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