In Tripoli, Nato chief hails ‘free Libya’

Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen listens to journalists questions during a Nato conference in Budapest on November 19, 2009


Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen yesterday hailed the end of the alliance’s military intervention in Libya, which helped bring about the death of deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi.

“It’s great to be in Libya, free Libya,” Rasmussen told a news conference in the capital Tripoli. “We acted to protect you. Together we succeeded. Libya is finally free, from Benghazi to Brega, from Misrata to the Western Mountains and to Tripoli.”

He said he was proud of the part Nato had played in the seven-month insurgency against Gaddafi, in which Nato planes and ships turned their firepower on his forces.

Shortly after Rasmussen spoke, members of the ruling National Transitional Council elected a new interim prime minister, whose predecessor resigned after Libya was officially declared liberated.

NATO concludes Libya mission after seven months

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen speaks at a news conference after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Chancellery in Berlin on October 27, 2011.

NATO ends its military operation in Libya at midnight today, seven months after launching an air and sea campaign that helped bring the overthrow and death of Muammar Gaddafi.

In announcing the decision last week, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called it “one of the most successful” operations in the history of the 62-year-old alliance.

Rasmussen will mark the end of the mission by visiting Libya today, where he will meet Libya’s National Transitional Council and members of civil society, the alliance said.

Despite Rasmussen’s depiction of the mission, the NATO intervention caused sharp rifts in the alliance and went on much longer than Western nations had expected or wanted.

Video of Gaddafi killed Saddam Hussein hanging execution and dictators death.

Gaddafi met a merciless and brutal death

In the end Muammar Gaddafi's death was as violent as his life, gunned down without mercy in the crumbling ruins of his home town - wounded and begging for his life while cowering in a drain pipe.

His love of comic-opera uniforms, exotic female bodyguards and Bedouin tents provided a theatrical backdrop for 42 years of bloody repression that, in the end, could not withstand a determined uprising backed by NATO air power.

Chased out of Tripoli by rebel forces, Gaddafi disappeared - some said into the empty desert spaces in the south of his vast country.

In tandem with his eccentricity, Gaddafi had a charisma which initially at least won him support among many ordinary Libyans. His readiness to take on Western powers and Israel, both with rhetoric and action, earned him a certain cachet with some in other Arab states who felt their own leaders were too supine.

While leaders of neighbouring Arab states folded quickly in the face of popular uprisings, Gaddafi put up a bloody fight, taking on NATO as well as local insurgents who quickly seized half the country.



Together: Nurse Galyna was always close by.Gaddafi's female bodyguards seemed to prove that he ran Libya almost on a whim.Eccentric style: Gaddafi was known for his love of over-the-top military-style uniforms, variously seen in different colours and with a vast array of military awards and medals.Synonymous with terrorism: A young Gaddafi, right, is seen in an undated photo with notorious Ugandan leader Idi Amin.Shunned by the West: Links to revolutionaries , such as Cuba's Fidel Castro, made Gaddafi many enemies around the world

Death row inmate eats two burgers with bacon, fried pork chops, fried chicken, fried fish, chili cheese fries, regular fries... and a glass of fruit punch

Milton Mathis had IQ of just 62 and has problems dressing himself

A mentally handicapped murderer who fatally shot two people and paralysed a third in a Houston crack house in 1998, was executed last night by lethal injection - after eating a mammoth final meal.

Milton Mathis, 32, scoffed two burgers with bacon, fried pork chops, fried chicken, fried fish, chili cheese fries, regular fries, and fruit punch, officials said.

Lawyers for Mathis, who was the 23rd person put to death in the U.S. this year and the sixth executed in Texas, had spent yesterday morning pleading his case before the Supreme Court. He previously lobbied unsuccessfully to state and federal courts.

Meaty: Mathis requested two burgers with bacon, fried pork chops, fried chicken, fried fish, chili cheese fries, regular fries and fruit punch (file photo).Sad ending: Milton Mathis, 32, was executed in Texas on Tuesday, despite being mentally disabled

Pakistan arrests CIA’s bin Laden informants

Members of the anti-terrorism squad are seen surrounding the compound where al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad May 4, 2011.


Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested five CIA informants who fed information to the US spy agency before the raid last month which killed Osama bin Laden, The New York Times reported today.

One of the detainees was reported to be a Pakistani Army major whom officials said copied license plates of cars visiting the al Qaeda leader’s compound 30 miles northwest of Islamabad.

The fate of the CIA informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, the newspaper reported, citing American officials.

Outgoing CIA Director Leon Panetta raised the issue of the informants’ detention during a trip to Islamabad last week where he met with Pakistani military and intelligence officers, the newspaper said.

Some in Washington see the arrest as another sign of the deep disconnect between US and Pakistani priorities in the fight against extremists, the Times reported.

The United States kept Islamabad in the dark about the May 2 raid by Navy SEALs until after it was completed, humiliating Pakistan’s armed forces and putting US military and intelligence ties under serious strain.

the brave pilot who saved three passengers before perishing in a ball of flames

* Passengers jumped to safety but sudden change of weight sent blimp soaring skywards
* Investigators piecing together last moments of doomed flight
* Wife of Australian pilot pays tribute to 'hero' who stayed at controls

Investigators were today piecing together the last moments before a a Goodyear blimp burst into flames and plunged to earth in a weekend crash in Germany.

The pilot, Michael Nerandzic, 53, was killed but three passengers managed to jump to safety when the airship caught fire as it was coming in to land at the Reichelsheim aerodrome near Friedberg.

When the airship was just two metres from the floor, Mr Nerandzic told his passengers, all journalists, to jump to the ground while he tried to land safely.

But once the three had leapt clear, the sudden loss of weight caused the blimp to soar skywards and burst into flames before crashing to the earth in a chilling echo of the Hindenburg disaster.

 

A coffin is carried away from the accident site late on Sunday evening

The pilot managed to get near enough the ground for passengers to escape before climbing back up.The burning wreckage of the airship. The pilot was killed in the accident, but he managed to save his passengers.Pilot Mike Nerandzic, pictured in Goodyear Blimp 'Spirit of Safety I', died in the crash.Plunge: The Goodyear blimp falls to the ground after the incident in Friedberg, Germany on Sunday night

Taliban chief has disappeared in Pakistan

he Afghan intelligence agency says the reclusive leader of the Taliban has disappeared from a suspected hideout in Pakistan and has been out of contact with his commanders for days - adding further questions about Mullah Mohammad Omar after a media ....

Kabul—Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was killed in Pakistan, a private Afghan television channel reported on Monday. “Mullah Omar was killed on his way from Quetta to North Waziristan,” TOLO television said in its news bulletin. ...

The Taliban says its spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, is alive and well. Western diplomats, as well as Pakistani tribal and intelligence sources, also downplay reports that Omar — who gave shelter to Osama bin Laden after 9/11 — is dead.

Afghanistan's intelligence services on Monday confirmed that the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar, with a US$10 million bounty on his head, had disappeared from his Quetta hideout in Pakistan. "We can confirm about the disappearance of Omar five ...

Al Qaeda leader's last moments now captured in toy bricks

Despite documenting an iconic historial moment, the pictures detailing Osama Bin Laden's death were still subject to days of mocked up internet viral treatment.

But one artist has immortalised the famous Navy Seal raid on Bin Laden's Pakistan compound in unique style - by recreating the pictures in Lego.

Student Alex Eylar mocked up his own version of the Al-Qaeda leader's demise by picturing him as a Lego man sat on a bed about to be gunned down by Lego commando.

Another painstakingly-detailed picture recreates the dramatic moment President Obama and his senior staff watch the Navy Seal raid from the White House Situation Room.

Alex's version shows President Obama - who strangely has a mop of black hair - sat watching the raid with other toy brick White House staff including a Lego Hilary Clinton.

Vice President Joe Biden and other members of the national security team are also shown in Lego form staring at their monitors.

 Recreation: Bin Laden sat watching TV in his Pakistan compound also became a defining image following his death.Tension: The defining image of President Obama watching the raid from the White House Situation Room also got the toy brick treatment.Block and load: Two Lego commandos confront Bin Laden in his compound in artist Alex's recreation

Osama Bin Laden evade capture for 6 years the charade that let him evade capture for six years

# ISI official: 'We were looking in the wrong areas. It's an intelligence failure'
# Local children received $2-3 if their ball entered the compound
# Visiting doctor asked to leave after commenting on SUVs
# CIA chief feared telling Pakistanis would 'alert targets'
# Full story of how courier unwittingly led commandos to Bin Laden's lair
# David Cameron: 'We should be tough in asking the big questions'
# Prime Minister hints at swifter troop exit from Afghanistan

Blackened: A shelter in the compound appears to have take some of the fire as U.S. forces went into to grab Bin Laden

Sightseeing: Local residents gather outside and atop the walls Bin Laden's home while the security services turn a blind eye

Pakistan anger: Demonstrators in Karachi chant slogans condemning the killing of Osama bin Laden as they gather to offer funeral prayers

Doubts: CIA Director Leon Panetta said concerns over the reliability of Pakistani intelligence led his agency not to inform them in advance of the raid

Surrounded: The three-storey lair, guarded left by security officials, is encircled by walls 12ft high topped with three lines of barbed wire. Local workers were seen carrying out running repairs after the raid

Osama bunny-laden: These are the two rabbits which Zarar Ahmed claimed were given to him by the Al Qaeda chief

It's a good day: President Barack Obama, centre, holds a Cabinet meeting with, from left, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Trade Representative Ronald Kirk, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, in Washington, DC today

The wall encircles the whole compound which was raided in 2003 by security services searching for an Al Qaeda Faraj Al-Libi

Seen better days: Pakistani soldiers in a jeep pass by the compound, close to a military academy and less than 70 miles from capital Islamabad

Close up: The compound in the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama Bin Laden was killed in the early hours of Monday morning

Young guest: Zarar Ahmed, 12, points at Bin Laden's high-security compound which he lives near to and claims to have visited several times

In 2004, a captured Al Qaeda operative told U.S. intelligence that the courier Sheikh Abu Ahmed was close to operational commander Faraj Al-Libi, left, who had replaced Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, right. 

Details of the comfortable family life Osama Bin Laden enjoyed under the noses of the Pakistani security services emerged last night.

Neighbours’ children were invited into the terror mastermind’s hideout to play with pet rabbits, while his children attended a nearby school.

Even the name of the million-dollar house was a huge clue – it was called ‘Waziristan Mansion’, after the tribal area of mountainous Pakistan where Bin Laden fled in the wake of the 9/11 outrage.

Until he was finally hunted down and killed by U.S. special forces on Sunday, the world’s most wanted man lived in the garrison city of Abbottabad with his various wives for an incredible six years.

Raw video of carnage gruesome inside bin laden death house compound and Obama full speech.

Celebrations across America as U.S. special forces shoot dead terror chief in mansion hideaway in Pakistan

* Terror chief blasted in head after refusing offer to surrender
* Three adults including Bin Laden's 'son' reportedly killed in raid
* Compound was yards from Pakistan's 'Sandhurst' military academy
* Body buried at sea after Saudi Arabia 'declines to take corpse'
* DNA tests 99.9 per cent certain man killed WAS Bin Laden
* U.S. embassies on alert over Al Qaeda reprisal attacks
* Barack Obama declares 'Justice has been done'
* David Cameron says death is 'massive step forward'

Osama Bin Laden has been killed by the U.S. military after a decade-long hunt to avenge the 9/11 attacks, President Barack Obama has revealed.

The 54-year-old leader of Al Qaeda was dramatically killed last night in a firefight with American special forces in a $1million mansion hideout around 60 miles from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

Experts used facial recognition techniques to identify the slain terrorist and performed DNA tests,
which are said to be 99.9 per cent certain man killed WAS Bin Laden.

U.S. officials have told broadcaster CNN that Bin Laden's body has already been buried at sea in order to prevent the grave from becoming a shrine for extremists.

 Carnage: Blood can be seen on the floor from where Osama was reportedly surrounded by three men, including his son, and a woman who formed a human shield against U.S. troops.Gun fight: A pool of blood on the floor suggests that one Al Qaeda member was shot close to their bed, while right, a wardrobe pulled open by U.S troops to ensure that none of Bin Laden's clan were hiding in the room.Pit of evil: A king size bed where Bin Laden may have once slept at the secretive compound in Abbottabad. Blood from a gun battle can be seen at the foot of the mattress

Hideout: The bin Laden compound was found only a few hundred yards from the military academy known as Pakistan's Sandhurst in the garrison town of Abbottabad, Pakistan

Nato hits Gaddafi convoy in East Libya

Libyans celebrate in Benghazi following news that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son was killed in a Nato air strike.

A Nato air strike destroyed 45 vehicles of Muammar Gaddafi’s forces after they had killed at least five civilians in fighting in two east Libyan towns, an oil official and a rebel spokesman said today.

Gaddafi forces entered the towns of Jalu and Awlijah, south of the eastern frontline near Ajdabiyah, early yesterday and opened fire, killing at least five civilians and wounding more than 10, the rebel military spokesman said.

AbdelJalil Mayouf, information manager at Agoco oil company that controls rebel-held oilfields in the area, said that after that attack a Nato air strike destroyed a convoy of 45 vehicles belonging to pro-Gaddafi forces as they left Jalu.

Rebel chief pained by bloodshed in Gaddafi family - Russia says Nato may be targeting Gaddafi

Rebel chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil said today he felt “pain and sorrow” even for Muammar Gaddafi’s family following a Nato air strike on his house in Tripoli, but blamed the Libyan leader for the violence.

Gaddafi survived the air attacke on the dwelling but his youngest son, Saif al-Arab, and three grandchildren were killed, according to a government spokesman.

Abdel Jalil, speaking in comments broadcast on the Qatar-based Al Jazeera channel, also offered amnesty to Gaddafi supporters who abandon the Libyan leader and join the rebels.

“We feel pain and sorrow for any bloodshed, even when Gaddafi’s house was bombed last night. We feel pain for any blood that is shed unjustly,” Abdel Jalil said.

“But the blood of Gaddafi’s sons is not more precious than the blood of Libyan men and women,” he added.

Abdel Jalil said Gaddafi was to blame for the civil war.

“He bombed our cities and villages with rocket launchers and planes. He shed blood and killed children ...,” he said.

Abdel Jalil urged Gaddafi supporters to join the rebels.

“You must abandon him and you will live with us in peace and security. Anyone who abandons Muammar Gaddafi in these moments will have peace and security for him and his family and will live with us in prosperity in the future.”

Senior official in Pakistan’s ISI confirms bin Laden killed

Pentagon and Twin Tower hit by Al qeada force.

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed almost 3,000 people and put the United States on a decade-long war footing, was killed late last night in Abbotabad by a joint American and Pakistani team, senior security officials said today.

“Yes, I can confirm that,” one senior intelligence official told Reuters, but declined to give further details.

Another security official in Peshawar confirmed it was a joint operation between CIA and Pakistani security forces.

“It was carried out on a very precise info that some high-value target is there,” he said.

The last Maharaja: India pays respects to much-loved war hero whose death marks the end of an era

Thousands of people dressed in mourning clothes paid their respects to the last Maharaja of Jaipur today, adorning his body with flower garlands before his 12-year-old grandson lit the funeral pyre.

The much-loved Brigadier Sawai Bhawani Singh, 79, died Saturday in a New Delhi hospital where he was being treated for high blood pressure and a lung infection.

Singh served as Maharaja or hereditary ruler of Jaipur for only a few months in between his father's death in 1970 and the abolition of royal titles in 1971.

Jaipur was one of hundreds of tiny royal kingdoms that dotted India until the country's independence from Britain in 1947.

Even in his short reign, he was revered as a wise and kind ruler.

On Monday, his body - dressed in a military uniform - was laid out in the courtyard of the Chandra Mahal or Moon Palace, one of the palaces that continued to be home to the former royal family.

Thousands of local residents and tourists placed garlands and flowers by his body.

Male relatives and staff members wearing turbans in the mourning colours of black, white and khaki then put the body on a truck bedecked with marigold flowers and the flags and colours of the former kingdom.

A popular ruler: Hundreds joined the funeral cortege today to pay their respects

The last Maharaja of Jaipur: Brigadier Sawai Bhawani Singh

Police snipers take down armed bank robber as he holds gun to hostage's head

Gun pressed to his female hostage's head and surrounded by armed police, these are the final moments of a three-hour bank siege which ended in a shootout.

The bank robber was eventually shot dead by police snipers as he led the terrified woman through the parking lot of the Wachovia bank in Cary, near Raleigh, North Carolina.

Television stations had been following the siege live viewers saw the man crumple to the ground as he five officers opened fire.

Dead: After the three-hour stand-off the robber lies dead on the pavement as the hostage bolts to safety

Down: The unnamed gunman slumps back having been shot, as the female hostage makes a run for it

Shot: An officer fires his gun at the armed robber, who is pressing a gun to the head of a hostage outside the Wachovia Bank in Cary

Tragic Getty oil heir who was left paralysed and almost blind after drug-induced stroke 30 years ago is 'close to death'

*John Paul Getty III is said to have just 'days' left to live
*Relatives at his bedside in mansion in Buckinghamshire
*Friends say that death would be a release for John Paul

An heir to the Getty oil fortune is believed to be close to death after suffering decades of ill health caused by drug abuse.

John Paul Getty III is being cared for at the family's mansion in Buckinghamshire and is believed to have just a few days left to live, Richard Kay reported in today's Daily Mail.

John Paul was born into fabulous wealth as the grandson of the notoriously tight-fisted oil tycoon John Paul Getty.

Grief: John Paul and his chauffeur leave the memorial mass held for his father Sir John Paul Getty in London, who died of a chest infection in April 2003 at age 70.

Ordeal: Kidnappers sent a picture to Italian newspapers of John Paul in a hole with his head heavily-bandaged and, right, the teenager emerges from a police station after the ordeal with his right ear missing

Taliban claims deputy governor's assassination

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the assassination of the deputy governor of Afghanistan's Kandahar province. As Abdul Latif Ashna was leaving home to head to work, a suicide bomber riding a motorbike ...

American political activist who idolised Gandhi dies after setting fire to himself in India

American political activist Jeff Knaebel has committed suicide by setting himself on fire in northern India.

The 71-year-old was found by villagers on Wednesday at an ancient Buddhist chapel in Virat Nagar, a town 90 miles north of Jaipur, police said.

Knaebel, who idolised Gandhi, left a suicide note blaming cruel incidents in both the United States and India.

Suicide: The remains of political activist Jeff Knaebel have been found at an ancient Buddhist chapel in northern India