The Mistake That Exposed Osama Bin Laden

Kind: captions Language: en In the spring of 2011, Osama bin Laden was hiding in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan at the foot of the Himalayas. Much of his time was spent writing angry letters about Western domination of global affairs while his kids ran around and played Counter-Strike and Resident Evil in dingy rooms with blacked-out windows. 15 years had passed since he had first declared holy war on the USA for interfering in Middle Eastern politics. Americans were fair game. His orders to his followers, kill as many of them as possible. The mastermind of attacks that would escalate toward his magnum opus, two passenger planes slamming into the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11th, 2001. But, as he hid in his compound in 2011, now 54 years old, his power was waning. >> [music] >> The 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was coming up. It was an opportunity, he thought, to get some of that power back. President Barack Obama's drone strikes had already killed many of Osama's closest allies, and sometimes their family members. But, he wasn't just any target. His name was at the very top of the kill list when Obama met for Terror Tuesdays. Every meeting decided who was already dead and who was next. Osama knew it could be him. What he didn't know was just how close they were. He was paranoid and he was right to be. The Americans were watching. On August 6th, 2001, the presidential briefing that day was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US". The intel said a possible hijacking. There was information about suspicious men training at flight schools, but there were massive failures of intelligence. And on September 11th, al-Qaeda carried out the deadliest attack on US home soil in the nation's history. 2,753 [music] people died in New York, including hundreds of firefighters and law enforcement officers. The Pentagon attack saw 184 dead, 59 passengers and crew on American Airlines Flight 77, and another 125 people inside the building. >> [music] >> 40 deaths in Pennsylvania, United Airlines flight 93, a plane obliterated, children without parents, families destroyed, so much loss, so much heartache, so much pain, and victory for Osama. He would praise the 19 martyrs, most from Saudi Arabia, two were from the UAE, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. But long before that, they'd almost killed him. In December 2001, when he was hiding out at the Tora Bora cave complex in Afghanistan, they thought they had him. The US, UK, and Germany launched an assault that ultimately failed. 220 Al-Qaeda fighters were dead, but Osama bin Laden escaped. He vanished from his labyrinth, likely already well across the border to Pakistan when the bombs started falling. He was safe, his mind set on building the compound where he would unleash his war of words. By 2005, the outlook for the war on terror was grim. The cost was mounting, not just in dollars, but in blood. Al-Qaeda in Iraq was picking up an estimated 100 to 150 foreign jihadists a month, many angry at the US and destined to become martyrs. Under the leadership of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the group embraced extreme sectarian violence, car bombs in markets, mosque bombings, kidnappings, [music] filmed executions. Iraq was descending into civil war. $3 for chaos and pain. At times, more than 100 civilians a day were being killed by insurgents, militias, and criminal gangs. Torture chambers, bodies found dumped in the streets. >> [music] >> ISI would come next, and then ISIS, a nightmare manifested that had grown from the seeds of realpolitik. Capturing Osama would give Americans hope. For years, US intelligence had searched for one weak link in Al-Qaeda's chain. That link was a courier, known as Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, believed to be one of Osama bin Laden's most trusted couriers. Osama never used phones. He relied on hand-carried messages. Without them, he was nothing. Find the courier and you might find the man. Many arrests were made. Among those questioned was Muhammad al-Qahtani, the presumed 20th hijacker held at Guantanamo. His brutal interrogations added to a growing file of references on the mysterious al-Kuwaiti. The CIA now knew that he was the key to unlocking the puzzle. But the major breakthrough came from another detainee, Hassan Ghul. His enhanced interrogation received the green light. A CIA official later said that he sang like a Tweety Bird before the torture even began. He confirmed that al-Kuwaiti was one of Osama's closest and most trusted aides. Ghul didn't know what happened later, but al-Kuwaiti seemed to go off the grid. To the CIA, that mattered. If he had gone silent, maybe that meant that he was hiding out with Osama, carrying his messages back and forth from the safe house. On September 10th, 2010, CIA Director Leon Panetta and Deputy Director Michael Morell met with President Obama. The CIA, working with the NSA and Pakistani intelligence, had tracked al-Kuwaiti through phone and human intelligence. Surveillance followed him to an unusual compound in Abbottabad. A big place, big walls, no phones or internet lines, garbage burned rather than picked up. They called it a fortress, but a fortress where women and children resided. The clothes hanging out to dry were proof, at least nine kids. And that complicated matters. What if they bombed the wrong place and they killed civilians? Osama was never clearly seen on surveillance footage. He barely ever left the walls that contained him. But one tall figure, about 6 ft 4 in, was seen pacing in circles in the courtyard. He had become known inside the CIA as the pacer. After months of observation and tens of millions of dollars, the CIA concluded that the tall man was indeed Osama bin Laden. The question was, what to do now? Capture, kill, or obliterate the entire house? They said that they could quite easily drop two dozen 2,000 lb bombs on the compound and destroy everything in sight. But that would kill the neighbors, it would definitely kill the women and children, and it would likely leave no trace of DNA to establish they'd actually gotten Osama. No, this had to be different. A helicopter assault, Navy SEALs, in and out. Commander of Joint Special Operations Command Bill McRaven said an assault would not be a problem. They built a model of the compound and they got to work. They had to assume that some of the occupants would be asleep, but in bomb vests. They also believed that the place would be trip-wired or that even the women and older kids would shoot back. When fighting people who think they'll become martyrs, the danger increases tenfold. For weeks, elite operators lived inside a classified full-scale replica of bin Laden's Abbottabad compound hidden deep in the North Carolina forest. They burst through doors, climbed the blind staircases thousands of times until it became muscle memory. They were about to step into a kill zone, and they had to know it by heart. According to intel reports, the perimeter of the compound could be rigged with claymore mines ready to blow the minute they came into contact with an American boot. The SEALs knew the risk. They knew when they touched down, they'd be faced with fanatics willing to die for a cause. But so were the SEALs. SEALs launched Operation Neptune Spear. Spare the women and children if possible. Capture Osama if possible. It would later be said the mission was to execute him. On paper, capture sounded better than a kill mission. The entire operation was a logistical gamble. Pakistani intelligence was being locked out. It was a huge game. One mistake, one aggrieved general, and a full-scale diplomatic incident would be triggered. Two heavily modified Black Hawk helicopters would fly into hostile airspace. They would skim the treetops of the Hindu Kush mountains and deliver the SEALs to the target. All it took was one blip on a radar screen for someone to realize what was happening, and Bin Laden would be gone, again. The training was over. It was time for the real thing. Sunday, May 1st, Afghanistan. McRaven told the SEALs in front of him, "Gentlemen, since 9/11, each one of you has dreamed of being the man on the mission to get Bin Laden." No one was celebrating. Some had written goodbye letters to their families in case they didn't come home. The operators had been in some of the most dangerous war zones on the planet. They had survived dozens of brutal firefights, but this This was different. They checked their gear and went to work. It was go time. Three Chinook CH-47 helicopters made their way to Pakistan along with Blackhawks and an RQ-170 stealth drone flying way higher in the sky. President Obama was watching it all from the situation room in the White House, but the drone footage was obscured by the helicopters. Vice President Biden, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were all there. The most powerful man in the world and his cabinet stared at a live feed in front of them. Despite the crisp transmission, courtesy of an overhead drone, the president and his team would be blind in the opening minutes of the raid. No one spoke. The only sound was the clicking of a keyboard and the voices of Leon Panetta's in from Langley and Admiral McRaven in Jalalabad. It was a historic moment, a defining moment in the war against terror, and they were completely helpless. Approaching 1:00 a.m. local time, 4:00 p.m. Eastern, Osama heard the whirring of helicopter blades. He was in bed with Amal with their 3-year-old son, Hussein, when an almighty crashing sound filled their ears. It was one of the Hawks that had just hard landed in the animal pen, the tail rotor hitting the compound wall. A disastrous start to the operation. Inside the Hawk, the SEALs scrambled into action. The impact shattered the silence in the small city. The tail snapped off, pinning the helicopter against the the wall. The SEALs had lost one of their rides out of Abbottabad. More importantly, the element of surprise was gone. The clock was ticking and Bin Laden's compound was coming alive. Amal reached for the light. "No!" screamed Osama. They were here. After so many years, they had found him. It was time. Inside the house, everyone was awake now. The wives were shocked in the other room. Amal, attending to her five young kids. Osama's grown-up daughters, Miriam and Sumaiya, rushed to be with their father. All of them starting to pray. Osama told the women to leave him alone. They all refused. Exactly what happened next would change depending on which SEAL was telling the story, but one version is an AK-47 started firing and the SEALs shot back. It was the bodyguard's room, Ibrahim. His wife, Mariam, came out. A little child was in her arms and three kids followed her. He had already been shot dead. Outside, the second Black Hawk touched down outside of the compound wall. Its rotors kicked up a whirlwind of dust and debris. The backup team hit the ground running. They breached the outer walls with explosive charges. Cordite, burning rubber, and concrete dust filled the air. The team flooded into the courtyard. It was synchronized and rehearsed. The hours in the North Carolina forest were paying off. As they made their way into the main house, their night vision optics illuminated the pitch black hallways in a glowing green. They moved with terrifying speed, clearing rooms, tracking shadows, and expecting a firefight at any moment. A SEAL moved down to the bottom floor where the other bodyguard, Abrar, lived with his wife, Bushra. A SEAL opened fire and killed them both. The SEALs kept moving, blowing up doors with charges. >> [music] >> They found Osama's 23-year-old son, Khalid, and shot him dead, too. The assault team was relentless. They swept through the house floor by floor, room by room. Any resistance was met with a volley of suppressed gunfire. The stairs leading to the upper parts of the house were narrow, steep, and blanketed in darkness. It was a tactical bottleneck. Anyone defending the top of the stairs had a huge and lethal advantage. The team pushed forward regardless. The point man led the way, his weapon raised, scanning for the slightest movement. The walls were pushing in on them, restricting their movement. The world's most wanted man, the man responsible for thousands of American deaths, was just a few feet above them. There was nowhere to run. The point man saw a head peep out and opened fire. It was Osama. A direct hit, maybe. Two other SEALs followed. The original story was Osama had used a mall as a shield, but that was more propaganda than reality. It was later changed. Amal was there, though. She saw a red beam, a laser sight, and without thinking ran at the SEAL. Well, she moved at least. It was dark and it was chaotic. The SEAL wasn't taking any chances. He shot her, but only in the calf. And that was it. It was over in a heartbeat. They had met with virtually no resistance, a testament to their speed as much as Osama's incredible lack security. Osama's daughters confirmed the man that they had just killed was their dad. There were guns in his room, but for some reason he hadn't even loaded them when he'd heard the helicopters. He had accepted his fate. He had lost, and the US had won. He had made a mistake. A simple one. He thought his isolation, his seclusion, would have kept him off the radar forever. He underestimated the determination and obsession of the American intelligence community. All it took was a courier and one unencrypted call, one the CIA had relentlessly tracked down. He had built a high-walled compound that signaled its presence to overhead satellites. He didn't even have an escape route or a tunnel. He kept guns within arm's reach, but never chambered them. He never helped the guards downstairs fight back. He lived like a ghost, but an amateur one. And now his moment of reckoning had arrived in the form of SEAL Team Six. McRaven said on the radio, "Is he EKIA?" Enemy killed in action. Roger, Geronimo EKIA. Geronimo, the code name for Osama. The SEALs were still deep inside sovereign Pakistani territory without permission. The surrounding city was waking up. A classified helicopter was lying in pieces in the courtyard. From a diplomatic viewpoint, things were spiraling out of control. Every second they stayed on the ground increased the chances of a catastrophic international incident. They took photos and swabbed his saliva for DNA, picking up what a SEAL said was a ton of computers and electronic gear on the second floor. Hard drives, thumb drives, discs, Osama's private thoughts for at least a decade. Neighbors, none of who knew that they were living next to a terrorist, all came out to the street. The interpreter made it clear, "This [music] is a government business. If you want to stay alive, don't come. Go back to your house." The White House celebrated while four SEALs carried Osama's body to the helicopter. As they flew away, the SEALs blew up the crash-landed Blackhawk with explosives. No way could something that expensive be left behind. The explosion drew even more attention from the surrounding neighborhood. If no one had realized the Americans were here, they knew now. The heat from the intense fireball lighting up the night sky. Lights flickered on from nearby buildings. Shouts ran out across the streets. The SEALs weren't hanging around. The remaining helicopters powered up, their engines screaming as they lifted off, clearing the walls by inches. Behind them, the Abbottabad compound was ablaze. A crowd of stunned locals gathered watching in disbelief. The operators scanned each one of them, weapons primed. They still had a 90-minute flight through contested airspace. But they made it. Success, and no American was hurt. A Pakistani F-16 put [music] everyone on edge, but soon they were almost over the border to safety. "Welcome to Afghanistan," said a friendly voice on the radio as the Chinook and the Blackhawk entered the country's airspace at 2:26 a.m. It was time to see the goods. >> [music] >> They unzipped the body bag. Osama bin Laden with two bullet holes in his head. The word went out. The world's most wanted man was dead. Osama's great mistake, he thought he could beat a giant. In real life Davids never slay Goliaths. That only happens to mythic heroes. His fatal mistake, his lethal flaw, he believed [music] he was one. He had been hunted, cornered, and finally killed. Yet even in death Osama bin Laden's fate raised questions. Watch why Osama bin Laden was buried at sea to find out what happened next or click on this video instead.