news: 2011

الجمعة، 6 مايو 2011

'Osama's dead now, just leave us alone...'

By now acres of newsprint, gigabytes of internet space and hours of television have been dedicated to the death of the world's most wanted man.

I arrived as part of a legion of journalists descending on the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Everyone has a theory; everyone wants to scoop the world.

Osama Bin Laden has had us gripped for a full decade now. Plenty has been written about his legacy and many have talked about his role in shaping world events. But very little has been written about what sort of Pakistan bin Laden leaves behind.

A firm sense of frustration emanating from the Pakistani people is the enduring legacy of bin Laden's and the West's actions.

In any village, in any suburb, in any enclave of this vast and varied land you will find many for whom bin Laden means little or nothing. I discovered this myself having spent 10 years covering the country.

Most Pakistanis care about what most people care about: food, shelter, energy, self-respect.

But what Pakistanis have got due to the events of 9/11 are war, political turmoil, energy shortages and discrimination.

Yet despite that, this is not a country of rabid bearded bin Laden look-alikes looking to enslave your mother and bomb your place of worship. Rather it's a country that just, ultimately, wants to be left alone.

Pakistanis want to be free of the chokehold of western aid, and western military might. Pakistanis want to stand proud and say out loud: "We are Pakistani."

But as long as the spectre of terrorist attacks and Taliban rule haunt the corridors of western power, Pakistanis will continue to be caught in the middle of a battle for the country's soul.

It has to be that way. No one wants another 9/11. So Pakistanis are caught in the middle of a tug of war between the Western interest and self-preservation.

No amount of American and Western aid will ever really change Pakistan. The simple truth of the matter is that for a country to develop it must be given the chance to mould its own identity.

Yet Pakistan does not have an identity. Instead it has a crisis, in almost every aspect of its society - caught between mosque and military; between teenage rebellion and fundamentalism; between high fashion garments and the burkha.

Being caught in the net means that some slip away ... others just flounder.

Osama bin Laden's death is a massive news event. Of that there's no doubt. But I wonder how many of the millions of people watching, reading and listening will understand that his death is not the end for the country he was killed in, neither is it the beginning.

Bin Laden's not responsible for the woes of Pakistanis. Successive governments and both Eastern and Western attitudes are.

Pakistanis will survive. But I just wonder if it's worth quoting the baggage handler at Islamabad airport. "Why won't they just leave us alone: the Taliban, the US? Osama's dead now; just leave us alone," he said as he witnessed the global media turn up on his doorstep.

Time to postpone the Apocalypse

Osama bin Laden is dead and the US military and its allies continue their campaign in Afghanistan, Iraq and beyond.

But whatever the outcome of this 21st century warfare, the human race is probably doomed anyway.

This week I have been a delegate at the 9th World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Doha.

I was afforded this honour because the International Olympic Committee (IOC) accidentally added me to the delegate list instead of the media list. It's amazing how much more swaggering you do as a delegate.

Before you doze off and click elsewhere to see if Jose Mourinho has burgled Pep Guardiola's mansion and scrawled swearwords on the mirror in the master bedroom, I realise that the environment isn't a very sexy issue. Just typing 'environment' made me want to go and drive a monster truck into a nuclear reactor to kill the boredom.

The problem is that humanity's complete disregard for the thing that enables its own existence (it's the environment, stupid. It’s what we live in) is going to destroy us.

No number of conferences or initiatives can change that. We're screwed.

Fortunately, we can ensure that it's not our children or grandchildren who have to suffer. If we're lucky, it's only our great-great grandchildren who will have to prolong their miserable lives by living in a submarine or finding a way to breathe sand instead of air.

The IOC realised decades ago that sport itself was contributing to our worsening situation, but could play a role in combating it. More on that later.

One message from Doha this week was that recycling our household rubbish (something I've yet to see in Qatar), taking the bus or joining Greenpeace is not enough. "The stakes are too great to tread lightly," one speaker said.

Chemical death

The only way to ensure we don't breathe our last choking on chemicals or swamped by avenging oceans is to act aggressively, to treat our environment as we would treat our own bodies if we'd just had a heart attack after shovelling burgers down our necks for 30 years.

I have a theory as to why this won't happen.

We are currently consuming and polluting at a rate 40 per cent higher than the planet can renew or absorb.

Unfortunately, you, me and every other human is psychologically programmed, deep down, not to give a flying one about what rate we are blah blah blah.

The reason for this? There is an analogy from dangerous driving – which unlike household recycling, has been honed to a fine art in Qatar.

Despite the horrific deaths we read about on the roads, a lot of us still drive while jawing away on our mobile phones.

The first time we do it, nothing bad happens, so our subconscious logs that this is something that's ok to do even though in reality the attention we pay to the road has greatly diminished.

As you continue to talk or text while driving, the brain gets more and more chilled out about the whole thing. "Ah, there's no danger – you carry on old boy," it might say. Then one day you bend your grill around a lamp post and realise your brain has been smoking too much reefer. It's the same with the environment.

Yes there are fewer and fewer beaches where we're happy to go swimming, and we have to wear gas masks to sightsee in Beijing, but in general the environment hasn't grossly affected our everyday lives. So the brain prioritises eating, sleeping, making money and making love (thanks, brain).

For this reason, we have to force ourselves to care. Annoying I know, but I reckon it's worth it in the long run.

Where does sport come into it? The environmental cost of an event like the Olympics is huge. Pollution from building work, powering stadiums, fumes from transport, litter...it goes on.

Green giant

Injecting environmentally-sound or 'green' practices is a huge task given the number of contractors and sub-contractors involved just in building work. But now, any country bidding for an Olympics or World Cup has to have a colossal sustainability strategy.

Sustainability – there's another one. Environmentalists are determined to be dull.

The Rio 2016 Olympics are set to be the first 'carbon-neutral' games. The World Cup Qatar 2022 organisers have plans for solar-powered stadiums. Qatar has a host of major projects aiming to provide a green legacy from the tournament. It still needs to look at that recycling thing, though.

Again, major change comes down to interest from the public. Speakers in Doha this week advocated that green messages from top athletes – who are usually happy to get paid millions for similar endorsements for sporting goods – are made compulsory when selling TV rights for major events.

"I'm Usain Bolt – turn off your air conditioning when you go on vacation for three months." That kind of thing.

Sportsmen and women also have a special relationship with the environment and nature. A youngster with a sporting future needs clean seas and lakes to swim in, clean air to breathe while running or playing football, grass to play on, and ski slopes that haven't melted. Scuba divers would probably like for there to be some fish left.

There are people doing great things for this cause, and sport can be a valuable weapon in spreading the message due to its enormous popularity, especially among young people. "Sport is at the service of humanity," IOC president Jacques Rogge told delegates this week.

The vast majority of us either do nothing or make token efforts, which can be a lonely task.

It's hard to believe you're having a positive effect recycling a can when you think how many ballistic missiles (n.b. first carbon-neutral missile still in planning phase) are preparing for launch around the world in the time it took to lob your coke into its special bin.

Or you look at your TV and see seven military planes performing a flypast at a royal wedding.

The only difference you can make at that point is to switch it off.

Libya Live Blog - May 3

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(All times are local in Libya GMT+2)

5:03pm

Moreno-Ocampo said there was evidence that Gaddafi forces attacked unarmed civilians.

5:00pm

Moreno-Ocampo said there will be no immunity for Libyan leaders involved in commissioning crimes.

4:50pm

The ICC prosecutor said that he was also investigating the deaths of dozens of sub-Saharan Africans in the rebel capital of Benghazi by an "angry mob" who believed they were mercenaries for Gaddafi.

4:45pm

Moreno-Ocampo said the crimes such as the murder and persecution of civilians were still being carried out by Gaddafi's regime. He did not name the targets of the warrants he is calling for.

4:37pm

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the UN Security Council that he will seek three arrest warrants for crimes against humanity in Libya.

4:30pm

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said Gaddafi's soldiers committed crimes against humanity in #libya.

4:28pm

Luis Moreno Ocampo, ICC chief prosecutor says charges against Libyan government may include murder and unlawful detention, use of cluster bombs and rape as a weapon.

1:52pm

Jean-Philippe Chauzy, International Organisation for Migration spokesman, told AFP that Red Star One, the ship docked at the port of Misurata, was unloading 180 tonnes of relief aid supplies.

Chauzy also said that it would embark the migrants, mainly from Niger, who have been marooned in Misurata as well as about 40 Libyan civilians wounded in fighting for control of the city.

12:32pm

Reuters reports that a ship aiming to rescue 1,000 African and Asian migrant workers as well as people injured in fighting in the rebel-held Libyan port of Misurata docked there on Wednesday, the agency that chartered it said.

A spokeswoman for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said the vessel, the Red Star One, which had been waiting offshore since Saturday as Libyan government forces shelled the city, would soon start loading.

The spokeswoman said that the details of the ship's arrival in the port would be released later. Other rescue ships have been waiting offshore but there was no immediate news of their movements.

12:05pm

According to Reuters, securing financing for Libyan opposition rebels and facilitating contacts with defectors from Muammar Gaddafi's government will be the focus of Libya talks in Rome on Thursday, Alain Juppe, French foreign minister, said.

Juppe told France 24 television the meeting of the so-called "Contact Group" on Libya, including Western and Middle Eastern countries, the United Nations, the African Union and the Arab League, would discuss setting up a financing mechanism.

The rebel national council has said it hopes for as much as $3bn in credit from Western governments to help them meet pressing needs for food, medicine and state salaries.

Franco Frattini, Italian foreign minister, said last month the Rome talks would look at ways to free assets belonging to Gaddafi and enabling oil from rebel-held areas to be sold.

11:00am

Reuters reports: Libya's army fired volleys of rockets at the rebel-held town of Zintan in the Western Mountains.

Rebels said more than 40 Grad rockets hit Zintan late on Tuesday, and aid deliveries to the western port of Misurata were hindered by artillery fire and mines near the harbour entrance.

Rebel spokesmen said fighting had flared again in Misurata's eastern suburbs, but that intense air strikes by NATO planes appeared to have won the port, the city's lifeline, a respite in shelling by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

9:55am

According to AFP news agency, international forces are seeking to weaken but not to kill Muammar Gaddafi by bombarding his strategic sites, Alain Juppe, French foreign minister said on Wednesday.

"Our aim is not to kill Gaddafi," Juppe said on news channel France 24, describing as "collateral damage" the death of one of the ruler's sons in a recent NATO air strike.

"We are targeting military sites in Tripoli" in an attempt to weaken Gaddafi's regime, which is in a fierce fight against rebels who are recognised by France.

8:36am

Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says he will pursue up to five warrants over crimes against humanity committed against civilians.

Read our latest story: ICC finds evidence of crimes by Libyan regime

7:48am

The International Criminal Court says 327, 000 people have been displaced by the fighting inside Libya.

Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught reports from one refugee camp near the Tunisian border.

Abbottabad and Washington cabbies' no-holds-barred views

"1010 Wisconsin Avenue please," I said, as I shuffled into the back seat of my taxi, snappily pronouncing the digits as "ten-ten".

The cabbie had the frustrated, sweaty look of a smoker trying to quit: big stocky fingers wrapped around his steering wheel, and what looked like a normally well-cultivated moustache that had missed a day or two of TLC from its owner.

"1010 wisconsin, huh? Why not 9-9 Jefferson? Or 8-8 Lincoln? Or 7-7 Washington"

A tiny flush of insecurity gripped me for a second. I was sure that Wisconsin Ave was named after a state, and the state in turn named after a river. Did I miss a former President called Wisconsin? Nevertheless, I'd accepted the premise and, like a game of poker, raised him one.

"So if I told you to take me to number 6-6-6, what would the street name be?"

Smirking - hoping my eschatological, satanic reference didn't go unappreciated.

"Obama Street, of course." He rolled the 'r' of "of cour-r-r-se". He seemed Iraqi, but I wasn't entirely sure.

"And why Obama?" I asked.

"Because he's an idiot. He should've waited six months. Very stupid."

"For what?"

'You can't trust' them

"Six more months to tell us they killed that guy, and he would have won re-election easy. Now the Republicans have too much time."

Smiling, semi-puzzled, I enquired: "So after bin Laden was killed the other night, they should have kept it a secret until the end of the year?"

"No, no..." he lectured, "we all know he was dead years ago. Bush knew. Obama knew, but he was stupid."

"But what about this operation? The Navy Seals and the compound and all the firing. Who did they kill?"

My cabbie, unwavering, continued: "Look, you can't trust these guys, with Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay, after they shot the guys, they showed us the bodies. Also that other guy ... what was his name?”

Me: "Zarqawi?"

"Yeah, they showed the body. This time, as usual, they're trying to trick us. They're all the same; Obama is the worst."

I'd reached my destination. My business was swift, it was time to flag down another taxi.

Beaming a gentle smile on an olive-complexioned face, framed by a fluffy white beard, his musallah prayer mat folded immaculately and wedged between his left-thigh and the driver's door - my next cabbie was Pakistani.

I gathered from the tone of his Urdu-language question that he was asking if I was from Pakistan. I was sorry to disappoint him. I told him I'd love to visit Pakistan at some point in the near future though.

"My country is in the news again, for the last five, six years - only bad news. And now this bin Laden killing."

He didn't seem to doubt the veracity of the killing like my earlier friend.

"But this government is doing too much bad things."

"You mean Zardari?" I asked.

"Not just him. Military, ISI ..." he said, shaking his head in lament.

"Do you think they knew bin Laden was there all along?"

"Of course, of course they knew..."

And as we drove along the banks of the Potomac in Georgetown, Washington DC, he pointed across the river, to Virginia.

"You see where he was staying in Abbottabad is like staying next to Pentagon!!!"

He had a point.

"And if they didn't know. All this talk of Pakistan, great nation, Pakistan with nuclear f***ing weapons, Pakistan with great military - all this talk but when the world's most wanted terrorist is killed by foreign government in operation near Islamabad. Our President says he found out by telephone afterward from Barack Obama. Can you believe? What a joke!"

No-holds-barred opinion

Since I've been in this city the cabbies have never failed to give me a no-holds-barred political opinion and have never failed to illuminate my day.

There are some who, like one elderly Nigerian cabbie, drove so slowly I felt we were going back in time (but it was worth it). He had the quirk of providing me with the etymological root of every street and major landmark's name in the capital - and linking it to America's history.

There was also a cabbie who gave me a vivid, first-hand account of the civil-rights movement. And another from the Zaghawa tribe of Chad, the same as his country's President Idriss Deby. He claimed he patriotically fought for Deby during Chad's civil war, but became disillusioned and left the country when, he claims, Deby began dishing out special privileges to his specific subclan of the Zaghawa, the Bideyat. His analysis on the conflict in Darfur, Sudan, was fascinating.

Yes, I've also had my fair share of some who, when delving into political discussions, start to bring up powerful cabals and illuminati; Rumsfelds and Rothschilds and new world orders; patsies and false flags; photoshop theories and smoking guns; Mossad attacks and anti-Christs, the CIA and inside jobs ...

But given the frankness of opinion, colourfulness of thought and sheer exhilaration of it all for this inquisitive passenger, I wouldn't trade any of DC's cabbies for anyone, not even some of our numerous analysts and experts that we interview on the airwaves.

Particularly those suited chaps from among the "thinktankerati" of the capital, who tend to regurgitate chatter from the Sunday morning TV talk shows, or the editorials in the New York Times, or Stratfor, or The Wall Street Journal or Foreign Policy magazine.

Or those who say: "Well my sources within the White House are telling me this issue is of deep concern for the administration and the President is monitoring the situation closely because..." And I often think to myself: "I'm quite sure I just read a press release from the White House (that hundreds, if not thousands, of us receive), talking about deep concern in the administration, the President monitoring the situation."

Well it did go to my expert guest's personal inbox. So on a technicality I'll allow them to say: "My sources are telling me."

That's where I reflect on my favourite sources, never shy to speak their minds, from Bush to bin Laden, the Pentagon to Abbottabad, steering their wheels as the world steers out of control.

Neighbours talk about men they knew at Osama's mansion

For hours, the local Abbottabad police kept us a fair distance away from the house that Osama bin Laden was killed in.

Every time we tried to set up our camera to film the imposing three-storey white house from a distance, angry officers rushed over to stop us.

Then, in the early afternoon - on whose orders we'll never know - the police allowed the media to get close to the sprawling compound.

Correspondents and camera operators rushed to the tall green gates to start filming – jostling each other for the best position.

Behind them, a stream of neighbours that turned into a flood of curious onlookers; most more interested in the crowd of journalists than in the house the world's most wanted fugitive is believed to have lived for around five years.

During the height of the frenzy, a moment of macabre humour, when a bin Laden look-alike came to the area.

Wearing a long scraggly beard and the white headgear, so synonymous with the al-Qaeda leader, the imposter was greeted with cheers and jeers.

Some of the crowd even started chanting "We are all Osama!" then broke into peals of laughter.

Pashtuns from Peshawar

But the circuslike atmosphere couldn't overshadow the picture that is starting to form of what life was like behind those walls.

Police told us behind the imposing four metre high walls, barbed wire and security cameras, a large vegetable garden, cows, chicken and stores of food - clear signs the compound was relatively self-sufficient for those who lived inside.

Rivers still swelling in the Midwest

Why UK voters should take heed of Australia

It was an excruciating moment. A prominent BBC journalist – famous for skewering his interviewees – being totally skewered himself by his most high-profile interviewee of the week.

The guest: Britain's prime minister. The subject: the UK's referendum on changing the voting system.

David Cameron leads the "no change" camp. His central argument is that the current "first-past-the-post" (FPTP) system is simple, the proposed "alternative vote" (AV) system is not.

Famous for his argumentative style, the BBC's John Humphrys walked straight into Cameron's trap. By constantly interrupting the prime minster's quite straightforward explanation of how AV works, Humphrys made it appear complicated.

The interruptions weren't as "wrong" as Cameron claimed them to be, but the prime minister's explanation was broadly accurate, and didn't deserve loud contradiction.

But interrupting anyway, Humphrys made the AV system appear complex.

For Cameron, job done.

"That is quite worrying," he was able to crow, "the lead broadcaster of the BBC doesn't understand the system you're meant to be explaining to the public! ... [Go] back to school!"

The exchange neatly highlights the difficulty the "Yes to AV" camp has.

Their system, by any objective measure, is fairer than FPTP and it is, actually, fairly simple. But not so simple that it takes no explanation.

Their opponents have the advantage that anyone can point straight to the winner of a race.

Australia, where I'm based, has used AV – or preference voting as it's known here - since 1918.

The system for federal elections isn't identical to that proposed for the UK: voting is compulsory in Australia – it won't be in the UK – and voters 'Down Under' must rank every candidate; preferencing isn't optional, as it would be in the UK.

Does it work here? Well, Australia has had stable government for decades, majority governments are the norm, and no one complains about the cost of elections.

Most of the arguments made on behalf of the UK's "vote no" camp, then, hold little sway here.

As for those who say, 'so why bother changing?' AV voting has mattered in Australia.

Last year's federal election would have seen victory for opposition leader Tony Abbott under FPTP.

Julia Gillard was able to scrape together a government because her party's candidates were less disliked by small-party voters than Abbott's.

That's a victory for candidates who can appeal beyond their base.

But do most Australians fully understand their system? Anecdotally, the answer has to be "no".

In Canberra I visited an education centre for children on "how to vote".

It takes two hours to complete the demonstration and tour; the woman who runs it says they haven't enough guides to meet the demand from school groups.

If they opened it to adults too, they'd be totally overwhelmed.

PS

There are plenty of AV explanations online, but here's mine to add to the mix:

Imagine five husbands asked to vote for the prettiest of their wives, in a public vote, while their wives were present.

First-past-the-post would result in either divorce, or stalemate. AV would find the "right answer" with ease.

I admit, I've simplified a little. But only a little.

Al Jazeera: One organisation, two messages

Osamaland

In this part of the world, a tourist attraction is in the making.

The house where Osama Bin Laden was killed is surrounded by news crews and locals.

Young men smoke and offer up opinions to anyone with a pen or a camera.

They come from all over town to take pictures of the compound ... a gruesome souvenir.

I'm surprised by the size of the house, it dwarfs the rest of the buildings.

To be honest it looks like a prison compound from the outside.

One local I spoke to told me that "I live local and you couldn't walk past this building without some security guard stopping you..I'd ask them who lived here. They'd reply a Pathaan. I always thought it was strange."

It's a common refrain from the locals. But if you think about it, people get used to strange sights.

The house has been there for 5 years..Why ask questions?

Now though round this gruesome tourist sight, the now famous kill site, questions are flowing.

"Osama must have been protected by the army!"

"Why did they put him in our neighborhood?"

"We all know each other, apart from the people who lived in that house"

As soldiers now stand guard outside the hulking metal gate many people are getting scared.

Jahinger was at home when the helicopters swooped in that night. He ran outside and describes a ferocious noise and the deafening sound of gunfire.

"I was so scared, my little children were literally yards away..I thought war had come to us and we would die," he said.

As night falls I look around the town and imagine what fearsome sight a U.S. Special forces team flying in helicopters must have looked and sounded like.

I have seen American military might over the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq.

I have seen the Pakistan army pound remote villages in the north west of the country.

But this was a major city and the heart of the Pakistani army.

That Bin Laden was here is, quite frankly, astounding.

Off the record one former military officer told me that the army must be so embarrassed by the whole thing, but that its central command must have known.

Perhaps we will never know the truth.

Trudging back through the darkness I wonder just what happens next.

Syria Live Blog - May 5

Thousands continue to take to the streets across Syria, despite reform pledges by president Bashar al-Assad. We bring you the latest news from our correspondents and other sources.

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Syria Spotlight

All times given are local (GMT+3)

11:14pm

The Syrian interior ministry says 361 people "involved in riot acts" have "turned themselves in".

In a statement on Thursday about an "amnesty", the ministry said:

They were released immediately after vowing not to repeat acts that may harm the security of the homeland and citizens.

10:22pm

Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for the UN, said on Thursday that a U.N. humanitarian team will be going to Daraa in the coming days following an phone appeal by Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General, to Assad.

Aid workers from the Red Cross and Red Crescent on Thursday delivered their first emergency relief supplies to Deraa, a spokesperson for the organisation said.

A convoy of two trucks carrying clean drinking water and two trucks with food and first aid material accompanied the team of 13 experts from the Syrian Red Crescent and International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC’s Hicham Hassan said.

"We got the greenlight to go and the visit took place. The goods were delivered," Hassan told the Reuters news agency, in response to an inquiry. "The team is back in Damascus now."

The neutral humanitarian agency had no immediate information on casualties in Deraa, where demonstrations calling for more freedoms and later for the overthrow of Assad began in March.

9:50pm

Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the UN, says a UN humanitarian team will be going to Deraa in the coming days following an phone appeal by Ban Ki-moon to Assad.

7:57pm

The European Union may reach preliminary agreement on imposing sanctions on Syria's leadership on Friday, but have yet to decide whether President Bashar al-Assad should be included, diplomats told the Reuters press agency.

EU member states agreed in principle last week to impose an arms embargo on Syria following the government's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, but discussions are still going on over whether to target specific individuals with asset freezes, travel bans or other similar steps.

"There is broad agreement for individual sanctions, only Estonia doesn't agree," one EU diplomat said. "The second big discussion is whether Assad should be included."

6:10pm

France follows the call made earlier today by Italy and US for sanctions against Syrian leaders, but says there is still no agreement on who should be included on the list.

Did Osama really die here?

Abbotabad is a very schizophrenic town. The centre houses the seat of military learning. Its military academy teaches officers everything from warfare to dining etiquette.

As a garrison town, everything is very neat and prim. The grass is cut just so, the military regalia polished and signs dot the landscape proclaiming "Pakistan is beautiful".

Then around the corner Pakistan explodes in a riot of colour and mayhem. Buses that look like wheeled rainbows and smell of street food assault the senses in a very agreeable manner.

Abbotabad, named after a British general in the British Indian colonial army is a unique town because of those contrasts.

As I drive its streets, I can scarcely believe that this is where bin Laden met his fate.

Piecing together what happened that night from eyewitness accounts has been tough.

Some claim four helicopters were involved, others say trucks with US soldiers pulled up outside the house.

The one thing everyone is in universal agreement on is that what happened was extraordinary.

To mount an attack like this on Pakistani soil opens a very prickly subject for the Pakistanis.

Some of India's most wanted live within Pakistan's borders.

It's not beyond the realm that India right now is mulling over the consequences of such an action.

The leader of the Afghan Taliban is rumoured to be in Quetta, southwest Pakistan. There are some in the US administration that would love to get him.

Once you violate a country's borders like that, what's to stop others from doing it?

That's a question that's now being uttered in private.

The Pakistani army is by far its strongest institution. This attack has not only embarrassed the army but has shown it to be weak in the face of US power.

That it hasn't publicly reacted to the incident is only adding to the public sense that the army is in panic mode.

Its central command, according to my sources, is holding crisis meetings to formulate a public response.

Its day four and the silence from the army is deafening.

Add to that the US government's refusal to release a picture of the bin Laden's body and you have a boiling cauldron of doubt, disbelief, anger and frustration. A heady brew indeed.

The longer that goes on, the more people will simply sigh and ask the same question in two slightly different ways.

Did Osama really die, here in the heart of the Pakistan army? Or did Osama really die?

Libya Live Blog

Al Jazeera staff and correspondents update you on important developments in the Libya uprising.

Al Jazeera is not responsible for content derived from external sites.

Blog: Apr20 - Apr21 - Apr 22 - Apr 23 - Apr 24 - Apr 25 - Apr 26 - Apr 27 - Apr 28 - Apr 29 - Apr 30 - May 1 - May 2 - May 3 - May 4 - May 5 - May 6

AJE Live Stream - Special Coverage: Libya Uprising - Operation Odyssey Dawn - Twitter Audio - Tweeting revolutions

(All times are local in Libya GMT+2)
9:10pm

Libya's deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, on possible plans to release frozen Libyan assets to the opposition in Benghazi:

Libya still, according to the international law, is one sovereign state and any use of the frozen assets, it's like piracy on the high seas.

2:54pm

France has expelled 14 Libyan diplomats who served the government of Muammar Gaddafi, giving them two days to leave and saying it will no longer recognise the group's diplomatic status.

1:15am

AFP - An international plan to fund rebels fighting Muammar Gaddafi's forces with frozen government assets is "like piracy on the high seas," the country's deputy foreign minister said.

"Libya still, according to the international law, is one sovereign state and any use of the frozen assets, it's like piracy on the high seas," Khaled Kaim told a news conference in the capital Tripoli.

1:10am

Reuters - More than a dozen mortar rounds fired from Libya landed near the Tunisian border town of Dehiba on Thursday, a Tunisian security source said, as Libyan government troops fought rebels in the Western Mountains.

A resident of Dehiba said one of the mortar rounds landed near a reservoir supplying the town with drinking water.

Artillery fire from Libya has landed in or near Dehiba several times in the past week, as forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi try to wrest control of a key border post from rebels.

Live Blog Updates for May 6 are above:

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Live Blog Updates for May 5 are below:

10:40pm

AFP: Canada on Thursday said rebels trying to overthrow Gaddafi are a "valid interlocutor," but denied the fighters' claims that Ottawa has formally recognised them as the new government.

"There has been no change in Canada's position on recognition. Canada recognises states, not governments. Libya, as a state, continues to exist," foreign affairs spokeswoman Lisa Monette told AFP.

9:22pm

On Thursday, Libyan troops fired Grad rockets toward the outskirts of the rebel-held town of Nalut in a remote western mountain area.

Al Arabiya television, citing rebels, reported that NATO launched air strikes on Gaddafi forces in the oil town of Brega, in eastern Libya. It did not give details.

8:30pm

Coalition to create fund for Libya rebels: Countries involved in military campaign pledge money to provide food, medicine and supplies to opponents of Gaddafi.

Closure for whom?

'Closure' is as American as Hollywood and junk food. So are blood lust, confession and emotional outpourings of every hue; so when it came to pass that Osama bin Laden finally met his end, it was no suprise to see people of all ages and backgrounds jumping at the opportunity to declare closure, and indulge in an orgy of unprecedented emotional rawness and richness.

As I watched President Obama lead the dancing in the streets around the site of New York's twin towers, it was certainly tempting to entertain cosmic notions of universal karma coming full circle, and of just desserts being served; but perusing the volumes of personal anecdotes and reams of psychic cleansing that drenched the pages of the national and international media I couldn't help but wonder whether all this actually had anything to do with Bin Laden at all, or even with the "war on terror", national security or the victims of the 9/11 continuum, American or otherwise.

It really just seemed to be an opportunity for the entire nation to join in a spontaneous live edition of The Jerry Springer Show.

Not that I begrudge anyone a certain amount of schadenfreude - specifically not those immediately connected with the events of a decade ago - but surely I can't be alone in my wonder at the scope and the scale of this reaction, or in my puzzlement over the alacrity with which so many people have leapt on to the celebration bandwagon?

Everywhere, writers have tapped into the cleansing power of pen and keyboard; TV hosts have paid verbal homage to the "day that changed everything", and all of them have constantly reminded each other that this was, indeed, a "historic" moment.

In the sober pages of the Washington Post, Jonathan Capehart laid claim to a quite disturbing level of anguish:

On a beautiful and cloudless September morning in New York City nearly 10 years ago, a madman’s plot murdered innocents, scarred my city and wrecked my country’s and my own sense of self and place. Knowing that he has met justice fills me with indescribable relief.

As I read this I reflected on that very same beautiful morning in September, when I was wandering down West Houston Street in Lower Manhattan wondering why there was smoke coming out of one of the towers. I spent the next two weeks trying to do journalism through the same fog of shock and horror that cocooned all Manhattan's residents, weighed down by the raw power of Khalid Sheik Mohammed's act.

But 10 years on, I just can't share Capehart's "indescribable relief". I'm wondering how the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are feeling today, as they observe their still-wrecked homes and cities. Can their sense of self and place ever be restored?

Syria Live Blog - May 6

Thousands continue to take to the streets across Syria, despite reform pledges by President Bashar al-Assad. Activists say hundreds have been killed by security forces. We bring you the latest news from various sources.

This week in Washington

Obviously the first week of May will go down in President Barack Obama’s memoirs as a huge success. He hit his critics who say he’s not decisive enough with a major decision – to raid the compound where Osama bin Laden was living and kill the Al Qaeda leader.

The t-shirts saying “Obama killed Osama” can now be bought on every other street corner in Washington DC. The president’s approval ratings are up by double digits, although that certainly won’t last, as the economy trumps every other success in the minds of Americans. And the unemployment rate inched up last month, even while the economy added jobs.

Obama has taken a five day long victory lap: he addressed the nation and received his highest TV viewership, he laid a wreath at Ground Zero where the Twin Towers stood until September 11, 2001. And he spoke to soldiers at Fort Campbell where the special operations team that conducted the raid in Abbottabad came from. He told them, “we’re making progress in our major goal, our central goal in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that is disrupting and dismantling -- and we are going to ultimately defeat al-Qaeda. We have cut off their head and we will ultimately defeat them.”

The to-do list on Af/Pak relations for the administration has gotten longer, even though they’ve crossed off the #1 item – getting bin Laden. First, they’ve got to massage the relationship with Pakistan while placating members of Congress who are angry that $3 billion in aid goes to Pakistan every year and yet they say they didn’t know bin Laden was at the same address for five years. Second they have to begin the troop drawdown in Afghanistan later this year. Third, they have to rework their message to the US public and NATO allies on the future of the US commitment in the region.

The State Department says the message to the Taliban is the same, but the tone seems more of inevitability that now that Bin Laden is dead. On Wednesday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a group of editorial writers, “Perhaps now they will take seriously the work that we are doing on trying to have some reconciliation process that resolves the insurgency.”

As the administration revises its version of how the bin Laden operation went down, analysts are picking apart every frame of video and every photo. On the famous picture of the members of the Obama administration watching the raid take place thousands of kilometers from the Situation Room at the White House, Clinton was transfixed. When asked about her expression though, Clinton brushed off the idea that it might have been emotion, “I am somewhat sheepishly concerned that it was my preventing one of my early spring allergic coughs. So it may have no great meaning whatsoever."

The most amazing detail in all of this is that Washington usually leaks like a sieve, but this operation remained quiet. It was in the works for months and was authorized 48-hours before it went into action, but nobody outside the administration had a clue. Future administrations will look at how in a media obsessed world, President Obama’s team held it all in until they could say “we got him.”

It's ok a doctor prescribed it!

In the United States the number of people hospitalised for prescription drug abuse has increased four hundred percent in the past ten years.

The small town of Portsmouth, Ohio is the epicentre of the problem.

Over thirty people - many in their early twenties - have died from prescription drug abuse.

One in ten babies born in Scioto County (Sy-oh-toe) last year tested positive for drugs.

Fatal overdoses have surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of accidental death in Ohio.

I met Andrea Queen, a reformed abuser at her new place of work in Portsmouth a clinic helping today's abusers.

A friend told Andrea to take a prescription pill one evening - "just to get the party going," he said. It led to a habit that nearly killed her. She told me:

"This growing sense of paranoia helped convince me that I needed to take myself out of this world that killing myself would be the one way out."

Ed Hughes is the Executive Director of The Counseling Center Inc and has been charting the rise of prescription drug abuse in Ohio. He shows me a series of maps showing the counties in the State ... each one he hands me gets progressively redder in colour.

"We had high admissions for opiate addictions in 2001 and then when we look eight years later in 2009."

Street clinics known as Pill Mills dole out the highly addictive opiate Oxycotton (OxyContin is the official name) to anyone with the money to pay for it some doctors in the area are cashing in on this big business. Ed told me:Scioto County is an area once known for steel and shoe making but which now has one of the highest rates of prescription drug abuse in the state of Ohio...and the country

."Most of the time they're doctors that have become marginalised in their profession they're, you know, they've had problems with their practice or problems with their hospitals ...more than one of the Pill Mills here in our community are owned and operated by people who have had past felony drug offences."

Andrea's recovering from the prescription drug hell that almost ended her life and now counsels others .. with a warning:
"Don't do it doesn't get the party going it gets the addiction going."

Not everybody recovers from prescription drug abuse and a wall in the display window of an empty department store in Portsmouth is testimony to that.

It contains the names of thirty six people who have died in this area as a result of abusing prescription drugs.

Joanna Krohns knows this all too well. She lost her son Wes when he accidentally shot himself while high on painkillers. She's now started a group called Solace to help other grieving parents.

"When you lose a child it's such a devastating thing I didn't really know where to turn, who to turn talk to and I thought if I can just reach out to other parents give them somebody to talk to give them hope so that's kind of what I did."

The wall in downtown Portsmouth containing so many young faces - the majority were around the age of twenty two - is heartbreaking to look at.

Easy access to painkillers right across America means many more are likely to lose their lives too.

New evidence' in Hairi killing probe

The prosecutor of a UN-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has filed a new indictment.

The new charges include "substantive new elements" that have only recently come to light, the Dutch-based tribunal said in a statement. The contents of the original indictment, filed in January, remain secret.

The prosecution's office refused to elaborate on the new details that prompted the update citing confidentiality.

Hariri was killed along with 22 others by a truck bomb on Beirut's Mediterranean seafront on February 14, 2005.

The new indictment is expected to further delay a judge's decision on whether to confirm the indictment and issue arrest warrants for suspects.

The tribunal issued a statement saying the "large volume of supporting material" must be carefully scrutinised by Belgian judge Daniel Fransen, who will decide whether to confirm or dismiss the indictment. He also has the option of rejecting some of the charges and confirming others.

Hezbollah slated

Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare submitted his first indictment on January 17 and expanded it for the first time on March 11. He has not ruled out further changes or new indictments.

"The amendment of an indictment or the filing of new indictments is and will continue to be guided solely by the evidence uncovered by the ongoing investigation," Bellemare said in a statement.

Members of Hezbollah are expected to be named in the indictment. Hezbollah denies any involvement in Hariri's slaying, and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has said his group would "cut off the hand" of anyone who tries to arrest any of its members.

Unlike other international courts, the Hariri tribunal can hold trials in absentia if suspects cannot be arrested.
Hezbollah forced the collapse of Lebanon's Western-backed government led by Saad Hariri -- son of the slain former prime minister - in January in a dispute over the tribunal.

Japan PM calls for nuclear plant shutdown

Naoto Kan, Japan's prime minister, has said that Chubu Electric Power Co should halt all operations at its Hamaoka nuclear plant in central Japan, due to worries a strong earthquake could cause another nuclear crisis.

The move to shutdown Hamaoka, considered as being at high risk from a powerful earthquake, follows pressure on the government to review Japan's nuclear energy policy after a March 11 quake and tsunami crippled another plant, triggering the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

Kan, who has been under fire for his response to the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co's (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi plant in northeast Japan, said the government would try to prevent the halting of the Hamaoka reactors from causing power supply problems.

Companies in eastern and northeast Japan served by TEPCO and another earthquake-affected utility have already been asked to curb electricity usage this summer when demand peaks.

The shutdown at Hamaoka raises the risk of power disruptions in the Chubu region, home to the Toyota car company and other major manufacturers.

Kan said he made the decision "out of concerns for public safety," citing a forecast by government experts that put at 87 per cent the chance of a magnitude 8.0 quake hitting the area served by Chubu Electric within the next 30 years.

"If there were a major accident at Hamaoka nuclear plant, it would have an enormous impact on the entire Japanese society," Kan told a televised news conference in Tokyo, Japan's capital.

Environmental group Greenpeace issued a statement welcoming Kan's decision but urged him to shut more plants.

"This is the first time a prime minister has directly requested a nuclear plant in Japan be closed, however, it cannot be the last," said Junichi Sato, Greenpeace Japan executive director, in the statement.

'Promptly consider'

The Hamaoka decision signals a likely shift in Japan's energy policy, with the government now rethinking its target of boosting the country's reliance on nuclear to 50 per cent of its power needs by 2030, up from 30 per cent before the quake.
Rivals in Kan's party are keen to oust the PM, especially after a thrashing in local elections last month [EPA]

The 3,617 megawatt Hamaoka plant accounts for about seven per cent of Japan's combined nuclear power generating capacity.

It is located about 200km southwest of Tokyo and sits near an active earthquake zone.

Akihisa Mizuno, Chubu Electric's president, said in a statement that the firm will "promptly consider" the request.

The Kyodo news agency, citing a Chubu source, reported that the company would comply with the government's decision.

PM criticised

Local authorities have been concerned about safety at Hamaoka after the tsunami crippled cooling systems at TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi plant, where engineers are still struggling to contain the crisis.

Chubu, Japan's third-largest utility after TEPCO and Kansai Electric Power, would be able to complete in about two years construction of a tsunami wall and other measures to protect Hamaoka from a tsunami of the same scale as the one on March 11, the trade ministry said.

Banri Kaieda, the country's trade minister, who in March ordered immediate steps to boost nuclear safety, said in a statement that operators have taken measures to ensure cooling system can keep working even if power is knocked out by a tsunami.

The trade ministry said it would not ask other plant operators to shutdown following the approval of such steps, paving the way for the restart of other reactors under maintenance, providing they can get the greenlight from local authorities.

Kan warned that some power shortages may occur in the summer when consumption peaks, but said he believed that efforts by the public to save electricity could prove sufficient to avoid serious problems.

Kaieda said he did not think Chubu will need to conduct rolling blackouts due to the halt at the Hamaoka plant.

He said Chubu could rely on thermal and hydro power sources to fill the shortfall, and that Kansai Electric had been enlisted to support Chubu by providing it electricity.

Kan, already unpopular before the triple calamities struck, has come under criticism for his response to the disaster that has killed 14,800 people, left about 11,000 missing and led to radiation leaks at Fukushima Daiichi.

Opposition parties that have the power to block bills in the divided parliament want Kan to quit and rivals in his own party are also keen to oust the premier, especially after a thrashing in local elections last month.

Tunisian police clash with protesters

Tunisian police have used tear gas and batons to break up protests demanding the resignation of the government in the most violent confrontation for weeks with pro-democracy demonstrators.

A demonstration in central Tunis by about 200 people on Friday called for the resignation of the transitional government and "a new revolution".

The demonstrators, yelling slogans such as "Get out!" and "The government still works for [ousted president Zine El Abidine] Ben Ali", faced off for 20 minutes against a police cordon on the central Habib Bourguiba Avenue.

The police then charged, firing tear gas canisters and causing panic among demonstrators, mainly youths, and pedestrians who were in the neighbourhood and tried to flee for shelter.

Public outcry

Farhat Rajhi, Tunisia's former minister of the interior, called for calm earlier on Friday after causing an outcry with his statement that a "coup d'etat" could take place in the country.

"I have called for calm on Tunisian radios. My statements were purely hypothetical and not directed at anybody and I am not responsible for interpretations," Rahji told the AFP news agency.

Protesters said the statement had undermined their confidence in the North African country's interim administration and raised suspicions that members of the former regime could be meddling behind the scenes.
Read more of our Tunisia coverage

"We are here to demand the departure of this government, which is dishonest," Sonia Briki, one of the hundreds of protesters in the centre of Tunis, said.

"Everything is clear now. We want them to step down so we can have a government whose members are just at the service of the people."

Police beat photographers with batons and confiscated cameras as they tried to cover the protest.

Tunisia's interim rulers have promised an election in July for an assembly that will draw up a new constitution.

But tensions rose when Rajhi said there could be a coup by Ben Ali loyalists if Islamists won the election. Tunisia's main Islamist group, al-Nahda, is expected to do well in some regions.

The government distanced itself from Rajhi's comments, but not before protesters had gathered in Tunis and in provincial cities to demand its resignation.

Some said the government was trying to use the threat of a coup to derail steps to democracy.

A common thread running through uprisings across the Arab world sparked by the one in Tunisia has been unease among secularists and in the West about whether democracy will open the door to Islamic rule.

Palestinians end four-year rift at Cairo ceremony

By Marwa Awad, Reuters

CAIRO (Reuters) - Palestinian leaders formally ended a four-year rift between the secular Fatah and Islamist Hamas groups at a ceremony in Egypt Wednesday, a reconciliation they see as crucial to their drive for an independent state.

Israel, which in 1967 captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where the Palestinians seek statehood, decried the deal as a blow to prospects for peace.

"We announce to Palestinians that we turn forever the black page of division," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah's leader, said in his opening address.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit to London: "What happened today in Cairo is a tremendous blow to peace and a great victory for terrorism."

Hamas, whose founding charter calls for Israel's destruction, seized the Gaza Strip from Fatah forces in a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007. It has opposed Abbas's quest for a negotiated peace with the Jewish state.

There were U.S. reservations about the Cairo ceremony. "It's important now that Palestinians ensure implementation of that agreement in a way that advances the prospects of peace rather than undermines them," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

"We'll wait and see what this looks like in real and practical terms... We still don't know what, if any changes, there will be at the governmental level," he said.

Toner said the United States continued to believe that Hamas must recognize Israel's right to exist, reject violence and abide by interim peace agreements if it wants to play a meaningful role in the political process.

He said the United States would look at the formation of any new Palestinian government before taking steps on future aid.

LINGERING FRICTION?

In what appeared a sign of lingering friction, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal did not share the podium with Abbas and the ceremony was delayed briefly over where he would sit. Against expectations, neither signed the unity document.

Hamas leaders will meet Abbas next week, possibly in Cairo, to start work on implementing the accord, deputy Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk said after the ceremony.

In his speech to the gathering, Meshaal said Hamas sought a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza devoid of any Israeli settlers and without "giving up a single inch of land" or the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Challenging Israel to peace, Meshaal offered to work with Abbas and Egypt on a new strategy to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict but said he did not believe Israel was ready for peace.

"We have given peace since Madrid till now 20 years, and I say we are ready to agree among us Palestinians and with Arab support to give an additional chance," Meshaal said, referring to the 1991 international Middle East peace conference that launched Israeli-Arab peace talks.

"But, dear brothers, because Israel does not respect us, and because Israel has rejected all our initiatives and because Israel deliberately rejects Palestinian rights, rejects Fatah members as well as Hamas...it wants the land, security and claims to want peace," he said.

Hamas has stated before that it would accept as an interim solution in the form of a state in all of the territory Israel captured in the 1967 war, along with a long-term ceasefire.

Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005. It has kept up settlement activity in the much larger West Bank.

The unity deal calls for forming an interim government to run the West Bank, where Abbas is based, and the Gaza Strip, and prepare for long-overdue parliamentary and presidential elections within a year.

In his speech, Abbas repeated his call for a halt to Jewish settlement construction as a condition for resuming peace talks with Israel that began in September but fizzled after the Jewish state refused to extend a limited building moratorium.

Abbas is widely expected, in the absence of peace talks, to ask the U.N. General Assembly in September to recognize a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel and the United States oppose such a move.

"The state of Palestine must be born this year," Abbas said.

Palestinians view reconciliation as an essential step toward presenting a common front at the United Nations and a reflection of a deep-seated public desire to end the internal schism amid popular revolts that have swept the Arab world.

But the deal presents potential diplomatic problems for Abbas's aid-dependent Palestinian Authority. Much of the West shuns Hamas over its refusal to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals.

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Ali Sawaftah in Ramallah and Washington bureau; writing by Sami Aboudi and Edmund Blair; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Osama's will forbids his children from joining Al Qaeda: Report

By IANS
Kuwait City (IANS/AKI) - Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden did not want his children to join the terrorist organisation, the Kuwait-based Al-Anbaa newspaper said citing his last will and testament.

In a four-page document dated Dec 14, 2001, written on a computer and signed "Your Brother Abu Abdullah Osama Muhammad Bin Laden," the late Al Qaeda leader predicted he would be killed as a result of a "betrayal" and ordered his wives to not remarry.

He prohibited his children from taking part in his terrorist organisation and from "going to the front", the newspaper said.

Osama apologised to his children for the lack of time he spent with them due to his devotion to Jihad.

Various reports say bin Laden fathered between 12 and 26 children and married four women.

Bin Laden, believed to be 54 years of age, was killed in Pakistan by US special forces.

Bin Laden corpse photo 'gruesome': White House

By Stephen Collinson
WASHINGTON - The White House warned Tuesday that a photo taken of Osama Bin Laden's corpse was "gruesome" and expressed concern it could be inflammatory if released to prove the Al-Qaeda mastermind's death.

But CIA Director Leon Panetta appeared to suggest in an interview that the photo would in fact be released, though later said any such decision was down to the White House.

Two days after the daring special forces raid deep into Pakistan which killed the Saudi-born terror leader in his secret lair, top administration officials debated whether to make public the evidence that he was gone.

"It is fair to say it is a gruesome photograph ... it could be inflammatory," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

"We are reviewing the situation. We are going about this in a methodical way and trying to make the best call," he said, adding President Barack Obama was intimately involved in the discussions.

Panetta inadvertently stirred the controversy in an interview with NBC Nightly News.

"The bottom line is that, you know, we got bin Laden and I think we have to reveal to the rest of the world the fact that we were able to get him and kill him," Panetta said.

Later, he told AFP after briefing lawmakers about the bin Laden raid, that the decision on releasing the photo was coming "from the White House."

Obama will be aware that the publication of a picture of a dead bin Laden would lay to rest any conspiracy theories in the wider world that Washington somehow faked his killing.

But officials will also be conscious of the potential of stirring a backlash -- possibly against US missions abroad, or other targets -- in the Muslim world from any picture deemed disrespectful to the dead or disfigured.

Another official said the bin Laden was shot above the eye in the raid on a Pakistani compound on Sunday, raising the prospect that any photo released to the public might offer graphic testimony of his death.

US enemies are already beginning to cast doubt on Washington's word, questioning bin Laden's death for propaganda purposes.

The Afghan Taliban said it was "premature" to comment.

"Since the Americans have not provided convincing documents to prove their claim, and sources close to Sheikh Osama Bin Laden have not confirmed or denied the reports about his martyrdom yet... (we) see it as premature to issue a statement in this regard," the Taliban said in a statement on their website.

One option may be for the White House to release a picture of the Al-Qaeda terror mastermind at the time of his burial at sea on the aircraft carrier USS Vinson on the Indian Ocean.

Officials said that bin Laden's body was washed and he was accorded full Islamic rites before being slipped into the Arabian Sea.

US government figures said the burial at sea was motivated partly out of a desire to avoid any land-based grave site becoming a shrine to a man some supporters now consider a martyr.

Panetta briefed lawmakers on Capitol Hill on the operation, but did not show photographs of bin Laden's corpse.

Senate Democratic Majority leader Harry Reid said he believed the debate over releasing the photos was "morbid," adding: "I'm not one that's going to be yelling to make the photo public."

Republican Representative Patrick Meehan, who chairs the House Homeland Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, said: "I suspect there will be people looking to some sort of resolution to this."

"In my mind, absent some compelling reason otherwise, I would hope they would at least be able to release some kind of photo that leaves no question what happened."

Democratic Representative C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger, ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said he was concerned about creating martyrdom.

"That's why I think that the way the burial took place was very positive," he said.

A senior official said Monday that bin Laden was identified during a firefight in the compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

After he was shot, US intelligence professionals used sophisticated photo recognition techniques to identify bin Laden with 95 percent certainty.

A later DNA test proved to 99.9 percent level of certainty that the man found in the compound was indeed the Al-Qaeda kingpin, reviled in the United States, officials said.

Soldiers on the ground in the operation also said bin Laden was identified by other people who were in the compound at the time of the daring airborne attack.

'Dead man' comes alive while being taken for post-mortem

By IANS
Raipur (IANS) - His wife was inconsolable, his relatives were mourning his sudden death. So, when 32-year-old Vijay Kumar Ratre 'came alive' and tried to jump out of the ambulance while being taken for post-mortem, the atmosphere changed from one of gloom to incredulous joy.

It all started with the Tikrapara police station here getting several calls from local residents that a dead body was floating in a pond in Lalpur area since several hours.

"Two policemen reached the pond and saw Ratre's wife and family members crying, and some locals consoling them for his premature death," said Lal Umed Singh, additional superintendent of police, Raipur.

Amid mourning and emotional scenes, the policemen managed to fish out the body of Ratre, a labourer, with the help of locals. They called an ambulance to send his body for post-mortem at Bhimrao Ambedkar Government Medical College and Hospital.

"As soon as Ratre was put in the ambulance, he got up and tried to jump out from the vehicle. A crowd of about 100 people, who had gathered at the spot, burst into celebrations," the police officer said.

"It was a very unusual event that the police witnessed."

Apparently, Ratre was under the influence of alcohol and was not aware of what was happening around him.

A police officer said that the policemen who were handling the case should have "applied brain before calling an ambulance as he was just unconscious".

But for a section of people who watched the developing events, it was a "miracle".

"Ratre had surely died, everyone was convinced, even the policemen. His body was not moving and responding, it was a miracle witnessed by over 100 people. I am seeking his blessings because he is not an ordinary person now," said Dilip, 21, a local.