Osama Bin Laden is dead; so what?

Osama Bin Laden. Founder of Al-Qaeda. Master mind behind 9/11 and many other attacks against USA.

He was killed.

And he was buried at sea [or how it took place] (....Burying bin Laden's body at sea would ensure that his final resting place does not become a shrine and a place of pilgrimage for his followers, ABC television reported earlier......).

Where was he killed? In Pakistan! Didn't Pakistani leaders say, countless times, that Osama Bin Laden is not in Pakistan!

He was found and killed in a mansion outside Islamabad and near Pakistan Military academy. huh.... Paki-philes in India will not like this information and hate that this information was reported by media.

BBC reports: It is just 800 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy, an elite military training centre, which correspondents say is Pakistan's equivalent to Britain's Sandhurst military training academy.
The compound lies within Abbottabad's military cantonment - it is likely the area would have had a constant and significant military presence and checkpoints.

Deccan Herald reports:  ....The house were Osama was holed is just 100 yards from the gate of the Kakul Military Academy, an army run institution where top officers train......

And the building was custom built to house someone of very significance (here): "A large mansion in a massive compound with 12 feet to 18 feet tall walls topped with barbed wire. No telephone or internet connection to the house. And seldom seen residents who burnt their trash rather than dispose it as other neighbors did."

Neighbors describe the compound Osama lived in ( a BBC report):

A sleepy suburb of the peaceful hill resort of Abbottabad nestling in the Orash valley in north-west Pakistan was the unlikely setting for Osama Bin Laden's demise. In the dead of night, residents of the middle-class area, home to retired army officers and businessmen, woke to a helicopter gunfight, which filled them with dread. Residents told me they knew immediately that if any home in their midst was going to be the target of an attack, it would be the private, secure compound protected by barbed wire and whose furtive residents were rarely seen or heard.....

Still, Pakistan's media and Govt. would like every one believe that Pakistan's Military was not helping Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Of course, they can always blame on 'some elements with in establishment'.

How was the dead body identified as Bin Laden's? (here)

When his sister, who has not been named, died from brain cancer several years ago in Boston the FBI immediately subpoenaed her body so that it could later be used to identify the al-Qaeda leader if he was caught, it was claimed. The brain was preserved and tissue and blood samples taken from it were used to compile a DNA profile, ABC News reported. The tissue sample was reportedly then matched to the DNA of the man shot dead by US troops in a raid on bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.

Pakistan was not given a saving face, says a report:

US President Barack Obama shot down the Pakistani security establishment's attempt to claim joint credit for the operation. In a ten-minute television address, Obama left no doubt that US personnel alone were involved in the action that brought bin Laden to justice. ''Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan,'' Obama said, adding, ''A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability.''.......he made no mention of any Pakistani military role in the operation. US officials in background briefing made it clear that no country, much less Pakistan, was informed of the operation. ..In fact, there was not even a word of thanks for Pakistan....The finger of suspicion is now pointing squarely at the Pakistani military and intelligence for sheltering and protecting Osama bin Laden before US forces hunted him down and put a bullet in his head in the wee hours of Sunday. The coordinates of the action and sequence of events indicate that the al-Qaida fugitive may have been killed in an ISI safehouse. 

But still, how will the events unfold in the coming days? Get a nice feeling by reading from here :

"While we are awaiting details on this cooperation, initial reports suggest Pakistan's role in the operation was important and thus will be deeply appreciated by US officials," said Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank...."This could be a turning point in the US-Pakistan counter-terrorism partnership. Many in Washington had begun to doubt Pakistan's commitment to fighting terrorism.But this historic development is likely to foster a tremendous amount of goodwill from Washington toward Islamabad and bolster the relationship," Curtis said.

From the perspective of cnn, 'Death may be turning point in U.S.-Pakistan relations' :

"The death of Osama bin Laden could prove to be a turning point in United States-Pakistani counterterrorism cooperation. But whether it is for better or for worse remains to be seen..........."

With his death, only fools believe that troubles are over; and most are even ignorant about objectives of Al-Qaeda. One needs to remember that terror is means to achieve goals and it is not a goal as such. How significant his death is? One can read what Robert Spencer says on this:
{{{
Osama Gets His Virgins

Osama bin Laden has gone to the great bordello in the sky that awaits every good jihadi.

Barack Obama explained that the jihadist mastermind was killed in a “targeted operation: at Abbottabad, Pakistan: “A small team of Americans carried out the operation. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.”

Obama also said that the killing of bin Laden was the “most significant achievement to date” in America’s war against al-Qaeda.

It is undoubtedly significant. Osama bin Laden was wildly popular in the Islamic world. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks Osama t-shirts, hats, and even dolls and action figures sold briskly in many Muslim countries, belying the mainstream media myth that 9/11 was the action of a tiny minority of extremists that had twisted and hijacked Islam, and were duly despised by the vast majority of Muslims. Polls all over the Islamic world always showed a healthy amount of support for bin Laden and, above all, respect for him as a pious mujahid.

But in reality, while the death of bin Laden is fine news, and is certainly a psychological blow to the jihadis and a confidence-booster for Americans, it really won't change anything.

The role of al-Qaeda in the global jihad, and the role of Osama bin Laden in al-Qaeda, have both been wildly overstated. Al-Qaeda is not the only Islamic jihad group or Islamic supremacist group operating today, and Osama bin Laden was not some charismatic leader whose movement will collapse without him. The exaggeration of his role, in fact, was a result of the general unwillingness to face the reality that the global jihad is a movement driven by an ideology, not an outsized personality, and that that ideology is rooted in Islam.

Barack Obama epitomized that unwillingness in his address announcing the death of bin Laden. “The US is not – and never will be – at war with Islam,” Obama declared. “Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims.” Osama bin Laden himself would have been surprised to be characterized (and by a leader who is probably not a Muslim himself) as “not a Muslim leader.” After all, in his 2002 letter to the American people explaining his motives and goals, he wrote: “The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.”

Bin Laden explained in this letter to Americans that “it is to this religion that we call you; the seal of all the previous religions….It is the religion of showing kindness to others, establishing justice between them, granting them their rights, and defending the oppressed and the persecuted….It is the religion of Jihad in the way of Allah so that Allah’s Word and religion reign Supreme.”

This perspective on Islam wasn’t just bin Laden’s. Millions of Muslims worldwide share it, and that won’t end with the death of Osama. The US is not – and never will be – at war with Islam, as Obama says, but significant elements of Islam are – and always will be – at war with the U.S. Nothing that happened during that firefight in Abbottabad will change that, and Obama’s continued focus on al-Qaeda as if it were a singular and eccentric group of non-Muslim Muslims that is the cause of all our troubles only perpetuates the unreality that has already led to so many disastrous policy errors.

Until Barack Obama and other Western leaders face the fact that Osama bin Laden was operating within the broad mainstream of Islamic teaching, they will be constantly puzzled by the advent of new bin Ladens, and new al-Qaedas, all over the globe. How is it that all these disparate individuals and groups misunderstand Islam in all the same way? Until U.S. officials can answer that question correctly, we will have made no headway, no matter how many al-Qaeda masterminds we corner and kill in Pakistan.

So Osama bin Laden, after years of silence punctuated by mysterious gnomic utterances delivered (how? by whom?) to the media, finally joins Generalissimo Franco in the ranks of the still dead. It is good news as far as it goes, which is not really all that far. I have hoisted a suitably haram beverage in toast of the happy news. And then it was back to work. The jihad will go on, and so will I, and so, I hope, will you.

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Updated: 

a. Nadim Asrar at ibnlive.com writes following:

"It doesn't make much political sense for Barack Obama to remind his jubiliant countrymen that it was the US which created Osama bin Laden in the first place. It's difficult for people not familiar with the checkered history and sordid deals of the Cold War to imagine that most of the people we know today as sworn enemies of the United States were actually its best friends once."

Sure, it was US which equipped these mujahideen  with weapons; but it does not explain why he boasts by saying in his letter (Al-Qaeda's letter) to US, "The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.....".

b. Al-Qaeda confirms Bin Laden is dead

c. Muslims hold protests in Egypt

d. Pakistan's opposition leader says Bin Laden's death is second greatest tragedy of Pakistan

e. Funeral prayers for Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan's assembly

f. Pornography found in compound where Laden was hiding (or here)

g. Osama Bin Laden's new plans on terror

h. Laden to Al-Qaeda: US vice-president not worth killing

i. Bin Laden to Al-Qaeda: Kill Obama before 2012