Killing of Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden أسامة بن لادن
File:Osama bin Laden portrait.jpg Osama bin Laden
Buried	North Arabian Sea
Allegiance	Al-Qaeda
Battles/wars	Soviet war in Afghanistan War on Terror: War in Afghanistan Battle of Tora Bora War in North-West Pakistan Operation Neptune Spear

Osama bin Laden, head of the militant Islamic group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit.

The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation by a team of United States Navy SEALs from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (informally known as DEVGRU or by its former name SEAL Team Six) of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from CIA operatives on the ground. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Bilal Town, Abbottabad, Pakistan was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for identification, then buried it at sea within 24 hours of his death.

Al-Qaeda confirmed the death on May 6 with posts made on militant websites, vowing to avenge the killing. Bin Laden's killing was favorably received by U.S. public opinion; was welcomed by the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, and a large number of governments; but was condemned by some, including Fidel Castro of Cuba, and the Palestinian Hamas leader of the Gaza Strip. Legal and ethical aspects of the killing, such as his not being taken alive despite being unarmed, were questioned by others, including Amnesty International.

Locating bin Laden

See also: Location of Osama bin Laden

The U.S. intelligence community effort to determine the current location of Osama bin Laden, which eventually resulted in the Abbottabad operation, began with a fragment of information unearthed in 2002, resulting in years of consequent investigation, followed by intensive multiplatform surveillance on the compound beginning in September 2010.

Identity of his courier

Identification of al-Qaeda couriers was an early priority for interrogators at CIA black sites and 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, as the US launched missile strikes against his bases in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998 (Operation Infinite Reach) after tracking an associate's satellite phone.

By 2002, interrogators had heard uncorroborated claims about an al-Qaeda courier with the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (sometimes referred to as Sheikh Abu Ahmed from Kuwait). In 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged operational chief of al-Qaeda, revealed under interrogation that he was acquainted with al-Kuwaiti but that he was not active in al-Qaeda.

In 2004, a prisoner named Hassan Ghul told interrogators that al-Kuwaiti was close to bin Laden as well as Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Mohammed's successor Abu Faraj al-Libi. Ghul further 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, Khalid Sheik Mohammed maintained his original story. Abu Faraj al-Libi 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-Libi 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 will not disclose the name nor how they learned it. Since the name Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan appears in the JTF-GTMO detainee assessment for Abu Faraj al-Libi 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 al-Libi made the name up.

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 bin Laden's Abbottabad compound. The courier and a relative (who was either a brother or a cousin) were killed in the May 2, 2011 raid. Afterwards, some locals identified the men as Pashtuns named Arshad and Tareq Khan. Arshad Khan was carrying an old, noncomputerized Pakistani identification card which said he was 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.

In June 2011 Pakistani officials revealed the courier's name as Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed from Pakistan's Swat Valley. He and his brother Abrar and their families were living at bin Laden's compound.

Bin Laden's compound

View of the 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.

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 did exist on images 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 (PMA), a prominent military academy that has been compared with West Point in the United States and Sandhurst in Britain. Located on a plot of land eight times larger than those of nearby houses, it was surrounded by a 12-to-18-foot (3.7–5.5 m) concrete wall topped with barbed wire. There were 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.

There was no Internet or landline telephone service to the compound, and its residents burned their trash, 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.

Intelligence gathering

CIA aerial photo of the compound.

The CIA led the effort to surveil and gather intelligence on the compound; other critical roles in the operation were played by other American government agencies, including the National Security Agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ONDI), as well as the 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 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency 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 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 also 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.

The design of Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad 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

Operation Neptune Spear
Part of the War on Terror
Abbottabad Islamabad Jalalabad Bagram North Arabian Sea 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.)
Operational scope	Tactical
Location	Osama bin Laden's hideout compound, Bilal Town, Abbottabad, Pakistan 34°10′9″N 73°14′33″E
Planned by	Joint Special Operations Command Central Intelligence Agency
Date	May 2, 2011 (2011-05-02) 01:00 PKT (UTC+5)
Executed by	United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group
Outcome	Osama bin Laden, one of his sons, his courier, the courier's male relative, and one other person are killed. One U.S. helicopter destroyed.
Casualties	5 killed 2 injured

Objective

The Associated Press cited 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 also 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 stated 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 stated 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."

However, 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) states, "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."

Planning

After an intelligence-gathering effort on the courier's Pakistan compound that began September 2010, President Obama met with his national security advisers on March 14 to create an action plan. They met four more times (March 29, April 12, April 19 and April 28) in the six weeks before the raid. On March 29, Obama personally discussed the plan with Vice Admiral William H. McRaven, the commander of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). "Many multiple possible courses of action" were presented to Obama in March and "refined over the course of the next several weeks".

One approach considered by U.S. officials was to bomb the house using B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, which could drop 32 2,000-lb (907-kg) Joint Direct Attack Munitions. Obama rejected this option, opting for a raid that would provide definitive proof that bin Laden was inside, and limit civilian casualties.

Deploying drones was apparently not feasible, in part because of limited firepower and in part because the compound's location was "within the Pakistan air defense intercept zone for the national capital".

Another course of action (COA) suggested by JSOC was "a joint raid with Pakistani intelligence operatives who would be told about the mission hours before the launch". This was rejected to protect operational security, as U.S. intelligence and military officials feared that alerting any Pakistani personnel might lead to someone tipping off bin Laden or his associates about the impending raid. The SEALs were instructed to avoid any confrontation with Pakistani military or police forces if possible, but were authorized to engage as a last resort. President Obama ordered the size of the combat team to be increased to handle a possible military confrontation with Pakistani forces.

The mission leaders ultimately settled on the commando-led COA. One of the risks of this COA, which required extensive preparation and training to achieve mission objectives, was that it "provided greater chances for information to leak out over the ensuing months, scuttling the mission and sending bin Laden deeper into hiding". Commanders also feared a worst-case scenario reminiscent of the failed Operation Eagle Claw effort to resolve the Iran hostage crisis in 1980 or the infamous Black Hawk Down debacle during the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993.

Members of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group's Red Squadron from Dam Neck, Virginia were selected for the mission. According to a recently retired Navy special ops officer interviewed by the Navy Times, the Red Squadron were chosen from amongst DEVGRU's Blue, Gold, Red and Silver Squadrons because it was "ready and available for tasking", i.e. "not on alert or deployed" on any other mission.

The DEVGRU Red Squadron SEALs began training for the raid (the objective of which remained unknown to them) after the late-March national security meeting, "holding dry runs at training facilities on both American coasts, which were made up to resemble the compound". As plans progressed during April, the DEVGRU SEALs began more specific training exercises on a one-acre replica of the Waziristan Haveli that was built inside Camp Alpha, a restricted section of the Bagram military base in Afghanistan. According to The Daily Telegraph, 24 Navy SEALs carried out practice runs on April 7 and April 13.

On April 29, at 8:20 am, Obama convened with Brennan, Thomas E. Donilon, and other national security advisers in the Diplomatic Reception Room and gave the final order to raid the Abbottabad compound.

The raid planned for that day was postponed until the following day due to cloudy weather.

Execution of the operation

Approach and entry

Diagram of Osama bin Laden's hideout, showing the high concrete walls that surround the compound

After President Obama authorized the mission to kill or capture bin Laden, CIA Director Leon Panetta gave the go-ahead at midday on May 1.

The raid was carried out by approximately two dozen helicopter-borne United States Navy SEALs from the Red Squadron of the Joint Special Operations Command's United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU). For legal reasons (namely that the U.S. is 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 equipped with M4 carbine military assault rifles (with attached silencers), night-vision goggles, body armor and handguns.

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. (The dog's specific orders are unclear, but he may have had bomb detection training, or tracking skills. According to one report, he was tasked with tracking "anyone who tried to escape and to alert SEALs to any approaching Pakistani security forces".) Additional personnel on the mission included a language translator, 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), an airborne U.S. Army Special Operations Command unit also known as the Night Stalkers, provided the two modified Black Hawk heliopters that were used for the raid itself, as well as three 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, which were kept on standby on the ground "in a deserted area roughly two-thirds of the way" between Jalalabad and Abbottabad, contained two additional SEAL teams consisting of approximately 24 DEVGRU operators.

The 160th SOAR helicopters were supported by multiple other aircraft, including fixed-wing fighter jets and drones. According to CNN, "the Air Force also had a full team of combat search-and-rescue helicopters available".

The raid was scheduled for a time with little moon light 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.

According to the mission plan, one of the SEAL teams would fast-rope onto the roof of the compound while the team in the other Black Hawk would exit into the courtyard and make entrance from the ground floor. As they hovered above the target, however, one of the helicopters suffered a hazard known as a vortex ring state aggravated by higher than expected air temperature ("a so-called 'hot and high' environment") and the high compound walls, "which blocked rotor downwash from diffusing" causing the tail to "graze one of the compound's walls" and "breaking a rotor". The helicopter "rolled onto its side" with the pilot quickly burying 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. The commanders of the second helicopter scotched a plan to land on the roof of the compound, and operatives from both helicopters then assembled on the ground outside the compound and resumed their assault.

The ground phase of the pre-dawn raid began at 1:00 a.m. local time (20:00, May 1 UTC) when the SEALs breached the compound's walls using explosives.

Combat

The U.S. national security team gathered in the Situation Room to monitor the progress of Operation Neptune Spear. See also: The Situation Room (photograph)

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".

In addition to Osama bin Laden, three other men and a woman were killed in the operation. The individuals killed were bin Laden's adult son (likely Khalid, possibly Hamza), bin Laden's courier (Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti), a male relative of the courier and the courier's wife.

Al-Kuwaiti opened fire on the first team of SEALs with an AK-47 from behind the guesthouse door, and a firefight took place between him and the SEALs, in which al-Kuwaiti was killed. A woman, identified as the courier's wife, was killed during this exchange. The courier's male relative was shot and killed, before he could reach a weapon found lying nearby, by the SEALs' second team on the first floor of the main house. Bin Laden's young adult son rushed towards the SEALs on the staircase of the main house, and was shot and killed by the second team. An unnamed U.S. senior defense official said only one of the five people killed was armed.

The SEALs encountered bin Laden on the second or third floor of the main building. Bin Laden was "wearing the local loose-fitting tunic and pants known as a kurta paijama", where were later found to have €500 and two phone numbers sewn into the fabric.

Bin Laden peered over the third floor ledge at the Americans advancing up the stairs, and then retreated into his room as a SEAL fired a shot at him, but missed. The SEALs quickly followed him into his room, and shot him. There were two weapons near bin Laden in his room, including an AK-47 assault rifle and a Russian-made semi-automatic Makarov pistol, but according to his wife Amal, he was shot before he could reach his AK-47. 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. Bin Laden was killed by a shot to his chest followed by one above his left eye, a technique sometimes referred to as a "double tap".

Two women were injured. According to ABC News, bin Laden's fifth wife, Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, was one of the injured women: "When the SEALs entered the room in which bin Laden was hiding, his wife charged them and was shot in the leg." Bin Laden's 12-year-old daughter Safia was struck in her foot or ankle by a piece of flying debris.

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".

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.

Wrap-up

USS Carl Vinson conducting flight operations in Persian Gulf (April 4, 2011)

The raid was intended to take 30 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 military offensive aspect of the raid was completed in the first 15 minutes.

Time in the compound was spent neutralizing 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, three AK-47s, and two pistols; and searching the compound for information. U.S. personnel recovered computer hard drives, documents, DVDs, thumb drives, and "electronic equipment" from the compound for later analysis.

The helicopter that had made the emergency landing was damaged, and unable to fly the team out. It was consequently destroyed to safeguard its classified equipment, including an apparent stealth capability. After they "moved the women and children to a secure area", U.S. forces "improvise[d] by packing the helicopter with explosives and blowing it up". The assault team called in a backup helicopter to replace the one that was lost. 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 then flown from Bagram to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in V-22 Osprey (a tiltrotor aircraft) escorted by two U.S. Navy F/A-18s fighter jets.

According to U.S. officials, bin Laden was buried at sea because no country would accept his remains. Muslim religious rites were performed aboard the Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea within 24 hours of bin Laden's death. Preparations began at 10:10 a.m. local time and at-sea burial was completed at 11 a.m. 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.

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 a.m. 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 claimed that they were also present at what they called a joint operation; President Asif Ali Zardari flatly denied this assertion.

According to ABC News, Pakistani fighter jets were scrambled in an attempt to locate and identify what turned out to be the U.S. helicopters used in the raid. 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.

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.
• 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 also 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." According to a senior U.S. 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 possibility 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."

Local accounts

Beginning at 12:58 a.m. local time, an Abbottabad resident 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 the blackout occurred. 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 also 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 reporting that one of bin Laden's daughters told Pakistani investigators that bin Laden had been shot dead in front of family members. The daughter also claimed that bin Laden was captured alive, then executed by American forces and dragged to a helicopter.

Compound residents (unofficial)

U.S. officials said there were 22 people in the compound. Five were killed, including Osama bin Laden. Pakistani officials gave conflicting reports suggesting up to 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 a.k.a Abu Hamza, 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; Tariq, the courier's brother, 30s; and an unidentified woman, probably Arshad's Arab 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 an unidentified woman, either Arshad Khan's second, Pakistani wife, or Khalid's wife and coincidentally the Khan brothers' sister, age unknown (injured).
• 5 minor children of Osama and Amal: Safia, a daughter, 9 (injured); a son, 5; another son, age unknown; and infant twin daughters.
• 4 bin Laden grandchildren from an unidentified daughter 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.

Aftermath

U.S. presidential address

President Obama's address (9:28)
Also available: Audio only Full text 

At around 9:45 p.m. EDT, the White House announced that the president would be addressing the nation later in the evening. Reporters suspected almost immediately that the topic could be Osama bin Laden. Rumors spread on social networking sites. At 11:35 p.m., President 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’s 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 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 United States was not at war against Islam. He defended his decision to conduct an operation within Pakistan. He said Americans undersood 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."

Reactions

People celebrating in front of the White House after Osama bin Laden's death

Main article: Reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden

Within minutes of 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. Fans attending a nationally televised Major League Baseball game between two National League East rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets, at Citizens Bank Park initiated "U-S-A!" cheers in response to the news. In addition, at the conclusion of WWE Extreme Rules, a professional wrestling event which was occurring at the time, WWE Champion John Cena announced to the audience in attendance the capture and "compromised to a permanent end" of bin Laden, prompting chants while he exited the arena to the song "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 the rival Hamas administration in the Palestinian Gaza Strip condemned the killing of an "Arab holy warrior", possibly in order to "cool tensions in the territory with Al-Qaeda inspired Salafi groups" that consider Hamas "too moderate".

An unnamed Pakistani government official confirmed to Agence France-Presse on May 2 that bin Laden was killed in the operation. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan issued a statement on May 2 denying that bin Laden had been killed. Hours later, Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said that if bin Laden had, in fact, been killed, it was, "a great victory for us because martyrdom is the aim of all of us" and vowed to take revenge on Pakistan and the United States. Tehrik-i-Taliban later confirmed bin Laden's death. Al-Qaeda confirmed bin Laden's death on May 6, 2011 and vowed revenge.

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, 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 The New York Times/CBS poll taken after bin Laden's death showed that 16 percent of Americans feel safer as the result of his death while six in 10 Americans of those polled believe killing bin Laden likely would increase the threat of terrorism against the United States. Psychologists on Long Island and Oregon reported increases in people seeking treatment for anxiety and post traumatic stress syndrome.

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 Hafeez Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim, Indian Army Chief, General V K Singh, said that Indian armed forces were "competent" to carry out a similar operation. "I would like to say only this that if such a chance comes, then all the three arms (of the Indian Defense Forces) are competent to do this," Singh told reporters. Indian Air Chief, Air Chief Marshal P V Naik, also said that India has the capability to carry out such surgical strikes against terrorists. However, Minister for Home Affairs P. Chidambaram cautioned that India might be unable to carry out such an attack because, "We don't have our forces on Pakistani soil. We are not invited there. We don't have any support from Pakistan."

Legality

Under U.S. law

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists. That resolution authorizes the U.S. President to use "necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons" he determines were involved in the 9/11 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 Bush's second term, said the strike was a legitimate military action and did not run counter to the U.S.'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 also 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 a U.S. District Court 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."

Under international law

With regard to the issue of the U.S. unilaterally taking action within Pakistan, the Pakistan foreign ministry expressed "deep concerns" about the "unauthorised unilateral action". Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf said that the operation had been "a violation of the country's sovereignty". Former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was of the opinion that "it was quite clearly a violation of international law".

However, Duke University Law School Professor Scott Silliman said that international law on armed conflict and the Charter of the United Nations allow a foreign government to perform a military operation on a host country's soil, if the host country is not capable of and willing to deal with the problem itself. John Bellinger said that such a conclusion was justified "because of past concerns about the close ties between Pakistan intelligence services and the Taliban, and the fact that bin Laden was in a house, on a street right down the road from a Pakistani military base".

Others sought greater clarity as to what had happened, and the legal justification for killing bin Laden. Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, asked the American government to explain whether U.S. forces acted legally in killing bin Laden. Amnesty International sought "greater clarification" about what transpired.

Steven Ratner, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, said that the killing was a "complicated question as a legal matter", and that it depends on "whether you believe Osama bin Laden is a combatant in a war, or a suspect in a mass murder". If the former, then it is "lawfully permitted to kill combatants". In the latter case, "you would only be able to kill a suspect if they represented an immediate threat to you".

John Bellinger commented that the executive branch would "argue that the action was permissible under international law both as a permissible use of force in the U.S. armed conflict with al-Qaeda and as a legitimate action in self-defence, given that bin Laden was clearly planning additional attacks". U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that the U.S. raid was lawful "as an act of national self-defense", and that bin Laden "was the head of al Qaeda, an organization that had conducted the attacks of September the 11th. It's lawful to target an enemy commander in the field." Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who served in the Bush administration, said "He was a military target. We're in a conflict – there's no question about that". and added that whether bin Laden was armed or not was irrelevant: "Suppose we fired a missile. Would we be asking the question if he was armed or not?" A U.S. embassy spokesman in London said that: "In war you are allowed to attack your enemy."

University of Texas School of Law Professor Robert M. Chesney said that it was lawful to kill bin Laden "if he's doing anything other than surrendering". Martin Scheinin, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, said: "The United States offered bin Laden the possibility to surrender, but he refused. Bin Laden would have avoided destruction if he had raised a white flag." Professor Matthew Waxman at Columbia Law School, an expert in national security law, said "under international law, U.S. forces would have substantial discretion to use lethal force given that this was a military operation against an enemy commander likely to pose a very serious threat to U.S. forces".

For Philip Bobbitt, a specialist on constitutional law and international security, this was "part of an armed conflict authorized by the United Nations, authorized by both houses of Congress" and did not think it was an extrajudicial killing. However, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) did not authorize the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, and only allowed military presence after the fact to provide security for a peaceful transition to a fully representative government.

Benjamine B. Ferencz, one of the former chief prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials, questioned the legality of killing and said it would have been "better to capture bin Laden and send him to court ... Killing a captive who poses no immediate threat is a crime under military law as well as all other law." He also claimed that "the issue [with Bin Laden's death] is whether what was done was an act of legitimate self-defence". Australian-born British human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson said that the killing risked undermining the rule of law. "The security council could have set up an ad hoc tribunal in The Hague, with international judges (including Muslim jurists), to provide a fair trial and a reasoned verdict." British law professor Philippe Sands QC, speaking to the BBC, acknowledged that under what is known as the doctrine of necessity, where there is an "overriding threat to national security", such an act might not give rise to responsibility or liability, but warned that that argument was made more difficult against a background of a rise in extrajudicial killings, including through the use of drones, and that this was not a "lawful direction to be taking".

Louise Doswald-Beck, a former legal chief for the Red Cross, said that bin Laden was clearly not an enemy combatant. "He was basically head of a terrorist criminal network, which means that you're not really looking at the law of armed conflict but at lethal action against a dangerous criminal." Nick Grief, an international lawyer at Kent University, said the attack had the appearance of an "extrajudicial killing without due process of the law." Human Rights Watch said "law enforcement" principles should have applied.

According to The Guardian newspaper, "One area of anxiety is the suggestion that the intelligence needed to locate bin Laden's refuge might have been obtained through torture of suspects detained at Guantánamo Bay or other secret holding centres. Whether or not the Pakistan government authorised the assault on its territory might technically affect the legality of the operation under international law. But the enthusiastic support of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, for the killing is likely to silence any critical voices in the security council."

Both Christof Heyns, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Martin Scheinin, special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, opined that "in certain exceptional cases, use of deadly force may be permissible as a measure of last resort... including in operations against terrorists, however, the norm should be that terrorists be dealt with as criminals, through legal processes of arrest, trial and judicially decided punishment. 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."

Handling of the body

Under Islamic tradition burial at sea is considered by some to be 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 al-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 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 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. In an interview, Halevi explained that medieval Muslims were buried at sea when they died in the course of long voyages in the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean. He said that maritime burial is really unusual, but that "it's obvious" the US intended "no slight."

Omar bin Laden, son of Osama, published a complaint on May 10, 2011, that the burial at sea deprived the family of a proper burial.

Release of photographs

CNN cited senior U.S. official as saying three sets of photographs of bin Laden's body exist: Photos taken at a 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.

On May 4, Reuters published photos it said were taken by a Pakistan security official in the aftermath of the raid; the photos included images of the helicopter wreckage and three male dead bodies, none of whom appeared to be Osama bin Laden.

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." 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.

President Obama ultimately decided not to release the photos. In an interview set to air 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", and 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, select members of Congress (the congressional leadership and those who serve in a committee of intelligence, homeland security, judicary, foreign relations, and military) 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 sea burial ceremony.

The group Judicial Watch announced that they have filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain access to the photos, and said they are prepared to file a lawsuit seeking general release of the photographs.

Role of Pakistan

See also: Allegations of support system in Pakistan for Osama bin Laden

Pakistan came under intense international scrutiny after the raid. The Pakistani government denied that it had sheltered bin Laden. It said it had been sharing information about the compound with the CIA and other intelligence agencies since 2009.

Connections with Abbottabad

View of Abbottabad, Pakistan

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. 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

See also: Allegations of support system in Pakistan for Osama bin Laden

Numerous allegations were made that the government of Pakistan had shielded bin Laden. Critics cited the very close 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." However, 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 further stated: "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."

File:AbbottabadCityatNight.jpg

Abbottabad, Pakistan, at night, showing the lights of the city

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.

Pakistani response

According to a Pakistani intelligence official, raw phone-tap data had been transferred to the United States 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."

Code name

See also: Operation Geronimo name controversy

Initial press reports claimed that "Geronimo" was used in the raid to refer to bin Laden himself, but this was later contradicted by official sources. The official mission code name was Operation Neptune Spear, with Jackpot as the code name for bin Laden as an individual and Geronimo as the code word for bin Laden's capture or death. Some sources, however, state that "Geronimo" simply meant the letter "G" for one of the steps of the assault, the end of of the mission resulting in the killing or capture of bin Laden, and was not a code word for bin Laden himself. Neptune's spear is the trident, which appears on Navy Special Warfare insignia, with the three prongs of the trident representing the operational capacity of SEALs on sea, air and land.

Geronimo was the Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who defied the U.S. government and eluded capture, raiding frontier settlements and killing settlers from the United States and Mexico. A transmission from operatives on the ground in Pakistan of Geronimo E KIA (Geronimo, enemy killed in action) alerted mission commanders to the death of bin Laden. Some Native Americans objected to the use of the name Geronimo in this context, because it perpetuated the stereotype of American Indians as enemies. The president of the Navajo Nation urged President Obama to retroactively rename the code name, and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs added it to a hearing agenda. Political activist Noam Chomsky wrote on the use of Geronimo that "no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders."

Derivation of intelligence

After the death of bin Laden, some officials from the Bush administration, such as Bush Office of Legal Counsel attorney John Yoo and former attorney general under Bush Michael Mukasey, wrote Op/Eds claiming that enhanced interrogation techniques they authorized yielded the intelligence that later led to locating bin Laden's hideout. McCasey specifically stated that the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) was what brought out the crucial detail of the nickname of bin Laden's courier.

U.S. officials and legislators including Republican John McCain and Democrat Diane Feinstein, Chairwoman of the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, countered that those statements were "false", noting a report by CIA Director Leon Panetta stating that the first mention of the courier's nickname did not come from KSM, 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 claims.

"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

CIA director Leon Panetta had written a letter to McCain on the issue, stating, "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 whe were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques, Panetta's letter to Senator McCain confirms that enhanced interrogation techniques may have hindered the search for Bin Laden by producing false information during interrogations. In the letter CIA Director Panetta wrote Senator 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 claim that shortly after the Sept. 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 postmortem

Evidence seized from the compound is said to include 10 cell phones, five to 10 computers, 12 hard drives, at least 100 computer disks (including thumb drives and DVDs), handwritten notes, documents, weapons and "an assortment of personal items." Intelligence analysts will also study call records from two phone numbers that were found to be sewn into bin Laden's clothing.

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 evidence 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, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of the Treasury, National Counterterrorism Center, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation and National Media Exploitation Center "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 Mohammad Khan, in the nearby district of Haripur, for two-and-a-half years prior to moving to Abbottabad in late 2005.

Revelation of stealth helicopter

The MH-60 Black Hawks used in the raid were specially modified to reduce their radar cross section, making them less likely to alert Pakistani authorities and risk the secrecy of the raid being compromised. This was the first confirmed report of a stealth helicopter using technologies likely derived from the F-117, B-2, and F-22 stealth aircraft programs. The SEALs destroyed the helicopter to destroy sensitive equipment aboard it. However, the Black Hawk's tail section survived the explosions. Pakistan removed the wreckage from the compound, but Pentagon officials feared transfer of the stealth technology to the People's Republic of China for reverse-engineering, as occurred when an F-117 was shot down by a Serbian antiaircraft battery in Operation Allied Force. In a visit intended to restore amicable relations between Pakistan and the United States, Senator John Kerry traveled to Pakistan and negotiated the return of the wreckage. The exposure of the modified Blackhawk has proved that stealth technologies are operationally feasible on helicopters. However, it is unknown how much information was gained by Pakistan during their custody of the wreckage.

Previous attempts to capture or kill bin Laden

Air strikes on Tora Bora in 2001

See also: Battle of Tora Bora

• February 1994: A team of Libyans attacked bin Laden's home in the 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 9/11 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.

Conspiracy theories

Main article: Osama bin Laden death conspiracy theories

The reports of bin Laden's death on May 1, 2011 are not universally accepted despite DNA testing confirming his identity, Bin Laden's 12-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, speed of the DNA results, and the decision not to release pictures of the dead body formed the basis 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.

See also

• Coup de main
• FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
• High-value target
• Manhunt (military)
• The Situation Room (photograph)
• Special Activities Division

External links

• "The Death of Osama bin Laden". The New York Times. Times Topics
• China.org.cn "The Strange Death of Osama Bin Laden." Chinese English-language website opinion column. May 3, 2011.
• Phillips, Macon. "Osama Bin Laden Dead." The White House Blog. May 2, 2011.
• "Photo Gallery May 1, 2011." The White House
• Garamone, Jim. "Obama Declares 'Justice Has Been Done'." American Forces Press Service, U.S. Department of Defense.
• Garamone, Jim. "Intelligence, Operations Team Up for bin Laden Kill." American Forces Press Service, U.S. Department of Defense.
• "Office of the Spokesperson Press Release Death of Osama bin Ladin." Embassy of Pakistan in Washington. May 2, 2011.
• "Most Wanted Terrorist Dead." Federal Bureau of Investigation. May 2, 2011.
• "Message from the Director: Justice Done." (Archive). Central Intelligence Agency. May 2, 2011.
• "Statement from September 11 Families' Association Tribute WTC Visitor Center." September 11 Families Association. May 2, 2011.
• January 2011 satellite image of the area where Osama bin Laden was captured (DigitalGlobe)
• "Operation Neptune Spear (2011)". ShadowSpear. May 2, 2011.
• "Osama bin Laden killed". The Big Picture. The Boston Globe. May 2, 2011.