Washington: In an operation straight out of Hollywood movies, four helicopters carrying elite US commandos swooped on a three-storey house in the Pakistan town of Abbottabad in the dead of night and after a 40-minute operation left unharmed carrying the body of world's most wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden.
The world had thought that bin Laden, the mastermind behind 9/11 terror attack in the US that killed about 3,000 people, lived somewhere in the caves of Afghanistan but it turned out that his home was a fortress-like house just about 100 yards from the gate of Kakul Academy where Pakistan's top military officers are trained.
The four helicopters had flown from a nearby US base without the Pakistani authorities being informed and swooped on the villa at 1.30 am.
Giving a graphic account of the operation, US officials were quoted as saying that a small group of American special forces in helicopters took just 40 minutes to land in a well-guarded mansion in a secure neighbourhood in the military garrison town, 10 years after the abortive US bid to nab him in the caves of Tora Bora in Afghanistan
Disgorging from choppers, the commandos shot 54-year-old bin Laden in his head after some fire exchange, officials said. According to some reports, the Arab bodyguards of the chief of al Qaeda fired at the US commandos from the roof of the mansion as they descended on his hideout.
Noting that the operation itself was a culmination of years of careful and highly advanced intelligence work, a senior administration official said officers from the CIA, National Security Council and other intelligence wings of the government worked very hard to get every possible information about the most wanted fugitive of the world. The town is about 120 km from Islamabad.
An intense round of heavy gunfire rocked Abbottabad as the fighting raged in the town, which is home to three Pakistani army regiments and is dotted with military buildings. PTI
