Who shot bin Laden? Former U.S. Navy SEALS make rival claims

November 7, 2014

U.S. NavyWashington, Nov 7: Members of the U.S. Navy Seal commando team that killed Osama bin Laden at his Pakistan hideout in May, 2011 are making conflicting claims as to who actually shot the al Qaeda leader.

The Washington Post published a story on Thursday quoting Rob O'Neill, a former SEAL, as claiming to have fired the fatal shot that hit bin Laden in the forehead after O'Neill stormed into a room in bin Laden's house in Abbottabad.

The claim by O'Neill, who travels the country giving motivational speeches, was countered by a source close to another SEAL team member.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the team member told him the fatal shot was fired by one of two other men who entered the room before O'Neill.

The Post said O'Neill acknowledged shots were fired at bin Laden by at least two other Seal team members, including Matt Bissonnette, a former Seal who wrote a 2012 book about the raid entitled "No Easy Day."

The book did not identify the person who shot bin Laden.

NBC News quoted Bissonnette on Thursday as saying: "Two different people telling two different stories for two different reasons ... Whatever he (O'Neill) says, he says. I don't want to touch that."

Last year, after Esquire Magazine published an interview with an anonymous SEAL member, now widely reported to have been O'Neill, who claimed to have shot bin Laden, other media outlets questioned the account.

An article entitled "Who really killed bin Laden," by Peter Bergen, a CNN analyst and al Qaeda expert, quoted a then-serving SEAL team member saying the story as presented by Esquire was "complete B.S."

A representative of a speaker's organization which says it represents O'Neill said he was unavailable to comment. O'Neill's page on the website of the organization describes his career as a SEAL, but makes no mention of a role in killing bin Laden.

Bissonnette's lawyer, Robert Luskin, acknowledged Thursday that Bissonnette for some time had been under criminal investigation by both the Naval Criminal Investigation Service and the Justice Department for possible violations of a U.S. espionage law because he did not seek official clearance before publishing his book. Bissonnette denies wrongdoing.

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June 25,2020

Islamabad, Jun 25: The coronavirus cases in Pakistan crossed the 192,000-mark after 4,044 new Covid-19 infections were detected in the last 24 hours, the health ministry said on Thursday.

According to the Ministry of National Health Services, 148 more people died due to the deadly virus in the country, taking the death toll to 3,903.

With the detection of 4,044 new cases in the last 24 hours, the coronavirus tally in the country now stands at 192,970, it said.

Sindh reported a maximum number of 74,070 infections, followed by 71,191 in Punjab, 23,887 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 11,710 in Islamabad, 9,817 in Balochistan, 1,365 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 930 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

A total of 81,307 patients have recovered so far from the disease.

Health authorities have so far conducted 1,171,976 coronavirus tests, including 21,835 in the last 24 hours.

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News Network
April 2,2020

Washington, Apr 2: The total US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 4,000 early Wednesday, more than double the number from three days earlier, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The number of deaths was 4,076 -- more than twice the 2,010 recorded late Saturday.

More than 40 percent of recorded deaths nationally were in New York state, the Johns Hopkins data showed.

On Tuesday the United States exceeded the number of deaths in China, where the pandemic emerged in December before spreading worldwide.

The number of confirmed US cases has reached 189,510, the most in the world, though Italy and Spain have recorded more fatalities.

After initially downplaying the threat from new coronavirus in the early stages of the US outbreak, President Donald Trump warned of "a very, very painful two weeks" to come for the country on Tuesday.

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News Network
June 9,2020

Washington, Jun 9: The defacement of Mahatma Gandhi's statue by unknown miscreants was a "disgrace", US President Donald Trump has said, days after it was vandalised with graffiti and spray painting during the nationwide protests against the custodial killing of African-American George Floyd.

The statue, which is across the road from the Indian Embassy, was vandalised on the intervening night of June 2 and 3, prompting the Indian embassy to register a complaint with the local law enforcement agencies.

The incident happened during the week of nationwide protests against the custodial killing of Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

"It was a disgrace," Trump made the brief comment at the White House on Monday when asked about the incident.

The Indian Embassy here has taken up the matter with the US Department of State for early investigation into the matter, as also with the Metropolitan Police and National Park Service.

It is working with the US Department of State, Metropolitan Police and National Park Service for expeditious restoration of the statue at the park.

The US president and First Lady Melania Trump, during their visit to India in February, had spent considerable time at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had personally given them a tour of the historic place.

"The First Lady and I have just had a pleasure of visiting Mahatma Gandhi's Ashram, a few miles from here, where he launched the famous Salt March," Trump had said during his address at the Namaste Trump rally at the Motera Stadium in Ahmedabad on February 24. A day later, Trump and the first lady also laid a wreath at Raj Ghat in New Delhi.

Pictures of Trump and the first lady with Gandhi's spinning wheel during their visit to the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad are seen hanging on the walls of the White House.

Last week, top US lawmakers and the Trump Campaign condemned the vandalisation of the statue.

"Very disappointing," tweeted Kimberly Guilfoyle, advisor to Donald J Trump for President Inc. and National Chair of the Trump Victory Finance Committees.

North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis said, "It's disgraceful to see the defacing of the Gandhi statue" in Washington DC.

"Gandhi was a pioneer of peaceful protesting, demonstrating the great change it can bring. Rioting, looting and vandalising do not bring us together, he said.

Senator Marco Rubio said, "more evidence that violent radicals and run of the mill crazies have hijacked legitimate protests to create anarchy or for their own purposes."

Protests against the custodial killing of Floyd turned violent in the US and prestigious monuments were damaged. In Washington DC, protestors burnt a historic church and damaged monuments like the Lincoln Memorial.

US Ambassador to India Ken Juster apologised for the incident.

"So sorry to see the desecration of the Gandhi statue in Wash, DC. Please accept our sincere apologies," he said.

"Appalled as well by the horrific death of George Floyd and the awful violence and vandalism. We stand against prejudice & discrimination of any type. We will recover and be better," he said in a tweet last week.

One of the few statues of a foreign leader on a federal land in Washington DC, the statue of Gandhi was dedicated by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the presence of the then US president Bill Clinton on September 16, 2000, during his state visit to the US.

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