It’s rumored their falling out began when both men fell for the same goat, all’s fair in love and war . (Daily Mail) — Osama Bin Laden’s deputy led U.S. troops to the Al Qaeda leader’s hideout so he could take over the terrorist group, it was claimed today. Egyptian Ayman Al Zawahiri, who has been touted widely as the man who will succeed Bin Laden as the head of Al Qaeda, turned his back on his terrorist leader following a prolonged power struggle, according to a Saudi newspaper. The plot to get rid of Bin Laden began when Zawahiri’s faction persuaded bin Laden to leave the protection of the tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Instead, they convinced him to set up home in Abbottabad, where he was finally killed by U.S. Navy SEALS earlier this week, a regional source told the Al-Watan newspaper. Zawahiri’s Egyptian ally Saif Al Adel is said to have moved to Pakistan last autumn as Al Qaeda’s ‘chief of staff’ after a period of house arrest in Iran. With his return, Al Qaeda’s Egyptian faction then hatched a plan to dispose of Saudi-born Bin Laden after irresolvable divisions developed between the terrorist group’s top two men. ‘The Egyptian faction of Al Qaeda is defacto running the organisation now and since he was taken ill in 2004 they have been trying to take full control,’ the paper wrote on Thursday. The courier who led U.S. forces to Bin Laden was a Pakistani national working for Zawahiri, according to the source. The man is said to have known he was being followed by American troops and to have intentionally led them to their target.
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Report: Ayman al-Zawahiri Helped Lead U.S. Forces to Bin Laden…
A sheriff in Arizona says he has information that Border Patrol officials have repeatedly been told to reduce — sometimes stop — their arrests of illegal aliens at the U.S./Mexico border. According to Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever, Border Patrol officials have told him that the government is pressuring them to “scare people” instead of arrest them. “The senior supervisor agent is telling me about how their mission is now to scare people back,” Dever said in an interview with FoxNews.com . “He said, ‘I had to go back to my guys and tell them not to catch anybody, that their job is to chase people away. … They were not to catch anyone, arrest anyone. Their job was to set up posture, to intimidate people, to get them to go back.” Foxnews.com has more details: Dever said his recent conversation with the Border Patrol supervisor was the latest in a series of communications on the subject that he has had with various federal agents over the last two years. Dever said he plans to relay the substance of these conversations when he testifies under oath next month before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. But an official with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehemently denied Dever’s accusations. “The claim that Border Patrol supervisors have been instructed to underreport or manipulate our statistics is unequivocally false,” Jeffery Self, commander of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Joint Field Command in Arizona, said in a written statement to Foxnews.com. “I took an oath that I take very seriously, and I find it insulting that anyone, especially a fellow law enforcement officer, would imply that we would put the protection of the American public and security of our nation’s borders in danger just for a numbers game,” he said. “Our mission does not waiver based on political climate, and it never will. To suggest that we are ambiguous in enforcing our laws belittles the work of more than 6,000 CBP employees in Arizona who dedicate their lives to protect our borders every day.” Dever is set to testify next month in front of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and said he will tell his story under oath. “I will raise my hand to tell the truth and swear to God, and nothing is more serious or important than that,” he said. “I’m going to tell them that, here’s what I hear and see every day: I had conversation with agent A, B, C, D and this is what they told me.” Read the full story at Foxnews.com. Continue reading here: AZ Sheriff Claims Feds Demanding Border Agents Reduce Illegal Alien Arrests
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AZ Sheriff Claims Feds Demanding Border Agents Reduce Illegal Alien Arrests
Now what? After playing Hamlet for a period of some weeks, a supremely disengaged President Obama has been nagged into action on Libya. Over the weekend, US and allied forces hit Libya with a barrage of cruise missiles which was followed up by airstrikes directed not only at infrastructure supporting the Libyan air force but also against the Libyan army What has been more notable than what has happened is what hasn’t happened. We still have no idea of the goals or objectives of this exercise. Are we trying to topple the odious Muammar Qaddafi? Are we trying to establish a “free state of Benghazi” where his opponents, the self described mujahideen , can rule? Are we trying to moderate his use of force as he exercises the legitimate right of any sovereign to put down an armed insurrection? Are we leading this coalition? Or is Nicholas Sarkozy? Who decides when enough is enough? When, if ever, is the administration going to ask for Congressional approval to carry out this operation? Not only do we, the American people, not know these answers it is more than a little unclear that the administration itself knows the answers or is even of one mind on the few answers it does have. We are muddling our way into a conflict which doesn’t rise to the level of caprice and which, contrary to Obama’s pious clucking, will ultimately involve either American or European ground troops. Indeed, it is hard to see how we accomplish anything at all – either overthrowing Qaddafi and handing Libya over to the mujahideen or the protection of a mujahideen enclave — without the insertion of a substantial number of ground forces. So we are stuck into this mess and now the question becomes how to accomplish something worthwhile rather than turning what little American prestige that remains after two years of this abominable administration into a flaming holocaust on the altar of internationalism and feel-goodism. Unless the administration produces some answers in very short order it is hard to see how this exercise becomes anything other than an encouraging example to our enemies of the weakness and fecklessness of this administration.
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Okay. We’re Bombing Libya.
Obama’s TSA Stormtroopers rack up another victim… (kvue.com) — Early Wednesday morning, a computer glitch shut down a security checkpoint for a couple of hours at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The line snaked out the door as many travelers waited for more than an hour and some missed their flights. One of the first people in line after that shutdown never made it through. She was arrested and banned from the airport. Claire Hirschkind, 56, who says she is a rape victim and who has a pacemaker-type device implanted in her chest, says her constitutional rights were violated. She says she never broke any laws. But the Transportation Security Administration disagrees. Hirschkind was hoping to spend Christmas with friends in California, but she never made it past the security checkpoint. “I can’t go through because I have the equivalent of a pacemaker in me,” she said. Hirschkind said because of the device in her body, she was led to a female TSA employee and three Austin police officers. She says she was told she was going to be patted down. “I turned to the police officer and said, ‘ I have given no due cause to give up my constitutional rights . You can wand me,’” and they said, ‘No, you have to do this,’” she said. Hirschkind agreed to the pat down, but on one condition. “I told them, ‘No, I’m not going to have my breasts felt,’ and she said, ‘Yes, you are,’” said Hirschkind. When Hirschkind refused, she says that “the police actually pushed me to the floor, (and) handcuffed me. I was crying by then. They drug me 25 yards across the floor in front of the whole security.” An ABIA spokesman says it is TSA policy that anyone activating a security alarm has two options. One is to opt out and not fly, and the other option is to subject themselves to an enhanced pat down. Hirschkind refused both and was arrested. Other travelers KVUE talked to say they empathize with Hirschkind, but the law is the law. “I understand her side of it, and their side as well, but it is for our protection so I have no problems with it,” said Gwen Washington, who lives in Killeen.
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Rape Victim Arrested at Airport After Refusing TSA Pat Down…
Filed under: Economy , Obama Administration , White House , Analysis , Barack Obama The nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau had been shaping up to be a battle. Obama avoided it by pulling off the political version of the alley-oop.
