On this very day 25 years ago, that horrific attack took place. The attack carried out by terrorists on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in the United States changed the course of the world. After that attack, the sole objective of the U.S. government was to eliminate al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Nearly 10 years later, on May 2, 2011, the U.S. military killed Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in Pakistan.
The United States kept secret for a long time everything about how it found Bin Laden’s hideout and how it planned the operation to eliminate Osama. When those secrets came out, admiration for the American intelligence apparatus and for Bin Laden’s tactics grew even more.
This article depicts that ‘thrill’ hunt and Bin Laden’s final days...
In the early hours of May 2, 2011... those sleeping in the fortress-like Abbottabad house where bin Laden lived woke up to the sound of an explosion. Bin Laden’s 20-year-old daughter Maryam, who was sleeping on the first floor, got up and ran in panic to the second floor. She asked bin Laden, who was there, “What is happening?” Bin Laden told her, “Go downstairs and sleep,” then turned to his third wife Amal and said, “Whatever happens, don’t turn on the lights!” These were the last words bin Laden uttered in his life!
That night, when the U.S. military’s special assault unit, the SEALs, landed by helicopter in Abbottabad, someone had cut off the electricity supply in that area. Even the American intelligence officials who had located Osama himself could not figure out who that “someone” was who had cut the power.
On that moonless night, that “someone” may have thought that the darkness without electricity would make it easier for bin Laden to escape. But for the SEALs, that darkness turned out to be even more convenient.
Abbottabad, where Bin Laden was hiding, is a cool hill region like our own Kodaikanal. In this city, which lies along the foothills of the Himalayas, summer does not get very hot. Compared with other cities in Pakistan, crime is also low. The crowds are also smaller. That is why Bin Laden chose this place to live in hiding.
This house was built in 2005. Building permission was obtained only for the ground floor and the first floor. After that, a second floor was secretly built. It was on this floor that bin Laden stayed with his third wife, Amal. This floor was modestly sized, with a bedroom, a study room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, and it had windows only on one side wall. Even those were very high up—so that anyone looking from outside could not see the people inside.
There was a small open space outside this second-floor room. No one from outside could have seen bin Laden, who stood a towering 193 cm tall, even if he came here and walked around. The reason was that they had built a 2-meter-high wall that concealed this entire floor.
After living here for five years, bin Laden came down from this floor only a very few times. He would come out to walk in the vegetable garden on the side of the house. There was a walkway there. He would walk only in that spot. It was covered with a tarpaulin. This arrangement was to evade the surveillance of unmanned spy planes flying overhead.
For a man who had been roaming around mountains and caves, this was almost like prison life. But it also had some advantages. Life in a city that was not on America’s radar of suspicion. After a long gap, all three wives lived together with bin Laden here. Bin Laden married his eldest wife, Khairiya, in 1985. He was 28 then. His wife was 35. Khairiya had been a teacher who taught deaf and mute children. She held a Ph.D. degree.
Bin Laden’s second wife, Siham, was also a PhD researcher. A poet and intellectual, she was the one who edited his major speeches. When he married his third wife, Amal, Bin Laden was 43 years old, while Amal was 17. She gave birth to five of Bin Laden’s children. Two of them were born in Abbottabad.
For the 24 people living in that house, two goats were slaughtered each week. They raised 100 chickens in the garden for eggs. Cows were also kept for milk. They kept beehives and collected honey as well. Vegetables and cucumbers were grown in the garden. To bring in the other necessary supplies, Osama’s trusted courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, had a jeep.
The Abbottabad house where bin Laden lived for five years before being shot and killed was more like a temporary military camp. There were no pictures, not even simple landscape photos, hanging on any of the house’s walls. There was no AC; no heater. And Abbottabad is a place where winters bring heavy snowfall and summers are very hot. Even though 24 people lived in the three-story house, the electricity bill came to only about Rs. 2,500 a month.
There was nothing luxurious in that house. Everyone had only ordinary wooden beds. Bin Laden’s three wives each had separate kitchens. The kitchens and bedrooms of the two elder wives were on the first floor, while the third wife Amal had a kitchen on the second floor.
Bin Laden’s courier, al-Kuwaiti, and his brother lived in this compound with their families. The outbuilding they lived in was behind the house where Bin Laden stayed. The two houses were separated by a 2-meter-high wall. Al-Kuwaiti and his brother were paid only 12,000 rupees a month. This shows that the al-Qaeda organization was struggling with a shortage of funds.
Al-Qaida leader al-Kuwaiti’s wife, Mariam, had gone inside the large house where bin Laden was staying only once in the past five years, last year, to clean it. At that time, she had also seen bin Laden. But she did not recognize him. Al-Kuwaiti had not told them who their employer was either. So bin Laden had lived in hiding without even some of the people in his own house knowing who he was.
For Bin Laden’s height, the ceiling of the second-floor bedroom he stayed in would have hit his head. A very simple bathroom, with tiles only on the walls and an ordinary plastic shower fixture that sold for fifty rupees... “Just For Men” hair dye was Bin Laden’s favorite brand. Even at 65, he used it on his hair and beard to maintain a youthful appearance.
Bin Laden spent most of his time on the computer. Bin Laden’s computer was in the corner of the study room adjoining the second-floor hall. There was neither a telephone connection nor an internet connection in that house. If both had been there, Bin Laden would have been caught long ago. Bin Laden’s habit was to type the letters he sent to his fighters and others on this computer and have them delivered through al-Qahtani. Since he had also ordered the others not to use the phone or the internet, it would take at least two months for a letter to go from Bin Laden and for a reply to come back. It is hard to believe that al-Qaeda operated using such an ancient technique, like tying a message to a pigeon’s leg.
To tell the truth, after escaping from the Tora Bora mountain caves in Afghanistan in 2001, the U.S. forces did not know where Laden went afterward. After going to the Kunar forests in northern Afghanistan, Laden crossed the border and came to Peshawar in Pakistan. From there, he went to a mountain village called Shangla and stayed there for a year.
Next came two years of life in the small town of Haripur, near Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. Once the Abbottabad house was ready, we came here!
In 2009, then U.S. President Obama appointed Leon Panetta as director of the American intelligence agency, the CIA. His order to Panetta was: “Capturing bin Laden, alive or dead, is more important than the war against al-Qaeda.”
15 months later, in August 2010, Panetta came to see Obama with good news. “We have identified a house where bin Laden’s trusted courier, al-Kuwaiti, lives. Bin Laden may also be in that house, which has a five-meter-high compound wall.” That was the news. In other words, the United States had found bin Laden’s location eight months before killing him.
Now how to kill bin Laden? Obama had four options before him... Kill him by firing a 230-kilogram missile from an unmanned aircraft called a drone. Or kill him by dropping 9,000-kilogram bombs from a B-2 fighter jet—bombs that strike with laser-guided precision—or send American troops to the Abbottabad house and kill him, or finally carry out a joint attack with the help of the Pakistani army! Choosing among these was extremely difficult.
When the information came that the person hiding in the Abbottabad house might be bin Laden, U.S. President Barack Obama did not give the order to “attack.” If something had gone wrong and bin Laden had escaped, he might have had to step down from the presidency itself. So he told them to do two things. The first was to keep it secret. Only eight people, including Obama, knew about it. They made sure that no official file was created for this.
The second thing was to make sure it was indeed bin Laden. CIA operatives were deployed in Pakistan. A tiny surveillance drone, about the size of an eagle, began monitoring that house around the clock. A CIA agent would rummage through the garbage bin at that street corner every day, looking for anything useful.
They also staged a drama using a local doctor named Shakeel Afridi. This doctor, who went with a medical team and vaccinated the children in that area, then went on to vaccinate bin Laden’s children and grandchildren as well, and collected their blood samples. (The fact that this doctor was later arrested by the Pakistani government is a separate tragic story!) They compared these samples with genetic material taken from the blood sample of another of bin Laden’s sons and conducted tests, confirming that bin Laden might be inside that house.
The tall man suspected to be Bin Laden was nicknamed “Pacer” by the CIA because he would come into his garden at night and walk briskly back and forth.
American officials turned all the doubts they had about attacking bin Laden into questions, prepared answers for them, and even got an entire book ready, nearly 3 inches thick. By December 2010, they had solid answers ready for every question, all the way down to, “What should be done with bin Laden’s body?”
Meanwhile, President Obama’s options for how to kill bin Laden were steadily narrowing. In January 2011, Pakistani police arrested a CIA contractor named Raymond Davis, an American, in a murder case. This caused the U.S. government to become bitter toward Pakistan. Obama concluded that such a secret operation could not be carried out by bringing in the military of a country that was not trustworthy. So it was decided to carry out the attack inside Pakistan without its knowledge.
Bombing and killing through unmanned aircraft is the next option. The CIA developed the technology for dropping bombs using reconnaissance aircraft specifically for bin Laden. For the U.S. military or intelligence agencies, it is impossible to track down and attack a person wandering without a fixed location in Arab countries by going after him on the ground! That is why they developed and refined this unmanned aerial attack method. This aircraft can drop a 230-kilogram bomb on target with 90 percent accuracy. Obama rejected this option too. The reasons for this were also discussed.
There was doubt whether a 230-kilogram bomb would be enough to kill bin Laden. If bin Laden were hiding in an underground room built with strong concrete walls, he might survive the bomb. Even if bin Laden were killed in that attack, Pakistan might refuse to hand over the body if asked. Then the United States would have no evidence that bin Laden had been killed. Al-Qaeda could also spread propaganda saying, “Bin Laden is alive.” In addition, all the evidence related to al-Qaeda at bin Laden’s hideout would be destroyed. Without that evidence, the organization could not be rooted out.
James Cartwright, then Deputy Chief of Staff of the U.S. armed forces, insisted that the best way was to bomb and kill from a B-2 bomber. The strategy he proposed was terrifying. “If 32 bombs weighing 9,000 kilograms are dropped around that compound, the building will be reduced to rubble. Even if there is a tunnel room 20 feet underground, these bombs will crush that too. Bin Laden will have no way to escape,” he said.
But in this attack, all 24 people in that house, including the women and children, would die; there would also be heavy loss of life in neighboring houses; and the Pakistan Military Academy was located within shouting distance of the house where bin Laden was hiding. If the remnants of this bomb fell there, it would be just like dropping a bomb on relations between the two countries! So everyone rejected this.
Even after such a detailed discussion, no one was prepared to believe with 100 percent certainty that the person in the Abbottabad house was bin Laden. CIA Director Leon Panetta believed it 80 percent. Joe Biden, who was then the U.S. vice president and is now president, did not believe it even 40 percent.
* On March 29, 2011, then-President Obama decided to reject other attack options and send in the ‘Seals’ special forces to kill bin Laden. The SEALs rehearsed the assault to be carried out inside bin Laden’s house at a secret location in the United States.
* One week before the attack took place — that is, on April 25 — WikiLeaks released some secret letters. These were published in the “New York Times” newspaper and on its website. They also included details of interrogations conducted with imprisoned al-Qaeda detainees. Among them was a statement by a senior al-Qaeda figure saying, “I had gone to Abbottabad after receiving a letter delivered by one of bin Laden’s official couriers.” If bin Laden had seen this, he might have realized that the United States had discovered his hiding place and escaped. But because there was no internet connection, bin Laden was unlikely to have read it.
* 11 p.m. on Sunday, May 1, 2011. Two Black Hawk helicopters took off from the Jalalabad military base in Afghanistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan are half an hour apart. It was 11:30 p.m. in Pakistan then. Everyone in Bin Laden’s house had finished dinner and gone to sleep.
* The SEAL team had 23 members, along with a translator who knew Arabic and Urdu. They had photographs and notes of 24 people who were believed to be inside bin Laden’s house. They also had a dog named “Cairo” with them.
* These helicopters were coated with a special paint to avoid detection by radar. The tail-mounted engines were also specially modified, so they made less noise. In addition, to evade Pakistani surveillance, they flew very low, almost just above the trees. They covered the 250 km distance in an hour and a half.
* The first helicopter tried to land in Bin Laden’s house compound. At that time, its tail section brushed against the compound wall, and the tail rotor became inoperative. Because the pilot landed it skillfully, none of the soldiers were injured. The plan was to drop some soldiers onto the rooftop using the second helicopter. But since the first helicopter had gone wrong, this plan was changed. It landed in a distant field.
* Three soldiers jumped out of the helicopter, which had initially landed unsteadily, and ran into the house. Hearing the noise, the courier of bin Laden who was living in the outhouse, Kuwaiti, got up, and two bullets killed him. His wife was shot in the shoulder and injured. Kuwaiti had an AK-47. But he could not pick it up. After that, those who entered the outhouse killed Kuwaiti’s brother Abrar and his wife Bushra, who were on the ground floor of the house. Because a modern silencer had been fitted, not a sound was heard.
* Meanwhile, the other SEALs surrounded the house where bin Laden was hiding and blew open the doors here and there with explosives.
* Cameras mounted on the helmets of the SEALs were sending live images of the assault back to the United States. Two miles above bin Laden’s house, a bat-shaped unmanned surveillance aircraft was flying. It captured the assault footage with precision. From the White House, President Obama and others were watching these scenes.
* Bin Laden’s 23-year-old son Khalid, who was on the first floor, was shot dead by the soldiers. The other 17 people at the compound, including bin Laden’s two senior wives, children, and grandchildren, were evacuated.
* As soon as the first helicopter wobbled and landed, bin Laden woke up. But he could do nothing. The windows, placed high so that no one outside could see anyone inside, turned out to be a disadvantage for him. In the darkness, with no moonlight and no electricity, he spent 15 agonizing minutes. When his daughter first came asking, “What was that noise?”, he reassured her, “Go back to sleep.” But when he heard his son being shot and screaming, he opened the iron door on the second floor and peered out. The SEALs who had climbed the stairs saw him. Bin Laden backed away without closing the door, and the soldiers quickly chased after him. Seeing them, a screaming Amal stood in front of her husband, and they shot her in the leg to move her aside. Bullets struck the unarmed bin Laden in the chest and left eye, and death occurred on the spot.
* Even though there was an AK-47 rifle and a pistol on the bedroom shelf, and even though he had enough time to pick them up, Bin Laden did not try to shoot the American soldiers. There were no secret rooms or escape tunnels in that house. Bin Laden, who had been living in the belief that he would receive advance warning when danger approached, never got any warning until the very end!