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Report: Osama Was Obsessed With Killing Obama
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 13, 2011
Modified May 13, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published May 13, 2011
Modified May 13, 2011
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According to US Intelligence officials, Osama bin Laden wanted to kill President Obama as part of a plot to disrupt the 2012 presidential elections. Officials have been analyzing over one million pages of data recovered during the assault on bin Laden at the start of the month, and they have learned more in the past ten days about him and his operation than in the past 10 years. "I would say this is probably very personal on bin Laden's part, to kill a President that he believes has violated the Muslim faith...He is incensed, inflamed, obsessed about killing the President," said Brad Garrett, a former FBI profiler.
In the home videos of bin Laden which were released last week, he could be seen changing the channel every time Obama's face came onto the screen.
The news about Osama's obsession with President Obama comes on the same day that the first reprisal attack over bin Laden's death took place in Pakistan—over 80 people were killed and 140 injured in an early morning attack today when two suicide bombers struck a military training facility in Shabqadar. The Taliban immediately claimed responsibility: "We have done this to avenge the Abbottabad incident," said Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban.
The attack comes a day after reports that Al Shabaab, the Somalia-based branch of Al Qaeda, threatened the life of President Obama's 89-year-old step-grandmother, who lives in Kenya. According to Kenyan administrators, security had been increased around the home of Sarah Onyango Obama, but Obama refused to talk about it: “There are a lot of reports all the time about threat streams to me and my family, so I don't comment on specifics," he told reporters yesterday.
Meanwhile, former President George W. Bush opened up for the first time about receiving the "good call" from Obama about bin Laden's death at a conference of hedge fund managers in Las Vegas on Wednesday: "I was eating souffle at Rise Restaurant with Laura and two buddies...Obama simply said, 'Osama Bin Laden is dead.'" He didn't mention whether Lord Vader gave him a heads up about Obi-Wan Kenobi's demise.
Tagged
election 2012
Osama bin Laden
Pakistan
president obama
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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