• Exclusive: Government doc shows how closely Boston Marathon bombers followed al Qaeda plans

    REUTERS

    Boston Marathon bomb scene pictures taken by investigators show the remains of an explosive device. The photos were produced by the Joint Terrorism Task Force of Boston.

    By Richard Esposito, NBC News Senior Executive Producer for Investigations

    A detailed analysis of the bombs used at the Boston Marathon and during a firefight between the suspects and law enforcement shows how closely the bombmakers followed instructions from the digital al Qaeda magazine “Inspire,” according to a government document obtained by NBC News.


    The unclassified report from the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center found that the pipe bombs allegedly thrown from a car by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev during last Friday’s chase through Watertown, Mass., resembled the design described in “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,” an article in the first issue of the English-language magazine. At least one of the Watertown bombs used an elbow pipe wrapped in black tape, as discussed in “Inspire.”

    “The use of elbow pipes specifically is unique,” states the report, “and rare in other extremist and anarchist literature.”

    “How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” also provided instructions on how to build bombs with kitchen pressure cookers. The bombs detonated at the marathon on April 15 were constructed from pressure cookers, as was a bomb authorities say the suspects threw at police during the Watertown shootout. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old immigrant of Chechen origin, was killed during the confrontation.

    According to the TEDAC analysis, the pressure-cooker bombs also match the “Inspire” designs in their use of spherical shrapnel and gunpowder from fireworks, as well as the possible use of Christmas tree lights as an initiator.

    The pipe bombs also used fireworks and spherical shrapnel. Both types of devices apparently used glue to secure the shrapnel, as described in “Inspire.” NBC is not disclosing details that could aid in the construction of a bomb.

    Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who survived the Watertown shootout and was captured last Friday night, has told investigators that he and his brother Tamerlan got bombmaking instructions from “Inspire,” according to law enforcement officials. The TEDAC document, however, notes while the elements of the Boston bombs “use similar components to those described in several issues of ‘Inspire,’” they also diverge from the “Inspire” designs, with different triggers and power sources. A fusing system that used parts from a toy car, say the investigators, does not seem traceable to the magazine.

    “Inspire” magazine was launched by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate, in July 2010, and aimed at fomenting jihad among U.S. and other Western Muslims. The publication included messages from radical U.S.–born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Osama bin Laden, and was edited by U.S.-raised jihadi Samir Khan, a one-time basement blogger in North Carolina who relocated to Yemen. It contained articles on “open source” jihad, urging Westerners to mount “lone wolf” attacks using methods ranging from home-made bombs and forest fires to vehicular homicide.

    Khan was killed in the same U.S. strike that killed Awlaki on Sept. 30, 2011.

    The Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center is an interagency organization located at the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va., with a director from the FBI and other officials from the ATF, the Pentagon and the intelligence community.

    Related:

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  • With security eyes focused on airlines, terrorists look to rail, experts say

    Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters file

    An Amtrak police officer watches as passengers prepare to board a train at New York's Penn Station on April 19.

    By Ian Simpson, Reuters

    WASHINGTON - An alleged al Qaeda-backed plot to derail a U.S. passenger train in Canada sought to exploit the vulnerabilities of railroads that have not gotten much attention from the American public. 


    While the United States has sharply tightened security around airlines since the September 11, 2001, attacks, trains are far harder to police, with masses of passengers getting on and off and stops at many stations on a single line. Thousands of miles of track, bridges and tunnels present a major challenge to monitor.

    Even though the United States has largely been immune from attacks, extremists around the world have frequently exploited rail transport's vulnerability, said Brian Michael Jenkins, a security expert with the Mineta Transportation Institute at California's San Jose State University.

    "Surface transportation really has become the terrorists' killing fields," he said.

    Two suspects were arrested in Canada on Monday charged with conspiring to blow up a trestle on the Canadian side of the border as the Maple Leaf, the daily Amtrak connection between Toronto and New York, passed over it. Amtrak is the U.S. passenger rail service.

    The two men charged in the plot made their first court appearances on Tuesday. A lawyer for one said his client would fight the charges vigorously.

    Jenkins and Steve Kulm, an Amtrak spokesman, said trains presented a unique security challenge, different from airports with their screening process for passengers.

    Trains originating in the U.S. were among the possible targets, NBC News has learned. Authorities say there was never any imminent danger to the public. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

    Amtrak coordinates security with local law enforcement, does counterterrorism exercises and patrols its tracks and stations, Kulm said. It also is reconfiguring stations to make them safer from potential attack.

    "It's no surprise and no secret that overseas terrorists have targeted rail transportation, and so we have, as I say, many seen and unseen measures that we have put in place and continue to improve upon," Kulm said.

    More fatalities in surface attacks
    Although popular attention has tended to focus on airliner attacks, far more people have died worldwide from surface transport assaults, Jenkins said.

    Since the Sept. 11, 2001, militant attacks on the United States, there have been 75 assaults on airliners, with 157 fatalities, he said.

    During the same period, there were 1,800 attacks on surface transport, with nearly 4,000 people killed. Among them were attacks on Madrid in 2004 and on Mumbai in 2006 that each killed about 200 people, and a 2005 London bombing that claimed 52 lives.

    In the United States, only one person has died from an extremist rail attack in recent decades, when Amtrak's Sunset Limited was derailed in Arizona in 1995. Responsibility was claimed by a group calling itself Sons of the Gestapo and the saboteurs have not been found.

    The United States has more than 200,000 miles of railroad, with about 21,000 miles used by Amtrak. Amtrak carried 31.2 million passengers in the last fiscal year, its ninth record year in the last 10, Kulm said. As a comparison, about 642 million passengers were carried within the U.S. by airlines in 2012, according to the Department of Transportation. 

    Elliot G. Sander, a former chief executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York, which runs two of the biggest U.S. commuter railroads, said public awareness was critical to countering potential attacks.

    "One cannot understate the importance of the participation of the public, in terms of eyes and ears," he said.

    Far fewer security personnel
    The Department of Homeland Security spent $136 million in the 2013 fiscal year on surface transportation security, with 775 personnel. Aviation security received $5.3 billion and has 53,000 personnel.

    Special Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response teams carry out random baggage and security checks at train, subway and bus stations as well as at truck weighing stations.

    Stephane Jourdain / AFP - Getty Images file

    An Amtrak police officer and a sniffer dog patrol at Union Station in Washington on May 6, 2011, five days after Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan. Intelligence seized from his compound showed al Qaeda pondered strikes on U.S. trains on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. officials said.

    Created after the Madrid railway bombing, the VIPR teams carried out more than 9,300 operations in fiscal 2011, according to the Department of Homeland Security's 2013 budget request.

    The Transportation Security Administration was criticized last year by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, for failing to carry out analysis of railroad security information.

    The GAO also criticized the TSA for inconsistent reporting requirements from rail agencies and failure to inspect a rail service the GAO did not name. The TSA concurred with the GAO's recommendations for improvement.

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  • Slick al Qaeda online magazine aims to train a generation of killers

    FBI via AP

    This image from an FBI and Department of Homeland Security bulletin shows the remains of a pressure cooker that the FBI says was part of one of the bombs that exploded during the Boston Marathon. The surviving suspect has told investigators that he and his brother were inspired by an al Qaeda online magazine, federal officials say.

    By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

    It is as slickly designed as any magazine you would find at the supermarket checkout line, or in the seat pocket in front of you on an airplane. It even has snappy cover headlines — teasing articles like “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”


    And now Inspire, the recruitment magazine of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, probably has its next cover story: It allegedly helped inspire the two brothers accused of bombing the Boston Marathon.

    Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the hospitalized suspect in the marathon attack, has told federal investigators that the brothers got information on building bombs from Inspire, law enforcement officials told NBC News.

    The magazine, which terrorism monitoring groups say was published for the first time in 2010, exists mostly as PDFs and obscure links passed around the Web. In the Internet era, shutting it down would be virtually impossible, terrorism experts say.

    It is published in English and targeted at Western audiences, particularly young readers who might have inclinations toward terrorism.

    “It’s one thing to have Osama bin Laden speaking and subtitles, and how interesting is that going to be to a young, radicalized individual? As opposed to lots of graphics,” said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

    One issue, published in the summer of 2010, illustrated just how closely Inspire copied the eye-catching design of American magazines. Articles about jihad are advertised in the same style that Western publications use for 30-minute recipes or sex advice.

    In the summer 2010 issue, headlines invited readers to check out an “Exclusive Interview with Shaykh Abu Basir.” Another advertised a piece about “Mujahideen 101.” At the bottom of the cover: “What to Expect in Jihad.”

    Other articles have offered blueprints for destroying buildings and carrying out attacks against cars, trains and malls — particularly small operations to unnerve the enemy because “hitting him in his backyard drives him crazy.”

    The advice for radicals is so practical, said Bruce Riedel, director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution, that it even offered advice on what to wear if you go on jihad — good shoes.

    “The message,” Riedel said, “is you can advance jihad in your home neighborhood. You can strike America or Canada or whatever at home and become a hero. And here’s how to do it.”

    NBC's Pete Williams outlines the charges against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the types of questions authorities are asking him now that he is able to communicate, as well as a foiled bomb plot on a train in Canada.

    The same 2010 issue included instructions on precisely how to use a kitchen pressure cooker, explosives and shrapnel to produce a bomb — the exact method of attack that authorities say the Tsarnaev brothers used in Boston.

    On the cover, the article was teased as being written by “The AQ Chef.”

    Inspire was the brainchild of Samir Khan, a young blogger and Photoshop whiz from Charlotte, N.C., who moved to Yemen in 2009 and leveraged his skills to help al Qaeda produce a magazine that could appeal to young would-be radicals.

    He was killed in September 2011, at age 25, by an American drone strike in Yemen that also killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a prominent radical cleric. Since Khan’s death, terrorism analysts said, the magazine has taken on a less professional look.

    Part of the magazine’s appeal to its audience, the analysts said, is that it engages its readers: It invites them to share stories of their jihad skills. And getting published, just as it might in Time or People, imparts a certain celebrity status.

    Jose Pimentel, an Algerian immigrant sentenced to 10 years in prison for plotting to blow up churches and synagogues in Manhattan, maintained a website with bomb-making instructions copied from Inspire, the ADL said.

    And Naser Jason Abdo, a former American soldier sentenced to life for planning to use pressure-cooker bombs in an attack on a Texas restaurant, was found with a copy of the Inspire “Kitchen of Your Mom” article.

    “Nothing makes them feel more empowered than having their materials published,” Segal said. “Frankly, that’s just really good marketing. Fortune 500 companies are trying to engage their demographics this way.”

    Because it spreads through chat boards and email, just as a dishy story about a Kardashian might, or a rumor about the next Apple product, the magazine is almost certainly read by thousands of people. It is impossible to say for sure. 

    “It becomes viral very fast, and people share it the way people used to pass around baseball cards,” Segal said.

    The magazine’s link to the Boston case is critical, terrorism analysts said. While investigators have said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev claimed no links to terror groups, the mention of Inspire shows that the brothers were influenced by al Qaeda, they said.

    “Inspire magazine was intended to inspire and instruct,” Riedel said. “And I think they can say it worked.”

    Pete Williams and Robert Windrem of NBC News contributed to this report. Reuters and The Associated Press also contributed.

  • US teen accused of seeking to join al Qaeda-linked Syrian group

    By Alex Dobuzinskis, Reuters

    An 18-year-old Chicago-area man accused of planning to join an al Qaeda-linked group fighting in Syria has been arrested by the FBI, the agency said on Saturday.


    Abdella Ahmad Tounisi of Aurora, Illinois, was taken into custody late on Friday as he prepared to board a plane at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport bound for Turkey, the FBI said in a statement.

    It added that Tounisi was a friend of Adel Daoud, an American accused of trying to stage a bombing outside a downtown Chicago bar last year. The agency said Tounisi had not been involved in that plot.

    Tounisi appeared before a U.S. magistrate on Saturday on one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He was ordered held until his next court appearance on Tuesday, the FBI said.

    A criminal complaint accused Tounisi of making online contact in March with a person he thought was a recruiter for Jabhat al-Nusrah, the militant Islamist Syrian group that the U.S. government calls a foreign terrorist organization operating as a wing of al Qaeda in Iraq.

    The supposed recruiter was an FBI employee working undercover, the agency said.

    Tounisi said in emails to the FBI employee that he planned to get to Syria via Turkey and was willing to die in the Syrian struggle, the complaint said.

    Syria is in the grips of a civil war that began in 2011 as a revolt against President Bashar Assad and has killed more than 70,000 people.

    On April 10, Tounisi bought an airline ticket for a flight from Chicago to Istanbul. On Thursday, the undercover FBI employee gave him a bus ticket for travel from Istanbul to Gaziantep, Turkey, near the border with Syria, the complaint said.

    Tounisi's attorney, Michael Madden, of the federal public defender program could not be reached for comment.

    Tounisi faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.

    The 2012 arrest of Daoud, 19, also involved his alleged communication with an undercover member of the FBI. The fake bomb that Daoud tried to detonate outside a Chicago bar was provided to him by an undercover FBI agent, authorities said.

    Daoud was indicted on two counts of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and maliciously attempting to use an explosive to destroy a building. He pleaded not guilty in October in federal court.

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Former US soldier accused of fighting with al Qaeda group in Syria

    via YouTube

    Video of US Army veteran Eric Harroun filming militants celebrating a crashed helicopter was cited in the FBI affadavit. This clip has not been edited or verified by NBC News.

    By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A former U.S. soldier has been charged with fighting with an al Qaeda group in Syria after allegedly posting photographs of himself posing with military hardware on the internet, officials said in a statement.

    Eric Harroun, 30, of Phoenix, Ariz., was accused of using a rocket-propelled grenade while fighting with the al-Nusrah Front, an alias of al Qaeda in Iraq, according to a statement issued on Thursday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia.

    “Harroun, a U.S. citizen who served with the U. S. Army from 2000 to 2003, was charged by criminal complaint with conspiring to use a destructive device outside of the United States, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, if convicted,” the statement said.

    “According to an affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, Harroun allegedly crossed into Syria in January 2013 and fought with members of the al-Nusrah Front against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria,” it added. “The affidavit alleges that Harroun was trained to use an RPG by members of the terrorist organization and that he fired an RPG and posted online multiple photographs of himself carrying or posing with RPGs and other military weapons.”

    “Harroun allegedly participated in attacks led by the al-Nusrah Front and was part of an RPG team, for which he carried anti-personnel and anti-armor rockets,” it said.

    600 terrorist attacks
    Al Qaeda in Iraq has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization since October 2004.

    “The al-Nusrah Front is one of several aliases used by the 'al Qa’ida in Iraq' terrorist organization, and since November 2011 the group has claimed responsibility for nearly 600 terrorist attacks in Syria,” the statement said.

    U.S. officials have called for Assad to step down in Syria and have offered non-lethal support to the rebels, but there is concern about militant groups like al Qaeda affiliates fighting alongside other rebel forces.

    Israel fears al Qaeda elements will establish themselves close to the border and threaten to fire chemical weapons and long-range rockets captured from the Syrian army into Israel.

    The statement said Harroun appeared in a federal court in Alexandria, Va., Thursday.

    Harroun was arrested on Wednesday upon returning to the United States at an airport outside Washington, Reuters said. He has a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

    He was medically discharged from the army after being injured in a car accident, according to an affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, Reuters reported.

    The criminal charge of "conspiring to use a destructive device outside of the United States" carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.

    Harroun appeared in two videos that indicated he was engaged in military action with rebel forces against the Syrian government, Reuters reported. In one video, he said: "Bashar al-Assad, your days are numbered. ... Where(ever) you go we will find you and kill you," according to the affidavit.

    In March, the FBI conducted three voluntary interviews of Harroun at the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, during which he stated that he wanted to fight with the Free Syrian Army against the Assad regime, the affidavit added.

    Harroun allegedly told the FBI that during his fighting in Syria he shot about 10 people but did not know whether he killed any of them, the affidavit said, according to Reuters. He also said he hated al Qaeda and did not know any al Qaeda members, the affidavit said. On Wednesday in the United States, the FBI conducted another voluntary interview during which Harroun allegedly said that he knew the al-Nusrah Front had been designated a terrorist organization, according to the affidavit.

    The U.S. Attorney's office said a lawyer would be appointed for Harroun, Reuters reported.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Terror suspect who allegedly plotted with al Qaeda to kill Americans overseas charged in NYC

    By Pete Williams, Jonathan Dienst, and Richard Esposito, NBC News

    A 43-year-old man from Saudi Arabia has been indicted in federal court in Brooklyn and will stand trial on charges that he plotted to kill U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan and U.S. diplomats in Nigeria, prosecutors said Wednesday afternoon.


    But federal officials say he has been in the U.S. since last fall and has been cooperating with investigators.

    Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun, who allegedly uses the alias “Spin Ghul,” is accused of al Qaeda-related activities going back to 2001.

    Prosecutors say Huran went from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan with the intent to wage violent jihad.  He arrived in Afghanistan shortly before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the feds say, and then joined al Qaeda, receiving military training.

    Investigators say the suspect fought against U.S. coalition forces in Afghanistan with an al Qaeda fighting group based in Pakistan.  "He was in firefights with U.S. soldiers," one official told NBC News.

    Harun is accused of trying to kill U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2003. From there, prosecutors say he went to Africa with the intent to carry out attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Nigeria.

    Justice Department officials say he was arrested in Libya in 2005 and confined there until 2011, when the in-flux Libyan government released him. 

    Authorities in Italy arrested him after was accused of assaulting officers on a refugee ship.  The U.S. filed charges against him a year ago and sought extradition.  He was taken to the U.S. last October, where he's been ever since.

    "Whether they try to attack our servicemen on the battlefield or scheme to kill our diplomats and citizens in embassies abroad, terrorists will find no refuge," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement Wednesday. "The United States will use every tool at our disposal to protect our nation’s security and stop terrorist attacks before they happen.”

    Only today did the government make the case public, a sure sign that he was been cooperating ever since. 

    Harun is the latest al Qaeda-linked figure to be sent to New York City for civilian trial.  

    Earlier this month, Sulaiman Abu Gaith, a son-in-law and spokesman for Osama bin Laden, was brought to New York for trial on terror-related charges. He was sent to the city despite objection from some congressional Republicans who believe terrorists should be held in military custody at Guantanamo Bay.

    Andrew Rafferty contributed to this report

  • Guantanamo detainee who served bin Laden returns to Sudan

    Abd Raouf / AP

    Sudanese national Ibrahim al Qosi prays upon arrival at Khartoum airport in Khartoum, Sudan. Al Qosi arrived before dawn on a US Air Force aircraft after his release from 10 years in detention.

    By Rebecca Ruiz, NBC News

    Ibrahim al Qosi, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, has been released from Guantanamo and returned to Sudan, the Department of Defense announced Wednesday.

    In July 2010, al Qosi pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorism and conspiracy. He had been detained at Guantanamo following his capture at the Pakistani border in December 2001 and was released according to a plea agreement with the U.S.

    Al Qosi, who was born in Sudan around 1960, left in 1996 to join Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, where he provided services to bin Laden and other al-Qaida members as a driver, bodyguard and cook. In the early 1990s, he trained with jihadists and worked as an accountant for a company affiliated with Osama bin Laden, according to DOD documents released by WikiLeaks.

    Al Qosi had been sentenced to a 14-year term for crimes committed between 1996 to 2001, but served two years in exchange for cooperating with prosecutors. The U.S. had agreed to return al Qosi to Sudan upon completing two years of his sentence.


    "Although the United States had the legal authority to continue holding al Qosi under the [Authorization for the Use of Military Force], we coordinated with the Government of Sudan on appropriate security measures to mitigate any threat he continues to pose," said Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale in a statement to msnbc.com.

    Paul Reichler, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who represented al Qosi pro bono for the past seven years, said his client will participate in a re-entry program designed by the Sudanese government for former detainees.

    According to a document published by the government in 2010, nine Sudanese nationals had been returned from Guantanamo and been subject to the re-entry program. At that time, none were known to "have engaged in hostilities against the United States, its interests or its allies since their return to Sudan." 

    "I’m very glad that he’s a free man," said Reichler, who added that he would have withdrawn his representation of al Qosi if at any time he seemed to be a terrorist or a threat to the U.S. According to al Qosi's court statement, he had no knowledge or or participation in the 1998 Tanzania and Kenya embassy attacks or the September 11 attacks, though he continued to provide logistical support to al-Qaida after these events.

    "I believe he is a decent and honorable person whose only desire is to go home to his family, live in peace and tranquility and engage in productive labor in his family business, and he has no desire to be associated with violent movements of any kind," said Reichler.

    Al Qosi arrived in the capital city of Khartoum Tuesday evening Eastern time, and according to court documents, will live with his wife, two daughters and other family members upon returning. In a letter to the Military Commission in January 2011, al Qosi's mother and father said that he would manage a family shop in the town of Atira.

    One-hundred and sixty-eight detainees remain at Guantanamo. Reichler, who does not represent any other Guantanamo clients, said that many detainees might be interested in negotiating a plea agreement, but that there has been a high degree of skepticism that the U.S. would honor its word.

    With al Qosi's release, Reichler said, "I suspect that there will be many who will seek plea agreements."

    Rebecca Ruiz is a reporter at msnbc.com. Follow her on Twitter here.

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  • Panetta recalls nail-biting moments of Osama bin Laden raid

    Handout / Reuters

    A hand-written memo by then CIA Director Leon Panetta in which U.S. President Barack Obama authorised a Navy SEAL team operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan one year ago.

    By The Associated Press

    With the first anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death approaching, Leon Panetta has spoken of the nerve-wracking moments of the night of the raid by U.S. Navy SEALs.

    The picture in Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's office captures the "mission accomplished" moment. 

    It shows Panetta, then the head of the CIA, and a group of U.S. commandos and others in the CIA operations center on the night of May 2 with their arms around each other — a quiet celebration just after U.S. helicopters crossed back over the border into Afghanistan. 

    Not until then — 90 minutes after U.S. special operations forces had lifted off from the heavily fortified compound in Pakistan where they went in search of Osama bin Laden — was he sure they could breathe a sigh of relief. 

    "We got the job done," Panetta said Friday as he recalled the long silences and the tense, heart-pounding moments before Adm. William McRaven's words finally came through loud and clear. 

    "Geronimo EKIA" — the code name for bin Laden, and the signal for "enemy killed in action." 

    Abbottabad - One year after Osama bin Laden

    With the first anniversary of the al-Qaida leader's death approaching, Panetta spoke to reporters on his plane as he flew back from a series of meetings with defense leaders in South America. Perched on a table inside the Airstream trailer — dubbed the Silver Bullet — that serves as his office inside his C-17 transport plane, Panetta traced back through the nerve-wracking moments of that night. 

    And he talked about its impact over the past year. 

    "I don't think there's any question that America is safer as a result of the bin Laden operation," he said. 

    While al-Qaida and its offshoots remain a threat, he said, the military and intelligence communities have learned to work better together since Sept. 11, 2001. Still, he acknowledged, there is no single, completely effective way to destroy the terror network. 

    "The way this works is that the more successful we are at taking down those who represent their spiritual, ideological leadership, the greater our ability to weaken their threat to this country," he said. 

    The story of the raid is well-known: The SEALs and special operations forces that flew deep into Pakistan; the wrenching moment when one of the helicopters went down in the heat, landing hard with its tail on the wall; the SEALs' assault on the house where they believed bin Laden and his wives had been living for several years; and what Panetta on Friday called the "fingernail-biting moments." 

    Nearly one year after the death of Osama bin Laden, some Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of using the event for political gain. NBC's Mike Viqueira reports

    "We knew that there were gunshots and firing, but after that we just didn't know," said Panetta, describing the nearly 20 minutes of silence after the SEALs went into the house. 

    PhotoBlog: Osama bin Laden's hideout revealed

    Then came confusion. McRaven, commander of the operation, told him that he thought he'd picked up the word "Geronimo." 

    "The way he said it was like, you know, 'We think,'" said Panetta. "It wasn't ideal. We were still waiting." 

    A few minutes later came the KIA message. Then came the long flight out of Pakistan. 

    "By that time they had blown the helicopter that was down and we knew we had woken up all of Pakistan to the fact that something had happened," Panetta said with a laugh. "The concern was just exactly what were they thinking and how were they going to respond." 

    The moment they crossed the border, he said, was "the moment when we finally knew the mission had been accomplished." 

    Then they could embrace the victory. 

    The raid created a deep fissure into the already rocky U.S.-Pakistan relations. U.S. officials, including members of Congress, were irate that the al-Qaeda leader had been able to hide — virtually in plain sight — in a Pakistani military town. Some suggested there was at least some knowledge of his hiding place. 

    Pakistani leaders, meanwhile, were outraged that the U.S. had launched a military mission deep within the country's borders without alerting them, violating their sovereignty. Islamabad's military commanders were embarrassed that the U.S. was able to carry out the raid without being detected. 

    The bin Laden saga has continued in Pakistan. His three wives and their families were deported early Friday to Saudi Arabia. Officials have said that the wives and as many as eight children and some grandchildren were living in the compound when it was raided. 

    The anniversary has triggered security warnings for Americans in Pakistan. The U.S. Embassy said its employees would be restricted from restaurants and markets in Islamabad for the next two weeks. While there was no mention of bin Laden, the period includes the anniversary date.

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    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • US offers 'safe passage' to Afghan Taliban leaders

    By Fakhar ur Rehman, NBC News, and Alastair Jamieson

    ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The United States and Afghanistan have agreed to "give safe passage" to representatives of the Afghan Taliban to help them to enter future peace talks, officials announced Friday.

    It may  represent a significant step forward towards the resumption of peace talks that were suspended in Qatar last month, and  comes just weeks ahead of a NATO summit in Chicago on the future of Afghanistan. 

    Speaking at a joint press conference with U.S. Special Envoy Marc Grossman and Pakistani Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani,  Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Javed Ludin said: "Time is short, peace is urgent."

    New blow to US-Afghan links? Congressional delegation meets Karzai foes

    "We need to find and encourage and create safe passage for peace talks," with the Afghan Taliban, he added.

    His comments came after the three countries held their sixth meeting aimed at political reconciliation in Afghanistan.

    A U.S. Embassy official confirmed to NBC News that the countries have agreed to allow and facilitate travel of the Afghan militants to participate in any future talks. The official said details of how it would work in practice have not been announced.

    U.S. sees Taliban talks suspension as tactical move

    Jilani announced the establishment of two new groups, one to represent the efforts of the three countries at the United Nations, and another responsible for "safe passage." "Safe passage will be to help bring Afghan Taliban in to peace talks," he told NBC News.

    Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

    Rahmat Gul / AP

    More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

    Launch slideshow

    Talks were suspended last month amid a string of public setbacks that have scandalized and angered Afghans, notably U.S. soldiers' burning of copies of the Koran and the killing of 16 Afghan villagers for which a U.S. soldier is in custody.

    Dr Gareth Price, senior research fellow at Britain's Chatham House think thank, told msnbc.com the move could be seen as a "confidence-building measure".

    "The US has made clear it will remain in Afghanistan in some form - that's the stick, if you like, so maybe this is the carrot," he said.

    On Tuesday, White House sources told Reuters that President Barack Obama's administration may hand over a Taliban detainee at Guantanamo Bay prison directly to the Afghan government in order to help revive peace talks.

    As foreign forces prepare to exit Afghanistan, the White House had hoped to lay the groundwork for peace talks by sending five Taliban prisoners, some seen as among the most threatening detainees at Guantanamo, to Qatar to rejoin other Taliban members opening a political office there. 

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    While that plan has not been scotched entirely, several sources familiar with preliminary discussions within the U.S. government said the United States may instead, as an initial gesture meant to revive diplomacy, send one of those detainees directly to Afghan government custody. 

    The sources identified the detainee as a former Taliban regional governor named Khairullah Khairkhwa, who is seen by American officials as less dangerous than other senior Taliban detainees now held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba. 

    Karzai slams NATO over 18-hour Kabul gunbattle

    More than a year ago, the White House launched what began as a secretive diplomatic bid to coax the Taliban, the Islamist group that ruled Afghanistan until 2001, into peace talks. That campaign has become central to U.S. strategy as officials conclude the Afghan war will not end on the battlefield alone. 

    Five alleged members of the Taliban are being detained in Afghanistan after authorities discovered a huge amount of explosives in a truck. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

    It remains far from clear whether the Taliban would embrace sharing power in Afghanistan and whether the militants are cohesive enough to agree on a joint diplomatic approach. 

    But Washington's strategy, before the summit in Chicago, is to build on what officials see as military progress against the Taliban, and encouraging signs from the Afghan and Pakistani governments, to heap pressure on the Islamist group. 

    The Chicago summit is expected to further detail plans for the withdrawal of most of NATO's 130,000 troops there by the end of 2014 and set the course for future ties between Afghanistan and the West.

    After an 18-hour assault, the Taliban took responsibility for the destruction. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    U.S. efforts to broker the talks were dealt a blow last month when the Taliban suspended its participation and appeared to reject even minimal restrictions for prisoner transfer. 

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    Meanwhile, President Obama has reviewed potential threats to the United States before next week's anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, but there is no concrete evidence al-Qaida is plotting any revenge attacks, the White House said on Thursday. 

    U.S. Navy SEALs shot bin Laden last year in a raid on the al-Qaida leader's compound in Pakistan before dawn on May 2 local time, which was May 1 in the United States. The killing is touted by the Obama administration as one of its top national security accomplishments. 

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    "At this time, we have no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the United States to coincide with the anniversary of bin Laden's death," White House press secretary Jay Carney said on Thursday. 

    Slideshow: After the raid: Inside bin Laden's compound

    Farooq Naeem / AFP - Getty Images

    U.S. forces found and killed the al-Qaida leader in the affluent Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where he had been living in a large compound.

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    That assessment was echoed in an FBI and Department of Homeland Security intelligence bulletin issued on Wednesday to state and local law enforcement agencies. 

    The bulletin said U.S. agencies "have not detected signs of homeland plotting by these groups in the intervening months." 

    Abbottabad: One year after bin Laden

    Despite the lack of evidence of a threat, the bulletin cautioned that al-Qaida "probably would view a homeland attack on this anniversary as a symbolic victory that would help reassert the group's global relevance following the major leadership losses and operation setbacks it has suffered over the past year." 

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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