Top news: Data seized during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden show that the al Qaeda leader was still involved in planning terrorist attacks, U.S. officials say. “He wasn’t just a figurehead,” said one official. “He continued to plot and plan, to come up with ideas about targets and to communicate those ideas to other senior Qaeda leaders.”
One seized notebook showed that last year, al Qaeda has considered a plan to attack U.S. railroads, possibly on Christmas, New Year's Day, the date of the State of the Union address, or the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Officials emphasized that none of these plans evolved past the conceptual stage.
It was also revealed that the CIA had spent months spying on bin Laden from a safe house in Abottabad. Relying on local informants and high-tech surveillance, the Agency had been able to piece together "patter of life" data on the compound, though bin Laden himself was never photographed. The effort, which began after the discovery of the compound last August, was so extensive costly that the Agency went to Congress last December to allocate tens of millions of dollars for it.
The U.S. has not let up on its attacks on militant targets in Pakistan since bin Laden's death. A suspected CIA drone strike killed eight people in an attack on a hotel in North Waziristan on Thursday. The U.S. also carried out its first drone strike on al Qaeda targets in Yemen since 2002, killing two suspected operatives.
President Obama paid a visit to Gound Zero on Thursday, laying a wreath and meeting with firefighters.
Al Qaeda has reportedly released a statement on jihadist internet forums confirming bin Laden's death.
Syria: Syrian police arrested scores of young men in a house-to-house roundup outside Damascus.
One seized notebook showed that last year, al Qaeda has considered a plan to attack U.S. railroads, possibly on Christmas, New Year's Day, the date of the State of the Union address, or the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Officials emphasized that none of these plans evolved past the conceptual stage.
It was also revealed that the CIA had spent months spying on bin Laden from a safe house in Abottabad. Relying on local informants and high-tech surveillance, the Agency had been able to piece together "patter of life" data on the compound, though bin Laden himself was never photographed. The effort, which began after the discovery of the compound last August, was so extensive costly that the Agency went to Congress last December to allocate tens of millions of dollars for it.
The U.S. has not let up on its attacks on militant targets in Pakistan since bin Laden's death. A suspected CIA drone strike killed eight people in an attack on a hotel in North Waziristan on Thursday. The U.S. also carried out its first drone strike on al Qaeda targets in Yemen since 2002, killing two suspected operatives.
President Obama paid a visit to Gound Zero on Thursday, laying a wreath and meeting with firefighters.
Al Qaeda has reportedly released a statement on jihadist internet forums confirming bin Laden's death.
Syria: Syrian police arrested scores of young men in a house-to-house roundup outside Damascus.
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-By Joshua Keating
ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images
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