It's a picture that history will remember forever:
the famous image of former President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden sitting with
several members of their cabinet and U.S. military officials in the Situation Room on May 1, 2011.
The photo documented the reactions of top government officials watching the capture of Osama
bin Laden. What was happening on the other side of that image was reportedly live video footage
of SEAL Team Six carrying out the covert mission. The elite unit was tasked with either capturing or
killing the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
It was a success. Some hours after that photo was taken, Obama turned to Americans
in a special televised late-night speech to announce the death of bin Laden on May 2.
"The United States has conducted an operation that has killed Osama bin Laden."
The news was a victory for the U.S., which had finally caught and killed the wanted terrorist a
decade after the devastating attacks. But later that day, many wondered how it was planned,
and how the U.S. military located bin Laden almost 10 years after he became public enemy
No. 1. The event was famously dramatized in the fictional movie Zero Dark Thirty.
While it was members of the special military group that performed the operation that killed
Osama bin Laden, it was American intelligence officials who reportedly led them to his location.
The Saudi-born terrorist was killed in Pakistan in the early morning hours of May 2, 2011.
After being on the run for so long,
it was believed that bin Laden was hiding in some undisclosed area. In actuality,
he was brazenly living in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad for the last five years of his life.
Reportedly, the Central Intelligence Agency had learned this the year before when they tracked
a member of bin Laden's radical terrorist group, al-Qaeda, visiting a large and guarded structure.
In the days after closely watching the associate at the location, they presumed that this large
compound, which stood out compared to other residences, was a destination of some importance.
The compound that bin Laden was living in was three floors tall. Each floor had several rooms,
and in total, the house had nine bedrooms, eight bathrooms, and two kitchens.
The third floor is where bin Laden lived and spent the majority of his time,
reportedly restricting himself to just two rooms.
With continued monitoring of the house, the CIA is
said to have determined that members of bin Laden's family were living there.
The home's occupants were bin Laden, several of his wives, children, and grandchildren,
as well as his bodyguards and their wives and children. CIA director Leon Panetta would later
say that the agency had to believe all of their initial assumptions about bin Laden's possible
whereabouts were wrong before moving forward with the lead that he was actually in Abbottabad.
Despite not having concrete proof that bin Laden himself was at the location, President
Obama was confident in the hunch and approved the mission to capture or kill. In late April 2011,
after eight months of secretly organizing, SEAL Team Six had the authorization, and the mission
was officially active when the team took off from a U.S. military base in Afghanistan en route to
Abbottabad. In a few hours, Osama bin Laden, America's most wanted terrorist, was dead.
Including bin Laden, the total number of casualties was four men and one woman,
per CNN. Two other women were wounded. One of bin Laden's sons
was killed. The other men killed were bodyguards for the terrorist leader.
In the aftermath of the raid, American and Pakistani officials questioned three wives
and approximately six children of the slain al-Qaeda leader, per ABC News.
While earlier intel couldn't completely say for certain that the tall bearded man they
killed on the third floor of the compound was actually bin Laden, a DNA test would confirm it
was. A statement from al-Qaeda that their leader was dead was another confirmation.
In 2012, demolition of the bin Laden compound began. Books discussing the timeline of
the mission to kill bin Laden include journalist Peter Bergen's book "Manhunt:
The Ten Year Search for Bin Laden From 9/11 to Abbottabad," as well as Panetta's book,
"Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace."
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