Bin Laden Journal Seized in Pakistan Raid

Top Shebab Islamists in Somalia, including Muktar Robow, Sheikh Hasan Dahir Aweys and US-born Omar Hamami — better known as Abu Mansoor al-Amriki — said they also planned revenge for bin Laden’s killing. “We are sending a message to Obama and (Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton that we will avenge the death of our leader Sheikh Osama bin Laden very soon,” Hamami said.

The Shebab, who control much of Somalia, pose a serious security threat in the region where Al-Qaeda operatives bombed US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The warnings came as top US Senator John Kerry announced a trip to mend fences with a resentful Pakistan, but also to seek answers on how he came to be there.

In Karachi, two men on a motorcycle threw two grenades at the heavily fortified Saudi consulate and escaped despite coming under fire from security guards, officials said. “We are seeing this incident in the present context,” provincial government official Sharfuddin Memon told AFP. “It could be a reaction of the Osama incident.” “We fear that desperate elements are planning to launch a big attack. We are taking precautionary measures in this regard,” he warned.

Bin Laden’s killing has not ignited mass protests in Pakistan, where more than 4,240 people have died in bomb attacks blamed on the radical Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the last four years, but small gatherings have vowed revenge. Saudi Arabia expelled bin Laden in 1991 and later revoked his nationality.

The government in Riyadh, which is allied to the authorities in Islamabad, last week welcomed his killing as a boost to international anti-terror efforts. But the discovery of bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad after a decade-long manhunt has plunged testy relations between Islamabad and Washington deeper into trouble.

Pakistan is an uneasy ally in the US-led war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan, and receives billions of dollars in US aid annually. Senator Kerry said that when he traveled to Pakistan early next week he hoped to resolve some of the puzzles lingering since the Al-Qaeda leader was finally unearthed and shot dead by elite US Navy SEALs.

“There are some serious questions, obviously, there are some serious issues that we’ve just got to find a way to resolve together,” Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters.

Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf warned in an interview with ABC News that the United States will be “a loser” if it alienates Pakistan in the war against Al-Qaeda and Islamic militants.