Osama Bin Laden. The world’s most wanted man. Not only did he pull off a devastating strike
against the US homeland - but he managed to avoid capture and survive for a decade afterwards!
What went wrong, and how did this notorious terrorist manage to avoid justice for so long?
It turns out the answer goes back to even before the infamous attacks.
Born in Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden wasn’t some downtrodden underdog who became a terrorist.
He grew up in luxury, as the son of a billionaire construction magnate. So how did
he get radicalized? It all started when he joined Pakistani forces fighting against the Soviets in
Afghanistan, but he didn’t develop his unabiding hatred for the US until the Gulf War. When he saw
American troops stationed on Saudi soil, he viewed it as a desecration of the holy Muslim land.
Even though the countries were allies, it didn’t matter - he was determined to get revenge,
and soon would form the Al Qaeda terror group that would target US interests abroad - and at home.
And he didn’t get a welcome reception at home.
His radicalism led to him being expelled from Saudi Arabia and losing his citizenship, so he
became a stateless figure looking to hide in any country that supported his cause. His first attack
was in Yemen in 1992, where his team bombed a hotel full of US troops. It detonated prematurely,
killing two civilians in the parking lot. A year later, the World Trade Center in New York was hit
by a bomb in the parking garage, killing six people. While Bin Laden was never proven to be
involved, the mastermind of the attack trained in Al Qaeda camps. And two years later, a car bomb
exploded at a military base in Saudi Arabia, killing seven people including five Americans.
Bin Laden was on the US’ radar now - but where was he?
At this point, he was hiding out in the African nation of Sudan,
which was known to be friendly to Islamic fundamentalists. But the government still
had good relations with the United States, and Osama Bin Laden came up in conversations
between officials and the CIA. Did they offer to hand him over? It’s not clear, but what is clear
is that the US sniffing around his bases in that country led to Bin Laden fleeing
at some point - heading to his new home base in Afghanistan. Not that he told anyone - Al
Qaeda maintained a presence in Sudan, which would fool investigators for some time.
And he was about to step up his operation in a big way.
Until now, Al Qaeda’s attacks had been relatively small-scale,
with only a few succeeding. But they were about to enter the realm of coordinated attacks,
causing much greater damage - starting with a duo of truck bomb attacks in Kenya and Tanzania,
hitting the US embassies in both countries in 1998. Twelve Americans were killed,
but the vast majority of the deaths - over two hundred - were locals.
This was the first time most Americans had heard of Al Qaeda,
and the public wanted revenge. President Bill Clinton wasted no time responding.
But the response wouldn’t have the desired effect.
Operation Infinite Reach was a series of cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan,
targeting Al Qaeda training camps. This was the first official military engagement against
a non-state actor, with many anti-war activists claiming it was an illegitimate attack because
the US wasn’t at war with either of the nations. However, bin Laden wasn’t killed by the attacks,
and overall Operation Infinite Reach became a propaganda win for the extremist.
This was shortly after the radical Taliban group took over Afghanistan,
and the militant clerics refused to hand over Bin Laden and deepened their ties with him.
And so the war of attrition continued.
Having proven he could hit big targets, Bin Laden’s next goal was to sink a US ship.
He would make his first attempt in early 2000, but the heavy bomb on the small boat derailed it and
it never reached its goal. He learned from that error - and delivered a deadly payload to the USS
Cole in October 2000, killing seventeen sailors. The attack may have influenced the election in
the US the following month, but it was only a prelude to what would come less than a year later.
Osama Bin Laden was still seen as a minor threat - but that was about to change.
The September 11th, 2001 attacks were the first major attack on the US mainland by Al Qaeda
and the deadliest attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor. Two hijacked planes took down the World
Trade Center and a third hit the Pentagon, killing everyone on board. A fourth plane
crashed in a field in Pennsylvania - and it was later revealed that the forth planel was meant
to hit the US Capitol. Osama Bin Laden was now public enemy #1, and new President George W.
Bush demanded justice. He announced to the world that the Taliban needed to hand Bin Laden over
now - and the Taliban’s response was to demand US ambassadors be sent to negotiate.
Given the Taliban’s history of taking hostages, this was rejected immediately.
The War on Terror officially began.
The US began bombing Afghanistan only days after the attacks, with one of their primary goals
being to hunt down Bin Laden. But where was he? He favored isolated safehouses, moving frequently and
traveling with his wives and close associates. Now, he sent his wives across the border to
Pakistan and traveled from one Taliban-controlled safehouse to another. A few months after the war
began, he moved to the isolated Tora Bora region, where he was near-impossible to find
due to the rough terrain and the sparsely populated area with few sources to draw on.
It would be a long war of attrition from here.
Bin Laden didn’t give up on attacking the US,
but he would never pull off another major attack on the US mainland. Only two months after the
attack, the infamous “Shoe Bomber” Richard Reid attempted to blow up a plane from Paris to Miami,
but failed to successfully ignite the explosives and was restrained on the plane.
Security increased massively in the US after the attacks,
and Bin Laden’s options became limited. He would pull off attacks around the
world in less-secure locations, but now he was on the defensive.
But that didn’t mean he was done.
Osama Bin Laden was the most wanted man in the world. The country he was
hiding in was being bombed by the most powerful country in the world,
US government agents were scouting the country, trying to hunt him down,
and a $25 million dollar bounty had been placed on his head. And despite that, years would go by
without any sign of him. Some people speculated that he had been killed in the initial bombings,
but occasionally grainy videos of him threatening new attacks would surface. Were these body doubles
designed to keep the propaganda alive? No one was sure, but the US kept up the hunt.
It would be a long, slow mission - and the
true extent of it wouldn’t become clear until he was finally found.
For most of the time the US looked for Bin Laden in Afghanistan - but that turned out to be a red
herring. Afghanistan was the most sympathetic nation to Bin Laden, but it was also quickly
descending into anarchy - and soon the Taliban would be toppled and replaced with a US-friendly
government led by Hamid Karzai that created a rudimentary democracy, albeit one that had to fend
off attacks from Taliban forces for its entire duration. But Bin Laden could no longer count
on the Taliban to shield him, so a year after the 9/11 attacks, he traveled with his family across
the border into a mountainous region of Pakistan. They moved from safe house to safe house for
several years, before moving to Abbottabad where he would build his secret compound.
So why did the US not clue in on this sooner?
Unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan was ostensibly a US ally. The US was hesitant to anger their
government, because maintaining good relations with the nuclear power and being able to serve as
a mediator for India and Pakistan was important. But Pakistan wasn’t being forthcoming about what
they knew about Bin Laden’s presence on their soil, and so the US had to rely on third-party
sources. The regions where Bin Laden stayed were dangerous and any US soldier caught there couldn’t
rely on support from Pakistan’s government - and the US would likely not be able to rescue
them without a diplomatic scandal forming. So information coming out of those regions was spotty
for several years, and Bin Laden was able to stay under the radar in Pakistan for several years.
But not forever.
The US had to rely on unconventional sources of information for years,
including the many detainees they had captured and held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
This military prison camp held hundreds of Al Qaeda soldiers - as well as many people
who claimed to just be people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it could be
difficult to tell who was who. But amid the sea of interrogations, many of which led to dead ends,
one name showed up - Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, a man who was supposedly a courier working for Bin
Laden. It’s not known when the officials first got the tip that he was working for Bin Laden,
but by 2007 they had discovered the man’s real name - Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed.
The government now had its first real link to Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
It would be a multi-year process to find the courier and his location,
with it taking almost two years from discovering his name to finding his hometown - Abbottabad.
The US was hesitant to make any moves in Pakistan until it knew more,
but now it had a location - and Abbottabad was isolated enough that they could start sending
in paramilitary operatives without arousing the suspicion of the Pakistani government. Over the
next year, they would follow Ahmed on his daily missions - and track him repeatedly making an
appearance at a surprisingly secure compound that seemed out of place in the mountain town.
But even this didn’t give them what they needed.
The CIA was able to set up surveillance in the area and take countless shots of
the compound. They were able to determine that it was a fortress, designed to hide someone of
significance. They saw many people coming in and out, but there was one person they didn’t
see - Osama Bin Laden. If he was inside, he was taking his security very seriously
and had not left the compound in a long time. Neither had anyone known to be a member of his
family - not surprising, as his wives and children likely had very little autonomy. But based on the
many guests, the CIA’s best guess was still that he was living there with his youngest wives.
But before they made a move, they needed proof.
So began one of the most devious schemes in the operation. How do you get a notoriously
paranoid and secretive terror leader to open his front door to you? Simple - you create a
face that no reasonable - or unreasonable - person could object to. The United States recruited Dr.
Shakil Afridi to approach the compound, claiming to be running a vaccination drive.
With the help of some nurses, they were able to gain access to the compound to vaccinate
the children - and also take some DNA samples that would potentially identify members of the
Bin Laden clan. It’s not clear if the DNA ever did make its way to the United States
and provide the final piece of the puzzle, but when Dr. Afridi’s role in the manhunt came out,
he would become one of Pakistan’s most wanted men. No good deed goes unpunished.
Now, all that was left was scouting out the location.
The compound was massive, located on a lot around eight times the size of the largest houses in
Abbottabad. While the actual house wasn’t too large, the security ballooned it to many times its
size. Surrounded by concrete walls up to eighteen feet wide and topped with barbed wire, the only
way in was through security gates and there was no way to do digital spying on the compound - because
there was no internet or phone service on the base. So anyone hoping Bin Laden would hack into
some unsecured wifi was going to be disappointed. The third-floor balcony had an additional
seven-foot wall shielding it from the public eye, and not even trash left the compound - the
residents would regularly bury it. The compound was set for a war - and that’s what it would get.
But back at home, it was a very different story.
While Osama Bin Laden was public enemy #1 after the 9/11 attacks,
soon he faded from the headlines. George W. Bush, who vowed to get Bin Laden dead or alive,
soon got distracted and launched a war to displace dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He was
re-elected, but the second half of his Presidency would be defined by mounting casualties in Iraq,
a devastating hurricane, and a terrible financial crisis in 2008. By that point,
Bin Laden had largely disappeared, and few people considered the hunt for him a
top priority anymore. Bush would be replaced by liberal Barack Obama in 2009, and Obama vowed to
disengage from Iraq and focus more on domestic affairs. He, too had a troubled presidency and
his re-election was seen doubtful after his party took a shellacking in the 2010 midterms.
And at this point, many people didn’t even know if Bin Laden was alive or dead.
The US had never given up the hunt, but much of it happened far away from prying eyes.
Many people initially speculated that Bin Laden had died in the initial bombings
or died due to illness in the ensuing years, but there wasn’t any proof either way. A 2005 book
interviewing Al Qaeda detainees disclosed that he had escaped from Tora Bora into Pakistan,
but reports that he had a serious kidney disorder made it seem to many like he might have just
quietly died far away from the public eye. The US never publicly bought into the rumors, maintaining
that he was a threat, but the lack of any new information made the public start tuning out.
And at a certain point, he started turning from terror leader to boogeyman in many people’s eyes.
For most people, their only connection to Osama Bin Laden during these years
was ill-sourced newspaper reports. Some were credible reports of where he might be hiding.
Others claimed he was dead or may have changed his identity. Maybe some claimed he was hiding
out in Los Angeles with Elvis and Bat Boy! And as the attacks against the US homeland stopped
and everyone got used to going through metal detectors and taking off our shoes at airports,
he started seeming less like a threat and more of a past figure. The government stopped giving the
public updates, and most people assumed we would never know the truth of what happened to him.
Which was why everyone was surprised when the Bin Laden issue roared back into mainstream media.
In the years leading up to 2011, the CIA had staked out a place in Abbottabad and
used informants and technology to learn everything they could about the compound.
This included a drone that mapped every element of the house they could,
ensuring that the team sent in would be as well informed as possible. They also used advanced
spyware and tracking devices to pick up any cell phone signals in the immediate vicinity, even if
the compound itself had no technology. Ironically, the size and security of the compound may have
worked against Bin Laden, because it was so large it could be observed from multiple angles.
And after years of intelligence-gathering, a decision was made.
The CIA and related organizations brought their intel to the President’s desk,
and Barack Obama had the most impactful decision of his career awaiting him.
White House counterterrorism advisor John Brennan and CIA director Leon Panetta were
heavily involved in the planning, and they developed Operation Neptune Spear
as a kill-or-capture operation. The US had the policy of not killing any enemy
who surrendered - no matter how much blood they had on their hands - but no one expected
Bin Laden to surrender and everything around the operation was based on that assumption.
Sounds like an easy decision? Not quite.
Vice Admiral William McRaven, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command,
was one of the first to be briefed on the mission after the President. A veteran of
special operations, he felt a commando team would be the best-equipped to take out Osama Bin Laden.
A bombing strike didn’t wouldn’t guarantee a kill and Bin Laden’s body might never be identified,
plus if there were civilian casualties it could be seen as an act of war against Pakistan.
But that was also the biggest challenge here - how to handle relations with Pakistan.
No one knew how closely linked the Pakistani government was with the Al Qaeda leader.
If the US government brought the intel to them and asked for a joint operation, they could
get their man - or Pakistan could tip the terror leader off and allow him to disappear once again.
They decided to go in alone.
President Obama met with the National Security Council to hash out the details of the plan.
Quickly ruling out the joint operation, Obama was hesitant to send a US team into harm’s way.
He seemed to favor a bombing mission at first, but the CIA said they weren’t positive that
there wasn’t an underground bunker at the base. That meant a bombing mission might not do the
job - and with little way to conduct post-mission intel, the truth might never come out. The bombs
powerful enough to destroy an underground bunker would cause collateral damage. So that plan was
put on hold, and instead McRaven was tasked with developing a foolproof plan for a commando raid.
And it would fall on the best of the best.
The Navy SEALS picked for the mission were among the most elite soldiers in the US military, most
having ten or more deployments to Afghanistan and skills including border infiltration and foreign
language knowledge. They were brought in without being told the details of the mission, and engaged
in rehearsals of the raid in test compounds built in multiple locations. Whatever this mission was,
it was big enough that the government built a massive facility just to train for it. When
they were told that the government had found Osama Bin Laden, and it was their job to take him down…
Reportedly, every single one of them burst out cheering.
Now that they knew the mission, they would be briefed on the last few details of the raid.
They would be flown in on modified Black Hawk helicopters designed to be quiet and
nearly invisible to radar. The US had supplied much of Pakistan’s military
equipment and trained their soldiers, so they knew their capabilities and how to get around
them - and they were confident they could counter them if they came under attack.
But the goal was for Pakistan to know nothing about the raid until it was already done.
If Bin Laden surrendered, he would be held at a nearby Air Force base,
but that was an unlikely. And the SEALs were informed that if they were captured, the
government would negotiate for their release - but they wouldn’t be able to send in a rescue mission.
Now it all hinged on one man.
Was this raid too risky? Was the President really willing to put a team of Navy SEALs
behind enemy lines on what would likely be an assassination mission? If the mission succeeded,
it would be the biggest foreign policy coup of the administration - but if it failed,
Barack Obama’s presidency would be essentially over. Meanwhile, the military brass was making
final plans, including adding an additional helicopter detachment that might be able to
help the team fight their way out if they were cornered. Ultimately, the President looked at the
plan - and gave the go-ahead for the mission that might finally rid the US of its decade-long enemy.
Now it was in the hands of the SEALs.
As the teams took to the air and headed for Abbottabad, the President and his closest
team members retreated to the Situation Room to watch the raid on closed-circuit cameras. Around
twelve SEALs were making their way towards the compound, and their command was transferred to
the CIA for the mission so that US soldiers would technically not be controlled by the US Army
while on Pakistani soil. They would be backed up by 67 additional commandos and a military
working dog - a Belgian Malinois named Cairo who would be tracking any escaping people from the
compound and alert SEALs to any Pakistani military presence - making him a very good boy indeed.
It was time.
The two Black Hawk helicopters were accompanied by larger Chinook copters,
holding back in case they were needed. The first helicopter would hover over the yard
while its team rapelled down to the ground, as the other copter would be around the perimeter
and deploy the rest of the team plus the dog and interpreter. But as they approached,
one of the copters was hit by a hazardous airflow condition that caused it to spin out
and be damaged. The pilot was able to avoid a crash, landing with some damage but without any
injuries or alerting security. They were on the ground, and now there was one thing left to do.
Breach the door, and take on whoever was inside.
Want to know the rest of the story? Watch “How SEAL Team Took Down Osama
Bin Laden (Minute By Minute)” or watch this video instead!