The US forces who raided the safehouse of Osama Bin Laden appear to have caught him completely by surprise - and to have avoided detection by Pakistani radar. How did they do it?

One answer, experts believe, is that the special operations team used previously unseen stealth helicopters.

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1. Silver finish makes it harder to detect on radar and by infrared sensors

2. Shape of tailboom has been altered and possibly enlarged to evade radar

3. Pan-like cover or hubcap over the rear rotor head conceals exposed machinery which is more easily picked up on radar

4. Extra blades on tail rotor reduce noise and lessen typical chopper sound

Rest of aircraft: There is speculation that the main rotor could also have had extra blades, retractable landing gear and a cover over the main rotor head

Source: Aviation Week

Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda leader, dead - Barack Obama:Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been killed by US forces in Pakistan, President Barack Obama has said.

Bin Laden was shot dead at a compound near Islamabad, in a ground operation based on US intelligence, the first lead for which emerged last August.

Mr Obama said US forces took possession of the body after "a firefight".

Bin Laden is believed to have ordered the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 and a number of others.

He was top of the US' "most wanted" list.

DNA tests later confirmed that Bin Laden was dead, US officials said.

Bin Laden was buried at sea after a Muslim funeral on board an aircraft carrier, Pentagon officials said.

Announcing the success of the operation, Mr Obama said it was "the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al-Qaeda".

Obama: Osama bin Laden's death does not end fight against al Qaeda Key dates in the hunt for Osama bin Laden

CBS News was told that the courier was "trusted" by bin Laden. "We identified areas where this courier and his brother operated, but they had extensive operational security," said the official -- and those elaborate security procedures made the U.S. even more suspicious of whom they were catering to.

Four years ago, the United States learned the man's identity, which officials did not disclose, and then about two years later, they identified areas of Pakistan where he operated. Last August, the man's residence was found, officials said.

The residence is in Abbotabad, Pakistan, an affluent area with lots of retired military. The compound was surrounded by an 8-foot wall with barbed wire. There were extra walls inside and 2 security gates. Also telling was that they burned trash, unlike their neighbors. There was a terrace on the 3rd floor with a 7-foot privacy wall. It was a million-dollar home with no telephone or internet connections, custom built to hide someone of significance. Another major indicator was that a family lived there, one whose size and make up was same as bin Ladens.

By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear enough that Mr. Obama wanted to "pursue an aggressive course of action," a senior administration official said.

Osama bin Laden is dead:After 10 years of hunting, a team of CIA officers and Navy SEALs kill bin Laden in a firefight near the Pakistani capital

WASHINGTON - Osama bin Laden, the face of global terrorism and architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was killed in a firefight with elite American forces Monday, then quickly buried at sea in a stunning finale to a furtive decade on the run.

Long believed to be hiding in caves, bin Laden was tracked down in a costly, custom-built hideout not far from a Pakistani military academy.

"Justice has been done," President Barack Obama said in a dramatic announcement at the White House while a crowd cheered outside and hundreds more gathered at ground zero in Manhattan to celebrate the news.

Photos: America Reacts to death of Osama bin Laden
Bin Laden hid in plain site in Pakistan
Intel hunt led to shootout at bin Laden fortress
Special report: The death of Osama bin Laden

The military operation took mere minutes.

Under Punjab Police Raymond Davis Investigation Report:(Pictures,Interrogation)

Raymond Davis 1 (Pictures,Interrogation)

Raymond Davis 2 (Pictures,Interrogation)


Raymond Davis 3 (Pictures,Interrogation)


Raymond Davis 4 (Pictures,Interrogation)



Raymond Davis 5 (Pictures,Interrogation)

Raymond Davis 4 With GPS Decoder.Why did He Need This

GPS Decoder found from Raymond Davis.This Decoder is used to DECODE communication Of Pakistan Army,ISI and Most Intelligence Agencies

WASHINGTON: Two US citizens who worked for the CIA under contract as protective officers were quietly withdrawn from Pakistan after being involved in a fatal car accident last month while trying to help Raymond Davis, another CIA contractor being held by Pakistani authorities on murder charges.

Two officials familiar with US government activities in Pakistan said the two Americans who left the country worked for the CIA as protective officers.
This means they were employed as highly skilled bodyguards, like Davis, for CIA operations officers serving in Pakistan.
The two Americans who left Pakistan have not been otherwise identified by US or Pakistani authorities. The CIA declined to comment.
According to a translated Pakistani police statement obtained by Reuters, the two Americans got into the car crash while trying to go to the assistance of Davis, who US sources say claims he shot dead two Pakistanis on a motorcycle when they tried to rob him at gunpoint as he was driving in Lahore.

American carrier-based drone made its first flight

American carrier-based drone X-47B, designed by Northrop Grumman, made its maiden test flight, according to Agence France-Presse in the Sunday, Feb. 6, with reference to the command of the U.S. Navy - the customer's aircraft.

X-47B, the report says the U.S. Navy, first flew on Air Force Base Edwards, California on February 4 at around 14:00 local time. The first flight lasted 29 minutes, a new carrier-based drone rose to a height of 5,000 feet (about 1.5 kilometers) from the landing gear. The tests were successful, maneuvers performed X-47B during the first flight,

The company Northrop Grumman has been developing X-47B in 2007, winning a contract for 636 million dollars from the U.S. Navy. Originally it was assumed that the first flight of X-47B will be

Buoyed by a burst of optimism about the global economy _ and mindful of the ”new reality” that has framed it in the aftermath of the financial crisis _ some 2,500 business leaders, politicians and social activists will tackle an array of issues on the first day of the World Economic Forum.

This year’s annual meeting in the picturesque Alpine town of Davos will take on several issues including concern over China’s growing clout, simmering anxieties about Europe’s debt crisis and consideration of whether the financial crisis that has wrought layoffs, cutbacks and austerity measures has completed the worst stages.
The five-day meeting starts Wednesday and will feature a keynote address by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev who postponed his planned arrival by a day after a suicide bombing killed 35 people in his country’s busiest airport amid lax security.
The topic of Medvedev’s speech hasn’t been shared, but given the intense security surrounding the meeting, and the fact that terrorism remains an issue of both political and commercial concern, his audience is expected to listen keenly to what Medvedev has to say.

US aid chief Rajiv Shah warned American lawmakers on Saturday that slashing assistance to Pakistan and Afghanistan could undermine US national security.

Mr Shah`s warning follows a recommendation from a 165-member Republican Study Group for a $100 billion cut in the government`s spending during the current fiscal year.

The proposal — by a group which now controls the lower house of the Congress — represents the deepest annual cut in funding in recent US history.
The Republican plan calls for $1.39 billion in annual savings from the US Agency for International Development. The USAID operating budget for fiscal 2010 was approximately $1.65 billion.
Mr Shah warned that the proposed slashing had real and drastic negative implications for American power and the ongoing missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Hours after police in Lahore submitted a preliminary investigation report in a court accusing American national Raymond Davis of killing two Pakistanis on a street in Lahore on Jan 27, US President Barack Obama urged Pakistan to abide by the Vienna Convention, treat Davis as a diplomat and release him.

President Obama, while insisting that Pakistan must not prosecute Mr Davis, said he also was concerned about the loss of Pakistani lives in the incident. “Obviously we’re concerned about the loss of life,” Mr Obama said at a Washington press conference. Still, he said, Mr Davis should be treated as a diplomat. “There’s a broader principle at stake that I think we have to uphold.”
In his first public remarks on a case that has strained US relations with Pakistan, Mr Obama noted that the Vienna Convention for diplomatic immunity granted Mr Davis some right.
“We expect Pakistan… to abide by the same convention,” he said. “We’re going to be continuing to work with the Pakistani government to get this person released.”

A serviceman with the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force has lost his life in a non-combat related incident in the troubled eastern part of Afghanistan.

"A NATO service member died as a result of a non-combat injury in eastern Afghanistan," a Press TV correspondent cited a brief press release by the security mission on Wednesday as saying. 

The alliance did not announce the name or nationality of the victim.

The latest death brings to 47 the number of fatalities among foreign troops in war-ravaged Afghanistan so far this year.

Last year, nonetheless, with a death toll of 711, remains the deadliest year for foreign military casualties. The number eclipsed the previous record of 521 in 2009. 

A Finnish soldier serving with US-led foreign troops has been killed and several others wounded in the volatile northern Afghanistan.

The soldier died in an explosion in the Northern Province of Samangan. 

Finland has around 180 soldiers in Afghanistan.

At least 44 foreign soldiers have been killed in the war-torn country so far in 2011.

Last year was the deadliest for foreign forces in Afghanistan -- with over 711 foreign troops killed.

NATO has admitted to the rising power of the militants in Afghanistan despite the presence of 150,000 US-led forces in the country.

The invasion of Afghanistan took place with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the country. Nine years on, however, Afghanistan remains unstable and civilians continue to pay the price.

The rising death toll among the US-led foreign forces has prompted growing opposition to the Afghan war in countries that have contributed troops to the mission. source

A report says that Washington spends $300 million of American taxpayers' money on Afghan war per day, and this comes as the US has failed so far to establish security in the war-torn country.

This is while the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq will allow for a reduced US defense budget in 2012. 

Under the Pentagon's proposed budget, the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will drop to $117.8 billion for fiscal year 2012, a reduction of $41.5 billion from the previous year, AFP reported. 

As the US war effort winds down in Iraq, the budget sets aside $10.6 billion for “Operation New Dawn,” with the remaining 50,000 US troops there due to withdraw by the end of 2011. 

Spending for the Afghan mission calls for $107.3 billion, down slightly from the last budget, which requested $113.5 billion. 

The budget released Monday offered no insight into the scale of the planned drawdown, with the Pentagon's budget document assuming an average of 98,250 troops on the ground by the end of 2012. 

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the Pentagon had "decided to budget conservatively" as it was too soon to predict how many troops would be withdrawn after July. 

"But that's not to say that we will have 98,000 troops at the end of Feb. 2012. In fact it's a lead pipe cinch we won't," he added. 

The budget for Afghanistan and Iraq includes $79.2 billion for operations, $10.1 billion to counter the threat posed by homemade bombs -- the main killer of NATO-led troops in the war. 

Some $11.9 billion is devoted to repairing and replacing equipment lost or damaged and $12.8 billion for training and arming Afghan security forces, who are supposed to gradually take over security duties between now and 2015. 

By October, the United States and NATO plans to expand the Afghan army to 172,000 soldiers and the police to 134,000 police.

The UK government is spearheading talks with the notorious terrorist group Taliban in Afghanistan, now, into the tenth year after the US-led invasion of the country.

As the US-led occupation of Afghanistan enters its tenth year, casualties have risen among Afghan civilians and NATO troops alike, making the last 12 months the bloodiest of the conflict to date. 

US and British troops are engaged in a dirty war in Afghanistan, using aerial bombing, drone attacks, torture prisons and corporate mercenaries against the Afghan people, all of which are fuelling further insecurity and fostering human rights abuse. 

Britain joined the countries that invaded Afghanistan under the US command after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on US soil on the pretext that the masterminds behind the attacks - al-Qaeda and the Taliban - must be uprooted. 

But, the multinational force led by the US military have neither been able to defeat terrorism nor they succeeded in their attempts to uproot the terrorists the US and British intelligence agencies claimed have taken refuge in the mountains of Afghanistan. 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the sanctions that the UN has imposed on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program have had no effect on the country's economy.

In a live television address on Tuesday night, President Ahmadinejad downplayed the sanctions and stated that Iran's economy is flourishing. 

The Iranian president said that in the modern world, where economies are so competitive, such punitive measures are pointless. 

He went on to say that the sanctions imposed on the country may have caused prices to increase in a few cases, but they will decrease in the near future. 

Ahmadinejad noted that these sanctions will eventually benefit the national economy, since Iran has attained self-sufficiency in many areas. 

In June 2010, the UN Security Council imposed a fourth round of US-engineered sanctions on Iran's financial and military sectors. 

Fifteen female and two male US veterans have filed a lawsuit against the federal government, accusing the Pentagon of ignoring reports of sexual assault and rape by US military soldiers.

The lawsuit, which names US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld as defendants, has turned the spotlight on 17 sexual assault cases, which the plaintiffs believe military commanders failed to prevent and respond to properly, a Press TV correspondent in Washington reported on Tuesday. 

The plaintiffs filed their class-action suit in the federal court on Tuesday, calling for an objective third party to handle sexual assault complaints, and urging the US military to change the way sexual assault cases are handled. 

In one incident, a female US army sergeant has spoken about her ordeal in the US military in 2002 when she was raped by fellow service members in Korea -- an event that changed her life forever. 

US Army General David Petraeus is said to leave his post as the commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan before the end of the year, a report says.

Petraeus, who was appointed less than eight months ago, will leave his post as the head of the US and NATO forces by the end of 2011 as part of a reshuffle plan that would see the departure of top five US diplomats in Kabul, including its Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, and Lieutenant-General David Rodriguez, deputy to Petraeus, the London-based Times reported Tuesday.

"General Petraeus is doing a brilliant job but he's been going virtually non-stop since 9/11 [and] he can't do it forever," Pentagon Secretary Geoff Morrell said. 

"This is a heck of a demanding job, he will have to be rotated out at some point," he further explained. 

With the administration of US President Barak Obama struggling to curb the nine-year old militancy in Afghanistan, the speculation has raised serious concerns over the fate of the prolonged war and the future war strategies in the war-wracked country. 

Two security guards and an insurgent were killed in an attack in the Afghan capital Kabul, officials say.

Reports said the blast occurred just inside a shopping complex in the city centre after an attacker carrying explosives was challenged by guards.

A gun battle which broke out following the explosion has now ended.

It is the second attack in less than three weeks in the heavily fortified Afghan capital, after nine died in an attack on a supermarket on 28 January.

The Taliban told the BBC they had carried out that attack.

Monday's attack is thought to have begun when an attacker was challenged by security guards as he attempted to gain access to the shopping precinct, says the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul.

When Washington's red-walled Opera House drew in friends and fellow travellers from the world over to pay tribute last week to veteran American diplomat Richard Holbrooke, President Barack Obama set them a challenge.

"He made a difference. Let us now carry that work forward in our time," Mr Obama declared as he ended his eulogy for the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, following his sudden death of a heart attack last month.

But who would fill this larger-than-life figure's big dusty boots?

Names mentioned by several people close to this process are obvious choices on Washington's rollcall of the best and brightest.

But many tried-and-tested troubleshooters are said to be demurring, citing other commitments, advancing age, or the daunting scale of the task.

How will the approaches championed by Mr Holbrooke move forward, including a strong civilian role alongside the growing military juggernaut and its powerful four-star, all-star General David Petraeus?

"The essence of the challenge is getting the balance right between the military and the political, civilian and diplomatic aspects," reflected former deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, a close friend of Mr Holbrooke, who now heads the Brookings Institution.