We have cut off al Qaeda’s head: Obama

FORT CAMPBELL, KENTUCKY: US President Barack Obama declared on Friday that America had “cut off” al Qaeda’s head with the killing of Osama bin Laden, and would crush the extremist group in the end.

“We have cut off their head and we will ultimately defeat them,” Obama said after meeting special forces personnel that killed the al Qaeda leader.

Obama paid tribute to the elite military team in a secrecy-shrouded meeting at Fort Campbell five days after announcing the al Qaeda leader was dead. Obama was met on the tarmac by a delegation of military brass that included Vice-Admiral William McRaven, the special operations chief reported to have had overall command of the Navy SEAL commandos who killed bin Laden on Monday.

Obama’s visit, just a day after attending a wreath-laying ceremony in New York, came as questions grew about initial US accounts of the airborne assault on the  compound where Bin Laden had been hiding.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2011.