• Obama watched assault on compound housing Bin Laden in real time
• Compound was yards from Pakistan's 'Sandhurst' military academy
  
• DNA tests 99.9 per cent certain man killed WAS Bin Laden
  
• U.S. embassies on alert over Al Qaeda reprisal attacks 
  
• Obama and George W. Bush both declare: 'Justice has been done' 
  
• 
  

President Obama was watching on a TV screen as a commando gunned down Osama bin Laden. Via a video camera fixed to the helmet of a U.S. Navy Seal, the leader of the free world saw the terror chief shot in the left eye.

The Seal then carried out what is known in the military as a ‘double tap’ – shooting him again, probably in the chest, to make certain he was dead.

The footage of the battle in Bin Laden’s Pakistani hideout – which played out like an episode of 24 – is said to show one of his wives acting as a human shield to protect him as he blasted away with an AK47 assault rifle.

She died, along with three other men, including one of Bin Laden’s sons. Within hours, the Al Qaeda leader’s body was buried at sea. 

Intense: President Obama watches the mission unfold at the White House along with (left) Vice President Joe Biden, (right) Defence Secretary Robert Gates, and (second right) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, alongside other Security staff, including (back left) Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen, (back without a tie) National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and (back right, white shirt) Counter-Terrorism chief John Brennan

Taking command: President Obama talks to members of the national security team in the White House situation room following the conclusion of the mission

 

Dead: Osama Bin Laden was killed in a U.S. special forces operation on his Pakistani compound

Despite President Obama claiming the master terrorist’s death made the world a ‘safer, better place’, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency declared that terrorists would ‘almost certainly’ respond.

The warning came on a day when:

■ Relations between Pakistan and the West were under intense strain amid disbelief that intelligence chiefs in Islamabad had no idea Bin Laden was living in a compound only 800 yards from the country’s leading military academy.

■ U.S. officials sought to justify the torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay by claiming it provided the crucial breakthrough in hunting down Bin Laden.

■ It emerged that a terror operative captured in Pakistan in 2004 said Al Qaeda would detonate a nuclear bomb in the U.S. if Bin Laden were killed or captured.

David Cameron said Bin Laden’s death would be ‘welcomed right across our country’. 

But security was stepped up as he warned: ‘It does not mark the end of the threat we face from extremist terrorism. Indeed, we will have to be particularly vigilant in the weeks ahead.’

Last night the Prime Minister chaired a meeting of the Government’s emergency planning committee Cobra to assess the implications for the UK. Security sources have been told of specific threats against targets in North Africa and Europe. 

Officials in Britain fear a ‘lone wolf’ – currently off the security services’ radar – could be inspired to take revenge.

There is no specific intelligence pointing to any attack in response to Bin Laden’s death, but it is ‘common sense’ to be on guard, Whitehall officials say.

Possible targets include popular tourist and business locations including the Houses of Parliament, Canary Wharf and the London Eye, say security experts.

President Obama announced Bin Laden’s death in a televised statement shortly after 4am British time yesterday

He recalled the images from the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 which were ‘seared into our national memory’.  

Nearly 3,000 people were killed – including 67 Britons – when four jets hijacked by Al Qaeda extremists crashed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The attack left ‘a gaping hole in our hearts’, said the President.

Last night pictures were released of Mr Obama and his security team – including Hillary Clinton – watching the mission to kill Bin Laden in the White House’s Situation Room – relayed to the White House by satellite – which played out like an episode of TV show 24 featuring fictional counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer.

Describing the scene, President Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan said: ‘It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods in the lives of the people who were assembled.

‘The minutes passed like days and the President was very concerned about the security of our personnel.’

Pit of evil: A king size bed where Bin Laden may have once slept at the secretive compound in Abbottabad. Blood from a gun battle can be seen at the foot of the mattress

Gun fight: A pool of blood on the floor suggests that one Al Qaeda member was shot close to their bed, while right, a selection of medication which was left in the bathroom

Carnage: Blood can be seen on the floor from where Bin Laden was reportedly surrounded by three men, including his son, and a woman who formed a human shield against U.S. troops

 

The President’s announcement sparked jubilant celebrations, with crowds gathering outside the White House and at Ground Zero where the Twin Towers had stood in New York.

Former President George W Bush, who was in the White House when the attacks took place, described the news as a ‘momentous achievement’.

‘America has sent an unmistakable message: no matter how long it takes, justice will be done,’ he said.

But the euphoria was tempered by warnings that Bin Laden’s supporters would carry out a wave of reprisal attacks against Western targets, including the UK.

Bin Laden's lair: The compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was half a mile from a military academy. If it had been hit in an air strike there were likely to have been civilian casualties

Defiant messages: President Obama said the world is a 'safer place', Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed to 'take the fight' to Al Qaeda and Counter Terrorism Chief John Brennan said it was a 'defining moment'

 

CIA director Leon Panetta said: ‘Though Bin Laden is dead, Al Qaeda is not. The terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge him, and we must – and will – remain vigilant and resolute.’

Foreign Secretary William Hague said: ‘This is a very serious blow to Al Qaeda but, like any organisation that has suffered a serious blow, they will want to show in some way that they are still able to operate.

‘We will still have to be even more vigilant in the coming days about the international terrorist threat.’

Success: Pakistani Army soldiers secure the compound in Abbottabad where Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. military forces

Downed: The wreckage of the U.S. military helicopter which crashed inside the high walls of Bin Laden's compound. U.S. troops destroyed the aircraft before leaving the area

A Pakistani Army soldier inspects the wreckage of the U.S. helicopter that crashed after coming under fire. There were no casualties among the U.S. Navy Seals who mounted the attack on Bin Laden's compound

 

On the lookout: Pakistani soldiers inside a cordoned off area around the Bin Laden compound after the Al Qaeda leader was killed by U.S. forces

Parts of the downed helicopter are removed from the Bin Laden compound after the attack by U.S. Navy Seals

 

Some 50 people living in Britain are believed to have attended terror training camps in Afghanistan. One suggestion is that Al Qaeda supporters who are not known to the security services could be emboldened to strike. 

Another possibility is that terror cells already plotting attacks in the UK could bring forward their plans.

It also emerged last night that the timing of the U.S. mission may have been triggered by Wikileaks.

Although the CIA has thought since September that Bin Laden was in Abbottabad, the attack on his fortress came only days after the website published fresh secret documents.

Deserted: Nestled among trees and in the shadow of Pakistan's mountains, Bin Laden's hideaway stands empty after a helicopter raid by U.S. troops that killed the terror chief. He lived there with members of his family and trusted aides

Near miss: Wreckage from the crashed U.S. helicopter hangs over a wall in the Abbottabad compound. It stalled after coming under fire from rocket-propelled grenades. Right, the remains of the helicopter are driven away on a tractor

Guarded: Pakistani soldiers today patrol the compound where Bin Laden lived and was killed, and right, police stop people as they secure the scene

Stronghold: The lay-out of Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. It was surrounded by walls up to 18 feet high

These made reference to named ‘couriers’ carrying Bin Laden’s message to his followers, and also to Abbottabad as a possible Al Qaeda bolthole. 

America has already revealed that it was led to Bin Laden by tracking a man identified as his key courier. When that courier was found in Abbottabad, the CIA began surveillance that led to the raid. 

Last night it was said the operation had to be launched before Bin Laden knew the game was up. The theory is based on a leaked U.S. Defence Department assessment of Guantanamo Bay prisoner Abu Faraj al-Libi, 40. 

This information identifies al-Libi as a chief of Al Qaeda who fled to Pakistan in 2001. He lived in Abbottabad for a year before being caught in 2005. He was then handed to the U.S., who continue to detain him.

Hideout: The Bin Laden compound was found only a few hundred yards from the military academy known as Pakistan's Sandhurst in the garrison town of Abbottabad, Pakistan

 

Abbottabad: The remote town in northern Pakistan, named after James Abbott, the British major who founded the town in 1853, sits beneath towering hills

 

We've got him, said the President

This was the dramatic moment that President Obama and Hillary Clinton watched Osama Bin Laden being shot dead.

Photos released by the White House late last night show Mr Obama and his Secretary of State in similar poses, their hands clamped over their mouths.

Together with the President’s national security team they are watching a crew of Navy Seals storm the terror chief’s hideout in Pakistan.

His fist to his mouth, Mr Obama stares intently at the screen showing Bin Laden die, left, while Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, right, holds her hand to her mouth

 

While the men in the room, arms folded, remain largely expressionless as they stare at the live feed streamed from the helmet camera of a U.S. commando, it is the expression on Mrs Clinton’s face that clearly shows the tension that they all felt.

She was unable to hide the emotion of the moment for which they had waited more than a decade.

Mr Obama, with his eyes intently focused on the scene unfolding and with his fist clenched to his mouth, was said to be ‘stony faced’ through the transmission, even at the point when a voice came over the speakers stating: ‘We’ve ID’d Geronimo’ – a code name for Bin Laden.

After the terrorist was shot, Mr Obama was said to have turned to the room and said: ‘We got him.’

Guests at a White house dinner last night rose to their feet as Barack Obama arrived with First Lady Michelle Obama, while the Speaker of the House John Boehner  congratulates the President

Barack Obama is given a standing ovation at a political dinner in the White House last night following the killing of Osama bin Laden

 

A giant flag is unveiled at Fenway Park as the national anthem is played before the game between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels

Players from the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels watch as a giant American flag is unfurled before last night's game in Boston

 

With the, mission accomplished, those present were able to breathe a sigh of relief.

With Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton as the tense operation unfolded were Vice President Joe Biden, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and White House Chief-of-Staff Bill Daly.

CIA Director Leon Panetta wasn’t in the photo but was at the White House at several points during the day.

The President was also seen on the phone talking to the heads of Allied countries, including British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Americans celebrate the death of Osama bin Laden in Times Square in New York, after the Al Qaeda leader was killed in Pakistan

 

 

We're 99.9% sure it's him

American officials said last night they were ‘99.9 per cent confident’ that DNA evidence proved Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Scientists compared forensic samples from the body in the Pakistan hideout with those taken from the brain of the terror mastermind’s late sister.

Photos of the corpse have also been passed to experts in facial recognition, who are comparing them to previous indisputable images of the Al Qaeda leader.

America has carried out such tests before on tissue samples from unrecognisable victims of drone bombing attacks on remote Afghan and Pakistani terror nests, who it was thought might have been Bin Laden.

The apparent speed of the Bin Laden tests raised yet more questions about the U.S. operation last night. Merely transporting samples to laboratories where DNA profiling can be carried out usually takes time, as does the process itself. 

However, new technology means that the process can be speeded up and it is entirely possible that the Americans kept a Bin Laden family DNA profile at one of their bases in Afghanistan. Indeed, one report yesterday was that the DNA test had already been conducted on the fresh corpse.

Pentagon officials said  that photos of the body and a videotape of the sea burial may be released soon to answer doubts that Bin Laden was actually killed.

In the huge manhunt for the terror leader, the CIA will have eagerly seized anything Bin Laden is believed to have touched, and searched anywhere he is believed to have stayed. Dentists and doctors will have been questioned in the hope they have retained a tooth or other organic matter.

But previous information from the years following 2001 has suggested that America has been anxiously seeking genetic samples from Bin Laden’s numerous siblings and other relatives – an indication that the CIA did not have any such samples from the Al Qaeda chief himself.

Family affair: Osama Bin Laden (second from right) was identified with the help of DNA taken from the brain of an unidentified sister, who died from cancer

 

And according to a report on America’s ABC news yesterday, a key sample had come courtesy of the death of one of his sisters in a Boston hospital several years ago, from brain cancer.

Immediately after her death, it was claimed, the FBI obtained a court order to seize her body. Her brain was then preserved, and tissue and blood samples from it helped form the DNA database that was used to match that of Bin Laden.

Such samples from siblings alone could not, however, prove 100 per cent that the new corpse is that of Bin Laden himself. Close similarity of the new corpse’s DNA profile with those taken from siblings could only show that a member of the Bin Laden family had been killed.

Further circumstantial evidence – including photos, perhaps his height (up to 6ft 6in), and location in a hideout at the centre of the Al Qaeda terror network – might then be added to provide all the proof the Americans feel necessary.

A U.S. intelligence official said last night that as well as being identified by U.S. troops on the ground, a woman believed to be one of his wives had confirmed Bin Laden was the dead man.

 

via:cnn

Navy SEALs live by an unspoken code.

"Be a quiet professional," says Chris Heben, a former SEAL with 10 years of experience carrying out missions in Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan.

"There is no room for braggarts in the SEALs," he said. "Talking hurts missions and gets people killed."

Members of the special team sent to kill Osama bin Laden inPakistan on Sunday may never talk about their role in the raid that ended a decade-long manhunt.

But there's no doubt an allegiance to secrecy played a critical role in maintaining the surprise factor necessary for success in the high-stakes gamble that was closely held even among officials in Washington.

Senior administration officials would not disclose the makeup of the team sent on the mission, but a senior defense official said a special team of SEALs was involved.

Many national media, including the New Yorker,Huffington Post and ABC News, have reported that the group is called Team Six, a highly classified band of anonymous operatives who can travel to a mission on a moment's notice from wherever they are based. They generally are not informed about who their target is until the mission is close at hand.

Former SEALs interviewed by CNN were cautious about describing how Team Six or other special teams within the SEALs work. Generally, SEALs chosen for such a special mission would be tapped by superiors because of a skill that sets them apart, yet they must also be able to jump into another member's job should that man be hurt or killed, they said.

"They need to go far beyond just being a skilled warrior," said Brandon Tyler Webb, a former SEAL who ran the sniper program at the Navy Special Warfare Command and was part of combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Getting on a special team means you've established yourself as a mature and steady operator with a real world track record of high-stakes, sensitive missions," said Webb, who authored the book "The 21st Century Sniper."

"The guys behind this mission [to capture or kill bin Laden] have never given anyone a reason to doubt that they are trustworthy and very focused," he said. "They are the best of the best."

The image of the SEAL belly crawling his way through the jungle is just a bunch of Hollywood nonsense, Heben said.

"The guys who don't make it through SEAL training are the Rambo wannabes," he said. "If you cannot work in a team format, but also function autonomously, you won't last for very long."

Air, Sea, Land

The fighting force known as the Navy SEALs -- short for Sea, Air and Land teams -- has its origins in World War II when the United States realized that to invade Japan, it needed savvy, quick-thinking fighters who could perform reconnaissance at sea.

Beyond tactical expertise, the troops needed to have extraordinary physical strength.

According to the SEAL web site, they became known as jack-of-all-trade troops, able to survey China's Yangtze River disguised as Chinese nationals in 1945 or conduct demolition raids on railroad tunnels and bridges along the Korean coast during the Korean War.

The SEALs did not get their name until after President Kennedy spoke about his admiration for special forces troops and his hope that the U.S. military would better enhance its capacity for unconventional warfare, counter guerilla and clandestine operations.

There was a new and pressing need for more advanced military techniques during the time. Among other missions, the SEALs were deployed to act as advisers and train South Vietnamese commandos.

Vietnam was the first American war to be broadcast widely on television and media, and woven into popular culture for mainstream consumption. It solidified the image of the SEALs as the ultimate tough guy, a reputation burnished by reports of SEALs' ability to do face-to-face combat with Vietcong and stories of their work with the CIA.

The relationship between America's spy agency and its elite troops was crucial to gaining real-time intelligence for missions sometimes carried out at the last minute -- perhaps an asset more important now than ever, experts have said. The war against al Qaeda is just as much about obtaining reliable intelligence as it is winning on the battlefield.

SEALs victories have been many. During Vietnam, they performed a covert operation called the Phoenix Program which captured Vietcong sympathizers.

In the Iran-Iraq war, SEAL teams conducted missions to counter Iranian mine-laying boats. The first military flag officer to set foot in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001, was a SEAL in charge of all special operations for Central Command, according to the SEALs history page on its web site.

The site says SEALs commanded Task Force K-BAR which oversaw the Navy, Air Force and Coalition Special Operation Forces at the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom which carried out more than 75 special reconnaissance and direct action missions, destroyed more than 500,000 pounds of explosives and weapons, identified enemy personnel and conducted operations that searched for terrorists trying to flee the country by sea.

The largest deployment of SEALs in the group's history came during the Iraq War, with SEALs directing missions that included securing all of the southern oil infrastructures of the Al-Faw peninsula and the off-shore gas and oil terminals, clearing critical waterways so that aid could flow into the country. Several high-value terrorist targets were captured by the SEALs, including Ahmed Hashim Abed, the alleged mastermind of the murder and mutilation of four Blackwater guards in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004.

The SEALs most recent high-profile mission came in 2009 when a SEAL team rescued the American captain of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama, which had been hijacked by Somali pirates off Somalia's coast. SEAL snipers were on the deck of a ship and fired simultaneously three times, hitting three pirates who were holding the captain.

Ultimate test

SEAL training, Heben said, is "the ultimate test for a guy."

It's social, physical and psychological and tests how well the man can work with others given intense pressure and pain.

SEALs train between 18 and 24 months, with the pinnacle of training coming during Hell Week, five days in which trainees are constantly cold, hungry, sleep deprived and wet.

During Hell week, instructors deprive the participants of sleep, then let them hit the rack just long enough for REM to begin, Webb said.

Instructors are constantly yelling, "Go ahead, quit if you like!"

Many do. The attrition rate for SEAL training is about 90 percent, Heben and Webb said.

Most recruits drop out long before Hell Week because they can't take the training, which involves running 15 miles, topped with a 2-mile open water swim and other intense physical conditioning, Webb said.

"Every day is like climbing Mount Everest," Heben said. "You just keep doing what's in front of you. You don't look up."

Training instructors make you feel like "you're part of an Indian tribe," Heben said.

"There's a lot of back patting and verbal reinforcement. You feel like you're part of something and you're doing great things. But they definitely let you know when you're not doing something right."

The discipline from SEAL training was intensely satisfying to Heben in his early 20s. He had gone to college, and though he was very bright, he was spending more time working out than on his class work. He was restless.

Four walls and books just weren't his thing. Despite unimpressive grades, at 23 he got a job working in home mortgages making $63,000 a year.

Then one day he read an article about the SEALs in Popular Mechanics.

"I enlisted in the Navy immediately," Heben said. "I asked the recruiter, 'What is the fastest track to becoming a SEAL? I'll take that.'"

Though he won't discuss specific areas of countries where he's carried out missions, he said that he normally trained for missions on exact mock-ups of a targeted location. He's confident that the special team knew the compound where bin Laden was hiding as if the SEALs had built it themselves.

It's also no coincidence that the team acted on one of the least moonlit nights on the calendar, Heben said. They certainly weighed heavily a possible attack from a Pakistani military school which sits a short distance from the compound, and they went over many scenarios of attack, aiming to avoid civilian casualties. Go behind the scenes of the raid

SEALs leave nothing to chance. A target is a target. It is an objective, a mission well trained and prepared for, Heben said.

Even if that target turns out to be Osama bin Laden.

As news of Osama bin Laden's death made its way across the globe Sunday night, Internet traffic exploded.

Twitter: At the news event's peak, Twitter said that users were sending off more than 4,000 tweets per second. That makes the volume of tweets surrounding the event either the second or third-highest in Twitter's history.

That volume is on par with the 4,064 tweets-per-second peak of this year's Super Bowl, but still far short of the 6,939 tweets per second record set when Japan brought in the 2011 new year.

Twitter recently has played an increasingly important role as a disseminator of breaking news, and the bin Laden story was another prime example.

Just before White House officials told the news media that bin Laden had been killed, Keith Urbahn, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's chief of staff, spread the word via Twitter.

"So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn."

Urbahn later said he was tipped off by a well-connected network TV news producer.

Other news agencies quickly followed with tweets, and the microblogging site quickly thereafter exploded with information about the event.

Urbahn was actually not the first to break the news. A Pakistani IT consultant named Sohaib Athar with the Twitter handle ReallyVirtual, who lives in the city of Abbottabad where bin Laden was killed, unwittingly live-tweeted the event as it was happening.

"A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad ... I hope its not the start of something nasty" Athar tweeted at about 5:00 p.m. ET on Sunday.

Google Trends ranked the keywords "osama bin laden dead" as "volcanic," the highest level it assigns for a trending topic.

Sunday was not the first time that the term "osama bin laden dead" peaked on Google. On Sept. 24, 2006, a French newspaper l'Est Republicain reported a story supposedly based on leaked Saudi intelligence documents that said bin Laden had been killed a month earlier. The CIA and French governments quickly denounced that report as false.

Google Insights for Search ranked that 2006 story as the biggest search event for bin Laden, but the tool has not updated yet with Sunday's data.

News sites: The bin Laden story resulted in a peak of more than 4.1 million page views per second on the news websites supported and tracked by content delivery network Akamai. Akamai delivers about 20% of the Internet's content, and it supports popular news sites like nytimes.com, reuters.com, bbc.com and usatoday.com.

The peak occurred at about 11:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, right as President Obama's news conference began. Just an hour before the news broke, there were roughly 2.5 million page views per second on those pages.

Despite the unusually high volume of traffic, Akamai said it did not rank in the company's top 10 news events for highest page-view peaks.

The largest peak in Internet traffic came at noon on June 24, 2010, when there were simultaneous World Cup qualifying matches as well as the longest-ever Wimbledon match -- all being played at the same time. Those events resulted in a peak of 10.4 million page views per second on the news sites Akamai supports.

Last week's royal wedding ranked sixth on Akamai's list, with more than 5 million page views per second. It was the second-highest non-sports-related Internet event, right behind the 2010 U.S. mid-term elections.

All of the largest peaks in the top 13 were from events that occurred in 2010 or 2011 -- which is unsurprising, since Internet usage continues to rise globally. But ranking at No. 14 is the inauguration of President Obama, which occurred in January 2008.

The biggest Internet spikes tend to overwhelm servers and rendered some websites unresponsive. News of Michael Jackson's death famously brought down Google News, TMZ.com, latimes.com and even AOL Instant Messenger, thanks to high traffic demands

No one’s heard from the Taliban leader in almost nine years. Now his absence is exposing dangerous fault lines within the insurgency.

A thrill coursed through the Taliban’s ranks a few weeks ago—someone was said to have seen a new video that showed Mullah Mohammed Omar in the distance, firing a Kalashnikov. The insurgents rejoiced: they hadn’t heard from their reclusive leader since late 2001, when he rode east into the Kandahar mountains on the back of his brother-in-law’s motorcycle, fleeing a storm of U.S. bombs.

It’s hard to fathom just how this inarticulate village mullah has inspired such devotion. Aside from being an expert prayer leader and reciter of Quranic verses, there’s nothing particularly impressive about him, says Pakistani journalist and Taliban expert Rahimullah Yusufzai. According to Yusufzai, who met and interviewed Mullah Omar 10 times before his ouster, the Taliban leader is devoid of charisma and displays no intellectual subtlety, viewing every issue in black and white. Even when he was in power, he rarely made public appearances and ventured to Kabul only once from his home in Kandahar.

The Justice Department won't say whether provisions of the Patriot Act were used to investigate and charge Colleen LaRose. But the FBI and U.S. prosecutors who charged the 46-year-old woman from Pennsburg, Pa., on Tuesday with conspiring with terrorists and pledging to commit murder in the name of jihad could well have used the Patriot Act's fast access to her cell-phone records, hotel bills and rental-car contracts as they tracked her movements and contacts last year. But even if the law's provisions weren't directly used against her, the arrest of the woman who allegedly used the moniker "Jihad Jane" is a boost for the Patriot Act, Administration officials and Capitol Hill Democrats say. That's because revelations of her alleged plot may give credibility to calls for even greater investigative powers for the FBI and law enforcement, including Republican proposals to expand certain surveillance techniques that are currently limited to targeting foreigners.

Despite having repeatedly called for greater restrictions on the Patriot Act since its inception, Democrats punted late last month when presented with their best opportunity to roll back the law. After spending months working up a revised bill that would have moderately limited the broad powers created by the existing one, Democrats opted instead to extend the act as is for one year. President Obama signed the extension days before the expiration of the law's most controversial provisions.

Not that the President had much choice. As the deadline to move the bill approached, Republicans were scoring political points by attacking the Administration on national-security issues, targeting its plans for closing Guantánamo Bay and criticizing its handling of the Christmas Day airline-bombing attempt. In that political climate, Democrats feared that they might lack the votes to pass the new restrictions on surveillance that were proposed by the party's left wing, and worried that Republicans might even succeed in expanding the bill's provisions, Hill Democrats tell TIME. 

LaRose, if guilty, fits the profile of what terrorism experts have come to call the "lone wolf" — an individual acting largely out of his or her own motivation without long-standing or direct connections to terrorist organizations or networks. LaRose allegedly tried to recruit militants online, plotted an attack and was in contact with suspects who were plotting to kill a Swedish cartoonist who had portrayed the Prophet Mohammad as a dog. The Justice Department says she thought her blond hair and blue eyes would allow her to operate undetected in Europe, where she traveled in August, allegedly to carry out the attack.  

Under the current legal framework, law enforcement can spy on a foreign suspect in the U.S. by going to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has less stringent rules than traditional courts do for granting a warrant. But the police and FBI cannot use the same route to spy on an American citizen who is a lone-wolf terrorism suspect.

In fact, Justice Department terrorism experts are privately unimpressed by LaRose. Hers was not a particularly threatening plot, they say, and she was not using any of the more challenging counter-surveillance measures that more experienced jihadis, let alone foreign intelligence agents, use.

But there is a mounting concern that homegrown extremists, even amateurs, are increasing in number. Over the past seven to eight months there have been multiple arrests: Michael Finton was arrested in September and charged with trying to blow up a federal building in Springfield, Ill.; Najibullah Zazi was also arrested in September and pled guilty to plotting to bomb the New York City subway system; and the Justice Department in December arrested David Headley for allegedly helping plot the 2008 killing spree by Pakistan-based militants in Mumbai.

Democrats on Capitol Hill, already in retreat on national-security issues, say they fear opponents will use the mounting incidence of domestic terrorism to expand investigative powers, including the lone-wolf provisions, against U.S. citizens. Announcing LaRose's indictment, Janice K. Fedarcyk, special agent in charge of the Philadelphia division of the FBI, said, "We must use all available technologies and techniques to root out potential threats and stop those who intend to harm us." Unfortunately for critics of the Patriot Act, that cadre of extremists looking to harm Americans may include a growing number of U.S. citizens.

Her moniker on the Internet was Jihad Jane. Her real name is Colleen LaRose. And the petite, 46-year-old blonde from the suburbs of Philadelphia represents one of law enforcement's worst nightmares as the potential new face of terrorism.

Prosecutors unsealed an indictment this week that says LaRose converted to Islam and then trolled the Internet to recruit others who might take part in possible terrorist attacks. She allegedly looked for people like herself — women with American or European passports who could, as she put it, "blend in." Officials say LaRose is just the latest in a growing number of Americans who are signing on with terrorists, and it is a worrisome trend.

Anyone who has been tracking terrorism cases over the past year would find these names familiar: Najibullah Zazi, Kamel Derwish, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Sahim Alwan, Nidal Hasan, Yahya Goba, Anwar al-Awlaki, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. But what might not be as well known is that more than half of them are Americans.

"It is the same problem we see in Europe," says Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown University professor and frequent consultant to the government on terrorism. "There really is no longer any one profile of the terrorist. We want to believe that there is, but there isn't. More and more — whether it's local high school students who have reputations of being good students and good boys, or whether it's the next-door neighbor's housewife — what we see is that there is just an incredible diversity of the people being attracted to these movements, and that it's no longer possible to say who a terrorist is or even to say that it's someone so dramatically different from ourselves."

Just consider LaRose's biography. She dropped out of high school. She'd been married several times. Back in Texas, where she had lived before Pennsylvania, she had been arrested for writing bad checks and for drunken driving. Neighbors said she was quiet and kept to herself. In other words, she is precisely the kind of person who could fly under law enforcement's radar.

A petite blonde American woman, before now, didn't fit the terrorist profile. Hoffman says LaRose poses a problem for counterintelligence efforts because agents now must consider any profile.

"The problem is given how diverse these people are, it just raises the challenges for both law enforcement and intelligence to run these threats to ground," he says.

Recruitment Getting 'Easier'

Perhaps the most famous American to have joined the ranks of the enemy is Adam Gadahn, who grew up on a goat farm in Southern California. Gadahn has been a prominent spokesman for al-Qaida for years. He stars in English-language propaganda videos for the group. Reports this week said Pakistani authorities had captured him. As it turns out, that was a mistake; they hadn't.

Gadahn is not the only American who has become the public face of a terrorist group. Last year, al-Shabab, a Somali militia thought to have links to al-Qaida, produced a jihadi recruitment video that featured a young man named Omar Hammami.

The video starts with a jihadi rap song about the glories of battle in Somalia and then cuts to Hammami himself, counseling young militia men. "The only reason we are staying here," he says on the videotape, "away from our family, away from the cities, away from ice and candy bars and other things is because we are waiting to meet with the enemy."

It is no accident that Hamammi speaks English with an American accent. He was born in the U.S. and grew up in Alabama. His father is a Syrian immigrant; his mother is an American.

Law enforcement officials say the video — which has gone viral on the Internet — is aimed at recruiting Americans for al-Shabab. Experts say slick videos like that coupled with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made a terrorist recruiter's job easier, particularly here in the U.S., where traditionally it has been harder.

"It really is this culmination of these eight years of being involved in these two wars that is starting to supercharge the environment among these diaspora communities," says Reid Sawyer, the head of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. "It certainly doesn't mean there is going to be a wave of these individuals coming forward; it just means the numbers are increasing."

The increased numbers don't come as a complete surprise. Intelligence officials have been tracking American recruiters for years now. They say there are special jihadi training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are actually reserved for Westerners. Increasing calls for recruits on the Internet aren't just made in Arabic; they are in English or with English subtitles. So there is no mistaking the intended audience.

This time last year, Bryant Neal Vinas, a young Hispanic man, stood before a judge in a Brooklyn courtroom and pleaded guilty to terrorism charges. He said he had spent 14 months in Pakistan training with al-Qaida before he was arrested and then extradited to the U.S. He told officials he had been permitted into al-Qaida's inner circle. The group had big plans for him because he had an American passport and a clean record and is Hispanic. He made clear that what al-Qaida is looking for is people like him — or like Jihad Jane — people who don't fit the stereotypical profile of a terrorist.

Pakistani intelligence agents have arrested Adam Gadahn, the American-born spokesman for al-Qaeda, in an operation in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday.

The arrest of Gadahn is a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al-Qaeda and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi.

Gadahn was arrested in the sprawling southern metropolis in recent days, two officers who took part in the operation said. A senior government official also confirmed the arrest.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Gadahn, who is also known by various aliases, including Yahya Majadin Adams and Azzam al-Amriki, grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, and converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County.

Gadahn moved to Pakistan in 1998, according to the FBI, and is said to have attended an al-Qaeda training camp six years later, serving as a translator and consultant for the group. He has been wanted by the FBI since 2004, and there is a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction.

He has posted videos and messages calling for the destruction of the West and for strikes against targets in the United States. The most recent was posted Sunday, praising the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas.

A U.S. court charged Gadahn with treason in 2006, making him the first American to face such a charge in more than 50 years. He could face the death penalty if convicted. He was also charged with two counts of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

In the 25-minute video posted on militant websites Sunday, Gadahn described Maj. Nidal Hasan as a pioneer who should be a role model for other Muslims, especially those serving Western militaries.

"Brother Nidal is the ideal role-model for every repentant Muslim in the armies of the unbelievers and apostate regimes," he said.

Gadahn was dressed in white robes and wearing a white turban as he called for attacks on what he described as high-value targets.

"You shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage," he said, an assault rifle leaning up against a wall next to him.

Hasan has been charged in the Nov. 5 shooting that killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. The 39-year-old Army psychiatrist remains paralyzed from the chest down after being shot by two civilian members of Fort Hood's police force.

In the latest video, Gadahn said those planning attacks did not need to use only firearms. "As the blessed operations of September 11th showed, a little imagination and planning and a limited budget can turn almost anything into a deadly, effective and convenient weapon."

This combination image shows 11 of 26 suspects wanted by Dubai police in connection with the killing of a Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in his Dubai hotel room last month. (From left to right, top row): Evan Dennings of Irish nationality, Gail Folliard of Irish nationality, James Leonard Clarke of British nationality, Jonathan Louis Graham of British nationality; (from left to right, middle row) Michael Bodenheimer of German nationality, Paul John Keeley of British nationality, Michael Lawrence Barney of British nationality; (from left to right, bottom row) Peter Elvinger of French nationality, Kevin Daveron of Irish nationality, Melvyn Adam Mildiner of British nationality, Stephen Daniel Hodes of British nationality.

The murder of a Hamas operative in Dubai last month has had serious diplomatic repercussions for Israel. Dubai's police chief says 26 people, carrying forged European and Australian passports, were involved in the plot, and he says he is "99 percent" certain Israel's intelligence service, the Mossad, was responsible for the killing.

Israel's government has maintained an official silence on the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Some Israeli analysts are calling it a botched operation because the assassins left behind too many clues.

But many ordinary Israelis say they are proud of the assassins for eliminating an enemy believed responsible for the killing of two Israeli soldiers in 1989.

The identities of a number of binational Israelis have been linked to the assassination, apparently because the forged passports used by suspects in the case carried the names of innocent people.

Israeli Daniel Bruce was caught unaware when Israel's Channel 2 News informed him by phone that he had been named as a suspected assassin of Mabhouh after Dubai police found a fake Australian passport.

Bruce's first response was to laugh.

"Great for me, I guess," he said. Then, the presenter asked if he was scared.

"Actually, no. I guess I should have been scared, but they've managed to take out another terrorist, so it's better," he said.

Israeli officials have refused to confirm or deny involvement in Mabhouh's death. But across the Jewish state, news of the assassination has been met with a wink, a nod and newfound pride in the Mossad.

Uri Ochayon, a bakery owner in Jerusalem, has been greeting his customers with jokes over the Mabhouh assassination.

"Listen, we're fulfilling the fantasies of many countries all over the world who want to do this but don't have the means. We have the means. It's a great thing, so we'll laugh at this and just move on," Ochayon says.

He shrugs off international anger over the killing and the growing number of accusatory fingers pointed at Israel.

On Wednesday, Dubai police released additional information about suspects involved in Mabhouh's death. Ten of the 26 suspected assassins share names with Israelis — a coincidence Dubai police say is simply too great to be ignored.

Israel is a small country where everyone knows everyone, Ochayon says, so the operation could have been carried out by your neighbor, friend or customer.

Or Kashti, the education correspondent for Israel's left-wing daily Haaretz, proudly wrote about being mistaken for one of the Dubai assassins. Kashti said he even received phone calls from friends asking why he hadn't bought them cigarettes from the duty-free shops in Dubai.

In a small health food store in Jerusalem, a number of customers have mistaken 37-year-old Guy Chen for one of the alleged assassins, to which he bears an uncanny resemblance.

He's not one of them, he says, but he's still proud of the work they did.

"Every terrorist that is eliminated, we are happy about, we give our blessings. Who took him out? We don't know. But of course we have an interest in this man no longer being alive," Chen says.

While some Israelis have criticized the Mossad for its alleged involvement in the killing, most have taken issue only with the supposed trail of evidence the assassins left in their wake.

Dubai's advanced surveillance cameras caught what officials say were the killers in various parts of the city, and airport immigration officials matched names and passport numbers to the images.

Britain, Ireland, Germany, France and Australia are investigating claims that the killers used false passports from their countries to enter Dubai. And at least some of the Israelis whose names appear on the suspect list are not happy about it.

Speaking on Israeli TV Wednesday night, Adam Korman said he could not have been more surprised to see his name on the list of alleged assassins.

"They took our passport numbers without asking. It's a shock. We have no idea what kind of problems this will create," he said.

Still, most Israelis found time to joke as they pored over the photos of the 26 suspects, 14 of whom wore glasses with thick frames.

According to Israeli radio, that style is now being requested across the country. They're calling it "the assassin look."

The Colombian military's daring operation aimed to rescue three American contractors who were being held by the fearsome guerrillas of FARC

On Feb. 13, 2003, a plane carrying three U.S. military contractors crash-landed in rebel territory in southern Colombia. The survivors — Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes — were taken hostage by fierce Marxist guerrillas the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, better known by the Spanish acronym FARC. The initial rescue operation fell apart. Instead of finding the contractors, two companies of Colombian soldiers stumbled upon a buried rebel cache of $20 million, then deserted and splurged their newfound fortune on booze, sex and flat-screen televisions. The forgotten hostages spent the next five years in captivity. But with the help of billions of dollars in U.S. aid, the Colombian Army improved to the point that, on July 2, 2008, commandos were able to launch a daring, Mission: Impossible-style sting operation in a bid to save the hostages. That operation is detailed in a new book by veteran Latin America journalist John Otis, Law of the Jungle: The Hunt for Colombian Guerrillas, American Hostages and Buried Treasure. An excerpt follows:

The FARC had taken the bait. Through an ingenious electronic hoax, Colombian Army agents, mimicking rebel radio operators, had convinced the guerrillas to allow "international aid workers" to check the health of the 15 hostages then transfer them to another FARC camp on helicopters. But to pull it off, the army would have to put together a convincing mise-en-scène.

In a Defense Ministry war room, intelligence officers drew up the cast of characters. For foreign flavor, the fake mission chief was given an Italian accent and the exotic name of Russi. His phony deputy would be an Arabic speaker from the Middle East while a third team member, who had lived in Australia, would pretend to hail from Brisbane. Other impersonators included a doctor, three nurses and a reporting team from Venezuela's left-wing Telesur station.

The agent playing Russi wanted professionals to help the agents overcome stage fright and fully embody their roles. He convinced his bosses to pay for acting classes. The players would have to keep cool, improvise and play their parts with Shakespearian heft if there happened to be a radical turn of events on the ground.

They showed up at one of Bogotá's top theater academies and presented themselves as teachers who would be putting on a play at their high school. For $2,000, the instructor gave them a crash course in Method acting. The amateur players passed their first test. Though he wondered about his students' high-tech radios, the theater professor never caught on that he was teaching a pack of army agents.  

General Mario Montoya, the Colombian Army commander, wasn't satisfied. Many of the agents looked like they were fresh out of spy school. Montoya wanted more potbellies and wrinkles. Several members of the team let their beards grow and had gray streaks added to their hair. They replaced their underwear, which was stamped with the logo of the army, sent their costumes through washing machines for a lived-in look, and filled their wallets with fake driver's licenses and foreign currency.

Phony business cards said they worked for the International Humanitarian Mission. The army mounted a Web site and set up a front office in Bogota with operators standing by just in case any FARC collaborators called to verify the authenticity of the group.

The day before the mission, Montoya pulled the team together for a pep talk. "Go forward in peace," the general said, "because God is on the side of the good guys."

Killing time at a rustic farm house the night before the operation, the army agents were suddenly attacked by mosquitoes. The guerrillas believed the helicopters were flying directly from Bogota to the pickup point. If the agents showed up with their faces pocked with insect bites, their entire story might unravel. So they spent a sleepless night chain-smoking cigarettes and shooing away the bugs.

Shortly after 1 p.m. the next day, the hostages heard the roar of the two Russian helicopters. One stayed in the air. The other landed next to a field of coca bushes. Guerrillas in crisp camouflage uniforms stood at attention while two rebels pointed M60 machine guns at the aircraft.

The first off the helicopter was the fake Arab. He smiled at the guerrillas and wandered around as if awestruck by the natural beauty of the landscape. Next came the agents impersonating the Venezuelan news team, then Russi. In the cockpit, the pilots kept the rotor blades turning. The commotion would create a sense of urgency, making it less likely that the guerrillas would closely examine the delegates' credentials. The running engines would also allow for a faster getaway. The pilots could follow the action through a microphone hidden inside the TV camera, and if the rebels discovered the deception, Russi would tip off the pilots so they could at least save themselves. 

Russi approached FARC commander Cesar and his cruel deputy, known as Enrique Gafas. Cesar smiled and extended his hand. The fake news team shot video of the rebels and pestered Cesar for an interview. The TV crew's role was to distract the guerrillas and prevent them from concentrating on the events playing out before them.

The hostages looked on in disgust. The agents were joking with the rebels and two of them wore Che Guevara T-shirts. They seemed like FARC-loving lefties.

The final indignity came when the strange visitors insisted on securing the wrists of the hostages with plastic tie-wraps. It was a calculated effort to convince Cesar and Gafas that they wouldn't be attacked by the hostages once on board the helicopter. But the outraged hostages refused to cooperate. The army agents were taken aback. In their rush to placate the guerrillas, the agents had provoked a full-blown mutiny among the very people they were trying to save.

Russi began scolding the hostages. If they didn't want to cooperate, they could stay on the ground for all he cared. The problem was that most of the prisoners seemed prepared to do just that. As the argument grew louder, the fake Australian delegate noticed Keith, Marc, and Tom off to one side. Maybe the gringos would listen to reason. He pleaded with the Americans to collaborate.

"Do you want to go home?" he said. "Do you want to see your family? Please, please trust me. I'm going to get you home."

"I can only see good with a helicopter," Tom said later. "We hadn't been in a helicopter in five and a half years. We'd been in the bottom of boats, on mules, on foot. It all looked good to me."

The logjam was broken. Following the Americans' lead the rest of the hostages agreed to be handcuffed then boarded the helicopter. Cesar and Gafas were directed to sit between the disguised army agents. Then, with the doorway ladder still hanging down, the MI-17 lifted into the air. The army agents had been on the ground for exactly 22 minutes.

Now, it was time for Act Three.

On cue, one of the fake nurses in the aisle pretended to be knocked off balance. She landed in Cesar's lap. "Like a gentleman," she said, "he caught me and then said, 'You can ride with me.'" The phony medic then leaned into the guerrilla, asking him if he had ever flown on a helicopter. With Cesar deep in conversation, the nurse extracted herself from his lap. Then, another agent, a former boxer, moved in for the knockout. He punched the guerrilla in the throat and bashed his head against the wall of the helicopter three times. At the other end of the aircraft, the fake Arab and the cameraman wrestled Gafas to the floor.

At first, the hostages were baffled. But when they saw Cesar and Gafas incapacitated, Keith, who had worked his hands free from his tie-wraps, couldn't resist. He and several other hostages pounced on Cesar, and Keith slugged him in the eye.

The helicopter was heading for home. Fifteen lives had been saved. With their mission accomplished, Russi turned to the now former hostages, smiled, and in nine curt words announced their deliverance.

"We are the Colombian Army, and you are free!"