“THIS IS a good day for America,” US president Barack Obama said last night, just 12 hours after he announced the killing by US special forces of Osama bin Laden, architect of the 9/11 terror attacks on America and numerous other atrocities around the globe.
“Our country has kept its commitment to see that justice is done. The world is safer. It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden,” Mr Obama said.
Last night more details were emerging of the successful assault on bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan. The CIA had the three-storey house on half a hectare of land in a wealthy suburb of Abbottabad, the city which serves as the training ground of Pakistan’s powerful military officer corps, under surveillance for months. It is understood satellite technology was used to monitor the compound.
John Brennan, Mr Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser, confirmed that bin Laden was buried at sea “in strict conformance with Islamic practice”. Other reports said the slain extremist leader was wrapped in a weighted white cloth, placed on a board and dropped into the Persian Gulf from the deck of a US aircraft carrier.
Mr Brennan said the special forces team that landed by helicopter at a compound about 60km from Islamabad were prepared to take bin Laden alive if he surrendered. He said the three-storey house surrounded by high walls topped with barbed wire was registered in the name of the “gatekeeper-courier” who unwittingly led the Americans to bin Laden.
In addition to bin Laden, the courier and his brother, bin Laden’s son Khaled and a woman believed to have been the youngest of bin Laden’s four wives were killed in the assault.
“Here is bin Laden living in this million-dollar compound and hiding behind women,” Mr Brennan said. “It speaks to how false his narrative has been over the years.”
Mr Brennan said the woman “served as a shield at the end” before bin Laden was shot in the head at close range. It was not clear “whether bin Laden or his son put her there or she put herself there”.
In one of the houses near the bin Laden compound, Omar Nazeer, a 30-year-old official at Pakistan’s petroleum ministry, was up late, working on his laptop. As the MH-60 Black Hawks thundered overhead he gave a start, spilling coffee on to the keyboard. “Our windows were shivering because the helicopters were so close,” he said.
The aircraft – four, according to different reports – carried soldiers from the US navy’s elite Seal Team Six, a highly secretive counter-terrorism unit that works closely with the CIA. One hovered over the target house; al-Qaeda militants fired on it with a rocket-propelled grenade. Then disaster struck: the chopper stalled and slumped towards the ground. Thousands of miles away in the US, officials watching on live video feeds had a heart-stopping moment. But the pilot put his craft down safely and the Seals tumbled out, pressing towards their target, the 54-year-old Saudi-born fugitive who had eluded them for over a decade, now closer than ever.
In Washington, meanwhile: “The minutes passed like days. It was very tense, with a lot of people holding their breath,” said Mr Brennan.
The Americans had been led to the compound by one of Osama bin Laden’s most trusted men: a courier, first identified by detainees at Guantanámo Bay through his nom de guerre. He was said to be protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged architect of the 9/11 attack. The Americans discovered his name four years ago, and discovered that he lived in the Abbottabad region with his brother two years ago.
The neighbours knew the owners of the house – the courier and his brother, described as ethnic Pashtuns – as secretive types. They dispatched children to buy food at local shops, and although they regularly prayed at a local mosque, they didn’t engage in small talk.
Monitoring the house with satellite technology and other spy tools, the CIA determined that a family was living in the house 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. The first idea was to bomb the house using B2 stealth bombers dropping 2,000-pound JDAMs (joint direct attack munitions), according to ABC News.
But Mr Obama rejected it, saying he wanted definitive proof that bin Laden was inside. “The helicopter raid was riskier,” said one US official. “[But] he didn’t just want to leave a pile of rubble.” An air assault plan was formulated. The Seal Team Six, officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group and based in Virginia, held rehearsals on a specially constructed compound in early April. Meanwhile, Obama 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.
On April 28th, shortly after he nominated CIA director Leon Panetta to replace Robert Gates as defence secretary, Mr Obama held a final meeting. In the secrecy of the White House situation room, he listened to recommendations from all sides, but reserved the final decision. Finally last Friday morning, he signed off on the air assault.
Only a tiny handful of people within the administration were aware of the operation. US officials say that no other country including Pakistan – as far as some were concerned, especially Pakistan – was informed, even though the US helicopters would essentially be invading Pakistani airspace.
But there are signs that statement may be untrue: some reports on the strike, sourced in Washington, suggest the Seals took off from Ghazi airforce base at nearby Tarbela Dam. If true, that suggests a convenient contrivance so that Pakistan could avoid ownership of an operation certain to rankle with the notoriously anti-American public. – (Additional reporting Ewen MacAskill in Washington and Esther Addley; Guardian service)