The Washington Post is reporting that the CIA maintained a safe house in Abbottabad for a small team of spies who conducted surveillance for months on the compound where Osama bin Laden was found. The report, citing U.S. officials, said the CIA went to Congress last December to secure authority to reallocate tens of millions of dollars within assorted agency budgets to fund the safe house.
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the house has since been shut down, due to concerns about the safety of CIA assets in the aftermath of the raid and because the intelligence agency's work was considered finished.
President Obama has decided not to release the death photos of bin Laden, saying the graphic images would create a national security risk and could incite violence.
President Obama will meet Friday with members of the U.S. Navy SEALs team involved in the raid that killed al-Qaida leader in Pakistan.
The president will travel to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to personally thank the SEALs and other members of the U.S. military for their service, following the early Monday raid on bin Laden's compound in.
U.S. officials say an initial review of documents seized from the compound shows al-Qaida considered carrying out a terrorist plot against trains at an unspecified location in the U.S., on the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
A Homeland Security Department document obtained Thursday by U.S. news organizations says al-Qaida thought about tampering with rail tracks so a train would fall from a bridge or into a valley. U.S. officials say they have no evidence the plot was active.
On Thursday, President Obama laid a wreath at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center buildings in New York to pay tribute to the thousands killed in the September 11 attacks, carried out by al-Qaida. Thousands of people lined the streets around Ground Zero, hoping to get a glimpse of Obama during his visit.
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U.S. officials say an initial review of documents seized from Osama bin Laden's compound shows al-Qaida considered carrying out a terrorist plot against the United States on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
A Homeland Security Department document obtained Thursday by U.S. news organizations says al-Qaida considered an operation against trains at an unspecified location in the United States.
The document says al-Qaida thought about tampering with rail tracks so a train would fall off the tracks in a valley or over bridge.
U.S. officials say they have no evidence the plot was active.
This information appears to be the first widely circulated intelligence stemming from the raid Sunday by an elite U.S. Navy SEAL team on bin Laden's compound in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. In the raid, the Navy SEALs killed bin Laden and took documents and other valuable intelligence information.
On Friday, Mr. Obama will meet with members of the Navy SEAL team that carried out the attack. The president will travel to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to personally thank the SEALs and other members of the U.S. military for their service.
President Obama has decided not to release the death photos of bin Laden, saying the graphic images would create a national security risk and could incite violence.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the September 11 attacks on the United States. Al-Qaida hijackers crashed two planes into the twin towers in New York and one into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Defense Department, minutes outside Washington. A fourth plane went down in rural Pennsylvania after passengers fought with the hijackers.
On Thursday, President Obama laid a wreath at the site of the destroyed World Trade Center buildings in New York to pay tribute to the thousands killed in the al-Qaida attacks. Thousands of people lined the streets around Ground Zero, hoping to get a glimpse of Mr. Obama during his visit.
The president led a moment of silence for the victims. He was joined by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Mr. Obama also privately met with relatives of those killed.
Also Thursday, the president told firefighters the death of bin Laden sends a message around the world that the United States will never forget the September 11 attacks.
Mr. Obama made the comments while meeting with first responders at a firehouse that lost 15 men in the attacks. He also visited a local police station whose officers were the first on the scene on September 11. Some information for this report provided by AP.
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Four days after U.S. forces killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, President Barack Obama visited New York City to pay tribute to those killed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It was Mr. Obama's first visit as president to what is now called "Ground Zero."
Almost 10 years after the World Trade Center was destroyed, President Obama went to New York to meet with the families of the victims and emergency workers who died that day.
Roughly 2,800 people were killed when members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them into both 110-story towers of the World Trade Center. The location of the buildings has since been referred to as Ground Zero. The president's first stop was a firehouse in midtown Manhattan that lost 15 firefighters - an entire shift - on September 11. The surviving firefighters have covered one wall of the station with pictures of their fallen colleagues and messages from their families.
Mr. Obama had lunch with the firefighters at the station and praised their everyday heroism.
He said he hoped the killing of bin Laden is of some comfort to them in the name of the colleagues they lost in 2001.
Related video report by Peter Fedynsky
"What happened on Sunday, because of the courage of our military and the outstanding work of our intelligence, sent a message around the world, but also sent a message here back home that when we say we will never forget; we mean what we say," he said.
Afterward, New York Fire Department Chief Edward Kilduff said the station Mr. Obama visited symbolizes the sacrifices made by New York's emergency workers on September 11, 2001, and that the president understands those sacrifices.
"So for him to come here and to see the faces of the firefighters that were killed on September 11 and to see the shrine that was erected in their honor really meant something to him. I could see that the president was clearly touched by the sacrifices and by the stories that the firefighters told him," Kilduff said.
From there, Mr. Obama visited a police station in lower Manhattan. He told officers who were working on September 11 that he could not be more proud of them or more grateful for their work. He said the killing of bin Laden was directly connected to what they do every day.
At Ground Zero, the president silently took part in a wreath-laying ceremony in memory of those who died at the World Trade Center.
At about the same time, Vice President Joe Biden laid a wreath at the Pentagon Memorial, to honor the 184 people who were killed on September 11 when al-Qaida slammed a plane into the side of the Defense Department headquarters.
After the wreath-laying in Manhattan, President Obama met with the families of about 60 of the people who died in the New York attack. He was seen shaking hands, talking briefly and hugging many of the family members.
Ground Zero is now a construction zone, where workers are building the National September 11 Memorial and the Freedom Tower. The skyscraper will stand 1,776 feet high-representing the year 1776, when the U.S. Declaration of Independence was signed.
The president's spokesman, Jay Carney, said Mr. Obama will return to New York in September to mark the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
Related video report by Carolyn Presutti:
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Syrian activists say security forces have taken up positions in cities across the country, as opposition leaders urge demonstrators to return to the streets on Friday for what they are calling "Day of Defiance" protests.
Opposition leaders have called for protesters to rally after Friday prayers, in spite of a government crackdown on demonstrations.
On Thursday, residents said troops and armored vehicles had deployed into cities including Homs, Banias and Rastan.
However, the army said it has begun withdrawing its forces from the besieged town of Daraa, the epicenter of protests against President Bashar al-Assad. The military said Thursday it had "carried out its mission in detaining terrorists" in Daraa and had restored calm in the city. But residents said tanks, troops and snipers were still restricting their movement.
Rights groups say at least 600 people have been killed in Syria's crackdown on nationwide anti-government unrest and as many as 8,000 are missing or have been detained.
Anti-government protests that began as calls for reform have developed into demands for the ouster of President Assad.
Some information for this report was provided by AP.
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Pakistan's army said Thursday that it will review ties with Washington if the U.S. launches any more raids on its territory. The statement came just hours after Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir defended the work of Pakistan's military and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, following the U.S. operation that killed Osama bin Laden early Monday.
In its first statement since Monday's raid, Pakistan's army warned that any future raids would result in a review of military and intelligence cooperation with the United States. It also said that U.S. military personnel in Pakistan would be reduced to the "minimum essential" levels.
Thursday's army statement gave no details, but it came amid Pakistani anger over the American special operation that killed Osama bin Laden in a compound in the city of Abbottabad.
No prior warning
Earlier in the day, Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir reflected that anger during a lengthy press conference in which he accused the U.S. of having violated the country's sovereignty by staging the raid without Pakistan's knowledge or permission.
"This matter of sovereignty and the violation of sovereignty and the modalities for conduct, for combating terrorism raises certain legal and moral issues," noted Bashir.
U.S. officials say they did not contact Pakistan's leadership until the raid was well under way out of concern that someone within the Pakistani establishment would tip off the al-Qaida leader, allowing him to escape.
Pakistan is suspected of having provided a safe haven to members of al-Qaida and other extremists, and that suspicion has been compounded by the fact that bin Laden's hiding place was in a prominent Pakistani town that is also home to the country's military academy, and other military and security institutions.
But Foreign Secretary Bashir dismissed these concerns, calling them false charges.
Important ally
Bashir pointed to the fact that since the start of the "war on terror," Pakistan has been at the forefront of combating terrorist groups, especially through the efforts of the its intelligence service, the ISI.
"More than any other agency, including the CIA, the performance of the ISI in interdicting al-Qaida does not really compare with any other intelligence agency of the world," added Bashir.
Critics both in Pakistan and internationally are demanding that Pakistani officials clarify what they knew and when they knew it.
Foreign Secretary Bashir repeatedly said Thursday that despite these problems, the relationship with the U.S remains stable and mutually beneficial.
Speaking in Rome, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also said that while the relationship is not always easy, it remains strong and productive.
Important ally
The Pakistani foreign secretary also said Islamabad regards the United States as an important friend and appreciates comments by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama reaffirming that relationship.
Clinton said Thursday the United States and Pakistan do not always have an "easy relationship." But, she said it is a "productive" one for both countries and Washington intends to continue cooperation between the governments, militaries and law enforcement agencies of the two sides.
Speaking on a visit to Rome, Secretary Clinton said the battle to stop al-Qaida and its affiliates does not end with "one death." She said the U.S. resolve to keep up that fight is "even stronger" after bin Laden's killing and predicted it will "have an impact" on U.S. forces trying to defeat a Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. New details
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Bashir also offered new details about the Pakistani military's response to the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden. He said the military first knew something was happening when one of the U.S. helicopters involved in the raid malfunctioned.
The foreign secretary says the government responded to the raid by mobilizing the Pakistani army, intelligence agency and air force, which scrambled two F-16 fighter jets. He says it took about 15 minutes for the first units to reach the site, which is located about 900 meters from a military academy in Abbottabad. He said the road from the academy to the compound spans four kilometers.
Bashir says that by time Pakistani security forces reached the compound, the raid was over and the Americans had left. He says the top U.S. military officer Admiral Mike Mullen called Pakistani authorities at 3 a.m. Pakistani time Monday to alert them about the raid once it was over.
Navy SEALs
U.S. media reports quote unnamed Obama administration officials as saying the only shots fired at the Navy SEALs who raided the compound came from a guest house at the start of the 40-minute-long nighttime operation.
The officials are quoted as saying the SEALs then killed the al-Qaida courier who fired those shots, while a woman inside the guest house died in crossfire. After that incident, they say the SEALs assumed "everyone" in the compound was armed and dangerous.
The U.S. officials told the news agencies that the SEALs went into the compound's main house, saw a man thought to be hiding a weapon and killed him. They say that as the SEALs went up a staircase, they ran into a son of bin Laden and killed him too, perceiving him to be a threat.
The officials say that when the SEALs entered a room on the top floor of the main house, they saw bin Laden within arm's reach of several weapons and shot him in the head as well as wounding a woman who was with him. U.S. officials have said bin Laden made a threatening move at the time but was unarmed.
New photos
The Reuters news agency has published several photos that it says were taken by a Pakistani security officer in the compound hours after the raid. The photos include graphic images of the bodies of three men lying in pools of blood. Reuters says the Pakistani officer sold the photos to the news agency and it has verified their authenticity.
The U.S. officals also are quoted as saying the Navy SEALs spent much of the remaining time at the compound removing computer equipment, mobile phones and documents that they hope contain valuable intelligence about al-Qaida.
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Libyan rebels won a financial lifeline potentially worth billions of dollars from the United States and other allies on Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, attending a contact group meeting on Libya in Rome, also spoke of the need to increase pressure on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, saying ousting him was the best way to help the population.
The NATO-backed coalition against Moammar Gadhafi said at a contact group meeting on Libya that efforts are under way to unlock billions of dollars in frozen Libyan assets to provide assistance to cash-strapped Libyan rebels.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration is trying to free up some of the more than $31 billion it has frozen in Libyan assets. The administration has already authorized up to $26 million in non-lethal military assistance to the opposition and has pledged $55 million in humanitarian aid.
Italy, which hosted the meeting on Libya, said the special fund would aim to channel cash to the rebel administration in its eastern Libyan stronghold of Benghazi.
Foreign minister Franco Frattini said the humanitarian fund for Libya had already reached $250 million, thanks to the generosity of many countries. The French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the special fund should be operational within weeks. He said Paris is evaluating its possible contribution.
The Contact Group on Libya also agreed to establish an internationally monitored fund that the rebels can access to provide basic services to the Libyan people. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said it will be "an international fund in which nations can make their contributions in a transparent way.
Britain has so far provided $21 million but it does not plan to offer direct funding to Libya's rebels beyond the aid money and non-lethal equipment that it has already pledged.
Thursday's meeting brought together representatives of 22 nations and five international organizations to discuss ways to support the rebels fighting longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Speaking Thursday morning, following a bilateral meeting with the Italian Foreign Minister, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said ousting the Libyan leader is the best way to protect the population.
"The best way to protect civilians is for Gadhafi to cease his ruthless, brutal attack on civilians from the west to the east, to withdraw from the cities that he is sieging and attacking and to leave power," she said.
Clinton also said it is important to isolate Gadhafi and his regime, by imposing travel bans on top officials, suspending Libyan embassies and sending envoys to work with the opposition's Transitional National Council.
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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says world powers must show the Syrian government that there are consequences for what she called a "brutal crackdown" on civilians.
Clinton says she discussed possible sanctions against Syria during a meeting with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini in Rome on Thursday.
Rights groups say at least 560 civilians have been killed in Syria's crackdown on nationwide anti-government unrest.
Syria says it has started a gradual withdrawal of military forces from the city of Daraa, where there have been deadly clashes between security forces and anti-government protesters.
The state-run news agency SANA quoted a military official on Thursday as saying the army had completed its mission of detaining so-called "terrorist elements" in the southern city and restoring calm and stability.
Two witnesses leaving Daraa told the Reuters news agency that about 30 tanks on armored carriers had left the city heading north, but that army units remained at several entrances.
The news agency also quoted residents in Daraa saying at least six tanks were deployed near government installations and public squares, snipers were on rooftops, and security barriers were placed every 100 meters.
The Syrian government sent troops and tanks into Daraa when anti-government protests that began as calls for reform developed into demands for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
On Wednesday, witnesses reported seeing military reinforcements in other cities including Rastan and Homs as well as outside of the capital, Damascus.
Syrian security forces have intensified their crackdown on opposition protesters, detaining more than 1,000 people in recent days as international condemnation of Assad's government widens.
Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
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In a speech late Wednesday, Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague spoke of the historical significance of the recent uprisings.
"The eruption of democracy movements in countries of the Middle East and North Africa is, even in its early stages, the most important development of the early 21st century in my view, with potential long-term consequences greater than either 9/11 or the global financial crisis in 2008," Hague said.
And he said the future looks bright for the other parts of the world as well.
"The forces that led to the Arab Spring will sweep more widely across the globe," Hague said. "Demands for open government, action against corruption and greater political participation will spread by themselves over time, not because Western nations are advocating them but because they are the natural aspirations of all people everywhere."
Hague said governments that are resisting change, like those of Libya and Syria, are "doomed to failure".
But he said the so-called Arab Spring needs international support in order to stop countries backtracking towards even more authoritarian regimes.
Europe, he said, should build more economic ties with those countries working towards democracy.
Politics expert Richard Whitman, of Britain's Bath University, says countries across Europe want to move towards greater economic integration.
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"The question of supporting economically and particularly liberalizing trade, providing foreign aid and so on, is uncontroversial to be done collectively by European governments," said Whitman.
But he says Hague's speech also reflected a general division in Europe.
Whitman says Britain and France have reacted to the crisis in Libya unilaterally, rather than as part of a wider European Union. They have pushed for greater intervention, he says, where other countries have held back.
"What is highly controversial, and which there is a much smaller group of countries willing to consider, is the provision of military support or military-related support in terms of training, equipping and so on," said Whitman. "That is really where you find quite a difference of opinion between different governments."
Whitman says it has been a blow to the E.U. effort to work as a cohesive unit on foreign policy.
Hague said he never has believed the European Union can or even should act as if it were a nation state with a national foreign policy.
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For seven weeks a popular uprising against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been raging. Emboldened by successful movements to topple dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, frustrated young Syrians began organizing protests online and then took them to the streets.
Despite periodic cuts in the Internet and mobile network, young Syrian activists have been working their computers and mobile phones for weeks, updating Facebook pages, sending out messages over Twitter, uploading videos onto YouTube and speaking to human rights campaigners, journalists and others outside their country. They try to tell the world what is happening, as most foreign reporters have been banned.
Activists say tools such as Facebook and Twitter were not widely known in Syria until just a few months ago. As the Arab Spring spread across North Africa and the Middle East, Syrian youth began learning about the role of social media in it. Now thousands engage in social media.
Youth movement
Activist Rami Nakhle, who has been living in Lebanon for the last few months to avoid arrest in his native Syria, said the uprising began on the Internet with the youth, but then moved to the streets drawing people of all ages.
"It is a completely, completely spontaneous revolution. That's what I would call it.…. but absolutely, it is led by young people. If young people did not call for protest, the old people would just stay in their homes," said Nakhle. "But old people, when they saw protests in the mosque, they will join; when they saw huge protest pass in front of their houses, they will join. It's like this. But who is organizing it? Who is planning it? They are the young people."
Protesters demanded that an oppressive emergency law banning protests be lifted. They also called for the legalization of political parties and the removal of corrupt officials.
Continuing crackdown
Assad responded with promises of reform and on April 21st said he was lifting the law that allows people to be arrested without warrants. But his security forces have continued their violent crackdown and hundreds of protesters - mostly young men - have been reported arrested or killed across the country.
Syrian activist Khaled el Ekheytar said because of the media ban, it has been up to the protesters to get the word out to the world.
"The guys who are organizing for the demonstration - they are going to the demonstration, they are shooting [videotaping] the demonstration - they might get shot or wounded or killed or whatever," said el Ekheytar. "They need to go back there to upload the video, and then to make sure that they are going to be there everywhere for the guys who need it and prepare for the next day. So it's like they are doing everything."
When asked who is leading the peaceful protests, activists and analysts alike agree that it appears to be a leaderless uprising.
Leaderless uprising
Nadim Houry is the director of Human Rights Watch's Beirut office. He said the protesters have a very informal level of organization, and comprise both secular-liberal and intellectual people, alongside more traditional conservatives, such as sheikhs and imams.
"It is not a top-down organized effort. Like Egypt, like Tunisia, it started out a lot more spontaneously. In the case of Syria, it started out as localized demands in Daraa because of a particularly vicious moukhabarat [secret police] guy," said Houry. "Those protests sort of rippled and echoed via other activists so the information spread."
Houry adds that Syrians in the Diaspora also have played an important role, particularly as relay points for information, but that the movement has been primarily driven from inside the country.
'Old opposition' participates
Some activists say that the "old opposition" - mostly the exiled Muslim Brotherhood and signatories to the 2005 Damascus Declaration, which calls for peaceful democratic regime change - have joined the uprising too late.
A dozen signatories to the Damascus Declaration have served jail time for their involvement in it, while the Muslim Brotherhood operates from Britain.
Nakhle says as a group the old opposition has not been effective, but some individuals from their ranks have been very important to the movement.
"I think those people inside the Damascus Declaration, they would have a great chance to lead this period, to lead this revolution, but they just missed it, because they did not come to a decision all of them together, said Nakhle. "But individuals from them do play a great role."
American University in Beirut political science professor Hilal Khashan said active, organized political opposition inside Syria was crushed under Assad's father, Hafez, and that is why this uprising has no clear leadership.
Conspiracy theory
"There is no opposition in Syria, unless you mean the Muslim Brotherhood. Assad, the late [Hafez] Assad, drove them out of the country after he massacred them in Hama in 1982," said Khashan. "The demonstrators in Syria are largely acting on their own. I am not into the conspiracy theory. It may be that some certain countries are trying to take advantage of the situation as the Syrian regime is claiming, but the fact remains that people who go to the street do so - or did so - spontaneously."
The conspiracy theory he refers to is the Syrian regime's claim that armed gangs and infiltrators supplied with weapons from Lebanon and Iraq incited the protests. The government insists its military crackdown is intended to crush these gangs, not harm innocent citizens.
Khashan said that with time, the pull of the Syrian street will create its own elite. But right now anyone who emerges as a leader of this movement risks jail or death.
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In May 1998, Islamabad-based reporter Nafees Takar received a phone call from a man claiming to be linked to a Pakistani militant group.
The man asked to meet Takar, a meeting that set off a chain of events that led to an extraordinary press conference in the mountains of Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden just months before the deadly attacks on two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Just three years after that, al-Qaida would stage the September 11th attacks in the United States, killing more than 3,000 people.
All Takar was told he would be taken to cover a major event.
He agreed and joined a group of other journalists who boarded a plane in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, headed to the city of Peshawar. There, they took another flight to Bannu, a small city near the Afghan border.
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The escorted group then boarded a coach to rugged North Waziristan. They were driven further past the capital, Miran Shah, and then, at nightfall, took a perilous, illegal walk across the border into Afghanistan.
Takar says he was never told exactly who he would be meeting, but that during his trip, he and his fellow journalists picked up clues.
Nafees Takar, who is now the head of VOA's Deewa Radio which broadcasts to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions, says the group finally arrived in southern Khost, Afghanistan, where they waited two days to meet the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
"He was calm, he humble, he was shy. When he was talking to you, maybe he was shyer maybe because of Islamic teaching, he was never looking into your eyes. We didn't think at that time that he is very much enthusiatic or he is very emotional. I think those things were not visible on his face, at least."
He did not come across as the stereotypical hardline Islamic extremist?
"No, he didn't give this impression. He was looking like an ordinary man. And we didn't think he had such a radical mind behind his calm face."
Describe where you were exactly and what it was like?
"You know, when we went to Khost to his bases, we reached the compound late night, and when dawn came, we saw that we are in the middle of the mujahideen, the holy warriors. There were guys marching in the nearby towns, wearing military uniforms. And then the second day, we knew that there were training camps named after the companion of the Prophet of Islam and most of the guys who were getting training, they were from Pakistan, from the southern districts of Punjab and some were from Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Image of Nafees Takar's article published in The Nation
"There were three camps there and all of them belonged to Pakistanis. This is the place where we stayed at night and where we waited for at least two days. And then we were taken to another camp, maybe 15 miles away, and there we met Osama bin Laden. That camp was the camp for Arabs, the training camps for Arabs. There were dummy men, there were military exercises, obstacle [courses], it was surrounded by mountains and the buildings in both places - the one where Pakistani were getting training and the one where Arabs were getting training - these were run down buildings, made of stones and mud, they were very simple houses, rooms and halls and it didn't give me the impression that these were modern complexes."
It sounds like you were in an al-Qaida training camp.
"At that time, they were not known as al-Qaida, but later after the 1998 East Africa and the 9/11 attacks, I realized that we were with al-Qaida."
At the time in May 1998, had he actually officially told the world that he was leading this organization called al-Qaida?
"He never mentioned that he is the leader of al-Qaida. Only in that press conference, he said that he said that the name that he has given to his affiliates and his group was the 'Islamic International Front,' this is the term he used. I don't know that he himself ever called his organization al-Qaida." Talk about the message that this seemingly calm, polite man delivered to the group of journalists.
"You know when the formal conversation finished, they took us out of the hall and we sit on the ground, they served us tea and some dry fruit. And at that time, Osama bin Laden was watching us. He was looking to each and every one of us. And Ayman al Zawahiri [bin Laden's second-in-command] was given a chance to talk, about their life, to talk about how they spend their days. But during that press conference, he said that Americans know who killed their troops in Somalia and that Americans know who killed their troops in Saudi Arabia, he was referring to the 1996 attack on U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. At that time, he didn't say that he killed them, but in a way he was referring to himself that he was probably behind those two attacks.
"One other thing, when he [Osama bin Laden] was mentioning that he was going to start jihad against America and Israel and all the rulers of the Arab world, we thought that he is probably bragging. It was in 1998 and then, again, in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, I got this impression that I had met the most dangerous man in the world."
Nafees Takar's material from that press conference was published in the Pakistani English newspaper The Nation and also shared with Italian and German news agencies.
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Elections in Nigeria cut the ruling party's share of powerful state governors. But President Goodluck Jonathan's party retains control of most of the oil-rich Niger Delta where it is promising to follow through with an amnesty program for former militants.
Nigeria's gubernatorial elections changed the shape of state government with opposition parties now controlling all six states in the southwest and the ruling party picking up control of the biggest state in the north.
With one gubernatorial race still to be decided, the ruling party's overall share of state governorships has dropped. But the party has kept control of most of the oil-rich Niger Delta as President Jonathan won a full four-year term as the first Nigerian president from the Delta.
Ruling People's Democratic Party member Joseph Ovie says President Jonathan's popularity helped the party hold on to local governments in the Delta. "PDP is on the ground in Delta State. And that is the party we voted for. And we know that by the special grace of God the whole thing has gone through," Ovie said.
As vice president, Jonathan helped arrange an amnesty for Niger Delta militants, whose attacks against the region's oil infrastructure dropped Nigerian crude exports to record lows.
Since that amnesty, the main militant group has claimed responsibility for a series of bombings, including Independence Day blasts in the capital that killed 12 people.
Delta militants say the federal government has failed to invest in a region that produces the bulk of the country's foreign-exchange earnings.
Opposition politician Solomon Aganbi says the ruling party's failures gave Delta challengers their best opportunity since Nigeria's 1999 return to democracy.
"For the past 12 years there is no potable water, no food, no security, and no hospital. But yet they have allocations. What is the allocation going for? PDP government has disappointed for the past 12 years. That is why we want to remove them. But here we failed," he said.
Aganbi says the ruling party's showing in the Delta is partly a result of electoral fraud.
"This is not one man, one vote. It is one man, 20 votes," Aganbi explained. "One local government area with a population less than 20,000 came out with 60,000 votes."
Voters in four districts of Imo state go back to the polls Friday because electoral officials say April's first round of voting failed to produce a clear winner with the opposition candidate slightly ahead of the ruling party incumbent.
The Action Congress of Nigeria party is contesting the gubernatorial vote in Akwa Ibom state.
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Light from distant galaxies, billions of light years away from us, is so faint that it shifts from the visible spectrum ino the infrared segment and becomes heat. It can be detected only by instruments cooled to almost absolute zero. The U.S. space agency NASA is building a new space telescope that will be cool in both senses of the word.
In the "clean room" of NASA's Goddard Space Center, outside Washington, engineers are building the new infrared space telescope named after NASA's second director James Webb. They hope that when deployed in 2014. it will help them look many billions of light years into the past.
The deputy senior project scientist for the telescope, Jonathan Gardner, says its 6.5-meter-wide (21-foot-wide) mirror will be able to detect extremely faint infrared signals, because it will be kept at a very cold temperature, close to absolute zero (minus 459 degrees F). A large radiator screen, the size of a tennis court, will shield it from the warmth of the sun and earth.
But how will the scientists be able to look into the past?
"We can see back in time because light takes time to get from there to here. So, as we look further and further away, it takes longer and longer for the light to get from where it's emitted to here and we can actually see backwards in time. And if we look far enough away, we're actually looking back to when the universe was much younger than it is today, when the light was emitted from these galaxies. We're looking at the universe when it was younger and we're looking back most of the way to the Big Bang," Gardner explained.
Gardner says scientists want to know when the first galaxies were formed. What did they look like? What were their features? How were the stars born? Many are also hoping to find something we don't yet even know exists.
The telescope will be equipped with three infrared cameras, more sensitive than ever before. But its most interesting parts are the special gold-coated mirrors that form the big primary mirror.
"The primary mirror is made up of 18 hexagonal segments, as you can see on the model. Each of these segments is supported by actuators which can move. So, during the lifetime of the mission, when it's in orbit, we can send the commands to move these mirrors and that way we can constantly keep them in alignment, in a common focus," he said.
Jonathan Gardner says the new telescope will be available to scientists around the world, whose projects will be chosen according to their scientific value.
"We will ask for proposals from astronomers. Any astronomer, at any university, in any country can write a proposal for what they want to do with the telescope. The committee, probably about a hundred astronomers, will consider these proposals, and they will read all the proposals and choose the very best science that will be done that year," Gardner stated.
Gardner says the process makes sure that the telescope is doing the best science it can, answering the most important, relevant, current questions.
The new telescope is scheduled to be launched in 2014 and is expected to function around 10 years. The life expectancy is limited by the quantity of fuel in its booster jets, used for periodical adjustment of its position in space. The telescope will be stationed a million-and-a-half kilometers, or 932,000 miles, from earth, so astronauts will not be able to visit and replenish its fuel.
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China is calling for the international community to help fight what it says is its own homegrown terrorist problem in mostly Muslim Xinjiang. The Chinese government accuses the region's Uighur minority population of seeking independence through violence, while the Uighurs blames Beijing for suppressing their culture and religion.
Bin Laden
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu was asked if the death of Osama bin Laden would have any effect on China's counterterrorism policies.
She did not give a direct answer, but indicated that China believes it suffers too.
Jiang says there are terrorists who are actively trying to split China and who seriously threaten the country's national security. She said the fight against terrorist forces in East Turkestan is an important part of the international counterterrorism campaign, and that the global community should step up cooperation against terrorism.
East Turkestan is another name for the Uighur Muslim minority region of Xinjiang, in far northwestern China. The U.S. government previously had put the East Turkestan Islamic Movement on its list of foreign terrorist organizations, although the group's name does not appear on an official list that appeared in November.
Human rights
The Chinese comments come as the New York-based group, Human Rights in China, says Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have prevented ethnic Uighurs from traveling to the United States to attend a Uighur conference. The statement accuses the Central Asian countries of bowing to pressure from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which has adopted China's policy of lumping together terrorism, separatism and extremism.
Human Rights in China's executive director Sharon Hom say the Chinese government is taking advantage of the situation in order to internationalize its own concerns. "One of the concerns raised by China's reactions to the death of bin Laden is they have used this as an opportunity to both link terrorism, international terrorism, with separatism, that is the domestic concern about separatism in Xinjiang," Hom states.
No connection
This argument is backed up by Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti, who accuses Chinese media of "kidnapping" the Uighur issue by connecting it to bin Laden and al Qaida.
He acknowledges there are some Uighurs with more extreme views, but says it does not mean that they are involved with al Qaida.
He says people should be smart enough to "just shut their mouths" instead of trying to link bin Laden to the Uighurs.
Tohti says Uighurs should be cheering that bin Laden's time is over, and that he would consider any Uighur truly connected with al Qaida to be an enemy.
He says he feels that it is not fair to hold all Uighurs accountable for the actions of a few.
There have been several violent incidents in Xinjiang in recent years, including a deadly bomb attack, in 2008, in Kashgar, that killed 16 Chinese policemen. And, in 2009, ethnic tensions in Xinjiang erupted into violent demonstrations in the region's capital Urumqi that left about 200 people dead.
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In Bangladesh, the supreme court has dismissed a final attempt by microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus to challenge his sacking as head of Grameen Bank, which he founded three decades ago.
After a brief hearing, a seven-member bench of the supreme court dismissed two petitions seeking to overturn the sacking of Muhammad Yunus as head of Grameen Bank. The petitions had been filed by Yunus and nine directors of the bank.
Tuesday's order ends a two-month legal battle by the Nobel laureate to save his job as head of the institution which extends tiny loans to poor people.
Age discrimination?
Yunus, 70, was dismissed for staying past the retirement age of 60. His supporters believe he was politically targeted for briefly trying to start his own political party in 2007.
The debate in Bangladesh is now moving to how the controversy will impact the work for which Yunus won international acclaim and a Nobel prize in 2006. His concept of microfinance is credited with helping millions of poor people in Bangladesh and other parts of the world.
Stability
Debapriya Bhattacharya heads the Center for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka and is a public policy analyst. He says the government must ensure that Grameen Bank's stability is not affected. The bank has more than eight million borrowers, spread across more than 80,000 villages, and is a significant feature of the country's rural economy.
He says the government must also clarify its policy toward numerous other microcredit institutions which are working in the country.
"Given what has happened to the Grameen Bank's leadership transition, it is important to note that the other microcredit operators at the field level should not feel threatened," he said. "No atmosphere of hostility should be created so that they do not feel it is not Grameen, but it is microcredit, as a whole, which is being challenged. It is very important for the government to reassure all these thousands of microcredit organizations operating in the field so that they do not feel any adverse environment. "
No worries
The government has dismissed concerns that Grameen Bank will be affected by the removal of Yunus. However, fears about the government's attitude to microfinance institutions arose after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called Yunus a "blood sucker of the poor."
In recent years, microfinance institutions have faced criticism for charging high interest rates. In neighboring India, local governments have accused some microcredit lenders of predatory practices aimed more at enriching investors than helping the poor.
But most economists say microfinance has played a useful role in poverty alleviation in one of the world's poorest countries. They say the loans, given without collateral, also help poor people overcome crises such as illness or loss of job.
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North Korea is now acknowledging it is still holding two Japanese, as well as an American of Korean origin. VOA Correspondent Steve Herman in Seoul reports the cases pose complications for their governments, which have no diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.
The charges
On the Wednesday evening North Korean newscast, an announcer read a communiqué about the detention, in the port city of Rason, of three Japanese nationals on charges of drug trafficking and counterfeiting.
The trio, the announcer says, admitted its crimes and the gravity of the offenses. One man, Masaki Furuya, has already been expelled from the country. The communiqué says, however, the two others, Hidehiko Abe and Takumi Hirooka, will face trial stemming from their arrests on March 14.
Japan's foreign ministry has had sparse comment, merely saying it is investigating the case.
North Korea is also holding an American citizen, identified as Jun Yong-su.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, during a private visit to Pyongyang last week with several European elder statesmen, unsuccessfully attempted to secure Jun's release.
Jun, alternatively described as a California businessman and a Christian minister based in China, was arrested last November and charged with unspecified crimes against North Korea. There have been reports he was involved in missionary work. Pyongyang considers proselytizing a subversive measure aimed at undermining the government.
Jun appears to have entered North Korea legally. The U.S. State Department has provided few details, citing privacy rules, but has called repeatedly on Pyongyang to release the American citizen as a humanitarian gesture.
Harsh measures
But there are indications North Korea intends to deal harshly with the Korean-American.
Sources tell VOA News that envoys in North Korea have been told Jun may face espionage charges, for which the penalty is death.
Jun is the fifth American detained by North Korea in the past two years. Carter traveled to Pyongyang to arrange the release of one of them, while another former U.S. president, Bill Clinton, secured the freedom of two journalists.
In all of the cases, the Americans were put on trial before their release.
Bargaining chip
Analysts say North Korea typically attempts to use such detained foreigners as diplomatic bargaining chips.
Yoo Ho-yeol, professor of North Korean Studies at Korea University, notes Pyongyang usually does not hold on to such foreigners for very long.
But Professor Yoo says it is possible North Korea will now impose harsher penalties in such cases as part of a heightened crackdown against anti-regime attempts. He notes that after the foreigners are sentenced, Pyongyang typically accepts pleas from diplomats to free them.
Securing release
In the new cases, the professor says, both the United States and Japan will need to work, albeit indirectly, with the North Korean government for the release of their citizens.
The cases are complicated by the fact that neither Washington nor Tokyo has diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.
Professor Yoo expects communications to be handled through the Swedish delegation in the North Korean capital.
Yoo says western diplomats based in North Korea, such as the Swedes, will monitor any trials, relay concerns about the conditions of the prisoners and negotiate for their eventual release.
North Korea, through trade zones, such as Rason, has been making attempts in recent years to engage foreign investors to boost its impoverished economy. But the communist state closely monitors them, looking for indications visitors could be engaged in missionary work, news-gathering, espionage or other activities perceived as potentially undermining the authoritarian government.
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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the battle to stop al-Qaida and its affiliates does not end with the death of Osama bin Laden, and that Pakistan is an important partner in counterterrorism efforts.
Speaking in Rome Thursday, Clinton said the U.S. relationship with Pakistan is not always easy, but is productive for both countries. She said the United States will continue to cooperate with the Pakistani government, law enforcement and its people.
U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday were more critical, demanding to know what authorities in Pakistan knew about bin Laden and his hideout in the town of Abbottabad. Pakistan insists it had no prior knowledge of bin Laden's location.
The lawmakers said Pakistan is strategically important to the United States, but trust between the two countries cannot continue without a full account of how bin Laden lived in relative comfort in Pakistan for so long.
U.S. civilian aid to Pakistan has totaled nearly $20 billion during the last decade, and Senator Maryland's Barbara Mikulski of Maryland questioned whether the money was well-spent. The chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Republican Peter King, said U.S.-Pakistan ties are important, but that the relationship changed when Osama bin Laden's death was announced.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, on a visit to Paris, said bin Laden's ability to hide in plain sight was "a worldwide intelligence failure, not just Pakistan's." He said no single nation can fight terrorism alone, adding that his country is "part of the solution, not the problem."
Pakistan also expressed "deep concern" that the United States conducted the raid in Abbottabad "without prior authorization" of Pakistani authorities and said such an "unauthorized unilateral action" should not set a precedent for other nations.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
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A new IMAX film uses 3D technology to take audiences into remote locations on opposite sides of the globe where dedicated teams work to save orphaned wildlife. Here's a look at Born To Be Wild.
"We've shared this planet since the dawn of man, but as our world expands into theirs, more and more wild animals lose their families, and their very existence on Earth is in danger."
With Oscar-winning actor Morgan Freeman as narrator, Born To Be Wild goes behind the scenes at a unique refuge in Kenya where surviving babies of elephants slain by poachers are rescued, raised and released back into the wild.
"It's been over 50 years since Daphne Sheldrick first adopted orphaned elephants. She has created a safe haven for them at a very special nursery just outside Nairobi," Freeman narrates. "These little orphans have been rescued from all over Kenya. They may look big, but they are just little children."
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The film hops the globe to Borneo (in the south pacific) where Birute Mary Galdikis has a similar nursery for orphaned baby orangutans. "All these orangutans are here for one reason. Their mothers have been killed and their forest home cut down. These are the lucky ones who survive."
Dr. Galdikis says her project in a remote Indonesian jungle demonstrates why it is important for governments and businesses to understand the impact of development on wildlife habitats.
"On one hand, they do want to protect orangutan populations. They do want to protect tropical rainforests," the doctor explains. "But on the other hand, they are making so much money off these forests, especially off palm oil plantations, that it's very easy to destroy those forests and make money. Clearly, without the support of the government, I would not have been able to work in Kalimantan, which is Indonesian Borneo, for 40 years like I have. But on the other hand, those forests are disappearing."
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In Kenya, elephant advocate Daphne Sheldrick says outreach to a new, younger generation has made a difference.
"Every single day in the Nairobi nursery, we open our doors to the public and hundreds of schoolchildren come filing in to see the elephants," Sheldrick says. "They talk to the keepers, they learn about the nature of elephants [and] what very human animals they are in many ways, gradually engendering a love of animals amongst the Kenyan nation. I think in Kenya there is probably more interest in the nature of elephants than in any other country in Africa. They really do appreciate them and the orphans have been very instrumental in passing that message."
It is that urgent message which drew Morgan Freeman to the film.
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"You get calls to do narrations - lots of them - and then once in a while a project comes along that, to use an over-used word, resonates," notes Freeman. "I think this particular project is extremely important and well worth doing because, number one, it highlights a couple of ladies whose courage and dedication really should be trumpeted. And it also highlights the danger of what we are doing as humans in terms of the rest of the life on the planet." "These orphans grow up so differently than wild orangutans, but as long as they feel loved they'll have the confidence they'll need later in life."
The projects at Orangutan Foundation International and the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust have the same goal: to enable the orphaned animals to rejoin their counterparts in the wild. As the film portrays, emotional bonds are forged between the human surrogate parents and the animals. But Sheldrick says it's important to remember that they were, as the film's title says, Born To Be Wild.
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"Once we have done our job - saved the elephant, got it through the nursery stage, got it through the three years they need for milk [they cannot live without milk under the age of three and in that respect they are different than humans] - and once we have introduced them, in their own time, to the wild herds and they've made the decision to upgrade themselves to a wild situation, then our job is done. We have to keep reminding ourselves of that," Sheldrick says.
It took tons of equipment and refrigerator-sized cameras to obtain the remarkable 3D cinematography in Born to Be Wild. The projects in Kenya and Indonesia carefully monitored the filmmakers to be sure the vital work of raising the orphans was captured accurately, but not interrupted.
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The Obama administration hopes to free up some of the $30 billion it froze in Libyan assets and give it to the country's rebels.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the plan on Thursday during an international meeting on the Libyan crisis in Rome.
She told members of the 22-nation Libya Contact Group that U.S. authorities will examine laws that could allow Washington to tap into the assets owned by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and his government and make the money available to help the Libyan people.
Also at the meeting, Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini announced the humanitarian fund for Libya has now reached $250 million.
The head of Libya's opposition Transitional National Council, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, is attending the conference in Rome along with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
Ship arrives with evacuees
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Meanwhile in Libya, a ship carrying at least 800 evacuees from the besieged city of Misrata docked in the eastern rebel stronghold, Benghazi.
The International Organization for Migration had chartered the vessel. The group says as many as 50 wounded civilians were on board.
Relief workers on the ship say they waited offshore for three days as NATO minesweepers finished searching for explosives drifting in Misrata's harbor. Pro-Gadhafi forces planted the explosives last week.
In a separate development, British Foreign Secretary William Hague ordered the expulsion of two diplomats from the Libyan embassy in London. In a Thursday statement, Hague said the behavior of the individuals had become "unacceptable" and they should be declared "persona non grata."
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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