Robert Fisk: Bin Laden Was Betrayed

Local Editor

In an article published by British daily The Independent, columnist Robert Fisk said Tuesday that a middle-aged nonentity, a political failure outstripped by history – by the millions of Arabs demanding freedom and democracy in the Middle East – died in Pakistan yesterday.

Fisk emphasized that the weird and creepy disposal of the body of bin Laden was almost as creepy as the man and his vicious organization.

While noting that Americans were drunk with joy, Fisk pointed out that the mass revolutions in the Arab world over the past four months mean that Al-Qaeda was already politically dead.

He recalled that bin Laden had told the world that he wanted to destroy the pro-Western regimes in the Arab world, the dictatorships of the Mubaraks and the Ben Alis, and that he wanted to create a new Islamic Caliphate. However, Fisk said that these past few months, millions of Arab Muslims rose up and were prepared for their own martyrdom – not for Islam but for freedom and liberty and democracy. “Bin Laden didn't get rid of the tyrants. The people did. And they didn't want a caliph,” he said.

Fisk, who met bin Laden three times, said he has only one question left unasked: what did he think as he watched those revolutions unfold this year – under the flags of nations rather than Islam, Christians and Muslims together, the kind of people his own Al-Qaeda men were happy to butcher?

According to Fisk, Bin Laden was betrayed, by the Pakistan military or the Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence, and quite possibly both. “Pakistan knew where he was,” Fisk said, adding that bin Laden’s demise does bring Pakistan into grim focus.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

IOF troops use rubber-coated bullets and water cannons to disperse demonstrators

[ 29/04/2011 - 08:06 PM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- IOF troops used rubber-coated bullets, teargas and water cannons to disperse demonstrators participating in weekly anti-wall demonstrations on Friday in various West Bank villages.

The confrontations with the occupation troops resulted in the injury of one Palestinian child and dozens of participants suffering breathing difficulties as a result of inhaling teargas.

In the village of Bilin, villagers and international solidarity activists participated in the demonstration called for by the popular committee to resist the wall and settlement and marched the streets of the village chanting slogans calling for unity, holding onto the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, resisting the occupation and the release of all prisoners.

As the demonstrators marched towards the apartheid wall, they were met by IOF troops with stun grenades, rubber-coated bullets and teargas canisters. The IOF troops also used water cannons which were used to spray demonstrators with dirty water mixed with chemicals.
Demonstrators welcomed the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah and considered it a fulfilment of popular demand and a step in the right direction to enable the Palestinian people to confront the challenges.
In the village Nilin the residents held the Friday prayers on their fields close to the apartheid wall and the Imam praised, during his Friday sermon, the signing of a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah.
The Imam further said after Palestinians achieve unity, they should resist occupation united and confront occupation schemes to confiscate more Palestinian lands and to Judaize occupied Jerusalem.
After the prayers were over the participants marched peacefully towards the apartheid wall raising the Palestinian flag and the flags of Fatah and Hamas in an expression of support for the reconciliation and called on both movements to speed the implementation of the agreement on the ground.
As the demonstrators approached the apartheid wall, IOF troops fired teargas canisters towards them and live ammunition in the air to disperse them. Many demonstrators suffered breathing difficulties as a result of inhaling teargas.
Meanwhile, in the Ma’sarah village the IOF troops arrested Hasan Breijeyyah (41) and a foreign sympathiser who were participating in the anti-wall demonstration. A number of other participants suffered breathing difficulties as they inhaled teargas fired by the IOF troops.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian