American Jihadi Samir Khan Killed With Awlaki

By MARK SCHONE and MATTHEW COLE

A young American who edited al Qaeda's English-language magazine, and had urged Muslims to mount deadly attacks on U.S. targets, was killed in the same CIA drone strike that eliminated Anwar Awlaki in Yemen Friday, U.S. officials said.

Khan, 25, was the Saudi-born, New York-raised editor behind "Inspire" magazine, the English language online publication of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. Khan had become a rising figure in jihadist propaganda and an "aspiring" Awlaki, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

But while Awlaki relied on sermons to recruit jihadis, Khan used sarcasm and idiomatic English in an attempt to appeal to Western youth. As Khan himself has said, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I [am] Al Qaeda to the core." He titled a rebuke of toppled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak "A Cold Diss." Khan's ability to use American vernacular, like a graphic depicting graffiti that reads, "Jihad 4 Eva," had prompted concerns that young Muslims with an interest in jihad and al Qaeda would be drawn to a voice similar to their own.

"He does appear to be increasingly involved with operational activities [of Al Qaeda]", a U.S. official told ABC News in 2010.

British officials found copies of "Inspire" in the apartments of several suspects arrested and charged in connection to a bomb plot in the U.K. Officials said the suspects were avid followers of both the magazine and Awlaki.

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-American college student charged with plotting an attack on a Christmas lighting event in Portland, Oregon, last year, was in contact with Khan, and wrote articles for him, authorities say.

Mohamud, who was arrested in an FBI sting, is accused of attempting to detonate what he believed to be a car bomb in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square via cellphone during the annual lighting of the Christmas tree, which had drawn a crowd of thousands. The FBI affidavit alleges that Mohamud told FBI agents that he had written four articles since 2009 for two different on-line jihadist magazines edited and distributed by Samir Khan.

Khan had edited seven separate issues of "Inspire" since launching the publication in 2010, penning such articles as "How To Build A Bomb In the Kitchen of Your Mom." Inspire carried sermons by Awlaki and other jihadi figures, boasted about the failed "printer bomb" cargo plane plot, and paid tribute to Osama bin Laden before and after his death. It outlined various techniques for jihadis to attack Americans with U.S. borders, including using pick-up trucks to mow down pedestrians, how to blow up buildings with natural gas, and how to use an AK-47 automatic rifle. The magazines grew in graphic sophistication with each issue, and Khan seemed to write, edit or design the majority of the content.

In the latest issue, which expressed frustration with Iran for spreading conspiracy theories about 9/11 instead of giving credit to al Qaeda, the editor-in-chief called himself "Yahya Ibrahim," but U.S. officials suspect that's just a pseudonym for Khan.

Khan was killed Friday morning by a CIA drone strike along with Awlaki and two other individuals in Yemen. The missiles hit a vehicle in which they were riding.

"I always felt like I was going to get this call," said Jibril Hough, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Charlotte, North Carolina, who said he had tried to steer Khan away from extremism.

"I set up two interventions in my home," Hough told ABC affiliate WSOC in Charlotte, "and we tried to take him by the hand [and say], 'Look you're going down the wrong path.'" Hough said Khan's parents had distanced themselves from their son's radical views.

Samir Khan Born In Saudi Arabia, Raised in New York

Khan was born in Saudi Arabia and raised from the age of seven in Queens, New York. He was a normal city teenager who listened to hip hop and wore baggy clothing.

Even before his family relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina in 2004, however, Khan had begun to take an interest in Islam. He ditched his baggy pants for jalabiyas, the long white robes traditionally favored by Saudis. He joined two Islamic groups, but neither espoused violence.

But with the move south, Khan took a turn towards radicalism. In 2004, after watching online videos of suicide bombers blowing themselves up at American military checkpoints in Iraq, Khan began to openly support Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and to express that support on-line.

In 2007, shortly after Osama bin Laden released a communiqué, the New York Times reported that Khan, who had launched a blog called "A Martyr, God Willing" in Arabic, praised the al Qaeda leader, and beseeching Americans to "take his message with great seriousness."

In one of his only interviews, Khan told the New York Times that his favorite online video showed a suicide bomber striking a US base in Iraq.

"It was something that brought great happiness to me," Khan said.

Khan spent years in his parents' Charlotte basement blogging, posting al Qaeda messages, and becoming increasingly radicalized by the war in Iraq. His blog's popularity rose as his rhetoric became more extreme.

In 2009, he started a precursor to Inspire called Jihad Recollections, saying, "We have decided to take it upon ourselves to produce the first jihadi magazine in English." In the third issue, amidst calls for jihad and attacks against non-Muslims, Khan devoted space to a gushing review of a product dear to the hearts of American jihadis and infidels alike, Apple's iPhone 3. According to Khan, iPhone was "quickly becoming a standard as opposed to just another phone. With over 35,000 applications available, it becomes a joke when we hear about the so-called 'iPhone killers'."

Samir Khan Moves to Yemen

According to Oren Segal, a researcher at the Anti-Defamation League who has followed Khan's online rhetoric since 2004, Khan left the U.S. for Yemen in October 2009, which is around the time the fourth and final issue of Jihad Recollections appeared. In Yemen, he launched "Inspire," and after his arrival in Yemen, say U.S. authorities, his on-line efforts had been in conjunction with AQAP.

Inspire's second edition, which was published before the October 2010 printer bomb attempt and included Khan's claim to be "Al Qaeda to the core," featured a photo of the Chicago skyline, which U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials think was a tip-off of the terror group's intention to address the bombs to Jewish targets in Chicago.

"He's a model of what Americans can do in the propaganda sphere," said Segal.

"He's what's next. His message resonates and appeals to Western audiences."

Parents Of Soldier Say They Warned Army About Thrill Kill Sergeant

By MATTHEW COLE, BRIAN ROSS and ANGELA M. HILL

The allegations are reminiscent of the military's darkest days in Vietnam.

Again, young GI's caught up in a difficult war are accused of widespread drug use and the random killing of innocent civilians, apparently for sport or thrills.

But the parents of one of the five soldiers charged with the premeditated murder of unarmed Afghans say that before one of the murders they tried to warn the Army and a U.S. Senator – and no one helped.

Now their son, 20-year-old specialist Adam Winfield, is charged with taking part in a killing three months after the Winfield family tried to blow the whistle.

The soldiers were serving at Forward Operating Base Ramrod in southern Afghanistan. On a videotaped confession obtained by ABC News, one of the soldiers, Corporal Jeremy Morlock, described how his Sergeant, Calvin Gibbs, had the men in his unit pick out civilians at random and then kill them with grenades and rifle fire.

"Gibbs called it like, 'Hey you guys wanna, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?' And you know, he set it up, like, he grabbed the dude."

Morlock told how Gibbs allegedly threw a grenade at the civilian, and then told Morlock and the others, 'Wax this guy. You know, kill this guy, kill this guy.' "

Morlock said that killing people came "too easy" to Gibbs. ""He just really doesn't have any problems with fucking killing these, these people, to be honest."

Morlock also told investigators he believed that Gibbs was crazy and wouldn't hesitate to silence witnesses.

"If Gibbs knew that I was sitting in front of this camera right now," said Morlock, "there's no doubt in my mind that he'd fucking take me out if he had to."

'The Threats Are Already Coming My Way'

In February, Adam Winfield told his parents back home in Florida about the grenade incident via Facebook.

"Did you not understand what I just told you what people did in my platoon?" wrote Adam.

"Murder," responded his mother, Emma.

"Yeah, an innocent dude," answered Adam. "I want to do something about it. The only problem is I don't feel safe here telling anyone."

Adam said that there was a rumor that he was going to talk and "the threats are already coming my way." His mother then told him she would "do the right thing" and get him some help. Adam suggested she contact the Army, and she said "ok."

As Chris Winfield, Adam's father, told ABC News in an interview, "The guy that was doing this was his superior. This was his staff sergeant."

"[Adam] said that if he told anybody over there," said Chris Winfield, " that this particular individual was keeping an eye on him. And he would never make it past that night. He would never make it home.

The Winfields say they called six different Army offices and Senator Bill Nelson, D.-Fla., to get help.

Chris Winfield said he left at least four messages. "I said my son is in Afghanistan. . . . He's in the front lines. There's a rogue sergeant out there apparently killing innocent victims. And my son found out about this. And they're threatening him because he might say something. And I said you gotta get him out of there. You need to call me back, please."

At the command center at Fort Lewis, Washington, the headquarters for his son's division, Winfield says he finally got a sergeant on the line, with a disappointing response.

Recalls Winfield, "The sergeant came back to me and said, 'You know, it's a terrible situation, but from our end, it's a he-said, she said conversation. And there's nothing we can do about it.

"I was floored," said Winfield.

Sen. Nelson's office told ABC News they had no record of a call from the Winfields.

Gibbs Becomes Suspicious of Winfield

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Gibbs was becoming suspicious of Winfield, according to other soldiers.

An Army investigator asked Cpl. Morlock during his taped confession if he thought Gibbs was serious about maybe having to "take out" Winfield.

"Oh, fuck yeah, for sure, definitely," answered Morlock.

"So you didn't take that as a joke," said the investigator, "or like maybe it was just bullshit."

"[Gibbs] doesn't bullshit," said Morlock. "He doesn't need to."

Chris Winfield told ABC News he gave his son a message from the Army. " I told him, this is what they told us to do, you know, duck. Keep your head down. Stay away from this guy. Do the best you can. You know? And it's tough. As a parent, you know? I didn't expect him to come home."

Adam Winfield did come home, but he is now charged with pre-meditated murder. Three months after trying to blow the whistle, he says Sergeant Gibbs forced him to take part in another murder.

He claims he aimed his rifle over the body of the Afghan victim.

Said Emma Winfield, "It's heartbreaking. You know, again, I'm so thankful that he made it out of there alive. But he doesn't deserve to be treated the way he's been treated. When in February, he reached out. And as parents we did what we could do. And we will probably always regret that we didn't do more."

"But we were working from the place that he was afraid for his life," said Emma. "And we weren't going to do anything to risk his life. And now, in essence, we're just fighting for his life. And fighting for justice to be done."

'A Serial Killer'

At Fort Lewis Monday, the military held its first hearing on the case, as lawyers for Corporal Morlock sought to have the videotaped confession kept out of evidence, maintaining he only played along during the murders, and that he was heavily medicated with prescription drugs during the interview.

"My client did not kill anyone," said Waddington. "He did not use any bullets or grenades to kill any of those individuals."

Waddington said his client had little choice but to go along with Gibbs. "If your sergeant says, 'Let's go to this village, we're going to sweep this village and he throws a grenade at someone, and threatens you that if you're not on his team and you're a possible snitch and you're going to get beaten or killed by him, then you're going to role play along with it."

A lawyer for Sergeant Gibbs declined to comment on the case, but it is clear the other soldiers will seek to blame him for forcing them to participate. Eric Montalvo, the lawyer for Adam Winfield, told ABC News that he believes Gibbs is "essentially a serial killer," calling him "Mansonesque."

The military says the investigation of the murders also led to the discovery of widespread drug use at Forward Operating Base Ramrod.

Corporal Emmitt Quintal, one of the men charged, blamed the drug use on "Bad days, stressful days, days that we just needed to escape" in a taped interview with Army investigators.

Asked how frequently the men used drugs to escape, Quintal responded, "I'd say probably anywhere from three to four, every three to four days."

The Winfields say they believe their son Adam was a good soldier.

"You know, he's a good kid," said Chris Winfield.

"That was put in a horrific situation," added his wife, "with you know, a lack of command out in the field. And a failure of the military to be responsive to a cry for help."

The military now confirms it is investigating the allegations that the parents of Adam Winfield tried back in February to warn the Army that both innocent Afghan civilians, and U.S. soldiers, were being put at risk.

Original story here

Nightmare in Libya: Thousands of Surface-to-Air Missiles Unaccounted For

By Matthew Cole and Brian Ross

The White House announced today it planned to expand a program to secure and destroy Libya's huge stockpile of dangerous surface-to-air missiles, following an ABC News report that large numbers of them continue to be stolen from unguarded military warehouses.

Currently the U.S. State Department has one official on the ground in Libya, as well as five contractors who specialize in "explosive ordinance disposal", all working with the rebel Transitional National Council to find the looted missiles, White House spokesperson Jay Carney told reporters.

"We expect to deploy additional personnel to assist the TNC as they expand efforts to secure conventional arms storage sites," Carney said. "We're obviously at a governmental level -- both State Department and at the U.N. and elsewhere -- working with the TNC on this."

ABC News reported today U.S. officials and security experts were concerned some of the thousands of heat-seeking missiles could easily end up in the hands of al Qaeda or other terrorists groups, creating a threat to commercial airliners.

"Matching up a terrorist with a shoulder-fired missile, that's our worst nightmare," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D.-California, a member of the Senate's Commerce, Energy and Transportation Committee.

Though Libya had an estimated 20,000 man-portable surface-to-air missiles before the popular uprising began in February, Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro told ABC News today the government does not have a clear picture of how many missiles they're trying to track down.

"We're making great progress and we expect in the coming days and weeks we will have a much greater picture of how many are missing," Shapiro said.

The missiles, four to six-feet long and Russian-made, can weigh just 55 pounds with launcher. They lock on to the heat generated by the engines of aircraft, can be fired from a vehicle or from a combatant's shoulder, and are accurate and deadly at a range of more than two miles.

Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch first warned about the problem after a trip to Libya six months ago. He took pictures of pickup truckloads of the missiles being carted off during another trip just a few weeks ago.

"I myself could have removed several hundred if I wanted to, and people can literally drive up with pickup trucks or even 18 wheelers and take away whatever they want," said Bouckaert, HRW's emergencies director. "Every time I arrive at one of these weapons facilities, the first thing we notice going missing is the surface-to-air missiles."

The ease with which rebels and other unknown parties have snatched thousands of the missiles has raised alarms that the weapons could end up in the hands of al Qaeda, which is active in Libya.

"There certainly are dangerous groups operating in the region, and we're very concerned that some of these weapons could end up in the wrong hands," said Bouckaert.

"I think the probability of al Qaeda being able to smuggle some of the stinger-like missiles out of Libya is probably pretty high," said Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism advisor and now a consultant to ABC News.

Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council, told ABC News in a statement similar to Carney's remarks that, "Since the beginning of the crisis, we have been actively engaged with our allies and partners to support Libya's efforts to secure all conventional weapons stockpiles, including recover, control, and disposal of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles."

Boxer: U.S. Passenger Jets at Risk

Adding to the urgency is the fact that America's passenger jets, like those of most countries, are sitting ducks, despite years of warning about the missile threat. Since the 1970s, according to the U.S. State Department, more than 40 civilian planes around the world have been hit by surface-to-air missiles. In 2003, Iraqi insurgents hit a DHL cargo plane with a missile in Baghdad. Though on fire, the plane was able to land safely. Four years later, militants knocked a Russian-built cargo plane out of the sky over Somalia, killing all 11 crew members.

Now there are calls in Congress to give jets that fly overseas the same protection military aircraft have.

"I think we should ensure that the wide-bodied planes all have this protection," said Sen. Boxer, who first spoke to ABC News about the surface-to-air security threat in 2006. "And that's a little more than 500 of these planes."

Boxer sent a letter today to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano urging the two to establish a joint program "to protect commercial aircraft from the threat of shoulder-fired missiles."

According to Boxer, it would cost about a million dollars a plane for a system that has been installed and successfully tested over the last few years, directing a laser beam into the incoming missile.

"For us to sit idly by and not do anything when we could protect 2 billion passengers over the next 20 years [with] a relatively small amount of money [from] the Department of Defense, I think that's malfeasance," said Boxer. "I think that's wrong." And it could be more practical than trying to round up all the missing Libyan missiles.

"Once these missiles walk away from these facilities, they're very difficult to get back, as the CIA realized in Afghanistan," said Bouckaert.

When the Afghan mujahideen were fighting the Soviets more than two decades ago, the CIA supplied the Afghans with 1,000 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, which had a devastating effect on Soviet military aircraft. After the Soviets had retreated, however, the CIA spent millions of dollars trying to buy back the remaining missiles from the Afghan fighters.

According to Bouckaert, the CIA spent up to $100,000 a piece to reacquire the Stingers.

"In Libya we're talking about something on the order of 20,000 surface-to-air missiles," said Bouckaert. "This is one of the greatest stockpiles of these weapons that has ever gone on the loose."

Original story here

Afghan Thrill Kill: Third US Soldier Pleads Guilty

By MATTHEW COLE Sept. 22, 2011

A U.S. soldier charged with participating in a plot to murder Afghan civilians for sport pled guilty to murder in a military courtroom south of Seattle Thursday.

Pfc. Andrew Holmes, of Boise, Idaho, is among five soldiers from the Army's Joint Base Lewis-McChord charged with taking part in three thrill kills in Afghanistan in 2010. Holmes pled guilty to the unpremeditated murder of the first victim, as well as to drug use and to keeping a finger bone from the victim as a souvenir. Holmes had also posed for a photo, later leaked to the media, in which he held up the head of the dead victim.

Holmes, 21, admitted to the judge that he had fired his machine gun at the victim, that he knew the man was probably innocent , and that he believed he had caused the man's death. Holmes said he didn't know in advance of the plan to attack, but fired his weapon after another of the U.S. soldiers, Cpl. Jeremy Morlock, threw a grenade at the victim.

"I didn't know what was going to happen," said Holmes, "but I had a terrible feeling that Cpl. Morlock was up to no good."

"I fired to six to eight rounds at the man, and I've regretted it ever since," he said.

The judge has not yet imposed a sentence.

Two other soldiers from what was formerly known as the 5th Stryker Brigade have already pled guilty to their roles in the thrill killings. Prosecutors allege that the soldiers set up scenarios to kill unarmed Afghans, and then planted weapons to make the killings appear justified.

In March, Jeremy Morlock pled to three counts of premeditated murder and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. In 2010, ABC News published video of Morlock describing the "kill team"'s alleged actions.

Spc. Adam Winfield, who warned his parents that soldiers in his unit were executing innocent Afghan civilians, pled guilty in August to reduced charges and was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in the third killing, which took place in May 2010. He had been charged with premeditated murder, which carries a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Both Morlock and Winfield are expected to testify against Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, who is charged with planning the execution of the three Afghan civilians.

Sgt. Gibbs and Spc. Michael S. Wagnon II, the other soldier still awaiting trial, have pled not guilty to the charges against them. Wagnon is charged with participating in a cover-up of the second killing, which occurred in February 2010, as well as conspiracy and possessing a human skull fragment.

Winfield and Morlock have told Army investigators that Gibbs developed and rehearsed the murder of unarmed Afghans and later ordered his men to help him carry them out. Lawyers for Gibbs and Wagnon have previously assailed Morlock's testimony against their clients, noting he requested investigative documents prior to testimony.

In a confession taped last year and obtained by ABC News, Morlock, of Wasilla, Alaska, admitted the team's role in the murders of three unarmed civilians, but told Army investigators that his unit's "crazy" sergeant had hatched the plan. READ: Confession Video: U.S. Soldier Describes Thrill Kill of Innocent Afghans Morlock, described how Gibbs had the men in his unit pick out civilians at random and then kill them with grenades and rifle fire. "He just really doesn't have any problems with f---ing killing these people," Morlock said, and then laid out the scenario he said the sergeant used to make it seem the civilians were killed in action.

"And so we identify a guy. Gibbs makes a comment, like, you know, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?" Morlock told investigators.

"Gibbs called it like, 'Hey you guys wanna, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?' And you know, he set it up, like, he grabbed the dude."

Morlock said that killing people came "too easy" to Gibbs. "He just really doesn't have any problems with fucking killing these, these people, to be honest."

Iranians Finger Mole In Nuclear Scientist Murders

By MARK SCHONE and MATTHEW COLE

Iranian authorities are investigating the coworker of a nuclear scientist shot dead this summer for possibly leaking info about the scientist, according to the Associated Press. The dead scientist, Darioush Rezaeinejad, was the fourth scientist allegedly linked to Iran's nuclear weapons program killed by unknown assailants in the past four years.

According to the AP, an intelligence report by a member nation of the International Atomic Energy Agency says the Iranians think a specific colleague of the murdered scientist was linked to "unreliable elements," and might have been the source of a leak about Rezaeinejad. The IAEA report also says Rezaeinjad played a "key role" in Iran's nuclear program, and an IAEA official told the AP that Rezaeinejad was working on a trigger for a nuclear weapon.

The story of a mole comes as the Iranian envoy to the IAEA, now holding its meeting in Vienna, told reporters that his country would not retaliate against whoever is killing its nuclear scientists. "We want not only our scientists, we want all scientists of the world to be protected," said Iranian Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh. He said he hoped both the IAEA and the United Nations would investigate the murders.

Since 2007, four different scientists allegedly associated with the nation's nuclear weapons program have died via bomb, gunshot or poisoning, while a fifth barely survived a car bombing. Iran has blamed the killings on Israel, the United States and Britain. The U.S. has denied any involvement, while the Israelis have declined comment.

Rezaeinejad, the most recent victim, was shot outside his daughter's Tehran kindergarten in July by two men on motorcycles. At the time, an unconfirmed report in an Israeli intelligence publication said that Rezaeinejad was working on a nuclear detonator and was seen daily at a nuclear lab in northern Tehran.

Rezaeinejad's murder sparked official outrage in Iran. State media quickly published an online report in which a leader of the nation's parliament said the killing showed the "desperation" of the U.S. and Israel.

In most cases, Iranian officials blame the deaths and disappearances on the West without equivocation. In November 2010, a magnetic bomb placed by a motorcyclist killed nuclear physicist Majid Shahriari in his car. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad quickly blamed "Western governments and the Zionist regime" for the twin bombings.

The same day, Fereydoon Abbasi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization was wounded when a motorcyclist detonated a magnetic bomb under their car by remote control. Abbasi was on a U.N. list of people sanctioned for suspected links to nuclear activities.

In Vienna on Monday, Abbasi himself blamed the U.S., Israel and the U.K. for his brush with death, claiming that British intelligence had followed him for six years and then entrusted the Israelis with the responsibility of killing him.

Did Mossad Kill Ardeshir Hassanpour?

Sometimes, however, Iranian officials will downplay the deaths, as if casting doubt on the ability of hated foes to strike at will. The same state website that published an article in July decrying the murder of Rezaeinejad as a Western assault on Iran's nuclear program published a second story ten minutes later saying his death really wasn't such a big deal after all. Iranian intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi was quoted saying it was unclear who killed Rezaeinejad and that he wasn't a nuclear scientist anyway. "The assassinated student was not involved in nuclear projects and had no connection to the nuclear issue."

In early 2007, Ardeshir Hassanpour, an Iranian nuclear scientist working at a nuclear plant in Isfahan, died from what Iranian state media called "gas poisoning." While the private U.S. intelligence firm Statfor reported that Mossad had killed Hassanpour, the Iranian government said that Hassanpour was not involved in nuclear research and had died in an accident.

Iranian opposition groups, meanwhile, say that sometimes the Iranian government kills dissident scientists -- who may or may not have anything to do with nuclear weapons -- and then blames the murders on the West.

In January 2010, a motorcycle parked outside the house of nuclear physicist Masoud Ali Mohammadi was detonated by remote control when he walked past.

The regime blamed his murder on a "triangle of wickedness," meaning the U.S., Israel and their "hired agents." "Zionists did it," said Ahmadinejad. "They hate us and they don't want us to progress."

But Western intelligence agencies had conflicting information about whether Mohammadi, a particle physicist, was really contributing to the nuclear program. An Iranian opposition group said Mohammadi had been killed by the regime because he was a supporter of Mir Hossein Mousavi, whom many believe actually won the 2009 Iranian presidential election before vote-tampering handed the victory to Ahmadinejad. A German-based opposition group released a photo of an alleged Arab hitman who had supposedly carried out Mohammadi's assassination on regime orders.

U.S. Official: Murder Charges 'Absurd'

A former senior intelligence official involved in efforts to thwart Iran's nuclear program told ABC News that assassinations of top Iranian scientists were usually assumed to be the work of Israel, but that the Israelis would never confirm or admit responsibility.

"Every time we ask," said the official, "they just smile and say, 'We have no idea what you are talking about.' "

The U.S., for its part, has officially denied any involvement in the deaths of Iranian scientists. A White House spokesman called the accusations "absurd" after Mohammadi's death. The CIA is known, however, to have recruited scientists as spies.

In 2007, after Iranian General Ali-Reza Asgari went missing in Turkey, the Iranian government said the intelligence official had been kidnapped by Mossad. The Israeli and Western media said he had defected, and was busy providing information on Iran's nuclear program.

Two years later, award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He later resurfaced in the United States after defecting to the CIA in return for a large sum of money, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials. A spokesperson for the CIA declined official comment.

Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s, worked at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, which is closely connected to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, according to the AP.

When Amiri disappeared, Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, and other Iranian officials blamed the U.S. for "kidnapping" Amiri.

After resurfacing in the U.S., Amiri released two videos, one in which he claimed he was kidnapped by the CIA, and another in which he denied he was kidnapped. He later repeated the kidnapping story publicly, said he had "escaped" from the CIA, and returned to Iran.

In January 2011, a dissident website reported that Amiri was being held in a Tehran prison and had been tortured.

Original story here

'Kill Team' Soldier Gets Three Years in Prison

By MATTHEW COLE

Adam Winfield, the Army specialist who warned his parents that soldiers in his unit were executing innocent Afghan civilians, pled guilty Friday to reduced charges and was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in one of the murders.

Winfield, 23, of Cape Coral, Fla., had been charged with premeditated murder, which carried a sentence of life in prison without parole.

Winfield agreed to a plea deal with military prosecutors at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, and is expected to testify against Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, who is charged with planning and executing three Afghan civilians between January and May 2010.

At Friday's hearing, Winfield told the court he has failed to stop Gibbs and another soldier, Cpl. Jeremy Morlock, from killing a detained Afghan.

"It is my duty as an American soldier ... to protect any detainee ... that is in the custody of U.S. personnel," Winfield said. "It was my job to do that, sir, and I failed to do it."

Prosecutors allege that the Ft. Lewis-based Stryker brigade set up scenarios to kill unarmed Afghans, and then planted weapons to make the killings appear justified. Winfield had been charged with premeditated murder, but said he never fired his weapon at the victim. In his plea agreement, prosecutors accepted his defense.

Winfield contended that he had not shot the Afghan victim but had also not stopped his fellow soldiers from murdering an Afghan man just outside his home in southern Afghanistan.

"Had I done my duty ... to defend that man, then it would not have happened. He wouldn't be dead," Winfield said Friday.

Winfield is one of five Lewis-McChord soldiers accused in the three killings, and the second to accept a plea deal. Morlock pled to three counts of premeditated murder in March and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. In 2010, ABC News published video of Morlock describing the "kill team"'s alleged actions. This spring photos of the men posing with corpses surfaced in the media.

Prosecutors allege that Winfield, Gibbs, Morlock, Spc. Michael S. Wagnon II, and Pfc. Andrew H. Holmes participated in one or more of the murders and staged them to make unarmed Afghans appear to be armed insurgents.

Winfield was the first to come forward about the alleged sport killings. He told his parents while deployed that members of his unit had planned and executed the killings for sport. He was charged with murder for his part in the third and final death in May of last year.

Military prosecutors are hoping Winfield's testimony in exchange for the plea agreement will help convict Gibbs, who is charged in all three Afghan deaths and believed to be the ringleader of the group.

READ: 'Repugnant' Photos Emerge of U.S. Soldiers Accused of Sport Killings

Winfield and Morlock have told Army investigators that Gibbs developed and rehearsed the murder of unarmed Afghans and later ordered his men to help him carry them out. Gibbs, Wagnon and Holmes have each pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Lawyers for Gibbs, Wagnon and Holmes have previously assailed Morlock's testimony against their clients, noting he requested investigative documents prior to testimony.

"I was wondering how can you make Morlock any less credible," Colby Vokey, the defense attorney for Wagnon, told McClatchy News. "It would be giving him copies of transcripts and having prosecutors tell him what to say."

Video: Soldier Describes 'Crazy' Sergeant's Plan

In a confession taped last year and obtained by ABC News, Morlock, of Wasilla, Alaska, admitted the team's role in the murders of three unarmed civilians, but told Army investigators that his unit's "crazy" sergeant had hatched the plan.

READ: Confession Video: U.S. Soldier Describes Thrill Kill of Innocent Afghans

Morlock, described how Gibbs had the men in his unit pick out civilians at random and then kill them with grenades and rifle fire.

"He just really doesn't have any problems with f---ing killing these people," Morlock said, and then laid out the scenario he said the sergeant used to make it seem the civilians were killed in action.

"And so we identify a guy. Gibbs makes a comment, like, you know, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?" Morlock told investigators.

"Gibbs called it like, 'Hey you guys wanna, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?' And you know, he set it up, like, he grabbed the dude."

Morlock said that killing people came "too easy" to Gibbs. "He just really doesn't have any problems with f---ing killing these, these people, to be honest."

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Afghan Kill Team Whistleblower To Plead Guilty

By MATTHEW COLE

The U.S. soldier who was the first to come forward about the alleged sport killings of Afghan civilians last year has reached a plea agreement in his case, according to a person familiar with the agreement.

Adam Winfield, a member of the Army's 5th Stryker Brigade, is one of five soldiers charged in connection with the deaths of three Afghan civilians that occurred in southern Afghanistan between January and May 2010. Prosecutors allege that Winfield, Staff Sgt. Calvin R. Gibbs, Cpl. Jeremy Morlock, Spc. Michael S. Wagnon II, and Pfc. Andrew H. Holmes participated in one or more of the murders and staged them to make unarmed Afghans appear to be armed insurgents.

Winfield, who told his parents while deployed that members of his unit had planned and executed the killings for sport, had been charged with murder for his part in the third and final murder in May of last year.

In the deal, Winfield will plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and a minor drug charge. The involuntary manslaughter charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Winfield's lawyers have argued that their client was ordered to fire on an unarmed civilian but had fired high, and had not been responsible for the death. Winfield's original charge carried a maximum sentence of life without parole.

Military prosecutors are hoping Winfield's testimony in exchange for the plea agreement will help convict Gibbs, who is charged in all three Afghan deaths and believed to be the ringleader of the group.

READ: 'Repugnant' Photos Emerge of U.S. Soldiers Accused of Sport Killings

Winfield and Morlock, who pleaded guilty last March to helping murder the three Afghans, have told Army investigators that Gibbs developed and rehearsed the murder of unarmed Afghans and later ordered his men to help him carry them out. Gibbs, Wagnon and Holmes have each pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Lawyers for Gibbs, Wagnon and Holmes have previously assailed Morlock's testimony against their clients, noting he requested investigative documents prior to testimony.

"I was wondering how can you make Morlock any less credible," Colby Vokey, the defense attorney for Wagnon, told McClatchy News. "It would be giving him copies of transcripts and having prosecutors tell him what to say."

Video: Soldier Describes 'Crazy' Sergeant's Plan

In a confession taped last year and obtained by ABC News, Morlock, of Wasilla, Alaska, admitted the team's role in the murders of three unarmed civilians, but told Army investigators that his unit's "crazy" sergeant had hatched the plan.

READ: Confession Video: U.S. Soldier Describes Thrill Kill of Innocent Afghans

Morlock, described how Gibbs had the men in his unit pick out civilians at random and then kill them with grenades and rifle fire.

"He just really doesn't have any problems with f---ing killing these people," Morlock said, and then laid out the scenario he said the sergeant used to make it seem the civilians were killed in action.

"And so we identify a guy. Gibbs makes a comment, like, you know, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?" Morlock told investigators.

"Gibbs called it like, 'Hey you guys wanna, you guys wanna wax this guy or what?' And you know, he set it up, like, he grabbed the dude."

Morlock said that killing people came "too easy" to Gibbs. "He just really doesn't have any problems with f---ing killing these, these people, to be honest."

News of the agreement comes the same day Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told reporters that American troops in Iraq must be given immunity from any future prosecution as part of any agreement to keep them there beyond the end of this year.

Such a deal, which would have to be passed by the Iraqi parliament, would include "privileges and immunities for our American men and women in uniform," Mullen said, according to a report by The Associated Press.

CIA Chief in Pakistan Exits; Led OBL Hunt Team

By NICK SCHIFRIN and MATTHEW COLE

The CIA station chief who oversaw the intelligence team that found Osama bin Laden has left Pakistan for medical reasons and is not returning, the second time the agency's most senior officer in Pakistan has left in the last seven months, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

The Islamabad station chief -- one of the agency's most-important positions in the world -- arrived only late last year after his predecessor was essentially run out of town when a Pakistani official admitted his name had been leaked. The departure of two station chiefs in such a short amount of time threatens to upset a vital intelligence office. U.S. officials, however, insisted that the quick turnover would not harm U.S. intelligence efforts in Pakistan.

In fact, both US and Pakistani officials hope the station chief's exit will lead to improved relations between Pakistan's intelligence agency, known as the ISI, and the CIA.

That is because, according to three US and Pakistani officials, the departing chief of station had an "extremely tense" relationship with his ISI counterparts including Director General Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha. One US official said the CIA chief was due to depart in a few months as a result of his poor relations with the Pakistanis.

The CIA-ISI relationship has been strained to the breaking point since Pakistani intelligence officials discovered the CIA secretly recruited Pakistani agents to help find Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, a military town that is a 90-minute drive from Islamabad. The two intelligence agencies have been official allies since 9/11, but the ISI has punished the CIA for the unilateral raid. Since then, the Pakistani military has kicked out all but a handful of Special Operations Forces working near the border with Afghanistan; dozens of CIA officials left the country out of fear of retribution or exposure; and U.S. officials have been regularly stopped by police in northwest Pakistan asking for paperwork that allows them to travel, something they say was unnecessary last year.

In one case, U.S. officials were stopped at a toll booth, and a group of Pakistani journalists were waiting for them to arrive. In another case, CIA officials were stopped at a checkpoint in Peshawar and held long enough for the media to show up and take their pictures.

"Pakistan has been harassing U.S. personnel working in the country for months," complained a U.S. official.

Pakistan even threatened to impose more formal restrictions on the travel of all U.S. diplomats and require prior notification, but dropped the demand when the U.S. threatened similar restrictions for its diplomats inside the United States, according to one U.S. official.

The tension seems to stem from the ISI's belief the CIA is still running a clandestine network of American and Pakistani intelligence agents without sharing enough information about their identities or their assignments with the ISI.

The CIA has pledged to provide that information, but Pakistani intelligence officials don't seem to believe their assurances.

As one Pakistani intelligence official put it, "There is no trust."

The feeling is often mutual, which is why the CIA did not tell the ISI it had been tracking bin Laden in Abbottabad since last fall out of fear its cover would be blown. The recently departed station chief helped create that lack of trust by overseeing the intelligence gathering that led to Osama bin Laden's death, which included a network of undeclared Pakistani agents. Pakistani officials rounded up at least five Pakistanis accused of helping the CIA launch the Abbottabad raid, although only one remains in custody.

In Pakistan, the CIA station chief was reviled for his role in the raid, but in Washington, according to one official, he was widely praised. He "had the agency's full confidence," one U.S. official said.

The tension with the ISI began shortly after the recently departed station chief arrived. He helped try to release Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who shot dead two men who Pakistani officials admit were working for the ISI. Davis told U.S. officials and Pakistani police that he shot the men believing he was being robbed by armed Pakistanis.

But the tension seems to also have been a product of a personality clash. A senior U.S. official who used to serve in Islamabad criticized the just departed station chief for not working hard enough to develop personal relationships with his Pakistani counterparts. Their relationship, the senior official said, was much worse than the relationship with the previous station chief as well the relationship cultivated by Vice Adm. Michael LeFever, who only recently departed as the top U.S. military officer in Pakistan.

U.S. officials declined to provide details about the station chief's illness.

The CIA declined to comment for this story.

Bad Marriage vs. Divorce

Recently, there have been some small signs of a thaw between the two agencies. The ISI granted 87 visas for CIA officers, bringing the CIA back to full strength in Pakistan, according to a Pakistani official. The official also said the U.S. and Pakistan agreed on a handful of "major" issues during a recent meeting between ISI Director Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha and acting CIA director Michael Morell, although the official would not provide details.

"The freefall has been arrested," said one Pakistani official close to the military.

But a U.S. official complained those visas were not good enough, since they were single entry and only valid for a few months. A separate, senior U.S. official said some of the visas were issued to officers who are no longer working in Pakistan.

The two agencies are far from recovering even the tense relationship they had late last year, when the previous station chief was outed, according to two Pakistani officials, in response to a court case filed in Brooklyn naming Pasha as a defendant.

But both sides say they are trying to work through the current tension.

"A bad marriage," a U.S. official said, "is better than a divorce."

Who Is Killing Iran's Nuclear Scientists?

By MATTHEW COLE and MARK SCHONE

The Americans deny everything.

The Israelis also deny everything -- but with a smile, according to a senior U.S. official.

Regardless of who is killing Iran's nuclear scientists -- the Israelis, the Americans or the Iranians themselves -- there's no question that researchers and officials linked to Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program keep turning up dead.

Since 2007, four different scientists allegedly associated with the nation's nuclear weapons program have died via bomb, gunshot or poisoning, while a fifth barely survived a car bombing.

The most recent victim, 35-year-old Darioush Rezaeinejad, was shot in the neck outside his daughter's Tehran kindergarten on Saturday by two gunmen on a motorcycle. According to an unconfirmed report in an Israeli intelligence publication, Rezaeinejad was working on a nuclear detonator, and was seen daily at a nuclear lab in northern Tehran.

Rezaeinejad's murder sparked official outrage in Iran. State media published an online report Sunday evening in which a leader of the nation's parliament said the killing showed the "desperation" of the U.S. and Israel.

"When the Americans and the Zionist regime realized that they cannot stand against the resolve of the Iranian nation and [after they] witnessed our nuclear achievements they resorted to assassinating our scientists," said Kazem Jalali, head of the parliament's national security committee, according to the report.

In most cases, Iranian officials blame the deaths and disappearances on the West without equivocation. In November 2010, Fereydoon Abbasi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization was wounded when a motorcyclist detonated a magnetic bomb under their car by remote control. Abbasi was on a U.N. list of people sanctioned for suspected links to nuclear activities.

The same day, a magnetic bomb placed by a motorcyclist killed nuclear physicist Majid Shahriari in his car. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad quickly blamed "Western governments and the Zionist regime" for the twin bombings.

Did Mossad Kill Ardeshir Hassanpour?

Sometimes, however, Iranian officials will downplay the deaths, as if casting doubt on the ability of hated foes to strike at will. On Sunday, the same state website that published the article decrying the murder of Darioush Rezaeinejad as a Western assault on Iran's nuclear program published a second story ten minutes later saying his death really wasn't such a big deal after all. Iranian intelligence minister Heidar Moslehi was quoted saying it was unclear who killed Darioush Rezaeinejad and that he wasn't a nuclear scientist anyway. "The assassinated student was not involved in nuclear projects and had no connection to the nuclear issue."

In early 2007, Ardeshir Hassanpour, an Iranian nuclear scientist working at a nuclear plant in Isfahan, died from what Iranian state media called "gas poisoning." While the private U.S. intelligence firm Statfor reported that Mossad had killed Hassanpour, the Iranian government said that Hassanpour was not involved in nuclear research and had died in an accident.

Iranian opposition groups, meanwhile, say that sometimes the Iranian government kills dissident scientists -- who may or may not have anything to do with nuclear weapons -- and then blames the murders on the West.

In January 2010, a motorcycle parked outside the house of nuclear physicist Masoud Ali Mohammadi was detonated by remote control when he walked past.

The regime blamed his murder on a "triangle of wickedness," meaning the U.S., Israel and their "hired agents." "Zionists did it," said Ahmadinejad. "They hate us and they don't want us to progress." Ali Larjani, chairman of the Iranian parliament, said the government had "clear information that the intelligence regime of the Zionist regime and the CIA wanted to implement terrorist acts."

But Western intelligence agencies had conflicting information about whether Mohammadi, a particle physicist, was really contributing to the nuclear program. An Iranian opposition group said Mohammadi had been killed by the regime because he was a supporter of Mir Hossein Mousavi, whom many believe actually won the 2009 Iranian presidential election before vote-tampering handed the victory to Ahmadinejad. A German-based opposition group released a photo of an alleged Arab hitman who had supposedly carried out Mohammadi's assassination on regime orders.

At Mohammadi's funeral, hundreds of regime loyalists waving anti-Israel banners packed the procession, where they clashed with supporters of Mousavi's Green Movement.

U.S. Official: Murder Charges 'Absurd'

A former senior intelligence official involved in efforts to thwart Iran's nuclear program told ABC News that assassinations of top Iranian scientists were usually assumed to be the work of Israel, but that the Israelis would never confirm or admit responsibility.

"Every time we ask," said the official, "they just smile and say, 'We have no idea what you are talking about.' "

The U.S., for its part, has officially denied any involvement in the deaths of Iranian scientists. A White House spokesman called the accusations "absurd" after Mohammadi's death. The CIA is known, however, to have recruited scientists as spies.

In 2007, after Iranian General Ali-Reza Asgari went missing in Turkey, the Iranian government said the intelligence official had been kidnapped by Mossad. The Israeli and Western media said he had defected, and was busy providing information on Iran's nuclear program.

Two years later, award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He later resurfaced in the United States after defecting to the CIA in return for a large sum of money, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials. A spokesperson for the CIA declined official comment.

Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s, worked at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, which is closely connected to Iran's Revolutionary Guard, according to the Associated Press.

When Amiri disappeared, Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, and other Iranian officials blamed the U.S. for "kidnapping" Amiri.

After resurfacing in the U.S., Amiri released two videos, one in which he claimed he was kidnapped by the CIA, and another in which he denied he was kidnapped. He later repeated the kidnapping story publicly, said he had "escaped" from the CIA, and returned to Iran.

Amiri was recruited by the CIA because his relatively young age -- he was not 30 when he first began to work for the Americans -- and his proximity to more senior Iranian nuclear scientists would allow the CIA to collect intelligence on the program for many years, according to a U.S. official involved in the Amiri operation.

In January 2011, a dissident website reported that Amiri was being held in a Tehran prison and had been tortured.

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Pakistan Officials Colluding With Militants? US Presents Evidence

By Nick Schifrin and Matthew Cole

The United States' attempts to regain trust in Pakistan's intelligence service suffered a blow in the last few weeks when the CIA gathered evidence that U.S. officials believe shows collusion between militants and Pakistani security officials.

During a visit to Islamabad on Friday, CIA Director Leon Panetta confronted the head of Pakistan's intelligence service, showing him satellite and other intelligence that the CIA believes is evidence of Pakistani security's efforts to help Islamic militants based in Pakistan, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

According to the officials, Panetta revealed overhead imagery that showed two facilities where militants manufactured improvised explosive devices, known as IEDs, which are commonly used by militants fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The "IED factories" were located in North and South Waziristan, where many militants are based.

The CIA passed intelligence in the past several weeks to their Pakistani counterparts, alerting them to the two facilities, but when Pakistani forces raided the facilities, the militants had disappeared.

In his meetings Friday, Panetta conveyed the CIA's belief that the militants had been warned by Pakistani security officials prior to the raids.

Panetta traveled to Islamabad just hours after his Congressional hearing to become secretary of defense, an unannounced trip that U.S. officials publicly described as a way to "discuss ways to improve cooperation." But behind the scenes, Panetta's visit -- expected to be his last as CIA chief -- underscored the lack of trust that U.S. officials continue to have in their Pakistani counterparts.

Since Osama bin Laden's death, senior U.S. officials have demanded that Pakistan prove that it intends to help crack down on terror networks within its own borders with concrete, specific steps.

Today, U.S. and Pakistani officials both admitted that the escape of militants making bombs for use against Americans in Afghanistan was a setback.

Pakistani officials made a rare admission that some kind of collusion was possible.

"There is a suspicion that perhaps there was a tip-off," a senior Pakistani official told the Washington Post. "It's being looked into by our people, and certainly anybody involved will be taken to task."

Pakistani officials contend that they are walking a thin line after the U.S. decided to launch a unilateral raid to kill bin Laden, balancing U.S. demands with a military rank and file that is furious and want their leaders to break with the U.S.

In a sign of just how angry the military is with the U.S., army officials have asked all but "a handful" of U.S. special operations soldiers who have been training Pakistani forces near the Afghan border for the last two years, according to two U.S. officials.

The number was as high as a few dozen in the past.

Courier Hid Osama Bin Laden Well

By Matthew Cole and Nick Schifrin

He was a man of many names. Arshad, Ahmed, Abu Ahmed to name a few. To his neighbors in Abbottabad, Pakistan, he was a friendly man from the country's tribal areas who worked as a money changer and built 12-foot walls to keep out the "many enemies" he'd acquired in the course of doing business.

What no one who lived near him in the sleepy, semi-rural enclave knew was that Arshad Khan was really al Qaeda operative Abu Ahmed al Kuwaiti, Osama bin Laden's most trusted courier, and his identity and location became the key to killing bin Laden.

Little is known about al Kuwaiti, but interviews with neighbors, Pakistani officials and U.S. officials make clear that the Kuwaiti-born Pakistani was for several years the second most-wanted terrorist in the world, if only because the CIA had become convinced he could led them to the al Qaeda leader.

Bin Laden, al Kuwaiti, al Kuwaiti's brother, one of Bin Laden's sons and a woman were killed early Monday morning when a team of Navy SEALs conducted a covert raid at the compound where bin Laden was living.

Until eight months ago, when al Kuwaiti was spotted in Peshawar and tracked back to the compound, the CIA knew his identity, but not where he lived.

One neighbor, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, told ABC News that he knew al Kuwaiti as Arshad Khan. He was a courteous, if not forthcoming, neighbor, heavyset by local standards, who could be seen driving his wife and children to town. The neighbor, who didn't own a car, said Arshad Khan often gave him rides into town.

"I would ask if I could have his mobile number," the neighbor said. "He said he didn't own a phone," and rarely answered other personal questions.

Even so, the neighbor said the man he knew as Arshad once explained that the compound's unusually high perimeter wall had been built because of the many enemies he'd acquired in the years he ran a money-changing business in Pakistan's Tribal Areas.

Al Kuwaiti was identified in 2003, U.S. officials said, as someone who would be trusted by bin Laden. He was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's protege and later the man who delivered a promotion from bin Laden to Abu Faraj al Libi, the al Qaeda operative who replaced Mohammed as the organization's number three leader.

Al Kuwaiti was tracked to the Abbottabad compound in 2010, after which the CIA determined that a high value target, possibly bin Laden, was living behind its walls. The main building included a terrace enclosed by a high wall on an upper floor, leading analysts to speculate it could be used to conceal a very tall man. Bin Laden was at least 6'4".

As details emerged about the daily habits of al Kuwaiti, including trips to the local bakery and mosque, Pakistani officials have conducted raids and arrests of people connected in any way to bin Laden's courier or the compound in which both bin Laden and the courier lived.

Among those taken into custody have been the man believed to have designed the secure complex and acted as the project's contractor when it was built in 2005. One Pakistani official named the man as Tahir Javed, though his identity could not be verified. Pakistani officials and local residents say the contractor has since been released.

Another person of interest is a major local landowner named Shamroz who owned several plots next to the bin Laden compound. Neighbors described Shamroz and his sons as the people who knew the al Qaeda courier and his family best. Shamroz and his two sons have reportedly been arrested.

Despite their interaction with the courier, however, none of the locals say they ever saw the man he was protecting outside the compound's walls. They say they had say they had no reason to suspect the world's most wanted man had lived among them for six years.

America's Most Wanted: Osama Bin Laden Killed After 13-Year Hunt

By Brian Ross, Matthew Cole and Avni Patel

The United States had been trying to kill Osama bin Laden for 13 years, since the administration of President Bill Clinton.

"Bin Laden has been our national enemy self declared for far longer than any one person in our history," said Richard Clarke, an ABC News contributor who served as a counterterrorism advisor to Clinton and both presidents Bush.

For years the trail had gone cold, some thought he had left the region and Pakistani officials even claimed bin Laden must be dead. In the end he was found in a house where he may have been living for as many as six years, almost next door to Pakistani military installations and less than 100 miles from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

The son of a prominent and wealthy Saudi family, bin Laden first went to Afghanistan to fight the Russians but then turned on the United States.

On his orders thousands died, in the 1998 attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa, in the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and the 9/11 attacks of which he seemed so proud. Bin Laden boasted on tape that "We calculated in advance the number of casualties."

The discovery of bin Laden's hiding place in a million-dollar mansion in Pakistan was the result of a masterful CIA intelligence operation that focused on the courier who was his connection to the outside world.

"We had to piece it together," explained John Brennan, counterterrorism advisor to President Obama, "get [the courier's] nom de guerre, associate it with a real name and track it until we got to the compound."

Every video or audio message recorded by bin Laden went by courier, so each new message became an opportunity for the CIA to find him.

"That was his Achilles heel," said John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security and former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. "We were able to use the information provided by tracking his couriers to hunt him down and bring him to justice."

U.S. officials say detainees held at Guantanamo helped lead them to the courier.

In one early clue, according to a secret Pentagon cable made public by Wikileaks, senior Al Qaeda commander Abu al Libi told interrogators he became "the official messenger" for bin Laden and for a year in 2003 "moved his family to Abbottabad, Pakistan" -- the city near Islamabad where bin Laden was killed Sunday.

By August of last year, the CIA had a sharp focus on a newly built compound in the Abbottabad, suspicious of its large size and extensive security features, including a seven-foot wall on the terrace so the very tall bin Laden could be outside without being seen.

A family of the same size as bin Laden's was seen here, although bin Laden himself was never actually spotted.

But since August he had sent out, at least two new taped messages. One of them, remarkably, last October, focused on the severe flooding that had just occurred in the Abbottabad region.

Finding Osama Bin Laden

Bin Laden had long been said to be in the mountainous region along the Afghanistan, Pakistan border, hiding in a cave as the U.S. sought to kill him with drone strikes from above. Instead, he was in a house with many peculiar features that brought it to the attention of U.S. authorities.

After locating the Al Qaeda courier in 2009 and then tracking him to the structure in 2010, the CIA noted that the house, built in 2005, had high exterior walls topped with barbed wire, high windows and few points of access. Residents burned their trash instead of putting it out. U.S. officials wondered if the extra seven-foot-high wall on a third-floor terrace was built to shield a man as tall as bin Laden, whose height was estimated at between 6'4" and 6'6".

The CIA began to believe that a high-value target was in the house. A CIA "red team" assigned to assess the house decided that it could well be sheltering bin Laden, even though he'd never been seen in the compound.

The CIA was responsible for "finding" and "fixing" the target, said a U.S. official, and the military "finished" the job.

According to U.S. officials, the Navy's SEAL Team Six practiced the assault in a replica of the compound built inside the United States.

Late Sunday night local time, two U.S. helicopters from Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and carrying Team Six SEALs flew in low from Afghanistan and swept into the compound. As CIA director Leon Panetta listened in, the Navy SEALs stormed the compound and engaged bin Laden and his men in a firefight, killing bin Laden and all those with him.

Two Bin Laden couriers were killed, as was Osama Bin Laden's son Khalid and a woman. Two women were injured. Children were present in the compound but were not harmed. U.S. officials said that bin Laden was asked to surrender but did not. He was shot in the head and then shot again to make sure he was dead.

The raid began on the smaller of two buildings in the compound, where the couriers were believed to live. The raid then moved to the larger three-story building. The couriers were killed downstairs, while bin Laden was upstairs.

After the raid, blood covered the floor of one room to the right inside the sprawling larger structure. In another room to the left that held a small kitchenette, broken computers could be seen, minus their hard drives. The SEALs also recovered papers, CDs, laptops, which were taken away for analysis.

One of the U.S. Blackhawk helicopters was damaged but not destroyed during the operation, and U.S. forces elected to destroy it themselves with explosives. At least a dozen individuals who were present in the compound were left flex cuffed by the side of the road by the SEALs when they departed, according to a senior administration official.

The Americans took bin Laden's body into custody after the firefight, taking it back to Afghanistan by helicopter, and confirmed his identity. His DNA matched DNA taken from multiple bin Laden relatives with almost 100 percent certainty, and his body was found to be more than 6'4". He was also identified by two women at the compound after he was killed, and via facial recognition analysis from photos sent back to CIA headquarters.

A U.S. official said bin Laden was later buried at sea in accordance with Islamic practice at 2 a.m. Washington time. Bin Laden's body was taken to the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, a U.S. aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Sea, according to officials. His body was washed and wrapped in the prescribed way. A military officer read religious remarks that were translated by a native Arabic speaker before bin Laden's remains were sent into the deep.

Remarkably, bin Laden was hiding almost under the nose of the Pakistani military, which has a major garrison in Abbottabad and the Pakistani version of West Point. A senior U.S. official says the U.S. government believes that bin Laden may have been living in the house ever since it was built in 2005.

U.S. officials say Pakistan was not informed in advance of the military operation inside their borders. The U.S. team was back inside Afghanistan before 6 p.m. Washington time.

Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

Navy SEALS Operation Details of Raid That Killed 9/11 Al Qaeda Leader

By Brian Ross, Matthew Cole and Avni Patel

It began with a tip to the CIA eight months ago about a possible Osama bin Laden hiding place, and led Sunday to the bold military operation that will go down in U.S. history, as Navy SEALs killed the Al Qaeda leader in a mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan while he reportedly used women as human shields.

And the trail that ultimately led U.S. forces to Bin Laden may have begun with another 9/11 plotter who is now in U.S. custody, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad.

Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, central to both the 9/11 plot and the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, was captured by U.S. forces and taken to Guantanamo. In 2007, U.S. officials who were interrogating Guantanamo detainees finally learned the real name of a former Khalid Sheikh Muhammad protégé who had become an important confidante of Abu Faraj al Libi. Al Libi was captured in 2005 and also taken to Guantanamo.

Guantanamo detainees identified the courier who had worked with both KSM and Al Libi as someone who was probably trusted by Bin Laden. Al Libi had actually lived in Abbottabad in 2003, according to his detainee file.

In 2007, U.S. officials learned the courier's real name. In 2009, they located his region of operation and began tracking him.

Osama Bin Laden wasn't hiding in a cave, but in a Pakistani city of 90,000 called Abbottabad, just north of the Pakistani capital.

In August 2010, through tracking the courier, they found that Osama Bin Laden probably wasn't hiding in a cave, but in a huge house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, just north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. The acre-large, million-dollar compound had 12 to 18-foot walls, was eight times the size of other homes in the area and just off a major highway, but had no phones.

President Obama gave the order for a small team of U.S. Navy SEALs in Afghanistan to go in Sunday night Pakistan time, even though bin Laden had never once actually been seen in the compound.

"I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action," said President Obama in a nationally televised address Sunday night, "and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice."

Bin Laden, who had been pictured over the years firing an automatic weapon, and his son and three others opened fire on the U.S. raiders.

Said President Obama, "After a firefight, they killed Osama Bin Laden and took custody of his body."

Pentagon officials said that one way the SEALs were sure it was Osama Bin Laden was that his wife identified him by name.

None of the Americans was injured in the raid.

The U.S. team was on the ground for only 40 minutes, much of the time spent scrubbing the compound for information about al Qaeda and its future plans.

After the raid, blood covered the floor of one room inside the sprawling house on the right. In another room to the left that held a small kitchenette, broken computers could be seen, minus their hard drives

Remarkably, Bin Laden was hiding almost under the nose of the Pakistani military, which has a major garrison in Abbottabad and the Pakistani version of West Point.

U.S. officials say Pakistan was not informed in advance of the military operation inside their borders.

Finding Osama Bin Laden

Bin Laden had long been said to be in the mountainous region along the Afghanistan, Pakistan border, hiding in a cave as the U.S. sought to kill him with drone strikes from above. Instead, he was in a house with many peculiar features that brought it to the attention of U.S. authorities.

After locating the Al Qaeda courier in 2009 and then tracking him to the structure in 2010, the CIA noted that the house had high exterior walls topped with barbed wire, high windows and few points of access. Residents burned their trash instead of putting it out. Built in 2005, the compound also had a seven-foot-high wall on a third-floor terrace. U.S. officials wondered if the extra wall was meant to allow a tall man -- Bin Laden's height was estimated at between 6'4" and 6'6" -- to go outside without being seen.

The CIA began to believe that a high-value target was in the house. A CIA "red team" assigned to assess the house decided that it could well be sheltering Bin Laden, even though he'd never been seen in the compound.

The house looked like it was "custom-built to hide someone of significance," said an official. But the Americans did not share their information about who might be inside the compound with the Pakistanis, said Pentagon officials.

The CIA was responsible for "finding" and "fixing" the target, said a U.S. official, and the military "finished" the job.

According to U.S. officials, the Navy's SEALS Team Six practiced the assault in a replica of the compound built inside the United States.

Late Sunday night local time, two U.S. helicopters from Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and carrying Team Six SEALs flew in low from Afghanistan and swept into the compound. As CIA director Leon Panetta listened in, the Navy SEALs stormed the compound and engaged Bin Laden and his men in a firefight, killing Bin Laden and all those with him.

Two Bin Laden couriers were killed, as was Osama Bin Laden's son Khalid and a woman. U.S. officials said Bin Laden and the other men used the three women in the compound as human shields, and the woman who died was shielding Bin Laden. The other two women were injured. Children were present in the compound but were not harmed. U.S. officials said that Bin Laden himself fired his weapon during the fight, and that he was asked to surrender but did not. He was shot in the head and then shot again to make sure he was dead.

The raid began on the smaller of two buildings in the compound, where the couriers were believed to live. The raid then moved to the larger three-story building.

One of the U.S. Blackhawk helicopters was damaged but not destroyed during the operation, and U.S. forces elected to destroy it themselves with explosives.

The Americans took Bin Laden's body into custody after the firefight, taking it back to Afghanistan by helicopter, and confirmed his identity. His DNA matched DNA taken from mulitple relatives of Bin Laden with almost 100 percent certainty.

A U.S. official said Bin Laden was later buried at sea in accordance with Islamic practice at 2 a.m. Washington time. Bin Laden's body was taken to the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, a U.S. aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Sea, according to officials. His body was washed and wrapped in the prescribed way. A military officer read religious remarks that were translated by a native Arabic speaker before Bin Laden's remains were sent into the deep.

The original plan had called for the SEALs to rappel down into the compound, but because one of the choppers had a problem it had to do a soft crash landing.

According to Pakistani officials, the operation was a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation, but U.S. officials said only U.S. personnel were involved in the raid.

U.S. officials say that Pakistani fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the choppers, but didn't reach them. The U.S. team was back inside Afghanistan before 6 p.m Washington time.

Abbottabad is a city of 90,000 in the Orash Valley, north of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, and east of Peshawar. It is 90 miles by road from Islamabad and 40 miles by air.

Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.

Top Al Qaeda Commander Killed In Afghanistan

By MATTHEW COLE

A senior Al Qaeda commander in Afghanistan was killed by a U.S. airstrike while he met with four other top insurgents, according to a statement from the U.S.-led military coalition, ending a four-year hunt.

Abu Hafs Al Najdi was killed in Kunar province during an April 13 airstrike, said the International Security Assistance Force ( ISAF) in a statement. According to the ISAF, "numerous other insurgents," including another Al Qaeda leader named Waqas, were also killed during the attack in Kunar's Dangam district, close to the Pakistani border.

Al Najdi, a Saudi citizen who also went by the name Abdul Ghani, was a key figure for Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization inside Afghanistan, according to the ISAF, and number two on the coalition's list of Al Qaeda targets.

Al Najdi was said to be responsible for "recruiting; training and employing fighters; obtaining weapons and equipment; organizing al Qaeda finances; and planning attacks against Afghan coalition forces," according to the coalition.

The Saudi commander was also said to be responsible for a December attack on a U.S. outpost last December. The statement did not say if any soldiers were injured in the attack.

Kunar province has seen some of the deadliest fighting for American soldiers since the Afghan war began in 2001. U.S. forces recently closed many of their outposts and bases in Kunar and neighboring Nuristan provinces because military officials believed the area was too remote to manage. Some reports have described a resurgence of Arab Al Qaeda fighters in Kunar and Nuristan since U.S. troops withdrew.

U.S. officials had stated as recently as last year that no more than 100 al Qaeda fighters operated in Afghanistan. In its statement announcing Al Nadji's death, the ISAF said he was one of "more than 25 al Qaeda leaders and fighters" who have been killed in Afghanistan in the past month.