Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

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Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Coito ergo sum » Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:14 pm

Bin Laden had 'no clue' about Sept. 11 retaliation
April 27, 2010 - 5:31am

Former head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group Noman Benotman says he warned Osama bin Laden about how the U.S. would respond to the Sept. 11 attacks. (AP)

WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden had no idea the U.S. would hit al-Qaida as hard as it has since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, a former bin Laden associate tells WTOP in an exclusive interview.

"I'm 100 percent sure they had no clue about what was going to happen," says Noman Benotman, who was head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group in the summer of 2000.

"What happened after the 11th of September was beyond their imagination, " says Benotman, who adds that al-Qaida thought the U.S. was a "paper tiger."

Sitting on the floor at bin Laden's compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan during a meeting the summer before the attacks, Benotman shocked bin Laden and more than 200 other international jihadist leaders by telling the al-Qaida leader his jihadi strategy was "a total failure."

Benotman, a highly regarded associate of bin Laden's at the time, says he surprised him again by rebuffing a plea for help.

"He asked for my help. Bin Laden asked me personally, you know. I responded immediately on the spot ...'No. I'm not going to help you.'"

Bin Laden was stunned.

"Because he used to like to sit next to me, you know. My right hand side," Benotman says.

The seating location meant he was someone bin Laden respected.

Benotman says he spoke frankly because his reputation allowed him to.

"I've spent time in the front line engaging with the enemy more than bin Laden and [Ayman Al-]Zawahiri and the entire group of al-Qaida."

Zawahiri laughed when he warned those at the 2000 meeting that the U.S. response would be swift, hard and long, Benotman says.

Benotman attributes al-Qaida's overconfident attitude to the United States' response to al-Qaida attacks on its in embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998.

Zawahiri, according to Benotman, expected only a missile attack.

"When they attacked the embassies in East Africa, they estimated the U.S. launched 75 cruise missiles and eight people got killed. So they said this time, maybe they will launch 200 and they laughed about this."

Benotman's assessment is backed up by a former Central Intelligence Agency officer, who was active in the fight against al-Qaida.

The officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, says "several captured terrorists have said publicly that al-Qaida never expected the towers to fall. Their goal was to frighten people and impact the U.S. economy, so they really didn't plan for the massive response the U.S. launched."

Bin Laden got more than one warning, says Benotman.

"I told him several times before the Sept. 11th attacks that if you do this, the U.S. is going to retaliate in a very harsh way. At least twice I reminded him about the serious orders he was given by Mullah Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban to stop fighting the U.S., and he disobeyed the order."

Now living in London and openly campaigning against organizations like al-Qaida, Benotman - according to some - is simply trying to avoid going to jail in his native Libya.

"I would like to believe that bin Laden was shocked and dismayed by what we did after 9/11, but I come hard up against an awful lot of evidence that that's exactly what he wanted," says Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit.

Scheuer questions whether Benotman is speaking out freely.

"Clearly, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi is holding a hammer over his head," Scheuer says, noting some of Benotman's ex-LIFG colleagues are in prison and Benotman still has relatives in Libya.

Benotman, who still believes in the commitment Jihad requires, laughs at the notion he's afraid of being arrested.

"I'm not afraid of the Americans or any other country. My speaking out is a conscious decision and it's based on my entire experience and understanding of jihadism."

Not only does Benotman reject al-Qaida's ideology, but he says "killing civilians is a crime. I don't care if it's Jews, Christians, Muslims or anyone. It's a crime and we shouldn't help them (al Qaida)."
http://www.wtop.com/?sid=1943289&nid=778

Or, was the US response what Obama not only expected, but wanted?

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by CJ » Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:18 pm

:pop:

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by kiki5711 » Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:29 pm

well that was a nice piece of made up bullshit .

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Coito ergo sum » Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:49 pm

kiki5711 wrote:well that was a nice piece of made up bullshit .
What's made up? The guy is lying that bin Laden underestimated the US response?

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:53 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
kiki5711 wrote:well that was a nice piece of made up bullshit .
What's made up? The guy is lying that bin Laden underestimated the US response?
C.E.S., the default position is doubt.
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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by kiki5711 » Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:58 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
kiki5711 wrote:well that was a nice piece of made up bullshit .
What's made up? The guy is lying that bin Laden underestimated the US response?
This thing whatever it is (an interview?) sounds so childish it just can't be real. "See, I told you so" that's the first thing that came to my mind. :roll: :roll: :roll:

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Ian » Tue Apr 27, 2010 2:55 pm

Bin Laden was apparently surprised that the towers actually collapsed. I've heard that Al Qaeda didn't expect the sheer level of destruction in New York, although I'm sure they were pleased with it.

As for the article, yeah I think it sounds dubious. Maybe bin Laden underestimated the US, considering the relatively weak responses from his earlier attacks (ineffective Tomahawk strikes after the embassy bombings in 1998, pretty much nothing done after the USS Cole was hit in 2000), but even if the towers hadn't collapsed I think he had to assume beforehand that 9/11 was going to be a game-changer.

Iraq is an entirely different matter, and I doubt it factored into bin Laden's thinking prior to 9/11. To paraphrase an American politician, "In the long run, that war is the best thing that could've happened to Al Qaeda. Bin Laden was probably dancing a jig the day we invaded Iraq!"

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Coito ergo sum » Tue Apr 27, 2010 4:02 pm

Gawdzilla wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
kiki5711 wrote:well that was a nice piece of made up bullshit .
What's made up? The guy is lying that bin Laden underestimated the US response?
C.E.S., the default position is doubt.
That rule is not uniformly applied here.

Moreover, there was no explanation provided as to why the affirmative statement was made that the piece was "made up bullshit." I was curious what about it was doubted (i.e. declared to be bullshit). It's a fair question.

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Coito ergo sum » Tue Apr 27, 2010 4:02 pm

kiki5711 wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
kiki5711 wrote:well that was a nice piece of made up bullshit .
What's made up? The guy is lying that bin Laden underestimated the US response?
This thing whatever it is (an interview?) sounds so childish it just can't be real. "See, I told you so" that's the first thing that came to my mind. :roll: :roll: :roll:
I don't get it. Who is he telling "see I told you so?" Bin Laden?

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Tue Apr 27, 2010 4:08 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
Gawdzilla wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
kiki5711 wrote:well that was a nice piece of made up bullshit .
What's made up? The guy is lying that bin Laden underestimated the US response?
C.E.S., the default position is doubt.
That rule is not uniformly applied here.
That's what happens when you have humans in the loop.
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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Coito ergo sum » Tue Apr 27, 2010 4:14 pm

Well, apparently, he did think the US was a paper tiger, when he said, "As I said, our boys were shocked by the low morale of the American soldier and they realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger. He was unable to endure the strikes that were dealt to his army, so he fled, and America had to stop all its bragging and all that noise it was making in the press after the Gulf War....After a few blows, it forgot all about those titles and rushed out of Somalia in shame and disgrace, dragging the bodies of its soldiers. America stopped calling itself world leader and master of the new world order, and its politicians realized that those titles were too big for them and that they were unworthy of them. I was in Sudan when this happened. I was very happy to learn of that great defeat that America suffered, so was every Muslim."

And, after the Afghan invasion, at Tora Bora:
American signals operators picked up bin Laden speaking to his followers. Fury kept a careful log of these communications in his notebook, which he would type up at the end of every day and pass up his chain of command. “The time is now,” bin Laden said. “Arm your women and children against the infidel!” Following several hours of high-intensity bombing, the Al Qaeda leader spoke again. Fury paraphrases: “Our prayers have not been answered. Times are dire. We didn’t receive support from the apostate nations who call themselves our Muslim brothers.” Bin Laden apologized to his men for having involved them in the fight and gave them permission to surrender.

Khalid Al Hubayshi, one of the Saudis holed up in Tora Bora, says that bin Laden’s aides instructed the hundreds of mostly Arab fighters who remained alive in the mountainous complex to head to Pakistan and turn themselves in to their embassies. Al Hubayshi is still angry about the behavior of the Al Qaeda leader: “We had been ready to lay down our lives for him, and he couldn’t make the effort to speak to us personally,” he told journalist Robert Lacey.
http://www.tnr.com/article/the-battle-t ... a?page=0,4

I am not sure if the assertion that bin Laden was surprised by the US response or not. I think he might have been. I think he may have thought that (a) the Russian proximity to Afghanistan would not allow the US to get in there in force, (b) that the US did not have the technology to make the global bombing runs that it did, taking off in Wyoming, bombing and then returning, and (c) that he thought that the spark of 9/11 might cause additional anti-American allies to come to his aid.

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Coito ergo sum » Tue Apr 27, 2010 4:15 pm

Gawdzilla wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
Gawdzilla wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
kiki5711 wrote:well that was a nice piece of made up bullshit .
What's made up? The guy is lying that bin Laden underestimated the US response?
C.E.S., the default position is doubt.
That rule is not uniformly applied here.
That's what happens when you have humans in the loop.
Yes, but the post to which I responded was not merely an expression of doubt, but an assertion of fabrication. It also was devoid of explanation, so it was unclear what was being challenged, and why there was such an emotional response to what does not appear to be a particularly politically polarizing question.

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Martok » Tue Apr 27, 2010 4:30 pm

Bin Laden definitely underestimated US response. He did expect just another cruise missile attack. I've read the Taliban were uneasy about Bin Laden's plans to attack the US directly.

Its the only time Bin Laden underestimated Bush. :hehe:

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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by maiforpeace » Tue Apr 27, 2010 4:38 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
Or, was the US response what Obama not only expected, but wanted?
Obama, or Osama? 8-)
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Re: Was bin Laden surprised by the US response to 9/11/01?

Post by Gawdzilla Sama » Tue Apr 27, 2010 4:38 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:Yes, but the post to which I responded was not merely an expression of doubt, but an assertion of fabrication. It also was devoid of explanation, so it was unclear what was being challenged, and why there was such an emotional response to what does not appear to be a particularly politically polarizing question.
Well, your post could very well be considered an assertion that the information is, in fact, true. Without some critical thinking behind it, the item is no more than copy pasta.
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