Inside the raid that killed Bin Laden

Inside the raid that killed bin Laden
AP - Mon May 2nd, 2011 3:09 AM EDT
WASHINGTON - Helicopters descended out of darkness on the most
important counterterrorism mission in U.S. history. It was an
operation so secret, only a select few U.S. officials knew what was
about to happen.
The location was a fortified compound in the affluent Pakistani
suburbs of Islamabad. The target was Osama bin Laden.
Intelligence officials discovered the compound in August while
monitoring an al-Qaida courier. The CIA had been hunting that
courier for years, ever since detainees told interrogators that the
courier was so trusted by bin Laden that he might very well be
living with the al-Qaida leader.
Nestled in an affluent neighborhood, the compound was
surrounded by walls as high as 18 feet, topped with barbed wire.
Two security gates guarded the only way in. A third-floor terrace
was shielded by a seven-foot privacy wall. No phone lines or
Internet cables ran to the property. The residents burned their
garbage rather than put it out for collection. Intelligence officials
believed the million-dollar compound was built five years ago to
protect a major terrorist figure. The question was, who?
The CIA asked itself again and again who might be living behind
those walls. Each time, they concluded it was almost certainly bin
Laden.
President Barack Obama described the operation in broad strokes
Sunday night. Details were provided in interviews with
counterterrorism and intelligence authorities, senior
administration officials and other U.S. officials. All spoke on
condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation.
By mid-February, intelligence from multiple sources was clear
enough that Obama wanted to "pursue an aggressive course of
action," a senior administration official said. Over the next two and
a half months, Obama led five meetings of the National Security
Council focused solely on whether bin Laden was in that compound
and, if so, how to get him, the official said.
Normally, the U.S. shares its counterterrorism intelligence widely
with trusted allies in Britain, Canada, Australia and elsewhere. And
the U.S. normally does not carry out ground operations inside
Pakistan without collaboration with Pakistani intelligence. But this
mission was too important and too secretive.
On April 29, Obama approved an operation to kill bin Laden. It was
a mission that required surgical accuracy, even more precision
than could be delivered by the government's sophisticated
Predator drones. To execute it, Obama tapped a small contingent of
the Navy's elite SEAL Team Six and put them under the command
of CIA Director Leon Panetta, whose analysts monitored the
compound from afar.
Panetta was directly in charge of the team, a U.S. official said, and
his conference room was transformed into a command center.
Details of exactly how the raid unfolded remain murky. But the al-
Qaida courier, his brother and one of bin Laden's sons were killed.
No Americans were injured. Senior administration officials will only
say that bin Laden "resisted." And then the man behind the worst
terrorist attack on U.S. soil died from an American bullet to his
head.
It was mid-afternoon in Virginia when Panetta and his team
received word that bin Laden was dead. Cheers and applause broke
out across the conference room.