On this date, May 2, 2011, the Al Qaeda Leader, Osama Bin Laden was killed by the U.S Navy SEALS, the Seal Team Six in Abbottabad, Pakistan. I will post the information from Wikipedia.
New
York Post: Got Him!
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Death
of Osama bin Laden
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Date
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May 2, 2011
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Location
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Osama bin Laden's compound
in Bilal
Town, Abbottabad, Pakistan
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Participants
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Outcome
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Osama bin Laden's body buried in North Arabian Sea
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Deaths
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Osama bin Laden, 54;
Khalid bin Laden, 23;
Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, 33;
Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's brother Abrar, 30;
Bushra, Abrar's wife, age unknown.
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Osama
bin Laden, the founder and head of the Islamist group
Al-Qaeda,
was killed in Pakistan
on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 am PKT (20:00 UTC, May 1) by United States Navy SEALs of the U.S.
Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or SEAL Team
Six). The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out
in a Central Intelligence Agency-led
operation. In addition to DEVGRU, participating units included the United States Army
Special Operations Command's 160th Special
Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) and CIA operatives. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad,
Pakistan, was launched from Afghanistan. U.S. military officials said that after the
raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for identification, then
buried him at sea within 24 hours of his death in accordance with Islamic
tradition. According to a Pakistani official, the United States had direct
evidence that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad
Shuja Pasha, knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad.
Al-Qaeda
confirmed the death on May 6 with posts made on militant websites, vowing to
avenge the killing. Other Pakistani militant groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, also vowed
retaliation against the U.S. and against Pakistan for not preventing the
operation. The raid was supported by over 90% of the American public, was
welcomed by the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, and a large number of
governments, but was condemned by others, including two-thirds of the Pakistani
public. Legal and ethical aspects of the killing, such as his not being taken
alive despite being unarmed, were questioned by others, including Amnesty International. Also controversial was
the decision not to release any photographic or DNA evidence of bin Laden's
death to the public. The Pakistani Abbottabad Commission Report was
leaked to Al
Jazeera on July 8, 2013.
Locating
bin Laden
See
also: Location of Osama bin Laden
Accounts
of how Bin Laden was located by U.S. intelligence differ. The White House and
CIA director John Brennan stated that the process began with a fragment of
information unearthed in 2002, resulting in years of investigation. This
account states that by September 2010, these leads followed a courier to the
Abbottabad urban compound, where the U.S. began intensive multiplatform
surveillance. According to journalist Seymour
Hersh and NBC News, however, the U.S. was tipped off about Bin Laden's
location when a Pakistani intelligence officer offered details of where the
Pakistani Intelligence Service held him in detention in exchange for a bounty.
ISI
walk-in places Bin Laden in Abbottabad
In
August 2010, a former Pakistani intelligence officer approached the U.S.
embassy station chief in Islamabad and offered to provide Bin Laden's location,
in return for the $25 million reward, according to a retired senior U.S.
intelligence official. This story was corroborated by two U.S. intelligence
officials speaking to NBC News, and had been previously reported by
intelligence analyst Raelynn Hillhouse. The Pakistani official
informed U.S. intelligence that Bin Laden had been located by Pakistani ISI in
2006, and held under house arrest near Pakistani intelligence and military
centers ever since. The official passed polygraph tests, after which the U.S.
began local and satellite surveillance of Bin Laden's Abbottabad residence.
According
to the retired senior U.S. intelligence official speaking to Hersh, Bin Laden
was ill at this point, financially supported by some within Saudi Arabia, and
kept by the ISI to better manage their complex relationship with Pakistani and
Afghan Islamist groups. According to the official, retired CIA officials
emphasized the importance of Bin Laden's courier to the press, because they
were nervous over torture scrutiny and possible prosecution.
In
May 2015 the German newspaper Bild
am Sonntag reported that the German Federal Intelligence Service
(Germany) (BND) were aware that Bin Laden was in Pakistan with the
knowledge of Pakistani intelligence services. The BND informed the CIA that Bin
Laden was in Pakistan, and Bild am Sonntag states that the CIA then
found his "precise location" through a courier. Der
Spiegel questioned the veracity of the report, produced in the midst of
a
scandal over BND and NSA collaboration.
Identity
of his courier
According
to the earlier official version of his identification from a U.S. official,
identification of al-Qaeda couriers was an early priority for interrogators at
CIA black
sites and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp,
because bin Laden was believed to communicate through such couriers while
concealing his whereabouts from al-Qaeda foot soldiers and top commanders. Bin
Laden was known not to use phones after 1998, when the U.S. had launched missile strikes against his bases in
Afghanistan in August by tracking an associate's satellite phone.
The
U.S. official had stated that by 2002, interrogators had heard uncorroborated
claims about an al-Qaeda courier with the kunya Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (sometimes referred to as
Sheikh Abu
Ahmed from Kuwait). One of those claims came from Mohammed al-Qahtani, a detainee interrogated
for 48 days more or less continuously between November 23, 2002, and January
11, 2003. At some point during this period, al-Qahtani told interrogators about
a man known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti who was part of the inner circle of
al-Qaeda. Later in 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged
operational chief of al-Qaeda, stated that he was acquainted with al-Kuwaiti,
but that the man was not active in al-Qaeda, according to a U.S. official.
According
to a U.S. official, in 2004 a prisoner named Hassan
Ghul revealed that bin Laden relied on a trusted courier known as
al-Kuwaiti. Ghul stated that al-Kuwaiti was close to bin Laden as well as
Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Mohammed's successor Abu Faraj al-Libbi. Ghul revealed that
al-Kuwaiti had not been seen in some time, which led U.S. officials to suspect
he was traveling with bin Laden. When confronted with Ghul's account, Mohammed
maintained his original story. Abu Faraj al-Libbi was captured in 2005 and
transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006. He told CIA interrogators that bin
Laden's courier was a man named Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan and denied knowing
al-Kuwaiti. Because both Mohammed and al-Libbi had minimized al-Kuwaiti's
importance, officials speculated that he was part of bin Laden's inner circle.
In
2007, officials learned al-Kuwaiti's real name, though they said they would
disclose neither the name nor how they learned it. Pakistani officials in 2011
stated the courier's name was Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed, from Pakistan's Swat
Valley. He and his brother Abrar and their families were living at bin
Laden's compound, the officials said.
Since
the name Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan appears in the JTF-GTMO detainee assessment
for Abu Faraj al-Libbi released by WikiLeaks on
April 24, 2011, there was speculation that the U.S. assault on the Abbottabad
compound was expedited as a precaution. The CIA never found anyone named
Maulawi Jan and concluded that the name was an invention of al-Libbi.
A
2010 wiretap of another suspect picked up a conversation with al-Kuwaiti. CIA
paramilitary operatives located al-Kuwaiti in August 2010 and followed him back
to the Abbottabad compound, which led them to speculate it was bin Laden's
location.
The
courier and a relative (who was either a brother or a cousin) were killed in
the May 2, 2011, raid. Afterward, some locals identified the men as Pashtuns
named Arshad and Tareq Khan. Arshad Khan was carrying an old, noncomputerized
Pakistani identification card, which identified him as from
Khat Kuruna, a village near Charsadda in northwestern Pakistan. Pakistani officials
have found no record of an Arshad Khan in that area and suspect the men were
living under false identities.
Bin
Laden's compound
Main
article: Osama bin Laden's compound in
Abbottabad
The
CIA used surveillance photos and intelligence reports to determine the
identities of the inhabitants of the Abbottabad compound to which the courier
was traveling. In September 2010, the CIA concluded that the compound was
custom-built to hide someone of significance, very likely bin Laden. Officials
surmised that he was living there with his youngest wife and family.
Built
in 2004, the three-story compound was located at the end of a narrow dirt road.
Google
Earth maps made from satellite photographs show that the compound was not
present in 2001 but had been built by the time that new images were taken in
2005. It is located 2.5 miles (4.0 km) northeast of the city center of Abbottabad.
Abbottabad is about 100 miles (160 km) from the Afghanistan border on the
far eastern side of Pakistan (about 20 miles (32 km) from India). The
compound is 0.8 miles (1.3 km) southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy. Located on a
plot of land eight times larger than those of nearby houses, the compound was
surrounded by a 12-to-18-foot (3.7–5.5 m) concrete wall topped with barbed
wire. It had two security gates, and the third-floor balcony had a
seven-foot-high (2.1 m) privacy wall, tall enough to hide the 6 ft
4 in (193 cm) bin Laden.
The
compound had no Internet or landline telephone service. Its residents burned
their refuse, unlike their neighbors, who set their garbage out for collection.
Local residents called the building the Waziristan Haveli,
because they believed the owner was from Waziristan.
Following the American raid and killing of bin Laden, the Pakistani government
demolished the compound in February 2012.
Intelligence
gathering
The
CIA led the effort to surveil and gather intelligence on the compound; other
critical roles in the operation were played by other United States agencies,
including the National Security Agency, National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Office of the Director
of National Intelligence (ODNI), and U.S. Defense Department. According to The Washington Post, "The
[intelligence-gathering] effort was so extensive and costly that the CIA went
to Congress
in December [2010] to secure authority to reallocate tens of millions of
dollars within assorted agency budgets to fund it", U.S. officials said.
The
CIA rented a home in Abbottabad from which a team staked out and observed the
compound over a number of months. The CIA team used informants and other
techniques – including a widely criticised fake vaccination program – to gather
intelligence on the compound. The safe house was abandoned immediately after
bin Laden's death. The U.S. National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency helped the Joint Special Operations Command
create mission simulators for the pilots, and analyzed data from an RQ-170 drone
before, during and after the raid on the compound. The NGA created
three-dimensional renderings of the house, created schedules describing
residential traffic patterns, and assessed the number, height and gender of the
residents of the compound. Also involved in the intelligence gathering measures
were an arm of the National Security Agency known as the Tailored Access Operations group
which, among other things, is specialized in surreptitiously installing spyware
and tracking devices on targeted computers and mobile-phone networks. Because
of the work of the Tailored Access Operations group, the NSA could collect
intelligence from mobile phones that were used by al-Qaeda operatives and other
"persons of interest" in the hunt for bin Laden.
The
design of bin Laden's compound may have ultimately contributed to his
discovery. A former CIA official involved in the manhunt told The Washington Post,
"The place was three stories high, and you could watch it from a variety of
angles."
The
CIA used a process called "red teaming" on the collected intelligence to
independently review the circumstantial evidence and available facts of their
case that bin Laden was living at the Abbottabad compound. An administration
official stated, "We conducted red-team exercises and other forms of
alternative analysis to check our work. No other candidate fit the bill as well
as bin Laden did." This duplicate analysis was necessary because
Despite what officials described as an extraordinarily concentrated collection effort leading up to the operation, no U.S. spy agency was ever able to capture a photograph of bin Laden at the compound before the raid or a recording of the voice of the mysterious male figure whose family occupied the structure's top two floors.
Operation Neptune Spear
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Part of the Global
War on Terrorism and the War in North-West Pakistan
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Map of Pakistan. Abbottabad is 34 miles (55 km) from the capital Islamabad, 167 miles (269 km) from Jalalabad Airfield, and 232 miles (373 km) from Bagram Airfield. Bagram is about 850 miles (1,370 km) from the North Arabian Sea. (Straight line distances. Travel distances significantly more.) |
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Belligerents
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Commanders
and leaders
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Osama bin Laden †
Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti † |
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Strength
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22 (number of residents, including children)
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Casualties
and losses
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1 helicopter (no casualties)
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5 killed
17 captured (1 injured) |
2
Operation Neptune Spear
The
official mission code name was Operation Neptune Spear. Neptune's spear is the trident, which
appears on the U.S. Navy's Special Warfare insignia, with the three
prongs of the trident representing the operational capacity of SEALs on sea,
air and land.
2.1
Objective
The
Associated Press reported at the time two U.S.
officials as stating the operation was "a kill-or-capture mission, since
the U.S. doesn't kill unarmed people trying to surrender", but that
"it was clear from the beginning that whoever was behind those walls had
no intention of surrendering". White House counterterrorism
advisor John O. Brennan said after the raid: "If we had the opportunity to take bin Laden alive, if
he didn't present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared
to do that." CIA Director Leon
Panetta said on PBS NewsHour: "The
authority here was to kill bin Laden. ... Obviously under the rules of engagement,
if he in fact had thrown up his hands, surrendered and didn't appear to be
representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But, they had
full authority to kill him."
A
U.S. national security official, who was not named, told Reuters that
"'this was a kill operation', making clear there was no desire to try to
capture bin Laden alive in Pakistan". Another source referencing a kill
(rather than capture) order stated, "Officials
described the reaction of the special operators when they were told a number of
weeks ago that they had been chosen to train for the mission. 'They were told,
"We think we found Osama bin Laden, and your job is to kill him,"' an
official recalled. The SEALs started to cheer."
2.2
Planning and final decision
The
CIA briefed Vice Admiral William H. McRaven, the commander of the Joint
Special Operations Command (JSOC), about the compound in January 2011. McRaven
said a commando raid would be fairly straightforward but he was concerned about
the Pakistani response. He assigned a captain from the U.S. Naval Special
Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU) to work with a CIA team at their campus in Langley,
Virginia. The captain, named "Brian", set up an office in the
printing plant in the CIA's Langley compound and, with six other JSOC officers,
began to plan the raid. Administration attorneys did an analysis on the legal
issues and options before the raid.
In
addition to a helicopter raid, planners considered attacking the compound with B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. They
considered a joint operation with Pakistani forces. Obama, however, decided
that the Pakistani government and military could not be trusted to maintain operational security for the operation against
bin Laden. "There was a real lack of confidence that the Pakistanis could
keep this secret for more than a nanosecond," a senior adviser to the
President told The New Yorker.
Obama
met with the National Security Council
on March 14 to review the options. The President was concerned that the mission
would be exposed and wanted to proceed quickly. For that reason he ruled out
involving the Pakistanis. Defense Secretary Robert
Gates and other military officials expressed doubts as to whether bin Laden
was in the compound, and whether a commando raid was worth the risk. At the end
of the meeting, the president seemed to be leaning toward a bombing mission.
Two U.S. Air Force officers were tasked with exploring
that option further.
The
CIA was unable to rule out the existence of an underground bunker below the
compound. Presuming that one existed, 32 2,000-pound (910 kg) bombs fitted
with JDAM guidance systems would be
required to destroy it. With that amount of ordnance,
at least one other house was in the blast
radius. Estimates were that up to a dozen civilians would be killed in
addition to those in the compound. Furthermore, it was unlikely there would be
enough evidence remaining to prove that bin Laden was dead. Presented with this
information at the next Security Council meeting on March 29, Obama put the
bombing plan on hold. Instead he directed Admiral McRaven to develop the plan
for a helicopter raid. The U.S. intelligence community also studied an option
of hitting bin Laden with a drone-fired small
tactical munition as he paced in his compound's vegetable garden.
McRaven
assembled a team drawing from the most experienced and senior operators from
Red Squadron, one of four that make up DEVGRU. Red Squadron was coming home
from Afghanistan and could be redirected without attracting attention. The team
had language skills and experience with cross-border operations into Pakistan.
Without being told the exact nature of their mission, the team performed
rehearsals of the raid in two locations in the U.S.—around April 10 at Harvey Point Defense Testing
Activity facility in North Carolina where a 1:1 version of bin Laden's
compound was built, and April 18 in Nevada. The
location in Nevada was at 4,000 feet (1,200 m) elevation—chosen
to test the effects the altitude would have on the raiders' helicopters. The Nevada
mock-up used chain-link fences to simulate the compound walls, which
left the U.S. participants unaware of the potential effects of the high
compound walls on the helicopters' lift capabilities.
Planners
believed the SEALs could get to Abbottabad and back without being challenged by
the Pakistani military. The helicopters to be used in the raid had been
designed to be quiet and to have low radar visibility. Since the U.S. had
helped equip and train the Pakistanis, their defensive capabilities were known.
The U.S. had supplied F-16 Fighting Falcons to
Pakistan on the condition they were kept at a Pakistani military base under
24-hour U.S. surveillance.
If
bin Laden surrendered, he would be held near Bagram
Air Base. If the SEALs were discovered by the Pakistanis in the middle of
the raid, Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike
Mullen would call Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and try to negotiate
their release.
When
the National Security Council (NSC) met again on April 19, Obama gave
provisional approval for the helicopter raid. But as he worried that the plan
for dealing with the Pakistanis was too uncertain, Obama asked Admiral McRaven
to equip the team to fight its way out if necessary.
McRaven
and the SEALs left for Afghanistan to practice at a one-acre, full-scale
replica of the compound built on a restricted area of Bagram known as Camp
Alpha. The team departed the U.S. from Naval Air Station Oceana on April 26 in a
C-17 aircraft, refueled on the ground at Ramstein
Air Base in Germany, landed at Bagram
Air Base, then moved to Jalalabad on April 27.
On
April 28, Admiral Mullen explained the final plan to the NSC. To bolster the
"fight your way out" scenario, Chinook helicopters with additional troops would
be positioned nearby. Most of the advisers in the meeting supported going
forward with the raid. Only Vice President Biden completely opposed it. Gates
advocated using the drone missile option, but changed his support the next day
to the helicopter raid plan. Obama said he wanted to speak directly to Admiral
McRaven before he gave the order to proceed. The president asked if McRaven had
learned anything since arriving in Afghanistan that caused him to lose
confidence in the mission. McRaven told him the team was ready and that the
next few nights would have little moonlight over Abbottabad, good conditions
for a raid.
On
April 29 at 8:20 a.m. EDT, Obama conferred with his advisers and
gave the final go-ahead. The raid would take place the following day. That
evening the president was informed that the operation would be delayed one day
due to cloudy weather.
On
April 30, Obama called McRaven one more time to wish the SEALs well and to
thank them for their service. That evening, the President attended the annual White House Correspondent's
Association dinner, which was hosted by comedian and television actor Seth
Meyers. At one point, Meyers joked: "People think bin Laden is hiding
in the Hindu
Kush, but did you know that every day from 4 to 5 he hosts a show on C-SPAN?"
Obama laughed, despite his knowledge of the operation to come.
On
May 1 at 1:22 p.m., Panetta, acting on the president's orders, directed
McRaven to move forward with the operation. Shortly after 3 p.m., the
president joined national security officials in the Situation Room to monitor the raid. They
watched night-vision images taken from a Sentinel drone while Panetta,
appearing in a corner of the screen from CIA headquarters, narrated what was
happening. Video links with Panetta at CIA headquarters and McRaven in
Afghanistan were set up in the Situation Room. In an adjoining office was the
live drone feed presented on a laptop computer operated by Brigadier General Marshall
Webb, assistant commander of JSOC. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton was one of those in the Situation Room, and described it like this:
"Contrary to some news reports and what you see in the movies, we had no
means to see what was happening inside the building itself. All we could do was
wait for an update from the team on the ground. I looked at the President. He
was calm. Rarely have I been prouder to serve by his side as I was that
day." Two other command centers monitored the raid from the Pentagon and
the American embassy
in Islamabad.
2.3
Execution of the operation
2.3.1
Approach and entry
The
raid was carried out by approximately two dozen heliborne U.S. Navy SEALs from the Red Squadron of
the Joint Special Operations Command's
U.S. Naval Special Warfare
Development Group (DEVGRU). For legal reasons (namely that the U.S. was not
at war with Pakistan), the
military personnel assigned to the mission were temporarily transferred to the
control of the civilian Central Intelligence Agency. The DEVGRU SEALs operated
in two teams and were reportedly equipped with Heckler & Koch HK416 military assault
rifles, Mark 48 machine guns used for fire support, FN SCAR-H STD
Mk 17 battle rifles and Heckler & Koch MP7A1 personal defense
weapons (with attached Knight's Armament QDSS-NT4 suppressors),
Insight Technology AN/AVS-6 and GPNVG-18 (Ground
Panoramic Night Vision Goggles) L-3 night-vision goggles, body
armor and sidearms such as SIG
Sauer P226R Navy MK25 and H&K Mark 23 Mod 0.
According
to The New York Times, a total of "79 commandos and a dog"
were involved in the raid. The military
working dog was a Belgian Malinois named Cairo.
According to one report, the dog was tasked with tracking "anyone who
tried to escape and to alert SEALs to any approaching Pakistani security
forces". The dog was to be used to help deter any Pakistani ground
response to the raid and to help look for any hidden rooms or hidden doors in
the compound. Additional personnel on the mission included a language
interpreter, the dog handler, helicopter pilots, "tactical signals,
intelligence collectors, and navigators using highly classified hyperspectral imagers".
The
SEALs flew into Pakistan from a staging base in the city of Jalalabad in
eastern Afghanistan after originating at Bagram
Air Base in northeastern Afghanistan. The 160th Special
Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), a U.S. Army Special Operations
Command unit known as the "Night Stalkers",
provided the two modified Black Hawk helicopters that were used for
the raid itself, as well as the much larger Chinook heavy-lift helicopters that were employed as
backups.
The
Black Hawks appear to have been never-before-publicly-seen "stealth"
versions of the helicopter that fly more quietly while being harder to detect
on radar than
conventional models; due to the weight of the extra stealth equipment on the
Black Hawks, cargo was "calculated to the ounce, with the weather factored
in."
The
Chinooks kept on standby were on the ground "in a deserted area roughly
two-thirds of the way" from Jalalabad to Abbottabad, with two additional
SEAL teams consisting of approximately 24 DEVGRU operators for a "quick reaction force" (QRF). The
Chinooks were equipped with 7.62mm GAU-17/A miniguns
and GAU-21/B
.50-caliber machine guns and extra fuel for the Black Hawks. Their mission was
to interdict any Pakistani military attempts to interfere with the raid. Other
Chinooks, holding 25 more SEALs from DEVGRU, were stationed just across the
border in Afghanistan in case reinforcements were needed during the raid.
The
160th SOAR helicopters were supported by multiple other aircraft, including
fixed-wing fighter jets and drones. According to CNN, "the Air
Force had a full team of combat search-and-rescue helicopters
available".
The
raid was scheduled for a time with little moonlight so the helicopters could
enter Pakistan "low to the ground and undetected". The helicopters
used hilly terrain and nap-of-the-earth techniques to reach the compound
without appearing on radar and alerting the Pakistani military. The flight from
Jalalabad to Abbottabad took about 90 minutes.
According
to the mission plan, the first helicopter would hover over the compound's yard
while its full team of SEALs fast-roped to the ground. At the same time, the second
helicopter would fly to the northeast corner of the compound and deploy the
interpreter, the dog and handler, and four SEALs to secure the perimeter. The
team in the courtyard was to enter the house from the ground floor.
As
they hovered above the target, however, the first helicopter experienced a
hazardous airflow condition known as a vortex
ring state. This was aggravated by higher than expected air temperature
("a so-called 'hot and high' environment") and the high compound
walls, which stopped the rotor downwash from diffusing. The helicopter's tail
grazed one of the compound's walls, damaging its tail rotor,
and the helicopter rolled onto its side. The pilot quickly buried the
aircraft's nose to keep it from tipping over. None of the SEALs, crew and
pilots on the helicopter were seriously injured in the soft crash landing,
which ended with it pitched at a 45-degree angle resting against the wall. The
other helicopter landed outside the compound and the SEALs scaled the walls to
get inside. The SEALs advanced into the house, breaching walls and doors with
explosives.
2.3.2
Killing of bin Laden
The
SEALs encountered the residents in the compound's guest house, in the main
building on the first floor where two adult males lived, and on the second and
third floors where bin Laden lived with his family. The second and third floors
were the last section of the compound to be cleared. There were reportedly
"small knots of children ... on every level, including the balcony of
bin Laden's room".
Osama
bin Laden was killed in the raid, and initial versions said three other men and
a woman were killed as well: bin Laden's adult son Khalid, bin Laden's courier
(Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti), al-Kuwaiti's brother
Abrar, and Abrar's wife Bushra.
An
intelligence official told Seymour Hersh in 2015 that no fire-fight took place.
In the earlier versions, Al-Kuwaiti is said to have opened fire on the first
team of SEALs with an AK-47 from behind the guesthouse door, lightly injuring a
SEAL with bullet fragments. A short firefight took place between al-Kuwaiti and
the SEALs, in which al-Kuwaiti was killed. His wife Mariam was allegedly shot
and wounded in the right shoulder. The courier's male relative Abrar was then
said to have been shot and killed by the SEALs' second team on the first floor
of the main house as shots had already been fired and the SEALs thought that he
was armed (this was later confirmed to be true in the official report). A woman
near him, later identified as Abrar's wife Bushra, was, in this version, also
shot and killed. Bin Laden's young adult son is said to have encountered the
SEALs on the staircase of the main house, and to have been shot and killed by
the second team. An unnamed U.S. senior defense official stated that only one
of the five people killed, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, was armed. The interior
of the house was pitch dark, because CIA operatives had cut the power to the
neighborhood. However, the SEALs wore night vision goggles.
The
SEALs encountered bin Laden on the third floor of the main building. Bin Laden
was "wearing the local loose-fitting tunic and pants known as a kurta paijama",
which were later found to have €500
and two phone numbers sewn into the fabric.
Bin
Laden peered through his bedroom door at the Americans advancing up the stairs,
and then retreated into the room as the lead SEAL fired a shot at him, which
either missed or hit him in the side. Robert O’Neill, who later publicly
identified himself as the SEAL who shot bin Laden, rolled through the door and
confronted bin Laden inside the bedroom. Seymour Hersh reports that, according
to his sources, Bin Laden was found cowering and shot dead.
O'Neill
states that bin Laden was standing behind a woman with his hands on her
shoulders, pushing her forward. O'Neill immediately shot bin Laden twice in the
forehead, then once more as bin Laden crumpled to the floor. Matt
Bissonnette, who entered the room at about the same time, also claims to
have fired shots into bin Laden's fallen body. Simultaneously, in these
versions, one of bin Laden's wives, Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah is said to have
screamed at the SEALs in Arabic and motioned as if she were about to charge.
The lead SEAL shot her in the leg, then grabbed both women and shoved them
aside. The weapon used to kill bin Laden was a HK416 allegedly using 5.56mm
NATO 77-grain OTM (open-tip match)
rounds made by Black Hills Ammunition. The SEAL team leader
radioed, "For God and country—Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo", and
then, after being prompted by McRaven for confirmation, "Geronimo
E.K.I.A." (enemy killed in action). Watching the operation in the White
House Situation Room, Obama said, "We got him."
There
were, in these reports, said to be two weapons near bin Laden in his room,
including an AKS-74U
carbine and a
Russian-made Makarov pistol, but according to his wife Amal, he
was shot before he could reach his AKS-74U. According to the Associated Press,
the guns were on a shelf next to the door and the SEALs did not see them until
they were photographing the body.
As
the SEALs encountered women and children during the raid, they restrained them
with plastic handcuffs or zip ties.
After the raid was over, U.S. forces moved the surviving residents outside
"for Pakistani forces to discover". The injured Amal Ahmed Abdul
Fatah continued to harangue the raiders in Arabic. Bin Laden's 12-year-old
daughter Safia was allegedly struck in her foot or ankle by a piece of flying
debris.
While
bin Laden's body was taken by U.S. forces, the bodies of the four others killed
in the raid were left behind at the compound and later taken into Pakistani
custody.
2.3.3
Wrap-up
The
raid was intended to take 40 minutes. All told, the time between the team's
entry in and exit from the compound was 38 minutes. According to the Associated
Press, the assault was completed in the first 15 minutes.
Time
in the compound was spent killing defenders, "moving carefully through the
compound, room to room, floor to floor" securing the women and children,
clearing "weapons stashes and barricades" including a false door, and
searching the compound for information. U.S. personnel recovered three AK-47s and two
pistols, ten computer hard drives, documents, DVDs, almost a hundred thumb
drives, a dozen cell phones, and "electronic equipment" for later
analysis. The SEALs also discovered a large amount of opium stored in the
house.
Since
the helicopter that had made the emergency landing was damaged and unable to
fly the team out, it was destroyed to safeguard its classified equipment,
including an apparent stealth capability. The pilot smashed "the
instrument panel, the radio, and the other classified fixtures inside the
cockpit", and the SEALs "[packed] the helicopter with explosives and
[blew] it up". Since the SEAL team was reduced to one operational
helicopter, one of the two Chinooks held in reserve was dispatched to carry
part of the team and bin Laden's body out of Pakistan.
While
the official Department of Defense narrative did not mention the airbases used
in the operation, later accounts indicated that the helicopters returned to Bagram
Airfield. The body of Osama bin Laden was flown from Bagram to the aircraft
carrier USS Carl Vinson in a V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft escorted by
two U.S. Navy F/A-18 fighter jets.
According
to U.S. officials, bin Laden was buried at sea because no country would accept
his remains. Before disposing of the body, the U.S. called the Saudi
government, who approved of burying the body in the ocean. Muslim
religious rites were performed aboard Carl Vinson in the North
Arabian Sea within 24 hours of bin Laden's death. Preparations began at
10:10 am local time and at-sea burial was completed at 11 am. The
body was washed, wrapped in a white sheet and placed in a weighted plastic bag.
An officer read prepared religious remarks which were translated into Arabic by
a native speaker. Afterward, bin Laden's body was placed onto a flat board. The
board was tilted upward on one side and the body slid off into the sea.
In
Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace, Leon
Panetta wrote that bin Laden's body was draped in a white shroud, given
final prayers in Arabic and placed inside a black bag loaded with heavy metals
of 300 pounds (140 kg) of iron chains inside apparently to ensure that it
would sink and never float. The body bag was placed on a white table at the
rail of the ship, and the table was tipped to let the body bag slide into the
sea, but the body bag did not slide and took the table with it. The table
bobbed on the surface while the weighted body sank into the depths.
2.3.4
Pakistan–U.S. communication
According
to Obama administration officials, U.S. officials did not share information
about the raid with the government of Pakistan until it was over. Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen called Pakistan's army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani at about 3 am local
time to inform him of the Abbottabad Operation.
According
to the Pakistani foreign ministry, the operation was conducted entirely by the
U.S. forces. Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
officials said they were present at what they called a joint operation;
President Asif Ali Zardari flatly denied this. Pakistan's
foreign secretary Salman Bashir later confirmed that Pakistani military
had scrambled F-16s after they became aware
of the attack but that they reached the compound after American helicopters had
left.
2.3.5
Identification of the body
U.S.
forces used multiple methods to positively identify the body of Osama bin
Laden:
- Measurement of the body: Both the corpse and bin Laden were 6 ft 4 in (193 cm); SEALs on the scene did not have a tape measure to measure the corpse, so a SEAL of known height lay down next to the body and the height was approximated by comparison. This later caused Obama to quip, "We donated a $60 million helicopter to this operation. Could we not afford to buy a tape measure?"
- Facial recognition software: A photograph transmitted by the SEALs to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, for facial recognition analysis yielded a 90 to 95 percent likely match.
- In-person identification: One or two women from the compound, including one of bin Laden's wives, identified bin Laden's body. A wife of bin Laden called him by name during the raid, inadvertently assisting in his identification by U.S. armed forces on the ground.
- DNA testing: The Associated Press and The New York Times reported that bin Laden's body could be identified by DNA testing using tissue and blood samples taken from his sister who had died of brain cancer. ABC News stated, "Two samples were taken from bin Laden: one of these DNA samples was analyzed, and information was sent electronically back to Washington, D.C., from Bagram. Someone else from Afghanistan is physically bringing back a sample." A military medic took bone marrow and swabs from the body to use for the DNA testing. According to a senior US Defense Department official:
DNA
(deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis conducted
separately by Department of Defense and CIA labs has positively identified
Osama bin Laden. DNA samples collected from his body were compared to a
comprehensive DNA profile derived from bin Laden's large extended family. Based
on that analysis, the DNA is unquestionably his. The probability of a mistaken
identity on the basis of this analysis is approximately one in 11.8 quadrillion.
- Inference: Per the same Defense official, from the initial review of the materials removed from the Abbottabad compound the Department "assessed that much of this information, including personal correspondence between Osama bin Laden and others, as well as some of the video footage ... would only have been in his possession."
2.4
Local accounts
Beginning
at 12:58 a.m. local time, Abbottabad resident Sohaib Athar sent a series
of tweets
describing the noise of helicopters hovering overhead—"a rare
occurrence"—and several window-rattling blasts. By 1:44 a.m. all was
quiet until a plane flew over the city at 3:39 a.m. Neighbors took to
their roofs and watched as American special forces stormed the compound. One
neighbor said, "I saw soldiers emerging from the helicopters and advancing
towards the house. Some of them instructed us in chaste Pashto
to turn off the lights and stay inside." Another man said he heard
shooting and screams, then an explosion as a grounded helicopter was destroyed.
The blast broke his bedroom window and left charred debris over a nearby field.
A local security officer said he entered the compound shortly after the
Americans left, before it was sealed off by the army. "There were four
dead bodies, three male and one female and one female was injured", he
said. "There was a lot of blood on the floor and one could easily see the
marks like a dead body had been dragged out of the compound." Numerous
witnesses reported that power, and possibly cellphone service, went out around
the time of the raid and apparently included the military academy. Accounts
differed as to the exact time of the blackout. One journalist concluded after
interviewing several residents that it was a routine rolling
blackout.
ISI
reported after questioning survivors of the raid that there were 17 to 18
people in the compound at the time of the attack and that the Americans took
away one person still alive, possibly a bin Laden son. The ISI said that
survivors included a wife, a daughter and eight to nine other children, not
apparently bin Laden's. An unnamed Pakistani security official was quoted as
saying one of bin Laden's daughters told Pakistani investigators that bin Laden
had been captured alive, then in front of family members was shot dead by
American forces and dragged to a helicopter.
2.5
Compound residents
U.S.
officials said there were 22 people in the compound. Five were killed,
including Osama bin Laden. Pakistani officials gave conflicting reports
suggesting between 12 and 17 survivors. The
Sunday Times subsequently published excerpts from a pocket guide,
presumably dropped by the SEALs during the raid, containing pictures and
descriptions of likely compound residents. The guide listed several adult
children of bin Laden and their families who were not ultimately found in the
compound. Because of a lack of verifiable information, some of what follows is
thinly sourced.
- 5 adults dead: Osama bin Laden, 54; Khalid, his son by Siham (identified as Hamza in early accounts), 23; Arshad Khan, a.k.a. Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, the courier, described as the "flabby" one by The Sunday Times, 33; Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's brother Abrar, 30; and Bushra, Abrar's wife, age unknown.
- 4 surviving women: Khairiah, bin Laden's third, Saudi wife a.k.a. Um Hamza, 62; Siham, bin Laden's fourth, Saudi wife a.k.a. Um Khalid, 54; Amal, bin Laden's fifth, Yemeni wife, a.k.a. Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, 29 (injured); and Mariam, Arshad Khan's Pakistani wife.
- 5 minor children of Osama and Amal: Safia, a daughter, 12; a son, 5; another son, age unknown; and infant twin daughters.
- 4 bin Laden grandchildren from an unidentified daughter who had been killed in an airstrike in Waziristan. Two may be the boys, around 10, who spoke to Pakistani investigators.
- 4 children of Arshad Khan: Two sons, Abdur Rahman and Khalid, 6 or 7; a daughter, age unknown; and another child, age unknown.
English: U.S.
President Barack Obama and Vice
President Joe Biden, along with
members of the national security team, receive an update on Operation
Neptune's Spear, a mission against Osama bin Laden, in one of the conference rooms
of the Situation Room of
the White House, May 1, 2011. They are watching live feed from
drones operating over the bin Laden complex.
Seated,
from left to right, are:
1.
Vice
President Biden,
2.
President
Obama,
3.
Brigadier
General Marshall B. “Brad” Webb,
USAF,
Assistant Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command;
4.
Denis McDonough, Deputy National Security
Advisor;
5.
Hillary Rodham
Clinton, Secretary of State; and
6.
Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense.
Standing,
from left to right, are:
1.
Admiral Mike Mullen, USN, Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;
3.
Bill Daley, Chief of Staff;
4.
Tony Blinken, National Security Advisor to the
Vice President;
5.
Audrey Tomason, Director for Counterterrorism;
6.
a person
in a beige shirt (only part of the shoulder is visible);
7.
John Brennan, Assistant to the President for
Homeland Security and Counterterrorism;
9.
a person
in a black suit with a white tie, similar to the one seen here.
Note: a
classified document in front of Hillary Clinton has been obscured by the White
House.
|
3
Aftermath
3.1
Leaks of the news
At
around 9:45 p.m. EDT, the White House announced that the
president would be addressing the nation later in the evening. At
10:24 p.m., the first public leaks were made simultaneously and separately
by Navy Reserve intel officer Keith Urbahn and actor and professional wrestler Dwayne
Johnson on Twitter. Anonymous government officials confirmed details to the
media, and by 11 p.m. numerous major news sources were reporting that bin
Laden was dead; the number of leaks were characterized as
"voluminous" by David
E. Sanger.
3.2
U.S. presidential address
At
11:35 p.m., Obama appeared on major television networks:
Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who was responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children ... (cont'd)
President
Obama remembered the victims of the September 11 attacks. He praised the nearly
ten-year-old war against al-Qaeda, which he said had disrupted terrorist plots,
strengthened homeland defenses, removed the Taliban
government, and captured or killed scores of al-Qaeda operatives. Obama said
that when he took office he made finding bin Laden the top priority of the war.
Bin Laden's death was the most significant blow to al-Qaeda so far but the war
would continue. He reaffirmed that the U.S. was not at war against Islam. He
defended his decision to conduct an operation within Pakistan. He said
Americans understood the cost of war but would not stand by while their
security was threatened. "To those families who have lost loved ones to
al-Qaeda's terror," he said, "justice has been done." This
remark book-ended President Bush's statement to a joint session of Congress
following the September 11 attacks that "justice will be done."
Celebrations in Times
Square for the death of Osama bin Laden. New York, May 2, 2011.
|
3.3
Reactions
Main
article: Reactions to the death of
Osama bin Laden
Before
the official announcement, large crowds spontaneously gathered outside the
White House, Ground Zero, The
Pentagon and in New York's Times
Square to celebrate. In Dearborn, Michigan, where there is a large
Muslim and Arab population, a small crowd gathered outside the City Hall in
celebration, many of them being of Middle Eastern descent. From the beginning
to the end of Obama's speech, 5,000 tweets per second were sent on
microblogging platform Twitter. As news of bin Laden's death filtered through
the crowd at a nationally televised Major League Baseball game in Philadelphia
between rivals Philadelphia Phillies and the New
York Mets, "U-S-A!" cheers began. In Tampa, Florida, at
the conclusion of a professional wrestling event which was occurring at the
time, WWE Champion John Cena
announced to the audience that bin Laden had been "caught and compromised
to a permanent end", prompting chants while he exited the arena to the
march The Stars and Stripes Forever.
The
deputy leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said that, with bin Laden
dead, Western forces should now pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan; authorities in Iran
made similar comments. Palestinian Authority leaders had contrasting
reactions. Mahmoud Abbas welcomed bin Laden's death, while Ismail
Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip,
condemned what he saw as the assassination of an "Arab holy warrior".
The
14th
Dalai Lama was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying,
"Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened. ... If something is
serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take
counter-measures." This was widely reported as an endorsement of bin
Laden's killing and was criticized in Buddhist circles, but another journalist
cited a video of the discussion to argue that the comment was taken out of
context and the Dalai Lama only supports killing in self-defense.
A
CBS/The New York Times poll taken after bin Laden's death showed that
16% of Americans feel safer as the result of his death while 60% of Americans
of those polled believe killing bin Laden would likely increase the threat of
terrorism against the U.S. in the short term.
In
India, Minister for Home Affairs P.
Chidambaram said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was
a matter of grave concern for India and showed that "many of the
perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, including the
controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the
attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He also called on Pakistan
to arrest them, amidst calls for similar strikes being conducted by India
against Hafiz Saeed and Dawood
Ibrahim.
3.4
Freedom of Information Act requests and denials
Though
the Abbottabad raid has been described in great detail by U.S. officials, no
physical evidence constituting "proof of death" has been offered to
the public, neither to journalists nor to independent third parties who have
requested this information through the Freedom of Information Act.
Numerous organizations filed FOIA requests seeking at least a partial release
of photographs, videos, and/or DNA test results, including The Associated Press, Reuters, CBS News, Judicial
Watch, Politico,
Fox News,
Citizens United, and NPR. On April 26, 2012,
Judge James E. Boasberg held that the Department of
Defense was not required to release any evidence to the public.
According
to a draft report by the Pentagon's inspector general, Admiral William McRaven,
the top special operations commander, ordered the Department of Defense to
purge from its computer systems all files on the bin Laden raid after first sending
them to the CIA. Any mention of this decision was expunged from the final
version of the inspector general's report. According to the Pentagon, this was
done to protect the identities of the Navy SEALs involved in the raid. The
legal justification for the records transfer is that the SEALs were effectively
working for the CIA at the time of the raid, which ostensibly means that any
records of the raid belong to the CIA. "Documents related to the raid were
handled in a manner consistent with the fact that the operation was conducted
under the direction of the CIA director", CIA agency spokesman Preston
Golson said in an emailed statement. "Records of a CIA operation such as
the (bin Laden) raid, which were created during the conduct of the operation by
persons acting under the authority of the CIA Director, are CIA records."
Golson said it is "absolutely false" that records were moved to the
CIA to avoid the legal requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.
The National Security Archive has criticized
this maneuver, saying that the records have now gone into a "FOIA black
hole":
What the transfer really did was ensure that the files would be placed in the CIA's operational records, a records system that—due to the 1986 CIA Operational Files exemption—is not subject to the FOIA and is a black hole for anyone trying to access the files within. The move prevents the public from accessing the official record about the raid, and bypasses several important federal records keeping procedures in the process.
The
United States Defense Department can prevent the release of its own military
files citing risks to national security, but that can be contested in court,
and a judge can compel the Pentagon to turn over non-sensitive portions of
records. The CIA however has special authority to prevent the release of
"operational files" in ways that cannot be challenged in federal
court. Richard Lardner, reporting for the Associated Press, wrote that the
maneuver "could represent a new strategy for the U.S. government to shield
even its most sensitive activities from public scrutiny."
Judicial
Watch followed its FOIA request with a FOIA lawsuit on June 8, 2011, and by
January 31, 2014, obtained some of the documents Admiral William
McRaven had tried to withhold. The most important of these is an email
written by McRaven on Friday 13, 2011, in which he instructs his team to
destroy all UBL documents (see image at right).
The
inspector general's draft report also described how former Secretary of Defense
Leon
Panetta disclosed classified information to the makers of Zero
Dark Thirty, including the unit that conducted the raid and the ground
commander's name.
Website of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation listing bin Laden as deceased on the Most Wanted List on May 3, 2011
|
3.5
Legality
3.5.1
Under U.S. law
Following
the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S.
Congress passed the Authorization
for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, which authorized the President to use "necessary and
appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons" he
determines were involved in the attacks. The Obama administration justified its use of
force by relying on that resolution, as well as international
law set forth in treaties and customary laws of
war.
John Bellinger III, who served as the U.S. State Department's senior lawyer during President
George W. Bush's second term, said the strike was a legitimate military
action and did not run counter to the U.S.' self-imposed prohibition on
assassinations:
The killing is not prohibited by the long-standing assassination prohibition in executive order 12333 [signed in 1981], because the action was a military action in the ongoing U.S. armed conflict with al-Qaeda, and it is not prohibited to kill specific leaders of an opposing force. The assassination prohibition does not apply to killings in self-defense.
Similarly,
Harold Hongju Koh, Legal Adviser of the U.S.
State Department, said in 2010 that "under domestic law, the use of
lawful weapons systems—consistent with the applicable laws of war—for precision
targeting of specific high-level belligerent
leaders when acting in self-defense or during an armed conflict is not
unlawful, and hence does not constitute 'assassination'."
David
Scheffer, director of the Northwestern University School of
Law Center for International Human Rights, said the fact that bin Laden had
previously been indicted in 1998 in the U.S. District
Court for the Southern District of New York for conspiracy to attack U.S.
defense installations was a complicating factor. "Normally when an
individual is under indictment the purpose is to capture that person in order
to bring him to court to try him ... The object is not to literally summarily
execute him if he's under indictment." Scheffer and another expert
opined that it was important to determine whether the mission was to capture
bin Laden or to kill him. If the Navy SEALs were instructed to kill bin Laden
without trying first to capture him, it "may have violated American ideals
if not international law."
3.5.2
Under international law
In
an address to the Pakistani parliament, Pakistan's Prime
Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said, "Our people are
rightly incensed on the issue of violation of sovereignty as typified by the
covert U.S. air and ground assault on the Osama hideout in Abbottabad. ...
The Security Council, while exhorting UN member states to join their efforts
against terrorism, has repeatedly emphasized that this be done in accordance
with international law, human rights and humanitarian
law." Former Pakistani President Gen. Pervez
Musharraf denied a report in The Guardian that his government made a
secret agreement permitting U.S. forces to conduct unilateral raids in search
of the top three al-Qaeda leaders.
Former
Nuremberg prosecutor Benjamin B. Ferencz argued that unless Bin
Laden was killed in self-defense, his killing was "a crime under military
law as well as all other laws." Ferencz argued that even Nazi officials
had been given fair trials, which is "what distinguishes us from the
tyrants."
In
testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney
General Eric
Holder said, "The operation against bin Laden was justified as an act
of national self-defense. It's lawful to target an enemy commander in the
field." He called the killing of bin Laden "a tremendous step forward
in attaining justice for the nearly 3,000 innocent Americans who were murdered
on September 11, 2001." Commenting on the legality under international
law, University of Michigan Law Professor Steven
Ratner said, "A lot of it depends on whether you believe Osama bin Laden
is a combatant in a war or a suspect in a mass murder." In the latter
case, "you would only be able to kill a suspect if they represented an
immediate threat".
Holder
testified that bin Laden made no attempt to surrender, and "even if he had
there would be a good basis on the part of those very brave Navy SEAL team
members to do what they did in order to protect themselves and the other people
who were in that building." According to Anthony Dworkin, an international
law expert at the European Council on Foreign
Relations, if bin Laden was hors
de combat (as his daughter is said to have alleged) that would have
been a violation of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions.
The
UN Security Council released a statement applauding the news of bin Laden's
death, and UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon said he was "very much relieved". Two United Nations Special Rapporteurs
issued a joint statement seeking more information regarding the circumstances
in which bin Laden was killed and cautioning that "actions taken by States
in combating terrorism, especially in high profile cases, set precedents for
the way in which the right to life will be treated in future instances."
3.6
Handling of the body
Under
Islamic tradition, burial at sea is considered inappropriate when other,
preferred forms of burial are available, and several prominent Islamic clerics
criticized the decision. Mohamed Ahmed el-Tayeb, the head of Al-Azhar University, Egypt's seat of Sunni Muslim
learning, said the disposal of the body at sea was an affront to religious and
human values. Scholars like el-Tayeb hold that sea burials can only be allowed
in special cases where the death occurred aboard a ship, and that the regular
practice should have occurred in this case—the body buried in the ground with
the head pointing to Islam's holy city of Mecca.
A
stated advantage of a burial at sea is that the site is not readily identified
or accessed, thus preventing it from becoming a focus of attention or
"terrorist shrine". The
Guardian questioned whether bin Laden's grave would have become a
shrine, as this is strongly discouraged in Wahhabism.
Addressing the same concern, Egyptian Islamic analyst and lawyer Montasser el-Zayat said that if the Americans
wished to avoid making a shrine to bin Laden, an unmarked grave on land would
have accomplished the same goal.
The Guardian
also quoted a U.S. official explaining the anticipated difficulty of finding a
country that would accept the burial of bin Laden in its soil. A professor of Islamic
Law at the University of Jordan stated burying at sea was
permitted if there was nobody to receive the body and provide a Muslim burial,
and that "it's neither true nor correct to claim that there was nobody in
the Muslim world ready to receive bin Laden's body". On a similar note,
Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai's grand mufti, stated: "They can say they buried him at sea, but
they cannot say they did it according to Islam. If the family does not want
him, it's really simple in Islam: you dig up a grave anywhere, even on a remote
island, you say the prayers and that's it. Sea burials are permissible for
Muslims in extraordinary circumstances. This is not one of them." Khalid
Latif, an imam who
serves as a chaplain and the director of the Islamic Center of New York University, argued that the sea burial
was respectful.
Leor
Halevi, a professor at Vanderbilt University and the author of Muhammad's
Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society, explained that
Islamic law does not prescribe ordinary funerals for those killed in battle,
and pointed to controversy within the Muslim world over whether bin Laden was,
as a "mass murderer of Muslims", entitled to the same respect as
mainstream Muslims. At the same time, he suggested that the burial could have
been handled with more cultural sensitivity.
Omar
bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, published a complaint on May 10, 2011,
that the burial at sea deprived the family of a proper burial.
3.7
Bin Laden's will
After
bin Laden's death, it was reported he had left a will written a short time
after the September 11 attacks in which he urged his children not to join
al-Qaeda and not to continue the Jihad.
3.8
Release of photographs
CNN
cited a senior U.S. official as saying three sets of photographs of bin Laden's
body exist: Photos taken at an aircraft
hangar in Afghanistan, described as the most recognizable and gruesome;
photos taken from the burial at sea on the USS Carl Vinson before a
shroud was placed around his body; and photos from the raid itself, which
include shots of the interior of the compound as well as three of the others
who died in the raid.
A
source told ABC News that the photos taken by the military servicemen on the
scene depict the physical damage done by a high-caliber bullet. CBS
Evening News reported that the photo shows that the bullet which hit
above bin Laden's left eye blew out his left eyeball and blew away a large
portion of his frontal skull, exposing his brain. CNN stated that the pictures
from the Afghanistan hangar depict "a massive open head wound across both
eyes. It's very bloody and gory." U.S Senator Jim Inhofe,
who viewed the photos, stated that the photos taken of the body on the Carl
Vinson, which showed bin Laden's face after much of the blood and material
had been washed away, should be released to the public.
A
debate on whether the military photos should or should not be released to the
public has taken place. Those supporting the release argued that the photos
should be considered public records, that the photos are necessary to
complete the journalistic record, and that the photos would prove bin Laden's
death and therefore prevent conspiracy
theories that bin Laden is still alive. Those in opposition to a release of
the photos expressed concern that the photos would inflame anti-American
sentiment in the Middle East.
Obama
ultimately decided not to release the photos. In an interview that aired on May
4 on 60
Minutes, Obama stated that "We don't trot out this stuff as
trophies. We don't need to spike the football." Obama said that
he was concerned with ensuring that "very graphic photos of somebody who
was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional
violence, or as a propaganda tool. That's not who we are." Among
Republican members of Congress, Senator Lindsey
Graham criticized the decision and stated that he wanted to see the photos
released, while Senator John McCain and Representative Mike Rogers, the chair of the House
Intelligence Committee, supported the decision not to release the photos.
On
May 11, selected members of Congress (the congressional leadership and
those who serve on the House and Senate intelligence, homeland security, judiciary,
foreign relations, and armed forces committees) were shown 15 bin Laden photos.
In an interview with Eliot Spitzer, Senator Jim Inhofe said that three of
the photos were of bin Laden alive for identification reference. Three other
photos were of the burial-at-sea ceremony.
The
group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act
request to obtain access to the photos in May 2011, soon after the raid. On May
9, the Department of Defense declined to process Judicial Watch's FOIA request,
prompting Judicial Watch to file a federal lawsuit. In 2012, Judge James
E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court
for the District of Columbia issued a ruling denying release of the
photographs. In May 2013, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit consisting of Chief Judge Merrick
Garland, Senior Judge Harry
T. Edwards, and Judge Judith Rogers affirmed the ruling, holding that 52
post-mortem images were properly classified as "top secret" and
exempt from disclosure. Judicial Watch filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in August 2013, seeking U.S. Supreme Court review, but
in January 2014 the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
The
Associated Press filed a FOIA request for
photographs and videos taken during the Abbottabad raid less than one day after
bin Laden was killed. The AP also requested "contingency plans for bin
Laden's capture, reports on the performance of equipment during the mission and
copies of DNA tests" confirming bin Laden's identity. The Defense
Department rejected the AP's request for expedited processing, a legal
provision to shorten the amount of time to process FOIA requests. The Defense
Department rejected the request, and the AP administratively appealed.
3.9
Alternative accounts
3.9.1
Seal Target Geronimo
A
book published in November 2011, Seal Target Geronimo, by Chuck
Pfarrer, a former SEAL, contradicted the account as given by U.S.
government sources. According to Pfarrer, neither helicopter crashed at the
beginning of the raid. Instead, the SEALs jumped onto the roof from the
hovering Razor 1 helicopter and entered a third-floor hallway from the roof
terrace. Osama's third wife, Khairah, was in the hallway, headed towards the
SEALs. She was blinded by a strobe light and pushed to the floor as the SEALs
went past her. Osama bin Laden stuck his head out of a bedroom door, saw the
SEALs, and slammed the door closed. At the same time, Osama's son Khalid bin
Laden ran up the stairs to the third floor and was killed with two shots.
Two
SEALs broke through the bedroom door. Bin Laden's wife Amal was on the edge of
the bed shouting in Arabic at the SEALs, and Osama bin Laden dived across the
bed, shoving Amal at the same time, for an AKS-74U kept by
the headboard. The SEALs fired four shots at bin Laden; the first missed, the
second grazed Amal in the calf also missing bin Laden, and the final two hit
bin Laden in the chest and head, killing him instantly. In Pfarrer's account,
the total time elapsed from jumping on the roof to Osama bin Laden's death was
between 30 and 90 seconds.
Around
the same time, snipers in the hovering Razor 2 helicopter shot and killed Abu
Ahmed al-Kuwaiti when he came to the door of the guest house firing an AK-47.
One SEAL sniper fired two shots at al-Kuwaiti and the other fired two
three-round bursts. Two of the snipers' bullets went through al-Kuwaiti and
killed his wife who was standing behind him. The Razor 2 team cleared the guest
house and then breached their way into the main house with explosives. As the
Razor 2 team entered the main house, al-Qaeda courier Arshad Khan pointed his
AK-47 gun and was killed with two shots. The SEAL team fired a total of 16
shots, killing Osama bin Laden, Khalid bin Laden, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti and
al-Kuwaiti's wife, Arshad Khan, and wounding Osama bin Laden's wife Amal
al-Sadah.
Twenty
minutes into the operation, Razor 1 took off from the roof of the main house to
reposition to a landing spot outside the compound. As Razor 1 was crossing over
the courtyard, both "green unit" flight deck control systems went off
line. The helicopter settled slowly, bounced off the ground, and then broke
apart as it hit the ground a second time. Both failed green units were removed
for later examination.
Media
accounts had reported that the plan had been to fast rope
to the inner courtyard and to clear the main house from the ground floor up.
The helicopter crashed in the outer courtyard with the SEAL team still on
board. The SEAL team exited and needed to breach two walls and then into the
house. As a result, Osama bin Laden was killed several minutes into the operation.
Pfarrer's account differs in that he wrote that a SEAL team was inserted onto
the roof of the main house, that Osama bin Laden was killed seconds into the
operation, and that the main house was cleared from the top down.
The
Pentagon disputed Pfarrer's account of
the raid, calling it "incorrect". The U.S. Special Operations Command
also disputed Pfarrer's account, saying, "It's just not true. It's not how
it happened."
3.9.2
No Easy Day
Matt
Bissonnette, a SEAL who participated in the raid, wrote an account of the
mission in the book No Easy Day (2012), which significantly contradicts
Pfarrer's account. Bissonnette wrote that the helicopter approach and landing
matched the official version. According to Bissonnette, when bin Laden peered
out at the Americans advancing on his third-floor room, the SEAL who fired upon
him hit him on the right side of the head. Bin Laden stumbled into his bedroom,
where the SEALs found him crumpled and twitching on the floor in a pool of body
matter, with two women crying over his body. The other SEALs allegedly grabbed
the women, moved them away, and shot bin Laden repeatedly in the chest until he
was dead. According to Bissonnette, the weapons in the room—an AK-47 rifle and
a Makarov
pistol—were unloaded.
Unlike
the official account, Bissonnette's version alleges that bin Laden's wife
Mariam was uninjured in the raid. In addition, Bissonnette states that the
report of bin Laden's daughter Safia having splintered wood striking her foot
is false, as he explains that it was rather his wife Amal who was injured by
such fragments.
The
author also asserted that one SEAL sat on bin Laden's chest in a cramped
helicopter as his body was flown back to Afghanistan.
Bissonnette
stated that a search of bin Laden's room after his death uncovered a bottle of Just for
Men hair dye.
In
February 2013, Esquire conducted an interview with an
anonymous individual called "the shooter" who stated that bin Laden
placed one of his wives between himself and the commandos, pushing her towards
them. "Shooter" then claimed bin Laden stood up and had a gun
"within reach" and it was only then that he fired two shots into bin
Laden's forehead, killing him. However, another member of SEAL
Team Six said the story as presented in Esquire was false and
"complete BS". Then, in November 2014, former SEAL Robert O'Neill
disclosed his identity as the shooter in a series of interviews with the Washington
Post.
3.9.3
Hillhouse and Hersh reports
Main
article: Seymour Hersh § Death of Osama bin Laden
In
2011 American intelligence analyst Raelynn Hillhouse wrote that according to
U.S. intelligence sources, the U.S. had been tipped-off to bin Laden's location
by an unnamed Pakistani intelligence insider collecting the $25 million reward.
According to the sources, Pakistan purposely stood-down its armed forces to
allow the U.S. raid, and the original plan was to kill – not capture – bin
Laden. Hillhouse's sources stated that the Pakistanis had been keeping Bin Laden
under house arrest near their military headquarters in Abbottabad with money
provided by the Saudis. According to The Telegraph, Hillhouse's account
might explain why U.S. forces encountered no resistance on their way to an in
Abbottabad, and why some residents in Abbottabad were warned to stay in their
houses the day before the raid.
Hillhouse
later also stated that bin Laden's body had been thrown-out of a helicopter
over the Hindu
Kush. Hillhouse's account was picked-up and published in The Daily Telegraph, the National
Post, The Vancouver Sun, The Calgary Herald, the Windsor
Star, The Daily Mail and the New Zealand Herald.
In
May 2015, journalist Seymour Hersh said that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had
kept bin Laden under house arrest at Abbottabad since 2006, and he said that
Pakistani Army chief Pervez Kayani and ISI director Ahmad
Shuja Pasha aided the U.S. mission to kill, not capture bin Laden.
According to Hersh, Pakistani officials were always aware of bin Laden's
location and were guarding the compound with their own soldiers. Pakistan
decided to give up bin Laden's location to the U.S. because American aid was
declining. Pakistani officials were aware of the raid, and assisted the U.S. in
carrying it out. According to Hersh, bin Laden was basically an invalid.
Hersh's
U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources stated that the U.S. had learned of bin
Laden's location through a Pakistani walk-in seeking the $25 million reward,
and not through tracking a courier. NBC News and Agence France-Presse subsequently reported
that their sources indicated a walk-in was an extremely valuable asset, though
the sources disputed that the walk-in knew the location of bin Laden.
Pakistan-based journalist Amir Mir in the News International reported the walk-in's
identity to be Usman Khalid, though that allegation was denied by Khalid's
family. The White House denied Hersh's report.
Though
similar in claims, both Hillhouse and Hersch's accounts of the bin Laden death
appeared to be based on different sources which The
Intercept concluded might corroborate the claims if their identities
were known. After the Hersch story broke, NBC News
also independently reported that a Pakistani intelligence officer was the
source of the original bin Laden location report, and not the courier.
3.10
Conspiracy theories
Main
article: Osama bin Laden death
conspiracy theories
The
reports of bin Laden's death on May 2, 2011, are not universally accepted
despite unreleased DNA testing confirming his identity, bin Laden's
twelve-year-old daughter witnessing his death, and a May 6, 2011, al-Qaeda
statement confirming his death. The swift burial of bin Laden's body at sea,
the speed of the DNA results, and the decision not to release pictures of the
dead body have led to the rise of conspiracy theories that bin Laden had not
died in the raid.
Some Internet blogs suggested that the U.S. government feigned the raid, and
some Internet forums hosted debates over the alleged hoax.
Role
of Pakistan
Pakistan
came under intense international scrutiny after the raid. The Pakistani
government denied that it had sheltered bin Laden, and said it had shared
information with the CIA and other intelligence agencies about the compound
since 2009. The United States had direct evidence that the ISI chief, Lt. Gen.
Ahmed Shuja Pasha, knew of bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, Pakistan. After
the raid, there was an unconfirmed report that Pakistan allowed Chinese
military officials to examine the wreckage of the crashed helicopter.
Connections
with Abbottabad
Abbottabad
attracted refugees from fighting in the tribal areas and Swat
Valley, as well as Afghanistan. "People don't really care now to ask
who's there", said Gohar Ayub Khan, a former foreign minister and
resident of the city. "That's one of the reasons why, possibly, he came in
there."
The
city was home to at least one al-Qaeda leader before bin Laden. Operational
chief Abu Faraj al-Libi reportedly moved his family to Abbottabad in mid-2003.
Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
raided the house in December 2003 but did not find him. However, this account
was exposed as an outright lie by American officials who said that satellite
photos show that in 2004 the site was an empty field. A courier told
interrogators that al-Libi used three houses in Abbottabad. Pakistani officials
say they informed their American counterparts at the time that the city could
be a hiding place for al-Qaeda leaders. In 2009 officials began providing the
U.S. with intelligence about bin Laden's compound without knowing who lived
there.
On
January 25, 2011, ISI arrested Umar Patek, an Indonesian wanted in connection with
the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, while he was
staying with a family in Abbottabad. Tahir Shehzad, a clerk at the post office,
was arrested on suspicion of facilitating travel for al-Qaeda militants.
Allegations
against Pakistan
Numerous
allegations were made that the government of Pakistan had shielded bin Laden.
Critics cited the proximity of bin Laden's heavily fortified compound to the
Pakistan Military Academy, that the U.S. chose to not notify Pakistani
authorities before the operation, and the double standards of Pakistan
regarding the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. U.S. government files,
leaked by Wikileaks,
disclosed that American diplomats had been told that Pakistani security
services were tipping off bin Laden every time U.S. forces approached.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), also
helped smuggle al-Qaeda militants into Afghanistan to fight NATO troops. According
to the leaked files, in December 2009, the government of Tajikistan had also told
U.S. officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden's whereabouts.
CIA
chief Leon
Panetta said the CIA had ruled out involving Pakistan in the operation,
because it feared that "any effort to work with the Pakistanis could
jeopardize the mission. They might alert the targets." Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stated that
"cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound in
which he was hiding". Obama echoed her sentiments. John
O. Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor, said that it was
inconceivable that bin Laden did not have support from within Pakistan. He said:
"People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are
looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long."
The
Indian Minister for Home Affairs,
P.
Chidambaram, said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan
was a matter of grave concern for India, and showed that "many of the
perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, including the
controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the
attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He called on Pakistan to
arrest them.
Pakistani-born
British MP Khalid Mahmood stated that
he was "flabbergasted and shocked" after he learned that bin Laden
was living in a city with thousands of Pakistani troops, reviving questions
about alleged links between al-Qaeda and elements in Pakistan's security forces.
On
August 7, 2011, Raelynn Hillhouse, an American spy novelist and
security analyst, posted "The Spy Who Billed Me" on her national
security blog, suggesting that Pakistan's ISI had sheltered bin Laden in return
for a $25 million bounty;
however, ISI and government officials have denied her allegations.
Former
Pakistani Army Chief, General Ziauddin
Butt has said that, according to his knowledge, Osama bin Laden was kept in
an Intelligence Bureau safe house in Abbottabad by the then Director-General of
the Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan
(2004–2008), Brigadier Ijaz Shah. This had occurred with the "full
knowledge" of former army chief General Pervez Musharraf and possibly that
of current Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Emails from the private
American security firm, Stratfor, published by WikiLeaks on February 27, 2012,
indicate that up to 12 officials in Pakistan's ISI knew of Osama bin Laden's
Abbottabad safe house. Stratfor had been given access to the papers collected
by American forces from bin Laden's Abbottabad house. The emails reveal that
these Pakistani officers included "Mid to senior level ISI and Pak Mil
with one retired Pak Mil General". In 2014, British journalist Carlotta
Gall revealed that she had been told by an undisclosed ISI source that the
ISI "ran a special desk assigned to handle bin Laden". The desk was
"led by an officer who made his own decisions and did not report to a
superior", … "but the top military bosses knew about it, I was
told".
Pakistani
response
According
to a Pakistani intelligence official, raw phone-tap data had been transferred
to the U.S. without being analyzed by Pakistan. While the U.S. "was
concentrating on this" information since September 2010, information
regarding bin Laden and the compound's inhabitants had "slipped from"
Pakistan's "radar" over the months. Bin Laden left "an invisible
footprint" and he had not been contacting other militant networks. It was
noted that much focus had been placed on a courier entering and leaving the
compound. The transfer of intelligence to the U.S. was a regular occurrence
according to the official, who also stated regarding the raid that "I think
they came in undetected and went out the same day", and Pakistan did not
believe that U.S. personnel were present in the area before the special
operation occurred.
According
to the Pakistani high commissioner to the United Kingdom, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan had prior
knowledge that an operation would happen. Pakistan was "in the know of
certain things" and "what happened, happened with our consent.
Americans got to know him—where he was first—and that's why they struck it and
struck it precisely." Husain Haqqani, Pakistani ambassador to the U.S.,
had said that Pakistan would have pursued bin Laden had the intelligence of his
location existed with them and Pakistan was "very glad that our American
partners did. They had superior intelligence, superior technology, and we are
grateful to them."
Another
Pakistani official stated that Pakistan "assisted only in terms of
authorization of the helicopter flights in our airspace" and the operation
was conducted by the United States. He also said that "in any event, we
did not want anything to do with such an operation in case something went
wrong."
In
June the ISI arrested the owner of a safe house
rented to the CIA to observe Osama bin Laden's compound and five CIA
informants.
Code
name
See
also: Code name Geronimo controversy
Several
officials who were present in the Situation Room, including the president,
told reporters that the code name for bin Laden was "Geronimo". They
had watched Leon Panetta, speaking from CIA headquarters, while he
narrated the action in Abbottabad. Panetta said, "We have a visual on
Geronimo", and later, "Geronimo EKIA"—enemy killed
in action. The words of the commander on the ground were, "For God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo."
Officials subsequently explained that each step of the mission was labelled
alphabetically in an "Execution Checklist", which is used to ensure
all participants in a large operation are kept synchronized with a minimum of
radio traffic. "Geronimo" indicated the raiders had reached step
"G", the capture or killing of bin Laden. Osama bin Laden was
identified as "Jackpot", the general code name for the target of an
operation. ABC News reported that otherwise his regular code name was
"Cakebread". The New Yorker reported that bin Laden's
codename was "Crankshaft".
Many
Native Americans were offended that Geronimo, the
renowned 19th-century Apache leader, was irrevocably linked with bin Laden. The
chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, the successor to Geronimo's
tribe, wrote a letter to Obama asking him to "right this wrong."
The president of the Navajo Nation requested that the U.S. government
change the code name retroactively. Officials from the National Congress of American
Indians said the focus should be on honoring the disproportionately high
number of Native Americans who serve in the military, and they had been assured
that "Geronimo" was not a code name for bin Laden. The U.S. Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs heard testimony on the issue from tribal leaders, while the Defense
Department had no comment except to say that no disrespect was intended.
Derivation
of intelligence
After
the death of bin Laden, some officials from the Bush administration, such as
former Bush Office of Legal Counsel attorney John Yoo and
former attorney general Michael
Mukasey, wrote op-eds stating that the enhanced interrogation techniques
they authorized (since legally clarified as torture) yielded the intelligence
that later led to locating bin Laden's hideout. Mukasey said that the waterboarding
of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed caused him to reveal
the nickname of bin Laden's courier.
U.S.
officials and legislators, including Republican John
McCain and Democrat Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, countered that those statements were
"false". They noted that a report by CIA Director Leon
Panetta stated that the first mention of the courier's nickname did not
come from Mohammed, but rather from another government's interrogation of a
suspect whom they said they "believe was not tortured."
McCain
called on Mukasey to retract his statements.
I have sought further information from the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and they confirm for me that, in fact, the best intelligence gained from a CIA detainee—information describing Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's real role in Al-Qaeda and his true relationship to Osama bin Laden—was obtained through standard, non-coercive means, not through any 'enhanced interrogation technique'.— John McCain
Panetta
had written a letter to McCain on the issue, saying: "Some of the
detainees who provided useful information about the facilitator/courier's role
had been subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. Whether those
techniques were the 'only timely and effective way' to obtain such information
is a matter of debate and cannot be established definitively." Although some
information may have been obtained from detainees who were subjected to
torture, Panetta wrote to McCain that:
We first learned about the facilitator/courier's nom de guerre from a detainee not in CIA custody in 2002. It is also important to note that some detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques attempted to provide false or misleading information about the facilitator/courier. These attempts to falsify the facilitator/courier's role were alerting. In the end, no detainee in CIA custody revealed the facilitator/courier's full true name or specific whereabouts. This information was discovered through other intelligence means.
In
addition, other U.S. officials state that shortly after the September 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, detainees in CIA secret prisons told interrogators about the
courier's pseudonym "al-Kuwaiti" and that when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
was later captured, he only "confirmed" the courier's pseudonym.
After Abu Faraj al-Libbi was captured, he provided
false or misleading information: he denied that he knew al-Kuwaiti and he made
up another name instead. Also, a group of interrogators asserted that the
courier's nickname was not divulged "during torture, but rather several
months later, when [detainees] were questioned by interrogators who did not use
abusive techniques."
Intelligence
post mortem
Evidence
seized from the compound is said to include ten cell
phones, five to ten computers, twelve hard drives, at least 100 computer
disks (including thumb drives and DVDs), handwritten notes,
documents, weapons and "an assortment of personal items". It was
described by a senior Pentagon intelligence official as "the single
largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever." Very few of these
have been made public.
Intelligence
analysts also studied call detail records from two phone numbers that
were found to be sewn into bin Laden's clothing. They helped over the course of
several months to apprehend several al-Qaeda members in several countries and
to kill several of bin Laden's closest associates by CIA drone attacks in Pakistan.
The
material gathered at the compound is being stored at the FBI
Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, where forensic
experts will analyze fingerprints, DNA and other trace
evidence left on the material. Copies of the material are being provided to
other agencies; officials want to preserve a chain
of custody in case any of the information is needed as evidence in a future
trial.
A
special CIA team has been given the responsibility of combing through the
digital material and documents removed from the bin Laden compound. The CIA
team is working in collaboration with other U.S. government agencies "to
triage, catalog and analyze this intelligence."
Bin
Laden's youngest wife told Pakistani investigators that the family lived in the
feudal village of Chak Shah Muhammad, in the nearby district of Haripur,
for two-and-a-half years prior to moving to Abbottabad in late 2005.
The
material seized from the compound contained al-Qaeda's strategy for Afghanistan
after America's withdrawal from the country in 2014 as well as thousands of
electronic memos and missives that captured conversations between bin Laden and
his deputies around the world. It showed that bin Laden stayed in touch with
al-Qaeda's established affiliates and sought new alliances with groups such as Boko Haram
from Nigeria. According to the material, he sought to reassert control over
factions of loosely affiliated jihadists from Yemen to Somalia, as well as
independent actors whom he believed had sullied al-Qaeda's reputation and
muddied its central message. Bin Laden was worried at times about his personal
security and was annoyed that his organization had not utilized the Arab
Spring to improve its image.[301]
He acted, according to the Washington Post, on the one hand as
"chief executive fully engaged in the group's myriad crises, grappling
with financial problems, recruitment, rebellious field managers and sudden
staff vacancies resulting from the unrelenting U.S. drone campaign", and
on the other hand as "a hands-on manager who participated in the terrorist
group's operational planning and strategic thinking while also giving orders
and advice to field operatives scattered worldwide." The material also
described Osama bin Laden's relation with Ayman
al-Zawahiri and Atiyah Abd al-Rahman.
Seventeen
documents seized during the Abbottabad raid, consisting of electronic letters
or draft letters dating from September 2006 to April 2011, were released by the
Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
one year and one day after bin Laden's death. and made available at the Washington
Post homepage. The documents covered subjects such as the news media in America, affiliate
organization, targets, America, security, and the Arab
Spring. In the documents, bin Laden stated that al-Qaeda's strength was
limited and therefore suggested that the best way to attack the U.S., which he
compared to a tree, "is to concentrate on sawing the trunk". He
refused the promotion of Anwar al-Awlaki when this was requested by Nasir
al-Wuhayshi, leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
"We here become reassured of the people when they go to the line and get
examined there", bin Laden said. He told al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
to expand operations in the U.S. in the wake of the 2009 Christmas Day bomb plot by
writing "We need to extend and develop our operations in America and not
keep it limited to blowing up airplanes."
The
seized material shed light on al-Qaeda's relationship with Iran, which detained
jihadis and their relatives in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan,
including members of bin Laden's family. Al-Qaeda's relationship with Iran was,
according to the Combating Terrorism Center, an "unpleasant byproduct of
necessity, fueled by mutual distrust and antagonism." An explicit
reference to any institutional support from Pakistan for al-Qaeda wasn't
mentioned in the documents; instead, bin Laden instructed his family members
how to avoid detection so that members of Pakistani intelligence couldn't track
them to find him. According to the seized material, former commander of the
international forces in Afghanistan David
Petraeus and US President Barack Obama should be assassinated during any of
their visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan, if there was an opportunity to do so.
Bin Laden opined that U.S. Vice President Joe Biden
should not be a target because "Biden is totally unprepared for that post
[of president], which will lead the US into a crisis." Bin Laden was also
against one-person suicide attacks and was of the opinion that at least two
persons should undertake these attacks instead. He planned to reform in a way
so that al-Qaeda's central leadership would have a greater say in the naming of
the al-Qaeda branch leaders and their deputies. He expressed his opinion that
killing Muslims has weakened his organization and not helped al-Qaeda, writing
that it "cost the mujahedeen no small amount of sympathy among Muslims.
The enemy has exploited the mistakes of the mujahedeen to mar their image among
the masses."
The
United States Department of Justice
released a further eleven documents in March, 2015. The documents were part of
the trial against Abid Naseer, who was convicted of plotting to bomb a Manchester
shopping mall in 2009. They included letters to and from Osama bin Laden in the
year before his death, and showed the extent of the damage the CIA drone
program had done to Al-Qaeda.
In
addition to information and data recovered of intelligence value, the documents
and computer items also contained personal files, including family
correspondence and a large stash of pornography.
US officials have refused to characterize the type of pornography found other
than to say that it was "modern" in nature.[
Helicopter
stealth technology revelations
The
tail
section of the secret helicopter survived demolition and lay just outside
the compound wall. Pakistani security forces put up a cloth barrier at first
light to hide the wreckage. Later, a tractor hauled it away hidden under a
tarp. Journalists obtained photographs that revealed the previously undisclosed
stealth technology. Aviation Week said
the helicopter appeared to be a significantly modified MH-60 Black Hawk. Serial numbers found at
the scene were consistent with an MH-60 built in 2009. Its performance during
the operation confirmed that a stealth helicopter could evade detection in a
militarily sensitive, densely populated area. Photos showed that the Black
Hawk's tail had stealth-configured shapes on the boom and the fairings,
swept stabilizers and a "hubcap" over the
noise-reducing five- or six-blade tail rotor. It appeared to have a
silver-loaded infrared suppression finish similar to some V-22
Ospreys.
The
U.S. requested return of the wreckage and the Chinese government also expressed
interest, according to Pakistani officials. Pakistan had custody of the
wreckage for over two weeks before its return was secured by U.S.
Senator John Kerry. Experts disagreed as to how much information
could have been gleaned from the tail fragment. Stealth technology was already
operational on several fixed-wing aircraft and the cancelled RAH-66 Comanche helicopter;
however, the modified Black Hawk was the first confirmed operational
"stealth helicopter". Likely, the most valuable information could
come from radar-absorbing paint used on the tail
section. Local children were seen picking up pieces of the wreckage and selling
them as souvenirs. In August 2011, Fox News reported that Pakistan had allowed
People's Republic of China scientists to examine the helicopter's tail section
and were especially interested in its radar-absorbing paint. Pakistan and the
PRC denied these claims.
Previous
attempts to capture or kill bin Laden
See
also: Battle of Tora Bora and Location of Osama bin Laden
- February 1994: A team of Libyans attacked bin Laden's home in Sudan. The CIA investigated and reported that they had been hired by Saudi Arabia, but Saudi Arabia accused them of lying to make bin Laden more amenable to Sudanese interests.
- August 20, 1998: In Operation Infinite Reach, the U.S. Navy launched 66 cruise missiles at a suspected al-Qaeda training camp outside Khost, Afghanistan, where bin Laden was expected to be. Reports said that 30 people may have been killed.
- 2000: Foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.
- December 2001: During the opening stages of the war in Afghanistan launched following the September 11 attacks, the U.S. and its allies believed that bin Laden was hiding in the rugged mountains at Tora Bora. Despite overrunning the Taliban and al-Qaeda positions, they failed to capture or kill him.
UPDATED: JULY 20, 2016
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