SEALS tell of killing ‘Bin’
Laden
Upset by the official account, US Navy SEALS reveal the
truth of the
raid that killed Osama Bin Laden,
nicknames and all
Osama Bin Laden was killed within 90 seconds of the
US Navy Seals landing in his compound and not after a protracted gun battle,
according to the first account by the men who carried out the raid. The
operation was so clinical that only 12 bullets were fired. The
Seals have spoken out because they were angered at the version given by
politicians, which they see as portraying them as cold-blooded murderers on a
“kill mission”. They were also shocked that President Barack Obama announced Bin
Laden’s death on television the same evening, rendering useless much of the
intelligence they had seized.
Chuck Pfarrer, a former commander of Seal Team 6, which conducted
the operation, has interviewed many of those who took part for a book, Seal
Target Geronimo, to be published in the USA this
week.
The Seals’ own accounts differ from the White House version, which
gave the impression that Bin Laden was killed at the end of the operation rather
than in its opening seconds. Pfarrer insists Bin Laden would have been captured
had he surrendered.
“There isn’t a politician in the world who could resist trying to
take credit for getting Bin Laden but it devalued the ‘intel’ and gave time for
every other Al-Qaeda leader to scurry to another bolt hole,” said Pfarrer. “The
men who did this and their valorous act deserve better. It’s a pretty shabby way
to treat these guys.”
The first hint of the mission came in January last year when the
team’s commanding officer was called to a meeting at the headquarters of joint
special operations command. The meeting was held in a soundproof bunker three
stories below ground with his boss, Admiral William McRaven, and a CIA officer.
They told him a walled compound in Pakistan had been under surveillance for a
couple of weeks. They were certain a high-value individual was inside and needed
a plan to present to the president. It had to be someone important. “So is this
Bert or Ernie?” he asked. The Seals’ nicknames for Bin Laden and his deputy
Ayman al-Zawahiri are a reference to two Muppets in Sesame Street, one tall and
thin and the other short and fat. “We have a voice print,” said the CIA officer,
“and we’re 60% or 70% certain it’s our guy.” McRaven added that a reconnaissance
satellite had measured the target’s shadow. “Over 6ft
tall.”
When McRaven added they would use Ghost Hawk helicopters, the team
leader had no doubt. “These are the most classified, sophisticated stealth
helicopters ever developed,” said Pfarrer. “They are kept in locked hangars and
fly so quiet we call it ‘whisper mode’.” Over the next couple of months a plan
was hatched. A mock-up of the compound was built at Tall Pines, an army facility
in a national forest somewhere in the eastern US. Four reconnaissance satellites
were placed in orbit over the compound, sending back video and communications
intercepts. A tall figure seen walking up and down was named “the
Pacer”.
Obama gave the go-ahead and Seal Team 6, known as the Jedi, was
deployed to Afghanistan . The White House canceled plans to provide air cover
using jet fighters, fearing this might endanger relations with Pakistan .
Sending in the Ghost Hawks without air cover was considered too risky so the
Seals had to use older Stealth Hawks. A Prowler electronic warfare aircraft from
the carrier USS Carl Vinson was used to jam Pakistan’s radar and create decoy
targets. Operation Neptune’s Spear was initially planned for April 30 but bad
weather delayed it until May 1, a moonless night. The commandos flew on two
Stealth Hawks, code named Razor 1 and 2, followed by two Chinooks five minutes
behind, known as “Command Bird” and the “gun platform”. On board, each Seal was
clad in body armor and night vision goggles and equipped with laser targets,
radios and sawn-off M4 rifles. They were expecting up to 30 people in the main
house, including Bin Laden and three of his wives, two sons, Khalid and Hamza,
his courier, Abu Ahmed al- Kuwaiti, four bodyguards and a number of children. At
56 minutes past midnight the compound came into sight and the code “ Palm Beach
” signaled three minutes to landing. Razor 1 hovered above the main house, a
three-story building where Bin Laden lived on the top floor. Twelve Seals
abseiled the 5ft-6ft down onto the roof and then jumped to a third-floor patio,
where they kicked in the windows and entered. The first person the Seals
encountered was a terrified woman, Bin Laden’s third wife, Khaira, who ran into
the hall. Blinded by a searing white strobe light they shone at her, she
stumbled back. A Seal grabbed her by the arm and threw her to the floor. Bin
Laden’s bedroom was along a short hall. The door opened; he popped out and then
slammed the door shut.
“Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo,” radioed one Seal, meaning “eyes on
target”. At the same time lights came on from the floor below and Bin Laden’s
son Khalid came running up the stairs towards the Seals. He was shot
dead.
Two Seals kicked in Bin Laden’s door. The room, they later
recalled, “smelt like old clothing, like a guest bedroom in a grandmother’s
house”. Inside was the Al-Qaeda leader and his youngest wife, Amal, who was
screaming as he pushed her in front of him. “No, no, don’t do this!” she shouted
as her husband reached across the king-size bed for his AK-47 assault rifle. The
Seals reacted instantly, firing in the same second. One round thudded into the
mattress. The other, aimed at Bin Laden’s head, grazed Amal in the calf. As his
hand reached for the gun, they each fired again: one shot hit his breastbone,
the other his skull, killing him instantly and blowing out the back of his
head.
Meanwhile Razor 2 was heading for the guest house, a low, shoe
box-like building, where Bin Laden’s courier, Kuwaiti, and his brother lived. As
the helicopter neared, a door opened and two figures appeared, one waving an
AK-47. This was Kuwaiti. In the moonless night he could see nothing and lifted
his rifle, spraying bullets wildly. He did not see the Stealth
Hawk.
On board someone shouted, “Bust him!”, and a sniper fired two
shots. Kuwaiti was killed, as was the person behind him, who turned out to be
his wife. Also on board were a CIA agent, a Pakistani- American who would act as
interpreter, and a sniffer dog called Karo, wearing dog body armor and goggles.
Within two minutes the Seals from Razor 2 had cleared the guesthouse and removed
the women and children. They then ran to the main house and entered from the
ground floor, checking the rooms. One of Bin Laden’s bodyguards was waiting with
his AK-47. The Seals shot him twice and he toppled
over.
Five minutes into the operation the command Chinook landed outside
the compound, disgorging the commanding officer and more men. They blasted
through the compound wall and rushed in. The commander made his way to the third
floor, where Bin Laden’s body lay on the floor face up. Photographs were taken,
and the commander called on his satellite phone to headquarters with the words:
“Geronimo Echo KIA” — Bin Laden enemy killed in
action.
“This was the first time the White House knew he was dead and it
was probably 20 minutes into the raid,” said
Pfarrer.
A sample of Bin Laden’s DNA was taken and the body was bagged.
They kept his rifle. It is now mounted on the wall of their team room at their
headquarters in Virginia Beach , Virginia , alongside photographs of a dozen
colleagues killed in action in the past 20
years.
At this point things started to go wrong. Razor 1 took off but the
top secret “green unit” that controls the electronics failed. The aircraft went
into a spin and crashed tail-first into the compound. The Seals were alarmed,
thinking it had been shot down and several rushed to the wreckage. The crew
climbed out, shaken but unharmed. The commanding officer ordered them to destroy
Razor 2, to remove the green unit, and to smash the avionics. They then laid
explosive charges.
They loaded Bin Laden’s body onto the Chinook along with the cache
of intelligence in plastic bin bags and headed toward the USS Carl Vinson. As
they flew off they blew up Razor 2. The whole operation had taken 38
minutes.
The following morning White House officials announced that the
helicopter had crashed as it arrived, forcing the Seals to abandon plans to
enter from the roof. A photograph of the situation room showed a shocked Hillary
Clinton, the secretary of state, with her hand to her
mouth.
Why did they get it so wrong? What they were watching was live
video but it was shot from 20,000 ft by a drone circling overhead and relayed in
real time to the White House and Leon Panetta, the CIA director, in Langley. The
Seals were not wearing helmet cameras, and those watching in Washington had no
idea what was happening inside the buildings. “They don’t understand our
terminology, so when someone said the ‘insertion helicopter’ has crashed, they
assumed it meant on entry,” said Pfarrer.
What infuriated the Seals, according to Pfarrer, was the
description of the raid as a kill mission. “I’ve been a Seal for 30 years and
Inever heard the words ‘kill mission’,” he said. “It’s a Beltway [
Washington insider’s] fantasy word. If it was a 'kill mission' you don’t need
Seal Team 6; you need a box of hand
grenades.”
