Cleaning up after a dead goat rapist.

From Yahoo! News:

Mystery dog at bin Laden raid ignites buzz

Personally, I don't care if he does eat his own feces.

Americans are fascinated by the anonymous U.S. Navy SEALs who daringly raided Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad, Pakistan compound this week, but one canine commando is attracting especially fervent interest.

According to the New York Times and the British tabloid The Sun, a military dog (not pictured) was strapped onto one of the assault team members as he was lowered out of a Black Hawk helicopter and began the operation that killed the notorious terrorist on Monday. But who is this canine hero?

Sadly, we know very little, and the Pentagon hasn't confirmed that a dog was even on the mission, much less release information about the canine's name or breed.

"Little is known about what may be the nation's most courageous dog," the Times' Gardner Harris writes. He speculates that the dog was most likely a German shepherd or a Belgian Malinois, since those are the breeds most often found in the military's 2,700-strong military dog program. (A new breed, however, is becoming popular with the troops. Labrador retrievers have begun to "wander off-leash 100 yards or more in front of patrols to ensure the safety of the route.")

The Pentagon and White House are keeping tight-lipped about the details of the operation, but that, of course, hasn't prevented commentators from speculating on the dog's role based on the functions of other war dogs in combat. "It's possible that the commandos brought a specialized search dog, which would have been sent in ahead of the humans to find explosives or people hidden inside the building," Slate's Brian Palmer writes. Or the dog could have been a "combat tracker"--canines who are specially trained to sniff out individuals and then follow their trail. Saddam Hussein was found in a hole under a hut--the assault team could have decided that they needed a good tracking dog in case bin Laden had a similar idea.

Dogs are increasingly important in America's combat operations abroad, and some have been outfitted with special (and adorable) "doggles" to protect their eyes, oxygen masks to protect their lungs as they parachute out with soldiers at high altitudes, and even waterproof vests that contain infrared cameras that transmit video back to servicemen watching a monitor yards behind them. Check out Foreign Policy's beautiful photo essay on military dogs here.

Luckily for this courageous and anonymous furry creature, there is some precedent for war dogs receiving military honors. The Navy awarded a Silver Star in 2009 to a dog named Remco who gave his life charging "an insurgent's hide-out in Afghanistan," Harris writes. According to Foreign Policy, another dog named Eli fiercely guarded his Marine, Private First Class Colton Rusk, after he was shot by Taliban sniper fire in Afghanistan. Rusk's bomb-sniffing dog would not even let fellow Marines approach the wounded Rusk, who did not survive the attack. Eli now lives with Rusk's family.


Al-Qaida confirms bin Laden's death

President Barack Obama explained his decision not to release photos of Osama bin Laden's corpse this week by citing the risk jihadi militants would use the gruesome images as a propaganda tool. What's more, Obama noted, such risks far outweighed the value of producing evidence of bin Laden's death to win skeptics over. "There is no doubt that we killed Osama bin Laden," Obama told "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft.

And one notable group won't be counted in the skeptic's camp: al Qaeda. The terrorist group's general command sent a defiant statement to jihadi on-line forums Tuesday--the same day Obama announced his decision not to release the photos--confirming that bin Laden is dead, and calling for its supporters to take revenge.

Bin Laden's blood "will be a curse that will chase the Americans and their agents, a curse that will pursue them inside and outside their country, and soon--with God's help--we pray that their happiness turns into sorrow and may their bloods mix with their tears," the group vows.

The statement was released and translated from the Arabic by the SITE intelligence group, which monitors online radical forums. The AP has posted a video on the statement to YouTube:

Train plot discovered

WASHINGTON – Some of the first information gleaned from Osama bin Laden's compound indicates al-Qaida considered attacking U.S. trains on the upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. But counterterrorism officials say they believe the planning never got beyond the initial phase and have no recent intelligence pointing to an active plot for such an attack.

As of February 2010, the terror organization was considering plans to attack the U.S. on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. One idea outlined in handwritten notes was to tamper with an unspecified U.S. rail track so that a train would fall off the track at a valley or a bridge, according to a joint FBI and Homeland Security bulletin sent to law enforcement officials around the country Thursday. The al-Qaida planners noted that if they attacked a train by tilting it, the plan would only succeed once because the tilting would be spotted the next time.