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!
