THE RAID:LAST AUGUST bin Laden's location was narrowed to a compound in Abbottabad, an affluent military town about 35 miles north of Islamabad named after its first deputy commissioner, the British officer Maj James Abbott. At first the Americans were puzzled: the compound, built in 2005 and valued at $1m (€672,000), was no ordinary home. Perimeter walls up to six metres (18ft) high were topped with barbed wire, there was no internet or telephone connection and few windows. Oddly, the inhabitants burned their rubbish inside the compound.
Monitoring the house with satellite technology and other spy tools, the CIA determined that a family was living there with the two men. Last February the CIA determined “with high probability” that it was bin Laden and his clan. Officials scrambled to formulate a plan to kill him.
President Barack Obama’s officials engaged in regular meetings, chaired by national security adviser Tom Donilon, and counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, to determine when – and how – to strike. Obama handed control of the assault to Leon Panetta – still CIA director until July – who transformed the conference room at its headquarters into a command centre from where he could be in constant contact with the Seal leaders.
Last Saturday, the day of the planned assault, bad weather conspired against the Americans. On Sunday, Obama spent part of his day on the golf course, but cut short his round to return to the White House for a meeting where he and top aides reviewed final preparations. Hours later the Seals took off – probably from Jalalabad or Bagram airbases in Afghanistan and entered Pakistani airspace.
What happened next is subject to the American account only. Local residents reported three large blasts shortly after the helicopters passed overhead. The al-Qaeda fighters holed up inside fought back, trading gunfire for nearly 40 minutes, as the US troops cleared the compound floor by floor, Pentagon officials said.
The Pashtun courier – he has not been identified – and his brother were killed, as was one of Bin Laden’s adult sons, possibly Hamza, who was a senior al-Qaeda member. One woman reportedly died and two others were injured.
The Americans then reached bin Laden – the subject of greater American passions and frustrations than perhaps any other figure of the past decade. According to the Pentagon he was identified by name by one of his own wives. As the raiding party closed in on the last unsecured room in the compound, bin Laden seized a gun and started firing.
US officials say – and there is no independent verification – he was shot twice in the head. “Done in by a double tap – boom boom – to the left side of his face,” wrote Marc Ambinder of the National Journal, a beltway insider’s journal. Word of the kill went up the chain of command. Thousands of miles away, at the CIA in Virginia and at the White House, cheers erupted.
The Americans scoured the house for intelligence, took photos of the body, using facial recognition technology to compare it with pictures. It was him. Before withdrawing, the Seals blew up the wreckage of the helicopter. An orange fireball lit up the night sky.
Bin Laden’s body was taken to the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the Arabian Gulf. Back in Abbottabad, the wounded were taken to the local Combined Military hospital. Omar Nazeer, a government official cowering in his house, said six children and three women had been wounded. He knew, he said, because his brother, a military official, worked at the hospital.
Hours later, according to the administration, bin Laden’s body was wrapped in white cloth, and, after Islamic burial rites, was weighted and dropped from a plank into the sea. The location was not revealed. “We don’t want a bunch of people going to the shrine for ever,” an official told the Washington Post.
President Obama called former presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton to inform them of the news.
Keith Urbahn, the former chief of staff to Mr Bush's defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted. "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn." – ( Guardianservice)