training over the Gulf of Mexico as part of exercise Emerald Warrior on March 1.

It's not the gear that makes the dog: Military working dogs (MWDs in Army parlance) may not enjoy all the privileges of being full-fledged soldiers, but the U.S. military no longer considers them mere equipment. (The war dogs deployed to Vietnam during that conflict were classified as "surplus equipment" and left behind.) Today, MWDs are outfitted with equipment of their own -- a range of specialized gear that includes Doggles (protective eye wear), body armor, life vests, gas masks, long-range GPS-equipped vests, and high-tech canine "flak jackets."

The NY Times also has a great story on 'the nation’s most courageous dog'.

Photos: Three Dead Men at Bin Laden House (WARNING: Graphic, All 4 Post-Mortem Photos Here)

Reuters has taken down the article and photos, but below are all the pictures they purchased.

First, a new photo of the highly classified stealth Blackhawk -- and its baffled rotor -- which was scuttled. The tail rotor also had extra blades, which would have made it much quieter than the standard design. Similar modifications to the main rotor would have further silenced the approach.

Also, a "silver loaded" paint job would have also made it difficult for infra-red sensors to detect the helicopter. This would have been particularly useful if Bin Laden had been armed with heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles.

Next, the photos of the three dead bodies in Bin Laden's house:

WARNING: graphic

Video: Operation Neptune Spear

Video dramatization of Bin Laden raid.

Updated: Bin Laden Raid Video

Live: the Obama Admin. watches the raid

A discussion of the technology behind the wireless video equipment used by Seal Team Six and a mock video, courtesy of the BBC.

The raw video stream was fed real-time to the the Obama National Security team (pictured right in the White House situation room) during the bin Laden compound raid.

With confirmation yesterday from CIA Director Leon Panetta that an official death photo of bin Laden will be released, the next question becomes whether WikiLeaks or some other outfit will be able to obtain the actual footage of the bin Laden compound raid?

In the meantime below is an ABC dramatization, and more details on the raid and the extraordinary Seal Team Six which conducted the raid here.

Bin Laden's Gold Connection

I just knew somehow that the shiny stuff that we have been writing about for a year here at The PolyCapitalist was going to somehow find its way into the bin Laden hideout story:

Nick Robertson of CNN observed on Twitter that neighbours say the "Osama entourage" passed themselves off as gold merchants.

But as discussed on this blog previously, when it comes to smuggling neither cash nor gold can match the advantages of diamonds.

Updated: Photo of Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, bin Laden's Young Wife Wounded in Raid

Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, Bin Laden's wife

She is 29-years old and Yemeni, and was a gift by a Yemeni family to bin Laden when she was only a teenager. She is bin Laden's fifth wife.

During the raid she charged a member of Seal Team Six, unarmed, and was then shot in the leg. While it's unclear whether she took a bullet from the same Navy Seal who killed bin Laden, it would seem probable.

From ABC News:

Amal and bin Laden and their three young children, a daughter and two sons, lived on the second and third floor of the compound's main house. Bin Laden apparently felt safe enough in the compound, which was surrounded by high barbed-wire topped walls, to keep his family with him.

The above photo was taken from her below Yemeni passport.

More here.

Video: Afghanistan's Next President?

Amrullah Saleh, former Afghani Spy Chief

An interesting video interview from PBS's Frontline of Amrullah Saleh, the former head of espionage for the Karzai-Afghanistan government.

Some of the points made by Saleh, who served with the deceased Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud killed by Al Qaeda right before 9/11, include:

• He believes the U.S. Obama administration does not currently possess a grand strategy or vision for how to proceed in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and the wider region.
• He broke with President Karzai and resigned his spy chief position after Karzai pivoted towards trying to strike a "deal" with the Taliban. In general believes no lasting peace can ever be achieved through deals with the Taliban ; the only lasting peace will come by integrating the Taliban into a peaceful Afghanistan democratic process.
• On the question of how long will the U.S. need to stay in the region, "How long did it take to defeat communism?" (answer: 50 years).
• Believes the U.S. needs to step up raids into Pakistan and should effectively deal with the Pakistani's who are proving Al Qaeda and Taliban, namely Pakistan's ISI espionage arm.
• On how the Taliban and Al Qaeda are earning income, "they collect taxes, and they collect part of the (wheat) harvest", in addition to heroin (the Taliban has "diversified")
• He won't confirm or deny whether he will run for office against Karzai, but he has been making the rounds in Washington, and this interview would seem to serve.
• He appears to live out in the open in the Panjshir valley north of Kabul. And yes, he has bodyguards.

Other interview highlights not covered in the video after the break.

Updated: New Bin Laden Death Photo Also Fake; No Photo Will Be Released

Today President Obama announced that a photo will not be released.

The below photo is the second prominent fake post-mortem shot that's been flying around the internet.

WARNING: graphic

Analysis: Bin Laden's Hideout Strategy and Pakistan's Lack of Credibility

Osama bin Laden was living and killed about 100 kilometers outside Pakistan's capital of Islamabad in a relatively posh part of Abbottabad, Pakistan called Bilal Town.

The compound itself was located a short distance from the Pakistani military academy (the "West Point or Sandhurst of Pakistan" as it's being characterized). Detailed maps, satellite imagery and the CIA's diagram of the compound can be viewed here.

The Lair

His five-to-six year old property, believed to have been purpose built to hide the ultimate 'High Value Target' (HVT), was three stories tall and approximately eight times larger than any other nearby dwelling. Other key details:

• 12-to-18-foot walls, topped with barbed wire
• Internal walls sectioned off different areas of the compound
• Access was restricted by two security gates
• Closed-circuit cameras positioned around the property

Yet bin Laden's "mansion", as it has been characterized, did not have a phone line or internet. The couriers, Afghans brothers named Arshad and Tariq who were also gunned down by ST6, did not report any income and had no visible source of wealth. They also burned all their own trash. Neighbors also reported that the women who were living inside the house spoke in Arabic and not the local dialect.

Bin Laden's Hideout Strategy

Bin Laden's choice to hide near Pakistani military installations and in a residential community of retired Pakistani officers strikes me as both intriguing and suspicious. Less wise, perhaps, were some of the activities noted above, like burning the trash and not having a phone or internet line.

In short, Bin Laden stopped just short of hiding in veritable plain view. Did his failure to go all the way here do him in? One thing we do know is that the U.S. was only able to locate bin Laden by trailing his courier back to the compound in August 2010, and the whole reason bin Laden had to employ the services of a courier was due to his aversion to phones and the internet.

This location at least gave bin Laden some chance as the first assassination option considered by President Obama, employing B-2 Stealth Bombers, was abandoned due in part to the likelihood of collateral damage.

Was bin Laden's thinking on where to locate influenced by his correct calculation that the U.S. was unlikely to drop a bomb or conduct a Predator drone strike on this particular location? In turn, was bin Laden expecting a tip from Pakistani intelligence should any planned U.S. Special Forces assault to be attempted?

Who Does Pakistan Think They're Fooling?

Bin Laden apparently lived in this compound for the last 5-6 years. This raises very important questions about how much Pakistan, or elements of Pakistan's military and intelligence service, knew about the whereabouts of bin Laden. The U.S. has sent billions of dollars to Pakistan over the past several years to help find and kill people like bin Laden, and the American public should insist on an answer.

Pakistan has publicly denied knowing that bin Laden was within its borders. But if that's true it makes Pakistan look incompetent, particularly in light of the fact that Pakistan's most powerful man, General Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of staff, was within shouting distance of bin Laden last week giving a talk at the military academy on how Pakistan had broken the back of terrorism. More from The Economist on on the logic behind why Pakistan may have been providing bin Laden safe harbor:

Something's wrong with this picture

More likely, but no more attractive for the likes of the ISI, is that at least some in power in Pakistan knew that Mr bin Laden had been forced by American drone attacks to shift from a mountain hideout to this urban shelter. On this score Mr bin Laden (and probably others, such as the Aghan Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, who was reported earlier this year to have been taken by the ISI to Karachi for medical treatment following a heart attack) was being afforded some measure of protection by Pakistani officialdom. Why? Perhaps so that he could be used, one day, somehow to promote Pakistani interests among fighting groups in Afghanistan, or perhaps so that he (bin Laden) could be used as leverage over the Americans on a “rainy day”, as one Afghan intelligence officer speculates.

Let's be clear about Pakistan's motive: the longer bad guys like Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and the presume new Al Qaeda boss, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are kept alive, then the longer the billions in U.S. dollars in development and military aid will keep flowing to Pakistan.

From 2002 to 2010, the U.S. gave $13.3 billion in military aid to Pakistan, and $6 billion for economic development. Over $3 billion has been requested for 2011. Calls for U.S. forces to pull-out of Afghanistan will only grow, which will have a destabilizing effect on Pakistan and the wider region. It's no surprise to see that Congress is already moving to cut Pakistan's billions of dollars in annual U.S. economic and military aid.

As Pakistan plays their double-sided game, the U.S. Congress and President Obama need to think seriously about how much good all this aid is really doing in the fight against terror.

The history between Pakistan, the U.S., and the region is long and complex and for those familiar with it it really shouldn't come as a surprise that Pakistan was harboring bin Laden. For further reading I highly recommend Legacy of Ashes, by Tim Weiner, and in particular Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll. You can find both books in the 'Good Books and Film' section on the right side of this blog, and here is a recent interview with Steve Coll, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, and Dexter Filkins of the New Yorker.

Updated: Photos of bin Laden's Bedroom, Compound, and Scuttled U.S. Helicopter

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Video: Bin Laden's Bedroom

Video: President Obama's Announcement that U.S. has killed Osama bin Laden

Updated: Seal Team Six Op Details

(New details and corrections continue to emerge which I'll be incorporating into this post as they come in; a strikethrough will indicate previously reported but now inaccurate information)

The operation was authorized Friday morning and the objective was to kill -- not capture -- Osama bin Laden.

Because the target was bin Laden the raid required practice. Earlier this year a one-acre replica of bin Laden's compound was created at Camp Alpha, which is a segregated section of Bagram Air Base, located in the Parwan province of Afghanistan. Dry-op runs were conducted in early April.

The president authorized this incredibly daring and difficult operation during a time of “low loom” – little moon luminosity – so that U.S. helicopters could travel to the target from Ghazi Air Base in Pakistan low to the ground and undetected.

It was originally planned for Saturday night but on Friday, for weather reasons, it was pushed to Sunday.

Two U.S. MH-60 Seahawk specially modified Blackhawk helicopters swept into the compound at 1:30 and 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. The ground team consisted of 25 U.S. Navy Seals and one specially trained and outfitted war dog from the elite Seal Team Six, based in Dam Neck in Virginia. The op was run under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and in cooperation with CIA.

Real Time: Team Obama watches the op live

After bursts of fire during a raid originally scheduled for under 30 minutes but lasting 38 minutes, 22 people were captured or killed by the 'DevGru' team.

The SEALs took fire on their way to the compound’s third floor, where bin Laden had been sleeping. The encounter with bin Laden lasted only seconds, and ended with a double tap -- boom, boom -- two shots, one to the chest and one to the left side of his face. Radioing a commander on Sunday, the team reported the capture with a pre-arranged signal: “Geronimo!”

Also among the dead were:

• One of bin Laden's sons named Khalid Hamza
• Two brothers (or possibly cousins), Afghan Pakistani Pashtuns from Charsa, who served as bin Laden's couriers named Arshad Khan and Tareq Khan (although one police official said that Arshad was not the man’s real name and that he carried a fake identity card)
• A yet to be identified woman who is a) not bin Laden's wife, and b) was not used as a human shield. 

At least one more women, purported to be bin Laden's youngest wife, was wounded as she charged the Seals. Bin Laden's 12-year old daughter is purported to have been in the bedroom, along with other children, and to have witnessed his death.

Other women and children, likely the families of the couriers, were present in the compound but were not killed. U.S. officials said that Bin Laden himself did fire a weapon during the fight.

One of the U.S. helicopters was damaged but not destroyed during the initial part of the operation, and U.S. forces elected to scuttle it with explosives. Video footage of a raging fire outside the walls of bin Laden's compound is purported to be the MH-60 Seahawk a classified, stealth outfitted Blackhawk helicopter that was scuttled.

The Raid: by the numbers

After the firefight American forces hauled Mr. Bin Laden’s body and a "mother load" of intel to a U.S. military base near Kabul, Afghanistan. There body photographed, presumably autopsied, but not in fact not incinerated.

The by now well travled Bin Laden corpose was next flown to the USS Carl Vinson. After a proper Islam burial ceremony conducted by a muslim member of the U.S. military the body was placed in a a weighted bag and cast overboard from the deck into the North Arabian Sea. The speedy, controversial disposal of the body was conducted inline with Islam custom to bury the dead within 24 hours.

While a video of the burial is expected to be release, the Obama administration is still debating whether to release photos of a deceased bin Laden due to their graphic nature ("skull was blown apart").

More backstory on Special Forces, the JSOC, etc. can be found here and in the below video on Seal Team Six.

Updated: Photo of Dead Osama bin Laden is Fake; Identity Confirmed with DNA from Sister

Update 2: A new purported death photo of bin Laden has been released, viewable here.

Update 1: Hat-tip to a commenter for providing evidence that the above photo is, as expected, a fake. If you're still interested in seeing the fake you can do so by clicking 'Read more' below.

Osama bin Laden's identity was confirmed with DNA from the brain of his late sister, who died of cancer in Boston. Her brain was preserved by the U.S. for the very purpose of one day identifying bin Laden's DNA.

Here is the alleged death photo that is flying around the internet, supposedly taken with a Marine's camera; the photo is also being shown on Pakistan TV.

(WARNING: graphic)

Video: Raw Footage of Osama Bin Laden Compound; Fire Suspected to be Scuttled Stealth Blackhawk Helicopter

Reports that U.S. Special Forces were inside the compound for approximately 40 minutes.

Good luck to anyone trying to get near the compound today as swarms of forensic work will be conducted here some time.

Updated: Confirmed Map, Satellite Imagery, and CIA Diagram of Bin Laden's Compound in Abbottabad (Bilal Town), Pakistan

(Note: in the hours following confirmation of bin Laden's death various maps purporting the location of the bin Laden compound were circulated by the mainstream media. In the interest of maintaining the chronology of these releases, and to highlight some of the astute comments made on this post, I've kept the two inaccurate map sets in the order they were circulated. The final, accurate satellite image from 2010, along with the CIA diagram of the compound, can be found at the bottom of this post.)

Osama bin Laden was killed today (unconfirmed death photo here, WARNING: graphic) about 100 kilometers outside Pakistan's capital of Islamabad. The op was carried out by the Special Forces 'legendary' (in both the literal and figurative sense) Seal Team Six.

The Location

Bin Laden was located in the relatively posh part of Abbottabad, Pakistan called Bilal Town. The compound itself was located a short distance from the Pakistani military academy (the "West Point or Sandhurst of Pakistan" as it's being characterized).

The Compound

His five-to-six year old property, believed to have been purpose built to hide the ultimate 'High Value Target' (HVT), was three stories tall and approximately eight times larger than any other nearby dwelling. Other key details:

• 12-to-18-foot walls, topped with barbed wire
• Internal walls sectioned off different areas of the compound
• Access was restricted by two security gates
• Closed-circuit cameras positioned around the property
  

Yet bin Laden's "mansion", as it has been characterized, did not have a phone line or internet. The couriers, Afghans brothers named Arshad and Tariq who were also gunned down by ST6, did not report any income and had no visible source of wealth. They also burned all their own trash. Neighbors also reported that the women who were living inside the house spoke in Arabic and not the local dialect.

Assessing Bin Laden's Hideout Strategy & What Did Pakistan Know?

Bin Laden's choice to hide near Pakistani military installations and in a residential community of retired Pakistani officers strikes me as both intriguing and suspicious. Less wise, perhaps, were some of the activities noted above, like burning the trash and not having a phone or internet line.

In short, Bin Laden stopped just short of hiding in veritable plain view. Did his failure to go all the way here do him in? One thing we do know is that the U.S. was only able to locate bin Laden by trailing his courier back to the compound in August 2010, and the whole reason bin Laden had to employ the services of a courier was due to his aversion to phones and the internet.

This location at least gave bin Laden some chance as the first assassination option considered by President Obama, employing B-2 Stealth Bombers, was abandoned due in part to the likelihood of collateral damage.

Bin Laden apparently lived in this compound for the last 5-6 years. This raises very important questions about how much Pakistan, or elements of Pakistan's military and intelligence service, knew about the whereabouts of bin Laden. The U.S. has sent billions of dollars to Pakistan over the past several years to help find and kill people like bin Laden.

Was bin Laden's thinking on where to locate influenced by his correct calculation that the U.S. was unlikely to drop a bomb or conduct a Predator drone strike on this particular location? In turn, was bin Laden expecting a tip from Pakistani intelligence should any planned U.S. Special Forces assault to be attempted?

The Map, Satellite Imagery, & Compound Diagram

From the below maps, sourced from The Atlantic, you can see that it was located very close to a police station.

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And below is the pinned version marking bin Laden's compound (B) and the nearby police station (A).

(click to enlarge)

Update 1: As a commenter pointed out the exact location of the compound appears to be unclear. Here are the satellite imagery of the compound's surrounding area and closeup from the above Google maps sourced from The Atlantic.

(click to enlarge)

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Update 2: Here's a second Google Map with corresponding satellite imagery of the compound, sourced from the Huffington Post. This location is in nearby Bilal Town, a newer development a couple miles from Abbottabad:

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Update 3: As an astute commenter pointed out, based on an evaluation of these compound photos (which include a daylight image of the scuttled MH-60 Seahawk Helicopter; nighttime footage of the burning wreck here) these previously reported locations are not correct.

Below are the maps for the now CIA confirmed location of bin Laden's compound:

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The following two satellite images appear to be circa 2004-2005.

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This satellite shot is from 2010 and shows some of the other dwellings that sprouted up around bin Laden since 2004-2005 that are clearly visible in recent compound photos.

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And here is the diagram, complete with dimensions and other pertinent op information, that the CIA just released of the actual compound.

(click to enlarge)