Osama Bin Laden was killed within 90 seconds of the US Navy
Seals landing in his compound and not after a protracted gun
battle, according to the first account by the men who carried
out the raid. The operation was so clinical that only 12 bullets were fired.
The Seals have spoken out because they were angered at the
version given by politicians, which they see as portraying them
as cold-blooded murderers on a kill mission. They were also
shocked that President Barack Obama announced Bin Laden’s
death on television the same evening, rendering useless much of
the intelligence they had seized.
Chuck Pfarrer, a former commander of Seal Team 6, which
conducted the operation, has interviewed many of those who took
part for a book, Seal Target Geronimo, to be published in the US
this week.
The Seals own accounts differ from the White House version,
which gave the impression that Bin Laden was killed at the end
of the operation rather than in its opening seconds. Pfarrer
insists Bin Laden would have been captured had he surrendered.
There isn’t a politician in the world who could resist trying
to take credit for getting Bin Laden but it devalued the
intelligence and gave time for every other Al-Qaeda leader to
scurry to another bolthole, said Pfarrer. The men who did this
and their valorous act deserve better.
It’s a pretty shabby way to treat these guys.
The first hint
of the mission came in January last year when the team’s
commanding officer was called to a meeting at the headquarters
of joint special operations command. The meeting was held in a
soundproof bunker three stories below ground with his boss,
Admiral William McRaven, and a CIA officer.
They told him a walled compound in Pakistan had been under
surveillance for a couple of weeks. They were certain a
high-value individual was inside and needed a plan to present to
the president. It had to be someone important. So is this Bert
or Ernie? he asked.
The Seals nicknames for Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman
al-Zawahiri are a reference to two Muppets in Sesame Street, one
tall and thin and the other short and fat.
We have a voice
print, said the CIA officer, and were 60% or 70% certain it’s
our guy. McRaven added that a reconnaissance satellite had
measured the targets shadow. Over 6ft tall.
When McRaven added they would use Ghost Hawk helicopters, the
team leader had no doubt. These are the most classified,
sophisticated stealth helicopters ever developed, said Pfarrer.
They are kept in locked hangars and fly so quiet we call it
whisper mode.
Over the next couple of months a plan was hatched. A mock-up of
the compound was built at Tall Pines, an army facility in a
national forest somewhere in the eastern US.
Four reconnaissance satellites were placed in orbit over the
compound, sending back video and communications intercepts. A
tall figure seen walking up and down was named the Pacer.
Obama gave the go-ahead and Seal Team 6, known as the Jedi, was
deployed to Afghanistan.
The White House cancelled plans to
provide air cover using jet fighters, fearing this might
endanger relations with Pakistan.
Sending in the Ghost Hawks without air cover was considered too
risky so the Seals had to use older Stealth Hawks. A Prowler
electronic warfare aircraft from the carrier USS Carl Vinson was
used to jam Pakistan’s radar and create decoy targets.
Operation Neptune’s Spear was initially planned for April 30
but bad weather delayed it until May 1, a moonless night. The
commandos flew on two Stealth Hawks, codenamed Razor 1 and 2,
followed by two Chinooks five minutes behind, known as Command
Bird and the gun platform.
On board, each Seal was clad in body
amour and night vision goggles and equipped with laser targets,
radios and sawn-off M4 rifles. They were expecting up to 30
people in the main house, including Bin Laden and three of his
wives, two sons, Khalid and Hamza, his courier, Abu Ahmed al-
Kuwaiti, four bodyguards and a number of children. At 56 minutes
pastmidnight the compound came into sight and the code Palm
Beach signaled three minutes to landing. Razor 1 hovered above
the main house, a three-story building where Bin Laden lived on
the top floor.
Twelve Seals roped the 5ft-6ft down onto the roof
and then jumped to a third-floor patio, where they kicked in the
windows and entered.
The first person the Seals encountered was a terrified woman,
Bin Laden’s third wife, Khaira, who ran into the hall. Blinded
by a searing white strobe light they shone at her, she stumbled
back. A Seal grabbed her by the arm and threw her to the floor.
Bin Laden’s bedroom was along a short hall. The door opened;
he popped out and then slammed the door shut. Geronimo,
Geronimo, Geronimo, radioed one Seal, meaning eyes on target.
At the same time lights came on from the floor below and Bin
Laden’s son Khalid came running up the stairs towards the
Seals. He was shot dead.
Two Seals kicked in Bin Laden’s door. The room, they later
recalled, smelt like old clothing, like a guest bedroom in a
grandmother’s house. Inside was the Al-Qaeda leader and his
youngest wife, Amal, who was screaming as he pushed her in front
of him. No, no, don’t do this! she shouted as her husband
reached across the king-size bed for his AK-47 assault rifle.
The Seals reacted instantly, firing in the same second. One
round thudded into the mattress. The other, aimed at Bin
Laden’s head, grazed Amal in the calf. As his hand reached for
the gun, they each fired again: one shot hit his breastbone, the
other his skull, killing him instantly and blowing out the back
of his head.
Meanwhile Razor 2 was heading for the guesthouse, a low,
shoebox-like building, where Bin Laden’s courier, Kuwaiti, and
his brother lived. As the helicopter neared, a door opened and
two figures appeared, one waving an AK-47. This was Kuwaiti. In
the moonless night he could see nothing and lifted his rifle,
spraying bullets wildly.
He did not see the Stealth Hawk. On board someone shouted, Bust
him!, and a sniper fired two shots. Kuwaiti was killed, as was
the person behind him, who turned out to be his wife. Also on
board were a CIA agent, a Pakistani-American who would act as
interpreter, and a sniffer dog called Karo, wearing dog body
armor and goggles.
Within two minutes the Seals from Razor 2 had cleared the
guesthouse and removed the women and children.
They then ran to the main house and entered from the ground
floor, checking the rooms. One of Bin Laden’s bodyguards was
waiting with his AK-47. The Seals shot him twice and he toppled
over.
Five minutes into the operation the command Chinook landed
outside the compound, disgorging the commanding officer and more
men. They blasted through the compound wall and rushed in.
The commander made his way to the third floor, where Bin
Laden’s body lay on the floor face up. Photographs were taken,
and the commander called on his satellite phone to headquarters
with the words: Geronimo Echo KIA Bin Laden enemy killed in
action.
This was the first time the White House knew he was dead and it
was probably 20 minutes into the raid, said Pfarrer. A sample of
Bin Laden’s DNA was taken and the body was bagged. They kept
his rifle. It is now mounted on the wall of their team room at
their headquarters in Virginia Beach, Virginia, alongside
photographs of a dozen colleagues killed in action in the past
20 years.
At this point things started to go wrong. Razor 1 took off but
the top secret green unit that controls the electronics failed.
The aircraft went into a spin and crashed tail-first into the
compound… The Seals were alarmed, thinking it had been shot
down, and several rushed to the wreckage. The crew climbed out,
shaken but unharmed.
The commanding officer ordered them to destroy Razor 2, to
remove the green unit, and to smash the avionics. They then laid
explosive charges.
They loaded Bin Laden’s body onto the Chinook along with the
cache of intelligence in plastic bin bags and headed toward the
USS Carl Vinson. As they flew off they blew up Razor 2. The
whole operation had taken 38 minutes.
The following morning White House officials announced that the
helicopter had crashed as it arrived, forcing the Seals to
abandon plans to enter from the roof. A photograph of the
situation room showed a shocked Hillary Clinton, the secretary
of state, with her hand to her mouth.
Why did they get it so wrong? What they were watching was live
video but it was shot from 20,000 feet by a drone circling
overhead and relayed in real time to the White House and Leon
Panetta, the CIA director, in Langley.
The Seals were not wearing helmet cameras, and those watching in
Washington had no idea what was happening inside the buildings.
They don’t understand our terminology, so when someone said
the insertion helicopter has crashed, they assumed it meant on
entry, said Pfarrer.
What infuriated the Seals, according to Pfarrer, was the
description of the raid as a kill mission. I’ve been a Seal
for 30 years and I never heard the words kill mission, he said.
It’s a Beltway [Washington insiders] fantasy world. If it was
a kill mission you don’t need Seal Team 6; you need a box of
grenades. Hooyah!
