US holds photos of slain bin Laden, weighs release

By ADAM GOLDMAN and KIMBERLY DOZIER, Associated Press Adam Goldman And Kimberly Dozier, Associated Press – Tue May 3, 3:21 am ET

WASHINGTON – Still-secret photos of the dead Osama bin Laden show a precision kill shot above his left eye, a U.S. official said, as fresh details emerged of an audacious American raid that netted potentially crucial al-Qaida records as well as the body of the global terrorist leader. President Barack Obama is going to ground zero in New York to mark the milestone and remember the dead of 9/11.
Patience and persistence — characteristics normally attributed to al-Qaida — proved decisive in America's decade-long hunt for bin Laden, whose fate was sealed in 40 minutes of thunderous violence, years in the making.
According to the U.S. account, the assault team came away with hard drives, DVDs, documents and more that might tip U.S. intelligence to al-Qaida's operational details and perhaps lead the manhunt to the presumed next-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri. The CIA is already going over the material.
Obama, who approved the extraordinarily risky operation by Navy SEALs against bin Laden's Pakistan redoubt and witnessed its progression from the White House Situation Room, his face heavy with tension, reaped accolades from world leaders he'd kept in the dark as well as from political opponents at home.
Republican and Democratic leaders alike gave him a standing ovation at an evening White House meeting that was planned before the assault but became a celebration of it, and an occasion to step away from the fractious political climate. Obama plans to visit New York on Thursday.
"Last night's news unified our country," much as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, did, Republican House Speaker John Boehner said earlier in the day. Obama later appealed for that unity to take root as the U.S. presses the fight against a terrorist network that is still lethal — and now vowing vengeance.
The episode was an embarrassment, at best, for Pakistani authorities as bin Laden's presence was revealed in their midst. The stealth U.S. operation played out in a city with a strong Pakistani military presence and without notice from Washington. Questions persisted in the administration and grew in Congress about whether some elements of Pakistan's security apparatus might have been in collusion with al-Qaida in letting bin Laden hide in Abbottabad.
In an essay published Monday by The Washington Post, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari denied suggestions his country's security forces may have sheltered Osama bin Laden, and said their cooperation with the United States helped pinpoint bin Laden.
As Americans rejoiced, they worried, too, that terrorists would be newly motivated to lash out. In their wounded rage, al-Qaida ideologues fed that concern. "By God, we will avenge the killing of the Sheik of Islam," one prominent al-Qaida commentator vowed. "Those who wish that jihad has ended or weakened, I tell them: Let us wait a little bit."
In that vein, U.S. officials warned that bin Laden's death was likely to encourage attacks from "homegrown violent extremists" even if al-Qaida is not prepared to respond in a coordinated fashion now.
The administration weighed whether to release photos of bin Laden's corpse and video of his swift burial at sea. Officials were reluctant to inflame Islamic sentiment by showing graphic images of the body. But they were also eager to address the mythology already building in Pakistan and beyond that bin Laden was somehow still alive.
U.S. officials say the photographic evidence shows bin Laden was shot above his left eye, blowing away part of his skull.
He was also shot in the chest, they said. This, near the end of a frenzied firefight in a high-walled Pakistani compound where helicopter-borne U.S. forces found 23 children, nine women, a bin Laden courier who had unwittingly led the U.S. to its target, a son of bin Laden who was also slain, and more.
Bin Laden had lived at the fortified compound for six years, officials said, putting him far from the lawless and harsh Pakistani frontier where he had been assumed to be hiding out.
The only information about what occurred inside the compound has come from American officials, much of it provided under condition of anonymity.
They said SEALs dropped down ropes from helicopters, killed bin Laden aides and made their way to the main building. Obama and his national security team monitored the strike, watching and listening nervously and in near silence from the Situation Room as it all unfolded.
"The minutes passed like days," White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said.
U.S. officials said the information that ultimately led to bin Laden's capture originally came from detainees held in secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe. There, agency interrogators were told of an alias used by a courier whom bin Laden particularly trusted.
It took four long years to learn the man's real name, then years more before investigators got a big break in the case, these officials said. Sometime in mid-2010, the man was overheard using a phone by intelligence officials, who then were able to locate his residence — the specially constructed $1 million compound with walls as high as 18 feet topped with barbed wire.
U.S. counterterrorism officials considered bombing the place, an option that was discarded by the White House as too risky, particularly if it turned out bin Laden was not there.
Instead, Obama signed an order on Friday for the team of SEALs to chopper onto the compound under the cover of darkness.
In addition to bin Laden, one of his sons, Khalid, was killed in the raid, Brennan said. Bin Laden's wife was shot in the calf but survived, a U.S. official said. Also killed were the courier, another al-Qaida facilitator and an unidentified woman, officials said.
Some people found at the compound were left behind when the SEALs withdrew and were turned over to Pakistani authorities who quickly took over control of the site, officials said. They identified the trusted courier as Kuwaiti-born Sheikh Abu Ahmed, who had been known under the name Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.
Within 40 minutes, the operation was over, and the SEALs flew out — minus one helicopter, which had malfunctioned and had to be destroyed. Bin Laden's remains were flown to the USS Carl Vinson, then lowered into the North Arabian Sea.
Bin Laden's death came 15 years after he declared war on the United States. Al-Qaida was also blamed for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 people and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.
___
AP writers Chris Brummitt in Islamabad and Darlene Superville, Ben Feller, Matt Apuzzo, Erica Werner, Pauline Jelinek, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Eileen Sullivan and Calvin Woodward in Washington contributed to this story.

Osama Bin Laden: Navy SEALS Operation Details of Raid That Killed 9/11 Al Qaeda Leader

Osama bin Laden, killed Sunday by Navy Seals, is shown in Afghanistan, in this April 1998 file photo. AP Photo

 

By BRIAN ROSS (@brianross) , MATTHEW COLE, and AVNI PATEL

May 2, 2011

It began with a tip to the CIA eight months ago about a possible Osama bin Laden hiding place, and led Sunday to the bold military operation that will go down in U.S. history, as Navy SEALs killed the Al Qaeda leader in a mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan while he reportedly used women as human shields.
And the trail that ultimately led U.S. forces to Bin Laden may have begun with another 9/11 plotter who is now in U.S. custody, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad.
Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, central to both the 9/11 plot and the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, was captured by U.S. forces and taken to Guantanamo. In 2007, U.S. officials who were interrogating Guantanamo detainees finally learned the real name of a former Khalid Sheikh Muhammad protégé who had become an important confidante of Abu Faraj al Libi. Al Libi was captured in 2005 and also taken to Guantanamo.
Guantanamo detainees identified the courier who had worked with both KSM and Al Libi as someone who was probably trusted by Bin Laden. Al Libi had actually lived in Abbottabad in 2003, according to his detainee file.
In 2007, U.S. officials learned the courier's real name. In 2009, they located his region of operation and began tracking him.
Osama Bin Laden wasn't hiding in a cave, but in a Pakistani city of 90,000 called Abbottabad, just north of the Pakistani capital.
In August 2010, through tracking the courier, they found that Osama Bin Laden probably wasn't hiding in a cave, but in a huge house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, just north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. The acre-large, million-dollar compound had 12 to 18-foot walls, was eight times the size of other homes in the area and just off a major highway, but had no phones.
President Obama gave the order for a small team of U.S. Navy SEALs in Afghanistan to go in Sunday night Pakistan time, even though bin Laden had never once actually been seen in the compound.
"I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action," said President Obama in a nationally televised address Sunday night, "and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice."
Bin Laden, who had been pictured over the years firing an automatic weapon, and his son and three others opened fire on the U.S. raiders.
Said President Obama, "After a firefight, they killed Osama Bin Laden and took custody of his body."
Pentagon officials said that one way the SEALs were sure it was Osama Bin Laden was that his wife identified him by name.
None of the Americans was injured in the raid.
The U.S. team was on the ground for only 40 minutes, much of the time spent scrubbing the compound for information about al Qaeda and its future plans.
After the raid, blood covered the floor of one room inside the sprawling house on the right. In another room to the left that held a small kitchenette, broken computers could be seen, minus their hard drives
Remarkably, Bin Laden was hiding almost under the nose of the Pakistani military, which has a major garrison in Abbottabad and the Pakistani version of West Point.
U.S. officials say Pakistan was not informed in advance of the military operation inside their borders. 

Finding Osama Bin Laden

Bin Laden had long been said to be in the mountainous region along the Afghanistan, Pakistan border, hiding in a cave as the U.S. sought to kill him with drone strikes from above. Instead, he was in a house with many peculiar features that brought it to the attention of U.S. authorities.
After locating the Al Qaeda courier in 2009 and then tracking him to the structure in 2010, the CIA noted that the house had high exterior walls topped with barbed wire, high windows and few points of access. Residents burned their trash instead of putting it out. Built in 2005, the compound also had a seven-foot-high wall on a third-floor terrace. U.S. officials wondered if the extra wall was meant to allow a tall man -- Bin Laden's height was estimated at between 6'4" and 6'6" -- to go outside without being seen.
The CIA began to believe that a high-value target was in the house. A CIA "red team" assigned to assess the house decided that it could well be sheltering Bin Laden, even though he'd never been seen in the compound.
The house looked like it was "custom-built to hide someone of significance," said an official. But the Americans did not share their information about who might be inside the compound with the Pakistanis, said Pentagon officials.
The CIA was responsible for "finding" and "fixing" the target, said a U.S. official, and the military "finished" the job.
According to U.S. officials, the Navy's SEALS Team Six practiced the assault in a replica of the compound built inside the United States.
Late Sunday night local time, two U.S. helicopters from Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and carrying Team Six SEALs flew in low from Afghanistan and swept into the compound. As CIA director Leon Panetta listened in, the Navy SEALs stormed the compound and engaged Bin Laden and his men in a firefight, killing Bin Laden and all those with him.

Two Bin Laden couriers were killed, as was Osama Bin Laden's son Khalid and a woman. U.S. officials said Bin Laden and the other men used the three women in the compound as human shields, and the woman who died was shielding Bin Laden. The other two women were injured. Children were present in the compound but were not harmed. U.S. officials said that Bin Laden himself fired his weapon during the fight, and that he was asked to surrender but did not. He was shot in the head and then shot again to make sure he was dead.
The raid began on the smaller of two buildings in the compound, where the couriers were believed to live. The raid then moved to the larger three-story building.
One of the U.S. Blackhawk helicopters was damaged but not destroyed during the operation, and U.S. forces elected to destroy it themselves with explosives.
The Americans took Bin Laden's body into custody after the firefight, taking it back to Afghanistan by helicopter, and confirmed his identity. His DNA matched DNA taken from mulitple relatives of Bin Laden with almost 100 percent certainty.
A U.S. official said Bin Laden was later buried at sea in accordance with Islamic practice at 2 a.m. Washington time. Bin Laden's body was taken to the U.S.S. Carl Vinson, a U.S. aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Sea, according to officials. His body was washed and wrapped in the prescribed way. A military officer read religious remarks that were translated by a native Arabic speaker before Bin Laden's remains were sent into the deep.
The original plan had called for the SEALs to rappel down into the compound, but because one of the choppers had a problem it had to do a soft crash landing.
According to Pakistani officials, the operation was a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation, but U.S. officials said only U.S. personnel were involved in the raid.
U.S. officials say that Pakistani fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the choppers, but didn't reach them. The U.S. team was back inside Afghanistan before 6 p.m Washington time.

Abbottabad is a city of 90,000 in the Orash Valley, north of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, and east of Peshawar. It is 90 miles by road from Islamabad and 40 miles by air.
Jake Tapper and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.




 

Phone Call by Kuwaiti Courier Led to Bin Laden

An exclusive look inside the Pakistani mansion where Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan, May 2, 2011. ABC News/AP Photo

By ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO Associated Press

WASHINGTON May 2, 2011 (AP)

When one of Osama bin Laden's most trusted aides picked up the phone last year, he unknowingly led U.S. pursuers to the doorstep of his boss, the world's most wanted terrorist.
That monitored phone call, recounted Monday by a U.S. official, ended a years-long search for bin Laden's personal courier, the key break in a worldwide manhunt. The courier, in turn, led U.S. intelligence to a walled compound in northeast Pakistan, where a team of Navy SEALs shot bin Laden to death.
The violent final minutes were the culmination of years of intelligence work. Inside the CIA team hunting bin Laden, it always was clear that bin Laden's vulnerability was his couriers. He was too smart to let al-Qaida foot soldiers, or even his senior commanders, know his hideout. But if he wanted to get his messages out, somebody had to carry them, someone bin Laden trusted with his life.
Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, detainees in the CIA's secret prison network told interrogators about an important courier with the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti who was close to bin Laden. After the CIA captured al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he confirmed knowing al-Kuwaiti but denied he had anything to do with al-Qaida.For 9/11 Families, Bin

Then in 2004, top al-Qaida operative Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq. Ghul told the CIA that al-Kuwaiti was a courier, someone crucial to the terrorist organization. In particular, Ghul said, the courier was close to Faraj al-Libi, who replaced Mohammed as al-Qaida's operational commander. It was a key break in the hunt for in bin Laden's personal courier.
"Hassan Ghul was the linchpin," a U.S. official said.
Finally, in May 2005, al-Libi was captured. Under CIA interrogation, al-Libi admitted that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed, he received the word through a courier. But he made up a name for the courier and denied knowing al-Kuwaiti, a denial that was so adamant and unbelievable that the CIA took it as confirmation that he and Mohammed were protecting the courier. It only reinforced the idea that al-Kuwaiti was very important to al-Qaida.
If they could find the man known as al-Kuwaiti, they'd find bin Laden.
The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.
"We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day," said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden.
Mohammed did not discuss al-Kuwaiti while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He acknowledged knowing him many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic.
It took years of work before the CIA identified the courier's real name: Sheikh Abu Ahmed, a Pakistani man born in Kuwait. When they did identify him, he was nowhere to be found. The CIA's sources didn't know where he was hiding. Bin Laden was famously insistent that no phones or computers be used near him, so the eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency kept coming up cold.

Ahmed was identified by detainees as a mid-level operative who helped al-Qaida members and their families find safe havens. But his whereabouts were such a mystery to U.S. intelligence that, according to Guantanamo Bay documents, one detainee said Ahmed was wounded while fleeing U.S. forces during the invasion of Afghanistan and later died in the arms of the detainee.
But in the middle of last year, Ahmed had a telephone conversation with someone being monitored by U.S. intelligence, according to an American official, who like others interviewed for this story spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation. Ahmed was located somewhere away from bin Laden's hideout when he had the discussion, but it was enough to help intelligence officials locate and watch Ahmed.
In August 2010, Ahmed unknowingly led authorities to a compound in the northeast Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where al-Libi had once lived. The walls surrounding the property were as high as 18 feet and topped with barbed wire. Intelligence officials had known about the house for years, but they always suspected that bin Laden would be surrounded by heavily armed security guards. Nobody patrolled the compound in Abbottabad.

In fact, nobody came or went. And no telephone or Internet lines ran from the compound. The CIA soon believed that bin Laden was hiding in plain sight, in a hideout especially built to go unnoticed. But since bin Laden never traveled and nobody could get onto the compound without passing through two security gates, there was no way to be sure.
Despite that uncertainty, intelligence officials realized this could represent the best chance ever to get to bin Laden. They decided not to share the information with anyone, including staunch counterterrorism allies such as Britain, Canada and Australia.
By mid-February, the officials were convinced a "high-value target" was hiding in the compound. President Barack Obama wanted to take action.
"They were confident and their confidence was growing: 'This is different. This intelligence case is different. What we see in this compound is different than anything we've ever seen before,'" John Brennan, the president's top counterterrorism adviser, said Monday. "I was confident that we had the basis to take action."
Options were limited. The compound was in a residential neighborhood in a sovereign country. If Obama ordered an airstrike and bin Laden was not in the compound, it would be a huge diplomatic problem. Even if Obama was right, obliterating the compound might make it nearly impossible to confirm bin Laden's death.
Said Brennan: "The president had to evaluate the strength of that information, and then made what I believe was one of the most gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory."
Obama tapped two dozen members of the Navy's elite SEAL Team Six to carry out a raid with surgical accuracy.
Before dawn Monday morning, a pair of helicopters left Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. The choppers entered Pakistani airspace using sophisticated technology intended to evade that country's radar systems, a U.S. official said.
Officially, it was a kill-or-capture mission, since the U.S. doesn't kill unarmed people trying to surrender. But it was clear from the beginning that whoever was behind those walls had no intention of surrendering, two U.S. officials said.

The helicopters lowered into the compound, dropping the SEALs behind the walls. No shots were fired, but shortly after the team hit the ground, one of the helicopters came crashing down and rolled onto its side for reasons the government has yet to explain. None of the SEALs was injured, however, and the mission continued uninterrupted.
With the CIA and White House monitoring the situation in real time — presumably by live satellite feed or video carried by the SEALs — the team stormed the compound.
Thanks to sophisticated satellite monitoring, U.S. forces knew they'd likely find bin Laden's family on the second and third floors of one of the buildings on the property, officials said. The SEALs secured the rest of the property first, then proceeded to the room where bin Laden was hiding. A firefight ensued, Brennan said.
Ahmed and his brother were killed, officials said. Then, the SEALs killed bin Laden with a bullet just above his left eye, blowing off part his skull, another official said. Using the call sign for his visual identification, one of the soldiers communicated that "Geronimo" had been killed in action, according to a U.S. official.

Bin Laden's body was immediately identifiable, but the U.S. also conducted DNA testing that identified him with near 100 percent certainty, senior administration officials said. Photo analysis by the CIA, confirmation on site by a woman believed to be bin Laden's wife, who was wounded, and matching physical features such as bin Laden's height all helped confirm the identification. At the White House, there was no doubt.
"I think the accomplishment that very brave personnel from the United States government were able to realize yesterday is a defining moment in the war against al-Qaida, the war on terrorism, by decapitating the head of the snake known as al-Qaida," Brennan said.
U.S. forces searched the compound and flew away with documents, hard drives and DVDs that could provide valuable intelligence about al-Qaida, a U.S. official said. The entire operation took about 40 minutes, officials said.
Bin Laden's body was flown to the USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian sea, a senior defense official said. There, aboard a U.S. warship, officials conducted a traditional Islamic burial ritual. Bin Laden's body was washed and placed in a white sheet. He was placed in a weighted bag that, after religious remarks by a military officer, was slipped into the sea about 2 a.m. EDT Monday.
Said the president: "I think we can all agree this is a good day for America."
———
Associated Press writers Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Ben Feller in Washington and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad, Pakistan contributed to this report.

Osama Bin Laden Operation Ended With Coded Message 'Geronimo-E KIA'

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, in this May 1, 2011 handout photo. Pete Souza/The White House

 

By JAKE TAPPER (@jaketapper) , HUMA KHAN, MARTHA RADDATZ (@martharaddatz) and LAUREN EFFRON

May 2, 2011

The first indication for President Obama that Osama bin Laden had been killed came when a Navy SEAL sent back the coded message to Washington that said simply, "Geronimo-E KIA."
Geronimo was the code name for the operation that sent two teams of 12 SEALS zooming by Blackhawk helicopters to a walled compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, on Sunday to kill or capture the most wanted man in the world. Anxious White House officials weren't positive that they would find bin Laden in the fortress-like complex, that he might leave while the SEALS were en route.
The first encouraging word came at the beginning of the raid when the SEALS recognized the man who had eluded a U.S. manhunt for a decade. They sent back the message, "Geronimo."
After a 40-minute search of the compound, punctuated by firefights, bin Laden was dead, and the cryptic "Geronimo-E KIA" code sent relief through the White House. E stood for enemy and KIA for killed in action.
Bin Laden was shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest, a senior administration official told ABC News.
The SEALS words, however, were not sufficient proof that the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks was finally dead. As the evidence piled up -- verbal ID, face recognition analysis and DNA matches -- the White House debate continued. Obama ended the discussion with a terse, "We got him."
White House senior officials were still sorting through the details today of the dramatic U.S. raid on bin Laden in Pakistan.
Counterterrorism chief John Brennan told reporters that while bin Laden had vowed to go down fighting, in his last moments alive the master terrorist hid behind a woman.
The woman who bin Laden tried to use as a human shield was killed in the U.S. raid, Brennan said. Whether she shielded him willingly is not known.
Brennan said the woman was one of bin Laden's wives, but defense officials said it wasn't clear whether the woman was a bin Laden wife.
The force that swooped down on the world's most wanted terrorist has been identified as SEAL Team Six of the "Naval Special Warfare Development Group."
Brennan, a senior advisor on homeland security, said they were trying to "accomplish the mission safely and securely" for those involved and were not going to give bin Laden a chance to fire back on U.S. forces.
"He was engaged, and he was killed in the process," Brennan said. "If we had the opportunity to take him alive we would have done that."
Brennan called this operation a "defining moment" in war against terrorist groups where they "decapitated the head of the snake."
The three to four hours Sunday night when operation was ongoing, Brennan described as "one of the most anxiety-filled times" and that "minutes passed like days."
Brennan acknowledged that there were some who didn't think the president should have pulled the trigger on the operation to go after bin Laden, who believed it was too risky, it was not guaranteed that bin Laden was there or had concerns that the mission would not succeed.
Administration officials are now trying to decide whether to release photos of bin Laden's corpse. Releasing the photos would prove that the terror leader is dead, but some officials fear the gruesome nature of the pictures could fan anti-American sentiment.
President Obama Praised Anonymous Heroes Who Killed Bin Laden
Earlier today, Obama praised the anonymous heroes who tracked and killed bin Laden, saying, "we are fortunate to have Americans who dedicate their lives" to defending our country.
"We may not always know their names, we may not always know their stories, but they are always there on the front lines of freedom and we are truly blessed," Obama said in a White House ceremony to honor Medal of Honor winners.
"As commander-in-chief, I could not be prouder of our men and women in uniform," the president said. "That is true now in today's wars, and it has been true in all of our wars and it is why we are here today."
Obama briefly but proudly addressed the top secret raid that killed bin Laden. "I think we can all agree this is a good day for America," he said. "Today we are reminded that as a nation there is nothing we can't do."
He gave special recognition in his speech to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, calling him "one of the finest secretaries of defense in our history."
When the gunfire stopped, the SEALS quickly moved to determine his identity. Two of the women at the compound identified him and the military flew bin Laden's body to Jalalabad, Afghanistanto have his DNA tested for positive identification. SEALS measured the corpse and determined it to be over 6- feet-4. They then transmitted photographs back to CIA headquarters and agency analysts conducted facial recognition analysis. Their report concluded it was a 90 to 95 percent match.
Bin Laden's DNA was matched with at least two of his relatives, including one of his sisters who died in Boston and whose brain was kept by the United States. The result came back as a 99.9 percent match.
Bin Laden's body was then flown to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, officials told ABC News and he was buried at sea. The burial was done in accordance with Islamic law, officials said, although there has since been despute over that. A Muslim seaman conducted the process and said the prayers, with bin Laden's body wrapped in the "appropriate way" with a white sheet.
Obama administration officials said it was important to handle the body in accordance with Islamic practices so not to inflame the Muslim world.
Celebrations erupted over night in the United States after the president's televised announcement that "justice has been done." But by this morning the triumphant mood was tinged with caution as security forces braced for possible revenge attacks.
The United States first received a tip in August that the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks was hiding in a million-dollar mansion with 12 to 15 foot walls.
The evidence that bin Laden was hiding there was largely circumstantial and he had not been seen, sources told ABC News, and officials did not know where he may be in the sprawling compound that is located about 1,000 feet away from the Pakistan Military Academy.

Tip on Bin Laden Came From Gitmo Detainees

In March, Obama authorized the development of a plan for the United States to bomb bin Laden's compound with two B2 stealth bombers dropping a few dozen 2,000-pound bombs, sources tell ABC News. But when the president heard the compound would be reduced to rubble, he changed his mind because it would mean there would be no evidence to present to the world that the head founder and leader of al Qaeda was indeed dead. Plus, all 22 people in the compound including women and children and likely many neighbors would also be killed.
So he instead authorized this risky operation, scheduled for a time of little moonlight, so U.S. helicopters could enter into Pakistan low to the ground and undetected.
The operation was authorized Friday morning and was originally planned for Saturday night, but on Friday, for weather reasons, it was pushed to Sunday.
Four helicopters swooped in to the compound and the Navy Seals fought a close quarters gunbattle. They ordered bin Laden to surrender, but the 54-year-old who had vowed he would not be caught alive, refused. He was then shot dead. His son, Khalid, was also killed in the raid.

Bin Laden's death was marked by jubilance, as crowds gathered at Ground Zero in New York and outside the White House chanting "USA, USA."
Congratulations poured in, with even former vice president Dick Cheney, a leading critic of the Obama administration, congratulating the president.
"Today, the message our forces have sent is clear -- if you attack the United States, we will find you and bring you to justice," Cheney said in a statement.
Bin Laden's death also prompted security alerts in the United States.
In New York City, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly ordered the shift that was to go off duty at midnight be held over this morning to increase police presence in the subway system during this morning's rush hours. He also ordered that all members of the NYPD remain alert in the aftermath of the announcement of bin Laden has been killed.
Security was stepped up at the site of the 9/11 attack and in New York subways.
Washington police were also put on heightened alert and officials said there would be a show of force, especially near transit hubs, hotels and government buildings.
Philadelphia's Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey instructed dispatchers to ensure there are hourly checks on all mosques and synagogues in the city and police were put a heightened alert until further notice.
U.S. embassies have been put on high alert since the news was revealed, and the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are reminding security forces around the country to be vigilant for suspicious activity amid concerns about possible retaliation.

U.S. officials are wary that the celebrations could trigger violent outbursts overseas. U.S. military officials in Afghanistan have been given a clear message to pass down to troops that they want a low-key reaction to the news, without any gloating, and they say this message comes "from the top" in Washington.
A top al Qaeda commentator on the internet was already vowing revenge. "Assad al-Jihad2" promised to "avenge the killing of the Sheik of Islam," according to the Associated Press, and warned that the war is far from over.
Though the critical tip about where bin Laden might be hiding came in August, the pursuit to find and kill him was nearly a decade in the making. The hunt began with a tip from detainees at the Guantanamo prison for terrorists who described an individual close to bin Laden who delivered messages to and from him.

U.S. intelligence officials were eventually able to track down the specific name in 2007 and for years, they sought out information about him. They finally spotted him in 2009 and it took a while to follow him, sources say. All signs signaled to bin Laden being in the compound, sources say, even though intelligence officials never saw him outside.
In April, the Navy Seals ran two practice runs at the replica compound they built in the United States to practice the raid.
The next target for the United States is likely to be the number two in al Qaeda's chain of command, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor, helped found al Qaeda along with bin Laden. Sources say intelligence officials will also likely target Anwar al-Awlaki, a former imam thought to be behind such attacks against the U.S. as the failed Christmas Day terror plot in 2009.
"Though bin Laden is dead, al-Qaeda is not," CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said in a message to employees. "The terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge him, and we must -- and will -- remain vigilant and resolute."
ABC News' Mike Boettcher, Richard Esposito, Jason Ryan, Brian Ross and Pierre Thomas contributed to this report.





 

Osama Bin Laden Dead: The Navy SEALs Who Hunted and Killed Al Qaeda Leader

 

Osama Bin Laden Dead: The Navy SEALs Who Hunted and Killed Al Qaeda Leader

U.S. Navy SEALS train in this undated file photo. The SEALS are an elite band of soldiers used in special ops missions. Miguel Salmeron/Getty Images

 

By MICHAEL MURRAY

May 2, 2011

The Navy SEAL team of military operatives who killed Osama bin Laden in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Sunday night was made up of some of the best-trained troops in the world. SEAL Team Six, the "Naval Special Warfare Development Group," was the main force involved in Sunday's firefight.
The daring operation began when two U.S. helicopters flew in low from Afghanistan and swept into the compound where Osama bin Laden was thought to be hiding late Sunday night Pakistan time, or Sunday afternoon Washington time. Thirty to 40 U.S. Navy SEALs disembarked from the helicopters as soon as they were in position and stormed the compound. The White House says they killed bin Laden and at least four others with him. The team was on the ground for only 40 minutes, most of that was time spent scrubbing the compound for information about al Qaeda and its plans.
The Navy SEAL team on this mission was supported by helicopter pilots from the 160th Special Ops Air Regiment, part of the Joint Special Operations Command. The CIA was the operational commander of the mission, but it was tasked to Special Forces.

Miguel Salmeron/Getty Images

U.S. Navy SEALS train in this undated file... View Full Size

Miguel Salmeron/Getty Images

U.S. Navy SEALS train in this undated file photo. The SEALS are an elite band of soldiers used in special ops missions.

U.S. Navy Sea, Air and Land Teams, commonly known as SEAL Teams, are the best of the best. Their creed is to be "a special breed of warrior ready to answer our nation's call."
"Everybody has got a dozen responsibilities and more importantly, and this is what separates these types of individuals with everbody else, they can do their job and if somebody else goes down they can fill right and in and take over the additional job," Howard Wasdin, a former SEAL Team Six member who wrote a book about his experiences called "Seal Team Six" coming out May 24th, told Nightline's Terry Moran. "That just comes from years of training."
"We are reminded that we are fortunate to have Americans who dedicate their lives to protecting ours," President Obama said today. "We may not always know their names, we may not always know their stories, but they are there every day on the front lines of freedom and we are truly blessed."
"There are other operations going on around the globe constantly," said Capt. Duncan Smith, a SEAL spokesman who spoke with ABC News.
In 2009, another SEAL team was instrumental in rescuing the American captain of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama from armed pirates off the coast of Somalia. On that mission, SEAL snipers fired perfect shots -- from the deck of a heaving ship -- to neutralize three pirates, with three bullets, simultaneously. The SEALs began their work in 1942, when military leaders decided to set up an elite team to scout beaches suitable for landing troops in World War II.
These men have done all of this in anonymity. It is standard procedure never to identify members of Team Six.
"A lot of those missions -- a majority of those missions -- are ones that the public will never know about... and that's a good thing," Smith said.
Navy SEALs toil in the dark of night, tasked with the most daring, dangerous and important missions. To become a SEAL, those men completed some of the most brutal training regimens ever devised, designed to push the boundaries of even the most able service members. Only one third of recruits eventually become SEALs.
"You have to be able to endure a lot of physical pain and sometimes emotional pain, and you just have to dig deep. It's an elite organization and so it can't be for everybody," said Paul Tharp, master chief of the Naval Special Warfare Preparatory School and a SEAL for 24 years.

 "What sets SEALs apart is our diversity in terms of the environments in which we operate," said Smith, also a SEAL for 24 years. "We operate at 10,000 feet in the Hindu Kush Mountains. We operate in desert regions in Iraq and elsewhere. We operate in jungles throughout the world."

As of 2009, there were 2,500 active duty SEALs. With the expanding war on terror and missions in 30 countries, the Navy needs more, but finding young men who can meet the SEALs' standards is a challenge.
"We are not looking for cocky kids," said Senior Chief Hans Garcia, a SEAL recruiter. "The perfect person would be a candidate who is remarkably physically fit, but is pretty humble, an analytical thinker, a problem solver -- someone who is very value-oriented, patriotic, puts service above self."

 

After Uncertainty, a Moment of Triumph in the Situation Room: 'We've IDed Geronimo'

AP Photo/The White House, Pete Souza

In this image released by the White House and digitally altered by the source to diffuse the paper in front of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House. More photos »

By MICHAEL SCHERER Michael Scherer – Mon May 2, 6:15 pm ET

The people who gathered Sunday in the Situation Room know all about high-pressure situations. But this was something else. For 40 minutes, the President and his senior aides could do nothing but watch the video screens and listen to the operation and ensuing firefight on the other side of the world. At Barack Obama's orders, special operations teams were invading the airspace of a foreign country, targeting a compound with unknown occupants, and hoping to get out unscathed. The target was America's No. 1 enemy, Osama bin Laden. But no one knew for sure if he was even there.
The President sat stone-faced through much of the events. Several of his aides, however, were pacing. For long periods of time, nobody said a thing, as everyone waited for the next update. In the modern age, Presidents can experience their own military actions like a video game, except that they have no control over the events. They cannot, and would not, intervene to contact the commanders running the operation. So when word came that a helicopter had been grounded, a sign that the plan was already off course, the tension increased. (See pictures of Osama bin Laden's Pakistan hideout.)
Minutes later, more word came over the transom. "We've IDed Geronimo," said a disembodied voice, using the agreed-upon code name for America's most wanted enemy, Osama bin Laden. Word then came that Geronimo had been killed. Only when the last helicopter lifted off some minutes later did the President know that his forces had sustained no casualties. (See pictures of people celebrating Osama bin Laden's death.)
The decision to attack had been made days earlier by the President. He gathered his senior intelligence, military and diplomatic team together in the Situation Room on Thursday afternoon to hear his options. There were already concerns about operational security. At that point, hundreds of people had already been read into the potential whereabouts of bin Laden. Any leak would have ruined the entire mission.
The intelligence professionals said they did not know for sure that bin Laden was in the compound. The case was good, but circumstantial. The likelihood, officials told the President, was between 50% and 80%. No slam dunk. Obama went around the table asking everyone to state their opinion. He quizzed his staff about worst case scenarios - the possibility of civilian casualties, a hostage situation, a diplomatic blow-up with Pakistan, a downed helicopter. He was presented with three options: Wait to gather more intelligence, attack with targeted bombs from the air, or go in on the ground with troops. The room was divided about 50-50, said a person in the room. John Brennan, the President's senior counter-terrorism adviser, supported a ground strike, as did the operational people, including Leon Panetta at the CIA. Others called for more time. In the end, about half of the senior aides supported a helicopter assault. The other half said either wait, or strike from above. (See TIME's al-Qaeda covers.)
Obama left the meeting without signaling his intent. He wanted to sleep on it. At about 8:00 a.m. on Friday, just before he boarded a helicopter that would take him to tour tornado damage in Alabama, Obama called his senior aides into the Diplomatic Room. He told them his decision: A helicopter assault. At that point, the operation was taken out of his hands. He was trusting the fate of his presidency to luck. He was putting his presidency in the hands of history.

Who is left in Al-Qaeda?

1) Ayman al-Zawahri

Image: AP Photo

Is Ayman al-Zawahri al Qaeda's next leader, now that bin Laden has been killed? Many think so. A doctor who was born into a rich Cairo family, he has been bin Laden's No. 2 in the terrorist organization. "U.S. intelligence agencies believe Zawahri functions as al Qaeda's most important ideological leader, and perhaps also the main operational leader of the network's activities," the Council on Foreign Relations has written. It's believed that Zawahri is now in Pakistan. "He has long been al Qaeda's chief strategist as well; he's a natural successor" to bin Laden, says Hoffman.

Osama bin Laden: Abbottabad, Pakistan

Osama bin Laden: Abbottabad, Pakistan

Until he was pronounced dead Sunday night, no one reportedly knew of Osama bin Laden's precise whereabouts since September 11. In 2007, American intelligence stumbled upon crucial information about one of his couriers, and by August 2010, they found the courier's home in Abbottabad, a wealthy suburb and military base in Pakistan less than 40 miles from the Islamabad, where bin Laden was living as well This was no ordinary house, but a gargantuan mansion roughly eight times larger than any other home in the area. Built in 2005 and worth roughly $1 million, it is surrounded by 12 foot by 18 foot walls and closed off by two security gates, with no telephone or internet access, and no windows facing the road. U.S. officials said it was "custom built to hide someone of significance."

U.S. commandos knew bin Laden likely would die

Reuters – A news ticker displays information on al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's death in Pakistan as people …

By Mark Hosenball Mark Hosenball – Mon May 2, 11:47 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. special forces set out to kill Osama bin Laden and dump his body in the sea to make it harder for the al Qaeda founder to become a martyr, U.S. national security officials told Reuters on Monday.
"This was a kill operation," one of the officials said.
"If he had waved a white flag of surrender, he would have been taken alive," the official added. But the operating assumption among the U.S. raiders, he added, was that bin Laden would put up a fight -- which he did.
Bin Laden "participated" in a firefight between the U.S. commandos and residents of the fortified compound near the Pakistani capital Islamabad where he had been hiding, the official said.
Other U.S. officials said the U.S. strike team shot the al Qaeda leader dead with bullets to the chest and head during the course of the 40-minute operation. He did not return fire.
Three other men and a woman lay dead after the raid, but no Americans were killed. Bin Laden's wife, originally thought killed, was only wounded. The woman killed in the raid was not used as a human shield by the al Qaeda leader before his death, a U.S. official said, correcting an earlier description.
John Brennan, President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, had said U.S. officials believed the dead woman was one of bin Laden's wives and that he had used her as a human shield.
Brennan said the commandos were prepared to capture bin Laden alive, but they knew that was a remote possibility.
"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," Brennan told reporters.
"The concern was that bin Laden would oppose any type of capture operation. Indeed, he did. It was a firefight. He, therefore, was killed in that firefight, and that's when the remains were removed."
The operation was carried out by a team of about 15 special forces operatives -- most, if not all, U.S. Navy SEALs, according to U.S. officials familiar with the details. They indicated the team was based in Afghanistan.
One official said it included forensic specialists whose job was to collect evidence proving that bin Laden was caught in the raid and intelligence that might be useful in tracking down other al Qaeda leaders or foiling ongoing plots.
National Journal said U.S. authorities used intelligence about bin Laden's compound to build a replica of it and use it for trial runs in early April.
Within hours of bin Laden's death, which Obama announced in a dramatic, late-night White House speech, the commandos had buried bin Laden's body at sea, two U.S. officials said.
It was done so that bin Laden's body would not become a symbol of veneration or inspiration for would-be militants, U.S. officials said.
"You wouldn't want to leave him so that his body could become a shrine," one of the officials said.
CIA WAS CONFIDENT
U.S. officials said the key information that eventually led to bin Laden's trail came from questioning of militants detained by U.S. forces following the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
Captured militants, including some held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, told intelligence officials of a particular al Qaeda "courier" whom they had heard was close to bin Laden.
They also mentioned two captured al Qaeda operations chiefs, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, widely believed to have masterminded the attacks.
Initially U.S. intelligence did not know either the name or whereabouts of the courier. But officials said that about four years ago, U.S. agencies learned the individual's name.
Two years ago, U.S. intelligence received credible information indicating that the courier and his brother, another suspected militant operative, were operating somewhere near Islamabad.
Then, in August 2010, the U.S. pinpointed the compound in Abbottabad where intelligence indicated the two brothers, their families, and a third large family were living.
It was located in a ritzy neighborhood at the end of a dirt road, not far from one of Pakistan's principal military academies. Residents of the area included retired Pakistani military officers.
Working with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which analyzes pictures from spy satellites and aircraft, and the National Security Agency, which conducts electronic eavesdropping, the CIA concluded that the compound was built with unusual security features -- including high-walls topped with barbed-wire -- and that its inhabitants appeared to take unusual security precautions.
By earlier this year, the CIA believed that it had "high confidence" that a "high-value" al Qaeda target was at the Abbottabad compound, and a strong probability that this target was bin Laden.
But one official said the agency was never "100 percent certain" that bin Laden was the one who was hiding out.
(This story was corrected in the seventh paragraph to say commandos were prepared to capture bin Laden alive, not Obama)
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; editing by Warren Strobel and Mohammad Zargham)

Inside the raid that killed bin Laden

By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press – Mon May 2, 6:12 am ET

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.

Click image to see photos of the compound where bin Laden was killed

AP/Anjum Naveed

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.

Fabled SEAL Team 6 ends hunt for bin Laden

By KIMBERLY DOZIER, AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier, Ap Intelligence Writer – 1 hr 8 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The raid that killed Osama bin Laden will go down in history as the most important covert operation since 9/11, earning the elite Navy SEAL team that carried it out permanent bragging rights for finishing off the most-wanted terrorist on Earth.
It was a near-textbook operation, despite the near-failure of one of the helicopters carrying the raiders. They all made it into Osama bin Laden's high-walled compound in Pakistan, sliding down ropes in darkness, as they've done on so many raids hunting militants since al-Qaida declared war on the United States.
The Navy SEALs won't confirm they carried out the attack, but their current chief, Rear Adm. Edward Winters, at Naval Special Warfare Command in California, sent an email congratulating his forces and cautioning them to keep their mouths shut.
"Be extremely careful about operational security," he added. "The fight is not over."
It was a warning few needed in the secretive group, where operators are uncomfortable with media coverage, fearing revealing details could let the enemy know what to expect the next time.
Made up of only a few hundred personnel based in Dam Neck, Va., the elite SEAL unit officially known as Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or "DEVGRU," is part of a special operations brotherhood that calls itself "the quiet professionals."
SEAL Team Six raided targets outside war zones like Yemen and Somalia in the past three years, though the bulk of the unit's current missions are in Afghanistan. The Associated Press will not publish the names of the commanding officers, to protect them and their families from possible retaliation by militants for the bin Laden operation.
The unit is overseen by the Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the Army's Delta Force and other special units. JSOC's combined forces have been responsible for a quadrupling of counterterrorism raids that have targeted militants in record numbers over the past year in Afghanistan. Some 4,500 elite special operations forces and support units have been part of the surge of U.S. forces there.
CIA Director Leon Panetta was in charge of the military team during the covert operation, a U.S. official said. While the president can empower the SEALs and other counterterrorism units to carry out covert actions without CIA oversight, President Barack Obama's team put the intelligence agency in charge, with other elements of the national security apparatus answering to them for this mission.
SEAL Team Six actually works so often with the intelligence agency that it's sometimes called the CIA's Pretorian Guard — a partnership that started in Iraq as an outgrowth of the fusion of special operations forces and intelligence in the hunt for militants there.
SEALs and Delta Force both, commanded by then-JSOC chief Gen. Stanley McChrystal, learned to work much like FBI agents, first attacking a target, killing or capturing the suspects, and then gathering evidence at the scene.
McChrystal described it as building a network to chase a network, where the special operations forces work with intelligence analysts back at a joint operations center. The raiders, he said, could collect valuable "pocket litter" from the scene, like documents or computers, to exploit to hunt the next target.
The battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan had been informally divided, with the SEALs running Afghanistan and Delta Force conducting the bulk of the operations in Iraq, though there was overlap of each organization. There is considerable professional rivalry between them.
Delta Force units caught Saddam Hussein late in 2003 and killed his sons Uday and Qusay in a shootout in Mosul earlier that year. Delta Force later tracked down al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pinpointing the building where he sheltered for the aerial bombing that ended his life.
The race to be the unit that captured bin Laden had been on ever since.
"Officially, Team Six doesn't exist," says former Navy SEAL Craig Sawyer, 47, who advises Hollywood and acts in movies about the military.
After undergoing a six-month process in which commanders scrutinized his every move, Sawyer says he was selected in the 1990s to join the team.
"It was like being recruited to an all-star team," he said, with members often gone 300 days a year, only lasting about three years on the team before burning out.
"They train around the clock," he said. "They know that failure will not be an option. Either they succeed or they don't come home."
Other special operations units joke that "SEAL" stands for "Sleep, eat, lift," though the term actually stands for Sea, Air, Land.
"The SEALs will be the first to remind everyone that the `L' in SEAL stands for land," says retired Army Gen. Doug Brown, former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla. "They have skills on the land equal to their skills at sea."
Brown, who led the command from 2003-07, said the operation against bin Laden is the most significant mission conducted by U.S. commando forces since the organization was formed in 1987 in the wake of the failed attempt in 1980 to rescue the American hostages in Iran.
"I can't think of a mission as nationally important," Brown said.
The last time the public was made aware of a SEAL raid on Pakistani soil was 2008, when the raiders flew only a mile over the border to the town of Angurada, according to Pakistani officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic matters. The high-value targets the Americans had been told were there had fled, and those left behind in the compound fought back, resulting in a number of civilian casualties, U.S. and Pakistani officials say, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a classified operation.
While the U.S. usually does not comment on covert actions, especially ones that go wrong, the 2008 incident was caught on cellphone video, so they confirmed it and apologized publicly, U.S. officials said.
The successful bin Laden mission is a much-needed boost for the unit. The SEALs' reputation took a hit within the special operations community after a 2010 rescue mission led to the accidental killing of British hostage Linda Norgrove, held by militants in Afghanistan. One of the SEALs threw a fragmentation grenade at a militant when the team stormed their hideout, not realizing Norgrove was curled on the ground next to the militant, and then lied about throwing the grenade.
The SEALs originally reported that Norgrove had been killed by a fighter's suicide vest, but when the SEAL commanding officer reviewed the tape from simultaneous surveillance video, he saw an explosion after one of the SEALs threw something in Norgrove's direction, U.S. officials say, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a classified operation.
One SEAL was dismissed from the unit for his action.
DEVGRU is the same unit that rescued an American ship captain, Richard Phillips, held hostage on a lifeboat by Somali pirates after his capture from the USS Maersk Alabama in 2009. A DEVGRU unit fired precision shots from the rocking stern of a Naval ship, killing three of four pirates.
___
Associated Press writers Richard Lardner and Julie Watson contributed to this report.

Bin Laden's wife not killed in raid, White House says

– Mon May 2, 7:56 pm ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A woman killed during the raid of Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan was not his wife and was not used as a human shield by the al Qaeda leader before his death, a U.S. official said on Monday, correcting an earlier description.
John Brennan, President Barack Obama's top counter- terrorism adviser, told reporters earlier that the slain woman had been one of bin Laden's wives and had been used -- perhaps voluntarily -- as a shield during the firefight.
However, a different White House official said that account had turned out not to be the case. Bin Laden's wife was injured but not killed in the assault.
U.S. officials have said a small U.S. strike team, dropped by helicopter to bin Laden's hide-out near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad under cover of night, shot the al Qaeda leader dead with bullets to the chest and head. He did not return fire.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Alister Bull; editing by Christopher Wilson)

Bin Laden wife served as human shield: US official

– Mon May 2, 4:58 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – One of Osama bin Laden's wives acted as a human shield in an unsuccessful bid to save the Al-Qaeda leader's life before he was killed in a raid by US special forces, a top US official said Monday.
"There was family at that compound, and there was a female who was, in fact, in the line of fire that reportedly was used as a shield to shield bin Laden from the incoming fire," counter-terrorism official John Brennan said.
Pressed on reports the woman shot dead by Navy SEALs during a firefight at a compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan was one of bin Laden's four wives, Brennan told a White House briefing: "That's my understanding."
Brennan said it was not entirely clear "whether or not bin Laden or the son or whatever put her there or she put herself there" or whether the Al-Qaeda chief himself fired rounds during the exchange.
"From a visual perspective, here is bin Laden who has been calling for attacks, living in this million dollar plus compound, living in an area that's far removed from the front, hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield," he said.
"I think it really just speaks to just how false his narrative has been over the years, and so again looking at what bin Laden was doing, hiding there while he's putting other people out there to carry out attacks, again, just speaks to, I think, the nature of the individual he was."
In addition to the woman, Bin Laden was killed by a bullet to the head and senior US officials said two brothers believed to be his couriers and one of the Al-Qaeda chief's adult sons also perished in the raid.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110502/wl_sthasia_afp/usattacksbinladenshield;_ylt=AvFReEeR0i8XKZo90463UBLuOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTM2a2g0M3U4BGFzc2V0A2FmcC8yMDExMDUwMi91c2F0dGFja3NiaW5sYWRlbnNoaWVsZARjY29kZQNnbXBlBGNwb3MDMgRwb3MDMgRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA3Vzb2ZmaWNpYWxiaQ--

Osama bin Laden killed in US raid on Pakistan hideout

by Stephen Collinson Stephen Collinson – Mon May 2, 5:33 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed Sunday in a daring raid by US forces in Pakistan, triggering celebrations across the United States as President Barack Obama declared "justice has been done".
A decade after the September 11, 2001 attacks leveled the World Trade Center in New York, thousands flooded to Ground Zero to celebrate the dramatic news of the death of America's -- and the world's -- most wanted man.
Bin Laden's demise marked the biggest triumph yet in the 10-year war against terrorism, which has led the United States into two bloody wars, transformed its foreign policy and reshaped many aspects of American life.
"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's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children," Obama said in a late night White House address.
Obama said he had directed covert, helicopter-borne US armed forces to launch an attack against a heavily fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Sunday acting on a lead that first emerged last August.
"A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability," Obama said. "After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."
"Justice has been done."
US media reports said that bin Laden's body had been buried at sea, according to Islamic traditions, in a bid to prevent his final resting place from becoming a shrine.
Senior US officials said two men believed to be bin Laden's couriers and one of his adult sons, were also killed in the raid, while a woman who was used as a human shield perished.
Other US officials said they were stunned when intelligence reports first revealed the elaborate security at the compound where bin Laden was hiding, with 12-18 foot (four-to-six meter) high walls topped with barbed wire.
A key to the operation was a long-running effort by American spy agencies to track a trusted courier for bin Laden, another senior US official said.
The operation will also likely go down as one of the most spectacular intelligence operations in US history, and provide a huge morale boost for the oft-criticized US clandestine community.
It marks a rare moment of national celebration, after grim years of war abroad and as America only slowly emerges from the worst recession in decades.
The huge coup may also enhance perceptions of Obama's leadership and help turn around his political fortunes a year ahead of his re-election bid.
Former US president George W. Bush, who was in office at the time of the September 11 attacks when almost 3,000 people died, said bin Laden's death was a "victory for America" and congratulated Obama and US intelligence and military forces.
"The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done," Bush added in a statement.
In spontaneous celebrations, thousands gathered outside the gates of the White House, cheering, waving US flags and shouting "USA, USA."
Another large crowd gathered at Ground Zero singing "God Bless America."
"It's a miracle," said New Yorker Monica King, 22. "The attacks changed New York and now 10 years later we had our last word," she added, saying: "Now we want to celebrate."
Diane Massaroli, whose husband Michael was working on the 101st floor of the World Trade Center when the planes hijacked by Al-Qaeda struck, said it was a "bittersweet" moment, which had brought her some closure.
"I'm missing him all the time, but I feel that justice is done and that's a great feeling for me. And I do feel some overall calm, that I haven't felt in almost 10 years," she told CNN.
Obama said he had called Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari after bin Laden's death and said cooperation with the uneasy US anti-terror ally had helped lead American forces to the terror chief.
But US officials admitted that they had not informed Islamabad about the operation before the strike took place.
US armed forces have been hunting the Saudi terror kingpin for years, an effort that was redoubled after Al-Qaeda terrorists riding hijacked airliners smashed into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in 2001.
A fourth passenger jet crashed in a remote area of Pennsylvania, apparently brought down after passengers revolted and tried to prevent it from reaching its target, assumed to be Washington.
Until Sunday, bin Laden had always managed to evade US armed forces, despite a 25-million-dollar reward on his head and a massive manhunt, and was most often thought to be hiding in the unruly Pakistan and Afghanistan border areas.
His death will raise huge questions about the future of Al-Qaeda and also have deep implications for US security and foreign policy 10 years into a global anti-terror campaign.
Bin Laden's demise will also cast a new complexion on the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan, where 100,000 troops are still battling the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said bin Laden's killing in neighboring Pakistan proved Kabul's long-standing position that the war on terror was not rooted in Afghanistan.
"Again and again, for years and every day we have said that the war on terror is not in Afghan villages, not in Afghan houses of the poor and oppressed," Karzai told tribal elders.
Bin Laden was top of America's most wanted list, and was blamed by Washington for masterminding a string of attacks other than the September 11 strikes, including the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Africa in 1998.
But he frequently taunted Bush, and then Obama after he took office in 2009, with taped messages.
Amid fears of retaliation by Al-Qaeda or other groups, the US State Department issued a global travel alert to all US citizens.
"The US Department of State alerts US citizens traveling and residing abroad to the enhanced potential for anti-American violence given recent counter-terrorism activity in Pakistan," it said in a statement.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110502/wl_asia_afp/usattacksobamabinladen;_ylt=AjzO_mw8lxGMwLlFt4NBMT29F4l4;_ylu=X3oDMTM1bmgwOTVvBGFzc2V0A2FmcC8yMDExMDUwMi91c2F0dGFja3NvYmFtYWJpbmxhZGVuBGNjb2RlA2dtcGUEY3BvcwMxBHBvcwMxBHNlYwN5bl90b3Bfc3RvcmllcwRzbGsDb3NhbWFiaW5sYWRl