dagblog - Comments for "Attack on Bin Laden Used Radar-evading Helicopter That Had Been a Secret"

I'm surprised the leading

Beetlejuice — Fri, 06 May 2011 11:07:25 +0000

In reply to Attack on Bin Laden Used Radar-evading Helicopter That Had Been a Secret

I'm surprised the leading experts are so baffled.

First of all, the main rotor blades are nothing more than rotating wings...yes - they're actually shaped like a wing. The older Huey's we all know had two very long ones. Has anyone noticed new choppers have shorter ones? And instead of two, they sport three? Since wings provide lift, the more you have the more lift you get. So the length depends on the payload the vehicle is capable of carrying. Hence, the length of each blade is shorter depending on the number of blades used.

In Europe, there are plenty of air ambulances. Seems every summer, I have the privilege of one landing on my mini-soccer field adjacent to the house I rent...because I'm near a military base, the helo pilots are directed to land immediately if an air operation is in progress. So I have an up-front-and-personal view of the state-of-the-art commercial craft in use.

You don't hear the main rotors until they are less than a mile away - about a kilometer. Instead of the wop-wop-wop-wop we are accustom too, it's more like a pater-pater-pater and the tail rotor sounds more like a hair dryer. You really wouldn't know one was up there unless you were expecting one or they flew over you.

A good analogue to describe the difference in sound of long blades vs. short blades would be strings on a gutiar. The thicker one gives you a deeper note and the thiner one give you a higher note. So a longer blade cutting thru the air makes a deeper sound that travels farther while a shorter blade gives a higher pitch and travels a shorter distance. I think it has everything to do with Europeans and their insistence on reducing all noise pollution.

And this is nothing to get concerned with. There are things out there that are indescribable...you really have to see it to believe it. In the 80's I accidentally opened a door somewhere and saw something no one was suppose to see. And it still hasn't seen the light of day yet.

Data Show Bin Laden Plots;

artappraiser — Fri, 06 May 2011 08:04:37 +0000

In reply to CIA spied on bin Laden from

Data Show Bin Laden Plots; C.I.A. Hid Near Raided House
By Mark Mazetti and Scott Shane, New York Times, May 5/6, 2011

WASHINGTON — After reviewing computer files and documents seized at the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, American intelligence analysts have concluded that the chief of Al Qaeda played a direct role for years in plotting terror attacks from his hide-out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, United States officials said Thursday.

The C.I.A. had Bin Laden’s compound under surveillance for months before American commandos killed him in an assault on Monday, watching and photographing residents and visitors from a rented house nearby, according to several officials briefed on the operation.

The documents taken at the Abbottabad compound, according to American officials, show that Bin Laden was in touch regularly with the terror network he created. With his whereabouts and activities a mystery in recent years, many intelligence analysts and terrorism experts had concluded that he had been relegated to an inspirational figure with little role in current and future Qaeda operations.....
An Obama administration official said that documents about attacking railroads were among the first to be translated from Arabic and analyzed. The materials, along with others reviewed in the intelligence cache, have given intelligence officials a much richer picture of the Qaeda founder’s leadership of the network as he tried to elude a global dragnet.
“He wasn’t just a figurehead,” said one American official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, who had been briefed on the documents. “He continued to plot and plan, to come up with ideas about targets and to communicate those ideas to other senior Qaeda leaders.”....

On the summer 2007 raid that

artappraiser — Fri, 06 May 2011 06:54:10 +0000

In reply to Attack on Bin Laden Used Radar-evading Helicopter That Had Been a Secret

On the summer 2007 raid that "just missed":

In Long Pursuit of Bin Laden, the Raid That Just Missed
By Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, New York Times, May 5/6, 2011
WASHINGTON — Before Sunday, the last time an American president thought he had Osama Bin Laden in his sights was the late summer of 2007.

Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders, terrorist volunteers and insurgent foot soldiers would be meeting in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, a stream of intelligence reports showed. And there were hints that Bin Laden himself might travel from his hiding place in Pakistan to rally militants training for large-scale suicide attacks in Europe or the United States.

“We thought we had ‘No. 1’ on this side of the border,” said a senior American military officer involved in planning the operation. “It was the best intelligence we’d had on him in a long time.”

The military set into motion one of the largest strike missions of its kind, with long-range bombers, attack helicopters, artillery and commandos all ready to pummel the rugged mountain valley along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, according to military officers and former government officials.

But just as the half dozen B-2 Stealth bombers were halfway on the 3,000-mile flight to their target, commanders ordered them to return to their secret base in the Indian Ocean, because of doubts about the intelligence on Bin Laden and concerns about civilian casualties from the bombs.

A smaller, more precise raid was carried out by commandos and attack helicopters, killing several dozen militants in the episode, which has not been previously disclosed.

But the founder and formative figure of Al Qaeda was not there....

CIA spied on bin Laden from

artappraiser — Fri, 06 May 2011 06:37:05 +0000

In reply to Attack on Bin Laden Used Radar-evading Helicopter That Had Been a Secret

CIA spied on bin Laden from safe house inside town of Abbottabad
By Greg Miller, Washington Post, May 5/6, 2011

The CIA maintained a safe house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad for a small team of spies who conducted extensive surveillance over a period of months on the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Special Operations forces this week, U.S. officials said.

The secret CIA facility was used as a base of operations for one of the most delicate human intelligence gathering missions in recent CIA history, one that relied on Pakistani informants and other sources to help assemble a “pattern of life” portrait of the occupants and daily activities at the fortified compound where bin Laden was found, the officials said.
The on-the-ground surveillance work was part of an intelligence-gathering push mobilized after the discovery of the suspicious complex last August that involved virtually every category of collection in the U.S. arsenal, ranging from satellite imagery to eavesdropping efforts aimed at recording voices inside the compound....