Finally Osama Bin Laden is dead.very dead!

There’s just too many things to write nowadays, especially after the Vatican beatified the late Great and now Blessed Pope John Paul II last Sunday or about that 1st of May wage increase that we thought that Pres. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III would have announced, but failed to do… or even tidbits from the Royal Wedding. In truth, I had a finished column where we wrote about our recent trip from Davao City when CNN and BBC came up with the world Breaking News that no less than US President Barrack Obama made the official announcement mid-morning yesterday.

I’m sure that the world headlines, including our national and local news are in unison, “Osama Bin Laden is dead… or killed.” As reported by the US President, a US Intelligence team finally found (last August) the whereabouts of the world’s number one terrorist in a compound in Pakistan and they waited for many months until they were sure it was really Osama Bid Laden before they went for the kill! As Pres. Obama said, “Justice has been done!” I’m willing to bet that this event will soon become a blockbuster movie!

Osama Bid Laden founded the Jihadists organization named Al-Qaeda who openly admitted to destroying the World Trade Center and the bombing of the London Subway a year later and many other acts of terrorism worldwide. This forced the US Coalition forces to enter Afghanistan to remove the Taliban leadership that played host to Osama Bin Laden and his bunch of terrorists. Yet, despite the very high price on his head, Bin Laden escaped from all the bombings and somehow found his way into Pakistan, where he was killed yesterday.

It is almost ten years since that fateful day on Sept.11, 2001 when four US Airliners were hi-jacked by Egyptian and Saudi citizens and crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, while another airliner crashed into the Pentagon and one airliner crashed in Shanskville, Pennsylvania. This triggered the global war on terror, and the world has yet to see its end.

While we might think that the war on terror is so far and distant from Cebu, I’m sure that a lot of Cebuanos have already forgotten the fateful incident on December 11, 1994 when a bomb exploded on board Philippine Airlines flt. No. 434 that flew from the Mactan Cebu International Airport Authority (MCIAA) enroute to Narita International Airport in Tokyo. There were 273 passengers on board, while 10 passengers were injured on that explosion where one passenger, a Japanese tourist was killed.

It was later learned that this terrorist act was the handiwork of Ramzi Yousef and was part of the unsuccessful Bojinka terrorist attack using airplanes. Investigators later learned that Ramzi Yousef was a passenger on the same plane that flew from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) to Cebu where he placed the bomb under the seat and deplaned in Mactan. Luckily the PAL 747-B was able to land in Okinawa despite losing its flight controls. Thanks to PAL Pilot Eduardo “Ed” Reyes and First Officer Jaime Herrera. Ramzi Yousef was eventually convicted for the Bojinka attacks as well as the ill-fated World Trade Center Bombing in 1993. It was his idea to use airliners as flying missiles to destroy the World Trade Center and Osama Bin Laden was very successful in destroying an icon of America.

Now whether Bin Laden’s death will result in a drop in terror attacks by Jihadists, we will have to see this in the near future. For sure, there are many would-be Bin Laden’s who would like to take his place for the sake of fame, glory and notoriety. But at least, America has finally got its revenge in killing Osama Bin Laden. This is a feather in the cap of Pres. Barrack Obama, who might just win his 2nd term because of this unexpected news, which pleased a lot of Americans. Now who shot Osama Bin Laden?

Of course, we’ve come to know how the US military and intelligence establishment does things especially when it deals with high-value targets like Osama Bin Laden. Since Bin Laden was “discovered” hiding in that Pakistani compound last August, the US intelligence group wanted to make sure that it was Bin Laden himself and not a body double. Secondly, they waited long and hard in order to check who were the people dropping by to visit Bin Laden and perhaps pay homage to this world number one terrorist.

Notice that Pres. Obama clearly stressed that the US Intelligence group has possession of the body of Osama Bin Laden. This is to make sure that his body can be analyzed thoroughly and wipe out any doubts that it is really him. Of course Americans have another motive to secure his body. To ensure that he is not buried in a place where the world’s terrorists would turn it into a national shrine for terror. The Allies (notably the Russians) in World War II did this to the body of Nazi Dictator Der Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.

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