“You created Belial for the pit, angel of enmity; his domain is darkness, his counsel is evil and wickedness,” we read in the War Scroll discovered in 1947 in Qumran on the western shores of the Dead Sea. Osama Bin Laden, hailed among his admirers as a messiah, was deemed the very personification of the devil, Belial, as far as his adversaries were concerned. Bogeyman or Belial, charismatic figures such as the Marxist Che Guevara or the militant Islamist Bin Laden have an unmistakable aura about them. Most of them end up dead in horrific circumstances, and it appears that since time immemorial the powers that be have adopted a gory disposition for disposing of any would-be Belials. Charlatans they may be, but the point is that long after the Belial is disposed of, his devotees seem to multiply, as was the case with Che Guevara and his left-wing followers in Latin America and Bin Laden and the offshoots of Al-Qaeda. The martyrs have a marked advantage. They never really die, but rather are resurrected. Washington has not learned this lesson. The current brouhaha in the media over revelations about how Bin Laden was assassinated could be interpreted as a recurrent nightmare or a macabre comedy, even the funeral march of a marionette. The ballyhoo, however, is not restricted to Bin Laden. The Nigerian government has persistently claimed that it has killed Boko Haram leader Abu Bakar Shekau, and he just as consistently makes a snappy comeback, denying the Nigerian authorities' assertions in person. In much the same vein, Washington has asserted that it has liquidated Shawki Al-Badani, a leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as well as Nabil Al-Dahab, a leader of Ansar Al-Sharia, both of whom were ostensibly disposed of by US drones. The Axis of Evil was devised by Republican ex-president George W Bush to pinpoint pariah states and foes of the United States, and these include the so-called Islamic State (formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), better known by its Arabic acronym Daesh. The leader of this militant Islamist terrorist movement is Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. The problem the Bin Ladens, the Shekaus, the Al-Badanis and the Al-Dahabs pose is that they are not the leaders of pariah states even when, like Daesh's Al-Baghdadi, they purport to be the caliphs of caliphates (Islamic religiously sanctioned states) without borders. Al-Baghdadi was reported to be killed by drones in the war against terror last week. His death was unconfirmed, but on Monday a Twitter account affiliated with Daesh's Al-Itisam Media tweeted that Al-Baghdadi was indeed dead. Bin Laden, Al-Baghdadi, Al-Badani and Al-Dahab were on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of the most wanted terrorists and the most wanted fugitives. Bin Laden, like Al-Badani, Al-Dahab and perhaps, if reports of his assassination are confirmed, Al-Baghdadi, was liquidated on the orders of US President Barack Obama. Bin Laden was shot point blank by Robert O'Neill, a former Navy Seal, the others were gunned down by drones. The United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group is responsible for liquidating individual adversaries like Bin Laden and his ilk. However, while they may dog the footsteps of the Bin Ladens of this world, new leaders crop up and the group is forced to beat the bushes once again in search of them. The Democratic Party's self-advertised “delicate diplomacy” is an apparition conjured up by the Obama administration. Whether the O'Neills, or the drones, ransack the terrorist cells is immaterial. The same tried-and-tested tactics prevail. And in the Middle East, North Africa or Afghanistan it is a bloodied, dusty trail that invariably leaves an indignant mark on the collective psyche of the zealots, not to mention those dismissed as collateral damage. “The most important thing that I've learned in the last two years is it doesn't matter anymore if I am ‘the shooter'. “The team got him,” O'Neill said, claiming that he fired the two shots that killed Bin Laden. The FBI placed a $25 million bounty on Bin Laden, but it is not clear whether O'Neill collected the booty. Four years later, Bin Laden's ghost has come back to haunt us. Bin Laden's ideology incorporated the concept that civilians, including women and children, were legitimate targets of jihad, the very same frame of mind of his “spiritual” successors Al-Baghdadi, Al-Badani, Al-Dahab and Shekau, except that they have exacerbated the venom with beheadings and the abductions of innocent schoolgirls. The war on terror neatly cleaves knotty challenges in the art of retribution. Dive into the secret world of Naval Special Warfare at the US National Navy Seal Museum and Memorial to discover the cloak and dagger epiphany. O'Neill has left the US navy and now works as a motivational speaker. “When I'm out speaking, I never mention the Bin Laden mission,” he tells the world today. Fireside tales? O'Neill claimed that he fired the two-shot “double-tap” to the forehead that took Bin Laden down and then finished him off with a third shot during the raid on the Al-Qaeda leader's hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011. “There was Bin Laden standing there. He had his hands on a woman's shoulders pushing her ahead,” O'Neill was quoted as saying in an interview with Esquire magazine in March. Did O'Neill earn global acclaim for his deed? No, the dubious kudos was Obama's. “He looked confused. In that second, I shot him two times in the forehead,” O'Neill boasted. “Regardless of the negativity that comes with it, we got him.” But the devil, as they say, is in the details.
