(DailyMail).Shootout, no surrender and carried away on foot after U.S. chopper broke down: Dramatic reconstruction of how hit squad finally took out Bin Laden.Almost ten years after the horror of 9/11, Osama bin Laden must have thought he was safe.He had moved from the remote, barren mountains on Afghanistan’s inhospitable border to a comfortable $1million mansion in one of Pakistan’s most picturesque and affluent cities.
Abbottabad - named after James Abbott, the British major who founded the town in 1853 - has such a pleasant climate that it is a major hub for tourists visiting the region.And the former home of the Gurkhas is still a major military base so locals have no reason to feel threatened.
Behind the walls of his sprawling compound about 60 miles north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, Bin Laden had every reason to believe he was way beyond the searching eyes of the Americans he had taunted for so long.
His family was with him and a parade of couriers would bring him everything he needed from the city outside of more than a million people.
So confident was he that the huge three-storey house he was living in was eight times larger than most other homes in the area, hardly a low-profile hideaway for the most wanted man in the world.
After several run-throughs and the diplomatic blessing of the Pakistani government, a small special forces team of U.S. Navy Seals landed in the compound grounds yesterday with the explicit instruction - get Osama bin Laden, dead or alive.The raid on the compound, which was just 100 yards from a Pakistani military academy, was launched at about 1.15am in the morning, according to witnesses. Four U.S. helicopters took off from the Ghazi air base in northwest Pakistan.
Bin Laden's guards opened fire from the roof and one of the helicopters crashed.
During an operation that took just 40 minutes from start to finish, Bin Laden was shot in the head in a firefight as he tried to evade capture. Three of his men were also killed along with a woman they tried to use as a human shield. One of Bin Laden's eleven sons was said to be among the dead.
By February, U.S. intelligence officials were confident that Bin Laden and his family were living there and by March, Mr Obama was convening top secret meeting with his senior security staff.
The CIA believe that for many years before settling in Abbottabad, Bin Laden moved from village to village in Waziristan. He communicated only about once a month and never used a telephone.
When he reached a village with his bodyguards he would request a meeting with the local tribal leader and a substantial bribe would be paid.
Bin Laden would then be the guest of the village, where under Pashtun custom, he must be protected.The main obstacle in finding him was that even if someone wanted to betray him and collect the $25 million reward - there was no one to turn to. The local police would know Bin Laden was there and if anyone tried to report his presence they would quite likely be killed.
One local mullah from Waziristan agreed to send information about Bin Laden’s movements and his beheaded body was found several weeks later with a message that his was the fate of spies.
Read the full story here.
2 comments:
I wonder if OBL was getting dialysis in the mansion.
The dialysis was an internet rumor. He apparently had no kidney problems. Reports from the SEALs say he looked good, not like a man living on the run.
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