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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Agencies
June 2,2020

Washington, Jun 2: There is no place for hate and racism in the society, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said, asserting that empathy and shared understanding are a start, but more needs to be done. Nadella’s remarks come in the wake of the custodial death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man who was pinned to the ground in Minneapolis on May 25 by a white police officer who kneeled on his neck as he gasped for breath.

“There is no place for hate and racism in our society. Empathy and shared understanding are a start, but we must do more,” Nadella said in a tweet on Monday.

“I stand with the Black and African American community and we are committed to building on this work in our company and in our communities,” Nadella said.

A day earlier, Google CEO Sunder Pichai expressed solidarity with the African-American community.

“Today on US Google & YouTube homepages we share our support for racial equality in solidarity with the Black community and in memory of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery & others who don’t have a voice,” Pichai wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

“For those feeling grief, anger, sadness & fear, you are not alone,” Pichai said, sharing a screenshot of the Google search home page which said, “We stand in support of racial equality, and all those who search for it.”

Nadella’s Microsoft also said they will be using the platform to amplify voices from the Black and African American community at the company.

Nadella had also spoken out a few months ago about the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act passed in his native country. Talking to BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, in Manhattan, Nadella said what’s happening in the country is “sad.”

“I think what is happening is sad. I feel, and in fact quite frankly, now being informed (and) shaped by the two amazing American things that I’ve observed which is both, it’s technology reaching me where I was growing up and its immigration policy and even a story like mine being possible in a country like this.

“I think, it’s just bad, if anything, I would love to see a Bangladeshi immigrant who comes to India and creates the next unicorn in India or becomes the CEO of Infosys. That should be the aspiration. If I had to sort of mirror what happened to me in the US, I hope that’s what happens in India,” Microsoft’s India-born CEO was quoted as saying by BuzzFeed.

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News Network
May 20,2020

Washington, May 20: The United States recorded another 1,536 coronavirus deaths over the past 24 hours, the Johns Hopkins University tracker said.

That figure, tallied as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT), raises to 91,845 the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the US.

The US tops the global rankings both for the highest death toll and the highest number of infections, with more than 1.5 million cases.

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News Network
May 25,2020

Islamabad, May 25: Pakistan’s coronavirus cases on Monday reached 56,349 with 1,748 new patients while the death toll climbed to 1,167, the health ministry said.

The Ministry of National Health Services reported that 22,491 cases were diagnosed in Sindh, 20,077 in Punjab, 7,905 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 3,407 in Balochistan, 1,641 in Islamabad, 619 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 209 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

So far 1,167 people have died of the COVID-19 including 34 who lost their lives in the last 24 hours. A total of 17,482 patients have recovered from the deadly contagion.

The authorities have conducted 483,656 tests in the country, including 10,049 on Sunday. The trajectory showed that the number was steadily going up with authorities fearing a rise in cases in the wake of the easing of lockdown before Eid which was observed in the country on Sunday.

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