It was perhaps the biggest and most expensive manhunt in history. The SEAL who ended it tells about those final moments.
Here are some of the highlights:
In an exclusive extract from Robert O’Neill’s book, The Operator, he tells how he and his comrades, an elite team of US Navy Seals, found bin Laden in a high-security compound
…The door opened. As we entered, it was all dawning on me: “Holy s***, we’re here, that’s Bin Laden’s house. This is so cool. We’re probably not going to live, but this is historic and I’m going to savor this.”
…OK, I thought. The women are martyring themselves. This is definitely the right place. We entered the main building. The floor was a long hallway with rooms off to the sides and a barricaded door on the far end. In a spot like this, you clear the rooms, in order, and spend the least possible amount of time in the hallway.
…The point man thought it through beautifully – Khalid knew somebody was nearby but he didn’t know we were Americans for sure. In no more than a whisper, my guy uttered a phrase he had learned before the mission began, in both of the languages Bin Laden’s son spoke, Arabic and Urdu – “Khalid, come here”.
Khalid, confused by hearing his name called, poked his head around the banister and said: “What?”
That was his final word. The point man shot him in the face. The bullet entered above the chin and exited out the back of his head. Khalid dropped. The train started moving up the stairs to the second floor, with me in the back. Everybody except the point man started clearing rooms on the second floor.
The point man kept his gun trained on the top of the stairs to the third floor, which was right in front of him, with a curtain hanging over the entryway. I moved up behind him and put my hand on his shoulder. There were only two of us left. This was it.
…I turned to the right and looked into an adjoining room. Osama bin Laden stood near the entrance at the foot of the bed, taller and thinner than I’d expected, his beard shorter and hair whiter. He had a woman in front of him, his hands on her shoulders. In less than a second, I aimed above the woman’s right shoulder and pulled the trigger twice. Bin Laden’s head split open and he dropped. I put another bullet in his head. Insurance.
The woman, who turned out to be Amal, the youngest of Bin Laden’s four wives, fell on top of me. I carried her over to the bed.
For the first time, I noticed a little boy, Bin Laden’s youngest son, a two-year-old, tottering in a corner of the room. He’d watched the whole thing, but it was so dark and he was so young he didn’t know what was going on, except that it wasn’t good. –Read the rest HERE.
OBL. His name rose to the same level of malice and contempt as Hitler.
And now, because of this team? He’s fish food.
Good riddance to him and all others like him.
