Osama Bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan

What do you think was Pakistan's role in Osama Bin Laden killing?

  • 1. US operation, ISI, Pak Army or Government did not know squat

    Votes: 100 62.5%
  • 2. US operation, Pak agencies were in the know, but did not play any role

    Votes: 7 4.4%
  • 3. US led operation with cooperation with active support from Pak

    Votes: 3 1.9%
  • 4. US led operation reluctantly supported by Pak

    Votes: 12 7.5%
  • 5. US operation, Pak agencies knew and were told to lay off or face consequences

    Votes: 33 20.6%
  • 6. US operation, Pak agencies knew and tried to put a spanner losing men, machines and face in the p

    Votes: 5 3.1%

  • Total voters
    160

SHASH2K2

New Member
Joined
May 10, 2010
Messages
5,711
Likes
730
All options open to get Omar: Kerry


MAZAR-I-SHARIF: Washington will "consider all its options" if it found out that Mullah Omar, the reclusive chief of the Afghan Taliban, was living in Pakistan, Senator Kerry said in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Saturday.
"The United States government will always reserve all of its options to be able to protect our people. Other plots have been conducted and organised and planned out of Pakistan. It is really critical that we talk with the Pakistanis as friends," Mr Kerry said in reply to a question whether the United States would conduct a raid inside Pakistan to kill Mullah Omar if it knew his whereabouts.
US officials have long maintained Mullah Omar went to Pakistan after the Taliban government was overthrown in late 2001 by US-backed Afghan forces and is still in hiding there.
Islamabad has denied reports he is in Pakistan.
Asked about the shape of relations with Pakistan in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, John Kerry said the United States wanted Pakistan to be a "real" ally in combating militants inside its borders, but serious questions remained in relations between the countries after Osama's killing.
Mr Kerry, who was in Afghanistan before a trip to Pakistan to discuss strained bilateral ties, said Islamabad needed to improve efforts in fighting extremism, but the death of Osama provided a critical chance to move forward.
"We obviously want a Pakistan that is prepared to respect the interests of Afghanistan, and to be a real ally in our efforts to combat terrorism,".
"We believe there are things that can be done better. And there are serious questions that need to be answered in that relationship. But we're not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart, we're trying to find a way to build it."
Lawmakers in the United States have been questioning whether Pakistan is serious about fighting militants in the region after Osama bin Laden was found living in Pakistan. Some have even called for a suspension in aid to Islamabad.
Kerry, a Democrat close to the Obama administration and who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said last week it was "extraordinarily hard to believe" Osama could have survived in Pakistan for so long without any knowledge.
US officials in private say the US repeatedly told Pakistan that Washington would send American forces into that country if it had evidence Osama bin Laden was hiding there.
John Kerry said Pakistan itself was a victim of extremism and faced its own tough decisions, but that the killing of Osama provided a new opportunity.
"Sometimes those choices can be very difficult for people to make because of the pressures that they're under and the violence that occurs," he said. "We respect and understand that, but this is the time, this is a critical time to find a better way forward and we hope that we're going to be able to do that."—Reuters
 

Yusuf

GUARDIAN
Super Mod
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
24,324
Likes
11,757
Country flag
Sub nautanki hai. It will be all as usual within a few days when taps run dry in the higher echelons of power in Pakistan. $$ tap that is. We will be back to Yes Sir by them as the US ratchets up pressure.

I really hope immediate intel is available on Omar and he too is taken out like Osama. That would be the final nail in the coffin of a state called pakistan.
 

Blackwater

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2012
Messages
21,157
Likes
12,211
Sub nautanki hai. It will be all as usual within a few days when taps run dry in the higher echelons of power in Pakistan. $$ tap that is. We will be back to Yes Sir by them as the US ratchets up pressure.

I really hope immediate intel is available on Omar and he too is taken out like Osama. That would be the final nail in the coffin of a state called pakistan.

true somebody in american press said "yeah pakistani to 20$ me to apni maa ko bhi beach dete ha"

Million $ ke liye zardari to nude mujra bhi kar dega infront of american congress
 

sayareakd

Mod
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
17,734
Likes
18,951
Country flag
well i must admit that with this operation US has done master stoke as far as Pakistan is concern. Pakistans last and only hope, its armed forces, were humiliated. Nuclear armed pakistan has been humiliated by US for helping and protecting OBL for all these years and for cashing in for fighting war on terror, PA, ISI should not have played both side with US.

Its army which was supposed to defend its country from any aggression and violation of sovereignty was caught with its pants down, even after US forces stayed in the area for good 40 minutes at military town still they did not respond, in fact they did not had any idea as to what happen, until US called Pakistani army chief and congratulate them (must be for sleeping).

ISI which is supposed to be Pakistan premier intelligence agency ('asset' as per what Pakistani PM has said in their parliament) was found devoid of any info about US attack on OBl compound and taking of OBL body under their very nose. Pasha ISI chief has stated in Pakistani Parliament that has no idea from where those US chopper had enter into Pakistan.

PAF which is supposed to guard its airspace was also caught sleeping with no idea as to what has happen to its radar and where to look for US copters and how many copter had violated its airspace. To add insult to injury US again cross over Pakistani airspace and took OBL's body to its aircraft carrier in Arabian sea without any knowledge of PAF.

Finally the PN which had no information about US carrier in Arabian sea.

Pakistani must be investigating as to who or how its most prize guest was tip off, with US playing all sorts of games and misinformation about the OBL operation it will remains to be seen as to what happen in future.

One thing is for sure that as far as Pakistan is concern only Asif Ali Zardari has come on top and whole of Pakistan has been humiliated to its core by bunch of US navy seal commandos.
 
Last edited:

SHASH2K2

New Member
Joined
May 10, 2010
Messages
5,711
Likes
730

WASHINGTON — The United States and Pakistan are veering toward a deeper clash, with Pakistan's Parliament demanding a permanent halt to all drone strikes just as the most senior American official since the killing of Osama bin Laden is to arrive with a stern message that the country has only months to show it is committed to rooting out Al Qaeda and associated groups.
The United States has increased drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas in the past 10 days in an effort to exploit the uncertainty and disarray among militant ranks caused by Bin Laden's death on May 2. The latest airstrikes, on Friday, occurred as Pakistan's spy chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, in a rare appearance before the nation's Parliament, denounced the American raid as a "sting operation."

Parliament then passed a resolution declaring that the drone strikes were a violation of sovereignty equivalent to the secret attack on Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. The lawmakers warned that Pakistan could cut the supply lines to American forces in Afghanistan if there were more such attacks. The resolution contained no condemnation of a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, who killed more than 80 Pakistani paramilitary cadets on Friday.

Pakistan stepped up its condemnations of the United States as Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a longtime emissary to Pakistan in times of crisis, was preparing to land in Islamabad. He was arriving with a list of actions — and some offers from Washington to ease tensions — that he finalized in meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, and other top American security officials.

A senior administration official said Saturday that the United States would try to use the threat of Congressional cuts to the $3 billion in annual American aid to Pakistan as leverage. Any evidence of Pakistan's complicity in sheltering Bin Laden — culled from the hundreds of computer flash drives and documents recovered in the raid — could also be used, the official said. So far, no such evidence has been found.

"In the Congress, this is a make-or-break moment" for aid to Pakistan, Mr. Kerry said in an interview just before he left for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mr. Kerry said he would tell Pakistan that there needed to be "a real demonstration of commitment" to fighting terrorist groups in the next few months. But he will also reassure Pakistani officials that they will be a central part of any political accord with the Taliban in Afghanistan, to ease their fears that India will take over large areas of Afghanistan as the United States pulls out.

The Obama administration has said nothing about the Pakistani government's criticisms, in the hope that they are designed to alleviate public anger and the Pakistani military's embarrassment that American forces attacked the Bin Laden compound without being detected. Mr. Donilon and other senior administration officials declined to be interviewed about the administration's strategy.

The American reticence stems in part from the reality that such ultimatums have been sent before — most recently after the arrest of Raymond Davis, a Central Intelligence Agency contractor who shot two Pakistanis during what he said was a robbery. Pakistan has repeatedly called the administration's bluff and revealed the threats as hollow. The United States relies heavily on transit routes in Pakistan to supply American troops in Afghanistan, and any move to cut off aid would probably lead Pakistan to close the supply routes, as it has done during previous disputes.

Mr. Kerry is arriving at the moment of highest tension between the two countries since Pakistan, given little choice, formally broke with the Taliban and allied with the United States just after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Mr. Kerry said both countries must make "fundamental choices" about their relationship.

"I have had some of these conversations with Pakistan before," he said, "but never in the context of the world's No. 1 terrorist being found 35 miles from the capital, next door to Pakistan's West Point, and with the discovery he was fully, fully operational."
Mr. Kerry's main piece of negotiating leverage is Pakistan's uncertainty about what officials are finding in the trove of computer data — which Mr. Donilon has compared to "a small college library" — about Pakistani complicity hiding the Qaeda leader. American officials say they believe the top leaders of the country were genuinely surprised about Bin Laden's whereabouts, based on their reaction to phone calls from the administration on the night of the raid and electronic surveillance of Pakistani government communications.
But the officials strongly suspect that others in the government, the military or the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, the main intelligence agency, were aware of Bin Laden's location. So far the United States has not said what kind of inquiry Pakistan should conduct to answer those questions, and given the political atmosphere surrounding Bin Laden's killing, they question whether any such investigation would be thorough or credible.

Mr. Kerry will also raise an issue that the administration has refused to discuss publicly: Pakistan's escalating production of nuclear fuel to expand its arsenal of 100 or so nuclear weapons. Members of Congress, in closed sessions, have complained that since the $3 billion American annual aid to the Pakistani military is fungible, the United States is effectively helping bankroll the fastest-growing nuclear arsenal in the world. "It will jeopardize funding if that continues," Mr. Kerry said.

In fact, according to some officials, the administration is on alert for signs that Pakistan's reaction to the Bin Laden raid could be an expansion, or repositioning, of its nuclear forces.

"The very public discussion that the raid showed the nuclear assets could be vulnerable to seizure may lead them to disperse them, or increase their number," said one United States official involved in monitoring Pakistan's nuclear program. "It's a significant worry because the more they spread it around, the higher the risk something gets loose."

The Pakistani Parliament's resolution warned of a "strong national response" if any nation — clearly it meant the United States — sought to seize or immobilize the country's nuclear arsenal.

On Capitol Hill last week, senior lawmakers warned that without answers to questions of possible Pakistani complicity in harboring Bin Laden, American aid could be imperiled. The House speaker, John A. Boehner, who visited Pakistan last month, told reporters on Thursday that the United States should remain engaged with Pakistan as an ally against terrorists, but that Pakistani leaders must prove their resolve in fighting terrorist groups.

"It's time to look the Pakistanis in the eye and get a commitment that they are fully onboard with us," Mr. Boehner said. "If we're going to continue to provide aid and strengthen this relationship, I think we need to have a clearer understanding."

Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, went a step further, saying he would cut off $1.5 billion in annual nonmilitary aid unless Pakistan explained how Bin Laden could have gone undetected for years and how militant groups like the Haqqani network use Pakistan as a haven for attacks into Afghanistan.
 

nrj

Ambassador
Joined
Nov 16, 2009
Messages
9,658
Likes
3,911
Country flag
Yeah cut the supply lines.

Havent they already got backup while setting another route?

Warning against breach sovereignty?? I bet Pak doesnt even know if B2s are over their head while making this announcement.
 

nitesh

Mob Control Manager
Senior Member
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
7,550
Likes
1,307
Who cares? I am just chuckling at the prospect of a flurry of jokes on "exploding", "shooting", "wild oats", "rabbits", "weed", "three-storey" etc. to flood the net.
Agree, but this will effect the common jihadis in a much worst manner.
 
Joined
Feb 16, 2009
Messages
29,798
Likes
48,278
Country flag
'Game back on' for U.S. drone hits after OBL death, says analyst - CNN

'Game back on' for U.S. drone hits after OBL death,

Four suspected U.S. drone strikes have pounded Pakistan's tribal region since the American military killed terror leader Osama bin Laden, actions that signal an uptick in the U.S. fight against Islamic militants.

The latest was Friday, when four suspected militants died in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials, who said an unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at a militant's vehicle.

Drone strikes have been controversial in Pakistan because of concerns over civilian deaths and disrespect for Pakistan's sovereignty.


"I don't think the U.S. cares about the Pakistani sensibilities," said Bill Roggio, a military-affairs analyst. "I think it's game back on."

North Waziristan is one of the seven districts of Pakistan's volatile tribal region bordering Afghanistan, and Datta Khel has a strong presence of militants, Roggio said.

Based on a count by the CNN Islamabad bureau, Friday's suspected drone strike was the 24th so far this year compared to 111 in all of 2010.

The Long War Journal, a website that provides analyses and reporting on war-related matters, said the U.S. military launched only two strikes in April and seven in March, in both North Waziristan and South Waziristan.

Roggio, the managing editor of The Long War Journal, told CNN that there have been drone-strike pauses during spring months in the past, but he said the latest lull came during problems between the United States and Pakistan.

He cited the disagreements over the case of Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor who had been incarcerated and later released after allegedly shooting and killing two Pakistanis, and Pakistani rage about a couple of the drone strikes.

But Roggio said he believes the dynamics have changed after bin Laden was killed May 2 in a hideout in the Pakistani military garrison town of Abbottabad.

He said there's a lot of U.S. impatience with the Pakistanis and that's "no big secret after the bin Laden raid."

He emphasized that the Pakistani military hasn't taken on militants in the Datta Khel region, which Roggio calls a "snake pit" and a "known al Qaeda hub."

"It's clear now they are just gonna keep doing it," he said, referring to the drone strikes.

The other drone strikes since bin Laden's death occurred last Friday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

North Waziristan is in the same dangerous northwestern Pakistani swath as the district of Charsadda in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where a twin suicide bombing killed at least 80 people on Friday.
 

Virendra

Ambassador
Joined
Oct 16, 2010
Messages
4,697
Likes
3,041
Country flag
Pakistan must be praying hard now for 2014 to come soon.
There's no foreseeable reason or situation right now that could deter the US from drone strikes. It will stop only when the Americans decide so.

Regards,
Virendra
 

sayareakd

Mod
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
17,734
Likes
18,951
Country flag
PA and ISI lost its golden egg laying goose (OBL) whom they hide, shelter and protected while sleeping with US on same bed. Now that US has taken away the golden egg laying goose under very nose of PA and ISI along with loads of information from hard drive and pen drives from OBL, PA and ISI are lost of words and are waiting for what Uncle does next. BTW golden eggs (US aid) will dry up now.

Can any one throw more light on news about Pakistani helicopter and fighter crashes in same area around same time.
 
Last edited:

Yusuf

GUARDIAN
Super Mod
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
24,324
Likes
11,757
Country flag
The helicopter that crashed was a US one. I don't think there was any fighter jet crash.
 

sayareakd

Mod
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
17,734
Likes
18,951
Country flag
Last edited:

Yusuf

GUARDIAN
Super Mod
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
24,324
Likes
11,757
Country flag
I don't think it's related to OBL raid. It talks about training sorties.
 
Joined
Feb 16, 2009
Messages
29,798
Likes
48,278
Country flag
Thousands rally against the US in Pakistan | Pakistan | DAWN.COM

Thousands rally against the US in Pakistan

LAHORE: A prominent hard-line group with suspected militant ties has rallied several thousand people in the Pakistani city of Lahore in support of Osama bin Laden and against the US.

Police said at least 4,000 people attended the Sunday demonstration. Protesters chanted "Down with America" and carried a banner that said "America is the worst enemy of humanity!"

Hafiz Saeed, the leader of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, called bin Laden a martyr and demanded the Pakistani government break ties with the US following its raid May 2 that killed the al-Qaida chief.

Jamaat-ud-Dawa is believed to be a front for the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, suspected of carrying out a series of attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008 that killed 166 people.
 

Yusuf

GUARDIAN
Super Mod
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Messages
24,324
Likes
11,757
Country flag
Good, Saeed should organize many more of such rallies. Piss the US of who will have no qualms of sending him to meet Osama.
 

sayareakd

Mod
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
17,734
Likes
18,951
Country flag
I don't think it's related to OBL raid. It talks about training sorties.
who knows both of them have been taken out by USAF in that raid. it is quite strange that both of them down in one or two days of the raid. it is quite a slim chance of happening that.
 
Joined
Feb 16, 2009
Messages
29,798
Likes
48,278
Country flag
Stealth helicopters refuelled in Pakistan | Pakistan | News | Newspaper | Daily | English | Online

Stealth helicopters refuelled in Pakistan

LAHORE - Sources disclose that the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) investigative commission formed on the orders of Air Chief Rao Qamar Suleman is in the final stages of compiling its report of the investigation of the Abbottabad incident. The report will contain information gathered as a result of the in-house investigation, which has revealed that all PAF radar systems and technical monitoring assets were fully functional on May 2 and no lapses of vigilance occurred that night on the part of the PAF.

The report details the sequence of events on the night of the incident. Starting with a call from the Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who informed the Air Chief of the Abbottabad incident over the phone at seven minutes past two in the morning (2:07 am). At twenty-five minutes past two (2:25 am), ie 18 minutes later, the PAF jets were present over Abbottabad, but by this time the American operation had been completed.

The report states that the latest in stealth technology was used by the choppers employed in the raid. Helicopters equipped with such technology are undetectable by any radar in the world. The most modern radar system in Russian technology, which is the IR13, is also powerless to detect stealth equipment helicopters, it has been revealed. No country in the world, including Pakistan, possesses or has as yet discovered a method of beating this technology by radar.

Besides the use of stealth machines, the Americans also went unobserved because of the hilly passages they chose as their route to Abbottabad. Traversing deliberately through mountainous terrain, the distance travelled by the American stealth helicopters from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to Abbottabad was almost 250 km, instead of the usual 195 km on a standard flight path, reads the report.

As the engines of these helicopters were intended to remain running even while the Navy Seals carried out their operation in Abbottabad, it was necessary for them to have refuelled at least once, other than the fact that stealth technology helicopters are not capable of flying long distances without refuelling. Although able to refuel mid-flight, the helicopters carrying Seal Team 6 were most probably refuelled after having landed on Pakistani soil, due to the difficulty of refuelling in the air in the mountainous territory they chose to travel through

According to sources close to the investigation, it is entirely possible that if one of the helicopters had not developed a fault and been destroyed, knowledge of the Abbottabad operation would have been obtained much later than it was that night.

The stealth technology of the helicopters renders them virtually invisible to radar technology and to those observing movement on the radar, because these aircraft are constructed of Radar Absorbent Surfaces (RAS) and also make use of Radar Absorbent Materials (RAM) - which is a special kind of paint designed to deflect radar detective rays. RAS and RAM technology effectively means that rays transmitted by radars to detect movement, instead of being reflected back to the radar, which reads this reflection as verification of an object in its sights, are instead deflected into different directions as well also absorbed by the RAS materials, which the helicopters were constructed from.
Helicopters used on May 2 also possessed rotor blades of a unique and never-before-seen design, which ensured that the noise emitted from their rotation was minimal and again that they drew as little unwanted attention as possible. The report recalls that to date there has been only one instance of a stealth helicopter being shot down, in the year 1990, when in a startling incident Yugoslavia shot a stealth helicopter out of the sky.

This again was not due to radar detection, but was in fact a happy coincidence resulting from an unconcealed mistake of the Yugoslavian army. Sources further inform that it is not out of the question according to the report that Electro-Magnetics Plus (EMP) technology may also have been employed during the raid to temporarily disable communication systems around the area of the operation. This would mean that mobiles, telephones, internet services including other electrical circuits would have been jammed and unable to function while the raid continued.
The Nation has also reliably learnt that the night of May 2 according to the standard operating procedures of peace time radar monitoring, the radars were functioning as normal and in fact also detected flights of American aircraft close to the Pak-Afghan border during the very same hours when the operation was underway in Abbottabad.
The PAF investigative committee, which is overseeing the report, was formed a few hours after the Abbottabad incident by Air Chief Rao Qamar Suleman to look into any possible lapse of caution on the part of the PAF.

The news of the formation of this committee was reported almost two days after its formation. The PAF is also understood to be compiling all facts and technical details of their operations from the night of May 2 for examination by Lieutenant General Javed Iqbal who is heading the investigative committee looking into the Abbottabad incident on the orders of the Prime Minister, as announced in his address to the National Assembly after his return from Paris.
The committee headed by Lt Gen Javed Iqbal also includes a member of the PAF, who will be presenting the detail of its own in-house investigation to the larger committee once the report is completed.
 
Joined
Feb 16, 2009
Messages
29,798
Likes
48,278
Country flag
Fatima Bhutto: Pakistan gave US the right to kill bin Laden | WORLD News

Fatima Bhutto: Pakistan gave US the right to kill bin Laden

Fatima Bhutto, an outspoken member of the Pakistani political Bhutto dynasty, believes the killing of Osama bin Laden in her homeland shouldn't have surprised anyone.

In New Zealand for the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, the poet and writer told Close Up that the operation that killed the world's most wanted man earlier this month must have had involvement from the Pakistani state.

"Pakistan gave America the right to come into our country, launch, kill and capture, all the while reserving the right to pretend that we knew nothing about it.

"An operation like this couldn't have been carried out without assistance from the Pakistani state. Which is something they continue to deny," she said.

"We (the Pakistani people) are as much in the darkness everyone else," she added.

Although active in supporting her mother Ghinwa Bhutto's Pakistan Peoples Party, Fatima Bhutto says she no desire to run for political office.

Bhutto, 28, told Close Up of the political corruption and violence that is an intricate part of her county, including within her own extended family.

Her grandfather was executed after a military coup, her uncle was then murdered.

Her father was then also murdered by what she believes was on the orders of his sister, then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, also murdered four years ago.

Fatima Bhutto says this type of political assassination is not unique in Pakistan.

"In Pakistan, we see violence carried out on a daily basis, sometimes it's towards a family, but everyday it's Pakistanis."

She says her own aunt was heavily involved in corruption well as involved in the death of thousands of her own people, something she labels her "enduring legacy".

"All the evidence we have of Benazir Bhutto's two governments point to massive corruption," she said.

"She was prosecuted along with her husband in Swiss courts for corruption, courts in the United Kingdom. And she also was named in the oil for foods scandal, giving kick backs to Saddam Hussein's regime for oil contracts."

She tells of the "genocidal campaign in Karachi, Operation Clean Up" the then Prime Minister ordered on the streets of Karachi, leaving thousands of men dead.

"In that period in which the security agencies and police force were charged with cleaning up Karachi of dissidents and activist, of people that opposed the government, some 3,000 men were killed."

However, she said it is very difficult for Pakistanis to provide democratic alternatives to government or politicians that have "billions of dollars at their disposal".

"They are propped up and aided by foreign money, by money by the White House, 10 Downing St and the European Union to the tune of billions."

As for her own safety, she says life for her is as safe in Karachi as for anyone else.

"Certainly it has meant that I have to be more careful about living in Pakistan, and it has changed how I live in Pakistan.

She said silence is always more dangerous there, than speaking out.
 

Parthy

Air Warrior
Senior Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Messages
1,314
Likes
149
Pakistan to return stealth chopper debris

Speaking in the capital where he was meeting with Pakistani officials, Sen. John Kerry announced that Pakistan has agreed to return the tail of a stealth U.S. helicopter that American commandos had to destroy and leave behind in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

One of the Black Hawks flown by an elite Army unit called Task Force 160 – which carried the Navy SEAL commandos – lost lift and was forced into a hard landing at Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbotabad. The pilot nudged the Black Hawk forward into a controlled crash – saving the mission from disaster, but sheering off the helicopter's tail section, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reported.

Pictures of the tail section left behind indicated the Black Hawk had been modified with stealth technology.

Bill Sweetman, Editor in Chief for Defense Technology for Aviation Week, told "The Early Show" that some unusual features were spotted in the wreckage, including special materials covering the tail rotor hub to reduce the helicopter's radar signature, and extra rotor blades to make it quieter.

"At a range of a couple hundred feet even, if you've got a bit of urban background noise, you're not going to hear it," said Sweetman.

Aviation Week published photos of the tail section which showed stealth-configured shapes on the boom and tip fairings, swept stabilizers, and a silver-loaded infra-red suppression finish.

The commandos destroyed the helicopter following the crash so that it could not be salvaged, but the Pentagon later asked Pakistan for the sensitive materials to be returned.

Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is the most high-profile American emissary to visit Pakistan since the raid earlier this month on the northwest garrison city of Abbottabad, Pakistan, where the al Qaeda chief and four others were killed by a team of Navy SEALs.



Pakistan to return stealth chopper debris | idrw.org
 

Latest Replies

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top