Killing of Osama bin Laden

Accounts of how bin Laden was located by U.S. intelligence differ. The White House and CIA director John Brennan stated that the process began with a fragment of information unearthed in 2002, resulting in years of investigation. This account states that by September 2010, these leads followed a courier to the Abbottabad compound, where the U.S. began intensive surveillance. Identity of courier Identification of al-Qaeda couriers was an early priority for interrogators at CIA black sites and the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, because bin Laden was believed to communicate through such couriers while concealing his whereabouts from al-Qaeda foot soldiers and top commanders. The U.S. official had stated that by 2002, interrogators had heard uncorroborated claims about an al-Qaeda courier with the kunya Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (sometimes referred to as Sheikh Abu Ahmed from Kuwait). Later in 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged operational chief of al-Qaeda, said he was acquainted with al-Kuwaiti but that the man was not active in al-Qaeda, according to a U.S. official. Ghul said al-Kuwaiti was close to bin Laden as well as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Mohammed's successor Abu Faraj al-Libbi. Ghul revealed that al-Kuwaiti had not been seen in some time, which led U.S. officials to suspect he was traveling with bin Laden. When confronted with Ghul's account, Mohammed maintained his original story. The name Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan appears in the leaked JTF-GTMO detainee assessment for Abu Faraj al-Libbi, but the CIA never found anyone named Maulawi Jan and concluded that the name was an invention of al-Libbi. Bin Laden's compound The CIA used surveillance photos and intelligence reports to determine the identities of the inhabitants of the Abbottabad compound to which the courier was traveling. In September 2010, the CIA concluded that the compound was custom-built to hide someone of significance, very likely bin Laden. Intelligence gathering aerial photo of the compound The CIA led the effort to surveil and gather intelligence on the compound; other critical roles in the operation were played by other United States agencies, including the National Security Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and U.S. Defense Department. to gather intelligence on the compound. The safe house was abandoned immediately after bin Laden's death. drone before, during and after the raid on the compound. The NGA created three-dimensional renderings of the house, created schedules describing residential traffic patterns, and assessed the number, height and gender of the residents of the compound. Also involved in the intelligence gathering measures were an arm of the National Security Agency known as the Tailored Access Operations group which, among other things, is specialized in surreptitiously installing spyware and tracking devices on targeted computers and mobile-phone networks. Because of the work of the Tailored Access Operations group, the NSA could collect intelligence from mobile phones that were used by al-Qaeda operatives and other "persons of interest" in the hunt for bin Laden. The CIA used a process called "red teaming" on the collected intelligence to independently review the circumstantial evidence and available facts of their case that bin Laden was living at the Abbottabad compound. An administration official said, "We conducted red-team exercises and other forms of alternative analysis to check our work. No other candidate fit the bill as well as bin Laden did." Despite what officials described as an extraordinarily concentrated collection effort leading up to the operation, no U.S. spy agency was ever able to capture a photograph of bin Laden at the compound before the raid or a recording of the voice of the mysterious male figure whose family occupied the structure's top two floors. == Operation Neptune Spear ==

The official mission code name was Operation Neptune Spear, a direct nod to the U.S. Navy SEAL Trident (the Special Warfare insignia). In Roman mythology, Neptune is the god of the sea, and his weapon is the three-pronged spear, or trident. Planning and final decision The CIA briefed Vice Admiral William H. McRaven, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), about the compound in January 2011. The admiral was both a student and practitioner of special operations, having published a thesis on the subject during the 1990s. His theory held that special operations had the potential to be very effective in achieving their goal if they were organized and commanded by special operations professionals rather than being subsumed into larger military units or operations. He believed that such actions required that "relative superiority" be gained during the operation in question via characteristics such as simplicity, security, rehearsals, surprise, speed, and a clearly-but-narrowly defined purpose. In addition to a helicopter raid, planners considered attacking the compound with B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. They also considered a joint operation with Pakistani forces. Obama decided that the Pakistani government and military could not be trusted to maintain operational security for the operation against bin Laden. "There was a real lack of confidence that the Pakistanis could keep this secret for more than a nanosecond", a senior adviser to the president told The New Yorker. McRaven hand-picked a team consisting of the most experienced and senior operators from Red Squadron, one of four that make up DEVGRU. Red Squadron was coming home from Afghanistan and could be redirected without attracting attention. The team had language skills and experience with cross-border operations into Pakistan. Without being told the exact nature of their mission, the team performed rehearsals of the raid in two locations in the U.S.—around April 10 at Harvey Point Defense Testing Activity facility in North Carolina where a 1:1 version of bin Laden's compound was built (), and April 18 in Nevada. If bin Laden surrendered, he would be held near Bagram Air Base. If the SEALs were discovered by the Pakistanis in the middle of the raid, Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen would call Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and try to negotiate their release. Gates advocated using the drone-missile option but changed his support the next day to the helicopter-raid plan. Obama said he wanted to speak directly to Admiral McRaven before he gave the order to proceed. The president asked if McRaven had learned anything since arriving in Afghanistan that caused him to lose confidence in the mission. McRaven told him the team was ready and that the next few nights would have a waning moon, good conditions for a raid. On May 1 at 1:22 p.m., Panetta, acting on the president's orders, directed McRaven to move forward with the operation. Shortly after 3 p.m., the president joined national security officials in the Situation Room to monitor the raid. They watched night-vision images taken from a Sentinel drone while Panetta, appearing in the corner of the screen from CIA headquarters, narrated what was happening. Two other command centers monitored the raid from the U.S. Department of Defense headquarters at the Pentagon and the U.S. embassy in Islamabad. == Execution of the operation ==

Approach and entry , showing the high concrete walls that surrounded the compound The raid was carried out by approximately two dozen heliborne U.S. Navy SEALs from DEVGRU's Red Squadron. For legal reasons (namely that the U.S. was not at war with Pakistan), the military personnel assigned to the mission were temporarily transferred to the control of the civilian Central Intelligence Agency. The SEALs operated in teams and used weapons including the HK416 assault rifle (their primary weapon), the Mark 48 machine gun for fire support, and the MP7 Chesney and Cairo had already worked together on and off for several years. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), a U.S. Army Special Operations Command unit known as the "Night Stalkers," provided the two modified Black Hawk helicopters that were used for the raid itself, as well as the much larger Chinook heavy-lift helicopters that were employed as backups. As they hovered above the target the first helicopter experienced a hazardous airflow condition known as a vortex ring state. This was aggravated by higher-than-expected air temperature An intelligence official told journalist Seymour Hersh in 2015 that no firefight took place. In the earlier versions, Al-Kuwaiti is said to have opened fire on the first team of SEALs with an AK-47 from behind the guesthouse door, lightly injuring a SEAL with bullet fragments. A short firefight took place between al-Kuwaiti and the SEALs, in which al-Kuwaiti was killed. The courier's male relative Abrar was then said to have been shot and killed by the SEALs' second team on the first floor of the main house as shots had already been fired and the SEALs thought that he was armed with a loaded AK-47 (this was later confirmed in the official report). A woman near him, later identified as Abrar's wife Bushra, was in this version also shot and killed. Bin Laden's young adult son is said to have encountered the SEALs on the staircase of the main house, and to have been shot and killed by the second team. Killing of bin Laden The SEALs encountered bin Laden on the third floor of the main building. states that he pushed past the lead SEAL, entered through the door and confronted bin Laden inside the bedroom. O'Neill states that bin Laden was standing behind a woman with his hands on her shoulders, pushing her forward. O'Neill immediately shot bin Laden twice in the forehead, then once more as bin Laden crumpled to the floor. Bissonnette gives a conflicting account of the situation, writing that bin Laden had already been mortally wounded by the lead SEAL's shots from the staircase. The lead SEAL then pushed bin Laden's wives aside, attempting to shield the SEALs behind him in case either woman had an explosive device. After bin Laden staggered back or fell into the bedroom, Bissonnette and O'Neill entered the room, saw the wounded bin Laden on the ground, fired multiple rounds, and killed him. Journalist Peter Bergen investigated the conflicting claims and found that most of the SEALs present during the raid favored Bissonnette's account of the events. According to Bergen's sources, O'Neill did not mention firing the shots that killed bin Laden in the after-action report made following the operation. The weapon used to kill bin Laden was an HK416 using 5.56mm NATO 77-grain OTM (open-tip match) rounds. The SEAL team leader radioed, "For God and country—Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo" and then, after being prompted by McRaven for confirmation, "Geronimo EKIA" (enemy killed in action). Watching the operation in the White House Situation Room, Obama simply said, "We got him." According to the Associated Press, the guns were on a shelf next to the door and the SEALs did not see them until they were photographing the body. As the SEALs encountered women and children during the raid, they restrained them with plastic handcuffs or zip ties. The SEALs also discovered a large amount of opium stored in the house. While the official Department of Defense narrative did not mention the airbases used in the operation, Burial of bin Laden According to U.S. officials, bin Laden was buried at sea because no country would accept his remains. In Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace, • Facial recognition software: A photograph transmitted by the SEALs to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, for facial recognition analysis yielded a 90 to 95 percent likely match. • Inference: Per the same DoD official, from the initial review of the materials removed from the Abbottabad compound the Department "assessed that much of this information, including personal correspondence between Osama bin Laden and others, as well as some of the video footage ... would only have been in his possession." Local accounts Beginning at 12:58 a.m. local time (19:58 UTC), Abbottabad resident Sohaib Athar sent a series of tweets starting with "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)." By 1:44 a.m. all was quiet until a plane flew over the city at 3:39 a.m. == Aftermath ==

Leaks of the news digital board in Times Square after Bin Laden's death Around 9:45 p.m. EDT, the White House announced that the president would be addressing the nation later in the evening. Anonymous government officials confirmed details to the media, and by 11 p.m. numerous major news sources were reporting that bin Laden was dead; the number of leaks were characterized as "voluminous" by David E. Sanger. U.S. presidential address address (9:28) Also available: Audio only, At 11:35 p.m., President Obama appeared on major television networks: In Tampa, Florida, at the conclusion of a professional wrestling event which was occurring at the time, WWE Champion John Cena announced to the audience that bin Laden had been "caught and compromised to a permanent end," prompting chants while he exited the arena to the march "The Stars and Stripes Forever." The deputy leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said that, with bin Laden dead, Western forces should now pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan; authorities in Iran made similar comments. A CBS/The New York Times poll taken after bin Laden's death showed that 16% of Americans feel safer as the result of his death while 60% of Americans of those polled believe killing bin Laden would likely increase the threat of terrorism against the U.S. in the short term. In India, Minister for Home Affairs P. Chidambaram said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan." He also called on Pakistan to arrest them, amidst calls for similar strikes being conducted by India against Hafiz Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim. Numerous organizations filed FOIA requests seeking at least a partial release of photographs, videos and DNA test results including The Associated Press, Reuters, CBS News, Judicial Watch, Politico, Fox News, Citizens United, and NPR. On April 26, 2012, Judge James E. Boasberg held that the Department of Defense was not required to release any evidence to the public. According to a draft report by the Pentagon's inspector general, Admiral William McRaven, the top special operations commander, ordered the Department of Defense to purge from its computer systems all files on the bin Laden raid after first sending them to the CIA. Any mention of this decision was expunged from the final version of the inspector general's report. Golson said it is absolutely false that records were moved to the CIA to avoid the legal requirements of the Freedom of Information Act. The inspector general's draft report also described how former secretary of defense Leon Panetta disclosed classified information to the makers of Zero Dark Thirty, including the unit that conducted the raid and the ground commander's name. Legality Under U.S. law Following the attacks of September 11, the U.S. Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, which authorized the president to use "necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons" he determines were involved in the attacks. Congresswoman Barbara Lee has initiated several attempts to repeal the authorization. The Obama administration justified its use of force by relying on that resolution, as well as international law set forth in treaties and customary laws of war. and that "killing a captive who poses no immediate threat is a crime under military law as well as all other law," a view also held by legal scholar Philippe Sands. but that "it's neither true nor correct to claim that there was nobody in the Muslim world ready to receive bin Laden's body." Omar bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, published a complaint on May 10, 2011, that the burial at sea deprived the family of a proper burial. Bin Laden's will After bin Laden's death, it was reported he had left a will written a short time after the September 11 attacks in which he urged his children not to join al-Qaeda and not to continue the Jihad. Release of photographs CNN cited a senior U.S. official as saying three sets of photographs of bin Laden's body exist: photos taken at an aircraft hangar in Afghanistan, described as the most recognizable and gruesome; photos taken from the burial at sea on before a shroud was placed around his body; and photos from the raid itself, which include shots of the interior of the compound as well as three of the others who died in the raid. CNN stated that the pictures from the Afghanistan hangar depict "a massive open head wound across both eyes. It's very bloody and gory." Those supporting the release argued that the photos should be considered public records, that they are necessary to complete the journalistic record, and that they would prove bin Laden's death and therefore prevent conspiracy theories. Those in opposition expressed concern that the photos would inflame anti-American sentiment in the Middle East. Obama decided not to release the photos. On May 11, selected members of Congress (the congressional leadership and those who serve on the House and Senate intelligence, homeland security, judiciary, foreign relations, and armed forces committees) were shown 15 bin Laden photos. In an interview with Eliot Spitzer, Senator Jim Inhofe said that three of the photos were of bin Laden alive for identification reference. Three other photos were of the burial-at-sea ceremony. The group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain access to the photos in May 2011, soon after the raid. In 2012, Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling denying release of the photographs. In May 2013, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit consisting of Chief Judge Merrick Garland, Senior Judge Harry T. Edwards, and Judge Judith Rogers affirmed the ruling, holding that 52 post-mortem images were properly classified as "top secret" and exempt from disclosure. Judicial Watch filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in August 2013, seeking U.S. Supreme Court review, but in January 2014 the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The Associated Press filed an FOIA request for photographs and videos taken during the Abbottabad raid less than one day after bin Laden was killed. The AP also requested "contingency plans for bin Laden's capture, reports on the performance of equipment during the mission and copies of DNA tests" confirming bin Laden's identity. These helicopters, which were used only by elite U.S. special-operations units (namely the U.S. Navy's DEVGRU and the U.S. Army's Delta Force), were colloquially called Ghost Hawks due to their advanced stealth functions. Two SEALs broke through the bedroom door. Bin Laden's wife Amal was on the edge of the bed shouting in Arabic at the SEALs, and Osama bin Laden dived across the bed, shoving Amal at the same time, for an AKS-74U kept by the headboard. The SEALs fired four shots at bin Laden; the first missed, the second grazed Amal in the calf also missing bin Laden, and the final two hit bin Laden in the chest and head, killing him instantly. In Pfarrer's account, the total time elapsed from jumping on the roof to Osama bin Laden's death was between 30 and 90 seconds. The U.S. Special Operations Command also disputed Pfarrer's account, saying, "It's just not true. It's not how it happened." No Easy Day Matt Bissonnette, a SEAL who participated in the raid, wrote an account of the mission in the book No Easy Day (2012), which significantly contradicts Pfarrer's account. Bissonnette wrote that the helicopter approach and landing matched the official version. According to Bissonnette, when bin Laden peered out at the Americans advancing on his third-floor room, the SEAL who fired upon him hit him on the right side of the head. Bin Laden stumbled into his bedroom, where the SEALs found him crumpled and twitching on the floor in a pool of blood and brain matter, with two women crying over his body. The other SEALs allegedly grabbed the women, moved them away, and shot several rounds into bin Laden's chest until he was motionless. According to Bissonnette, the weapons in the room—an AK-47 rifle and a Makarov pistol—were unloaded. Unlike the official account, Bissonnette's version alleges that bin Laden's wife Mariam was uninjured in the raid. In addition, Bissonnette states that the report of bin Laden's daughter Safia having splintered wood striking her foot is false, as he explains that it was rather his wife Amal who was injured by such fragments. Bissonnette stated that a search of bin Laden's room after his death uncovered a bottle of Just for Men hair dye. Esquire interview In February 2013, Esquire conducted an interview with an anonymous individual called "the shooter" who said that bin Laden placed one of his wives between himself and the commandos, pushing her towards them. "Shooter" then claimed bin Laden stood up and had a gun "within reach" and it was only then that he fired two shots into bin Laden's forehead, killing him. Then, in November 2014, former SEAL Robert O'Neill disclosed his identity as the shooter in a series of interviews with The Washington Post. According to The Daily Telegraph, Hillhouse's account might explain why U.S. forces encountered no resistance on their way to and in Abbottabad, and why some residents in Abbottabad were warned to stay in their houses the day before the raid. In May 2015, a detailed article in the London Review of Books by journalist Seymour Hersh said that the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had kept bin Laden under house arrest at Abbottabad since 2006, and that Pakistani Army chief Pervez Kayani and ISI director Ahmad Shuja Pasha aided the U.S. mission to kill, not capture bin Laden. According to Hersh, Pakistani officials were always aware of bin Laden's location and were guarding the compound with their own soldiers. Pakistan decided to give up bin Laden's location to the U.S. because American aid was declining. Pakistani officials were aware of the raid, and assisted the U.S. in carrying it out. According to Hersh, bin Laden was basically an invalid. Hersh's U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources stated that the U.S. had learned of bin Laden's location through a Pakistani walk-in seeking the $25 million reward, and not through tracking a courier. NBC News and Agence France-Presse subsequently reported that their sources indicated a walk-in was an extremely valuable asset, though the sources disputed that the walk-in knew the location of bin Laden. Pakistan-based journalist Amir Mir in the News International reported the walk-in's identity to be Usman Khalid, though that allegation was denied by Khalid's family. Although similar in claims, both Hillhouse's and Hersh's accounts of the bin Laden death appeared to be based on different sources which The Intercept concluded might corroborate the claims if their identities were known. After the Hersh story broke, NBC News also independently reported that a Pakistani intelligence officer was the source of the original bin Laden location report, and not the courier. A former intelligence official who had direct knowledge of the operation speculated that the Pakistanis, who were furious that the operation took place without being detected by them, were behind the conflicting story as a way to save face. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid in The New York Review of Books finds the cooperation between the CIA and ISI that Hersh describes "inconceivable," in part because 2011 was "the worst year in U.S.-Pakistan relations since the late 1980s" and "hatred and mistrust" between the CIA and ISI was "acute"—something Hersh does not mention. Among the incidents that occurred in Pakistan in the months before the killing of bin Laden were the killing of two Pakistanis by CIA contractor Raymond Davis, numerous death threats against the Islamabad CIA station chief after his name was leaked (purportedly by the ISI), the cessation of the issuing of visas for U.S. officials (following which the U.S. consulate in Lahore was moved to Islamabad over concerns about security), increased U.S. anger over the refusal of Pakistan to exert pressure on the Taliban, the death of 40 Pakistanis including many civilians and later 24 Pakistani soldiers from U.S. drone strikes; and the cut-off of U.S. supplies to Afghanistan by Pakistan. Peter Bergen countered Hersh's claim that the shots fired at bin Laden were the only ones fired that evening would ignore that bin Laden's bodyguards were also shot and that the building had a multitude of bullet holes. He stated the U.S. government had intercepted the communications of Generals Kayani and Pasha, and their response had shown that neither had any knowledge of bin Laden's whereabouts. Nelly Lahoud, who analyzed the documents seized during the operation to kill bin Laden, disagrees with Hersh's assertion that bin Laden was an ISI hostage. She stated that even a casual reading of the documents would make it abundantly clear that bin Laden went to great lengths to hide from Pakistani authorities, and it would be inconceivable that bin Laden himself did not know he was being held hostage. Indian airspace controversy In the publication No Easy Day, a map of the operation show the U.S. SEALs briefly crossed into Indian territory before its loop approaching Abbottabad in Pakistan, raising questions in India whether the U.S. violated Indian airspace, and if India had advance knowledge about the mission. The Indian Air Force dismissed claims that the U.S. crossed into Indian airspace. Conspiracy theories The reports of bin Laden's death on May 2, 2011, are not universally accepted despite unreleased DNA testing confirming his identity, and a May 6, 2011, al-Qaeda statement confirming his death. Some blogs suggested that the U.S. government feigned the raid, and some forums hosted debates over the alleged hoax. == Role of Pakistan ==

Pakistan came under intense international scrutiny after the raid. The Pakistani government denied that it had sheltered bin Laden, and said it had shared information with the CIA and other intelligence agencies about the compound since 2009. "C.I.A. and other Obama administration officials have said they possess no evidence—no intercepts, no unreleased documents from Abbottabad—that Kayani or Pasha or any other I.S.I. officer knew where bin Laden was hiding." After the raid, there was an unconfirmed report that Pakistan allowed Chinese military officials to examine the wreckage of the crashed helicopter. Connections with Abbottabad , Pakistan (2011) Abbottabad attracted refugees from fighting in the tribal areas and Swat Valley, as well as Afghanistan. "People don't really care now to ask who's there," said Gohar Ayub Khan, a former foreign minister and resident of the city. "That's one of the reasons why, possibly, he came in there." A courier told interrogators that al-Libi used three houses in Abbottabad. Pakistani officials say they informed their American counterparts at the time that the city could be a hiding place for al-Qaeda leaders. Pakistani-born British member of parliament Khalid Mahmood said he was "flabbergasted and shocked" after he learned that bin Laden was living in a city with thousands of Pakistani troops, reviving questions about alleged links between al-Qaeda and elements in Pakistan's security forces. suggesting that Pakistan's ISI had sheltered bin Laden in return for a $25 million bounty; ISI and government officials have denied her allegations. Former Pakistani Army Chief, General Ziauddin Butt has said that, according to his knowledge, Osama bin Laden was kept in an Intelligence Bureau safe house in Abbottabad by the then Director-General of the Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan (2004–2008), Brigadier Ijaz Shah. This had occurred with the "full knowledge" of former army chief General Pervez Musharraf and possibly that of current Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. However the reporter who interviewed him, Riedel, noted that Butt had "a motive to speak harshly about Musharraf". Ziauddin Butt would later deny making these claims about Musharraf and Shah. Emails from the private American security firm, Stratfor, published by WikiLeaks on February 27, 2012, indicate that up to 12 officials in Pakistan's ISI knew of Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad safe house. Stratfor had been given access to the papers collected by American forces from bin Laden's Abbottabad house. The emails reveal that these Pakistani officers included "Mid to senior level ISI and Pak Mil with one retired Pak Mil General." In 2014, British journalist Carlotta Gall revealed that she had been told by an undisclosed ISI source that the ISI "ran a special desk assigned to handle bin Laden." The desk was "led by an officer who made his own decisions and did not report to a superior [...] but the top military bosses knew about it, I was told." Pakistani response According to a Pakistani intelligence official, raw phone-tap data had been transferred to the U.S. without being analyzed by Pakistan. While the U.S. "was concentrating on this" information since September 2010, information regarding bin Laden and the compound's inhabitants had "slipped from" Pakistan's "radar" over the months. Bin Laden left "an invisible footprint" and he had not been contacting other militant networks. It was noted that much focus had been placed on a courier entering and leaving the compound. The transfer of intelligence to the U.S. was a regular occurrence according to the official, who also stated regarding the raid that "I think they came in undetected and went out the same day," and Pakistan did not believe that U.S. personnel were present in the area before the special operation occurred. Mark Kelton, then the CIA station chief for Pakistan, alleges that he was poisoned by the ISI in retaliation for the raid, forcing him to leave the country. == Code name ==

Several officials who were present in the Situation Room, including the president, told reporters that the code name for bin Laden was "Geronimo". They had watched Leon Panetta, speaking from CIA headquarters, while he narrated the action in Abbottabad. Panetta said, "We have a visual on Geronimo," and later, "Geronimo EKIA"—enemy killed in action. The words of the commander on the ground were, "For God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo." Officials subsequently explained that each step of the mission was labelled alphabetically in an "Execution Checklist," which is used to ensure all participants in a large operation are kept synchronized with a minimum of radio traffic. "Geronimo" indicated the raiders had reached step "G," the capture or killing of bin Laden. Osama bin Laden was identified as "Jackpot," the general code name for the target of an operation. ABC News reported that otherwise his regular code name was "Cakebread." The New Yorker reported that bin Laden's code name was "Crankshaft." Many Native Americans were offended that Geronimo, the renowned 19th-century Apache leader, was irrevocably linked with bin Laden. The chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, the successor to Geronimo's tribe, wrote a letter to Obama asking him to "right this wrong." The president of the Navajo Nation requested that the U.S. government change the code name retroactively. Officials from the National Congress of American Indians said the focus should be on honoring the disproportionately high number of Native Americans who serve in the military, and they had been assured that "Geronimo" was not a code name for bin Laden. The U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs heard testimony on the issue from tribal leaders, while the Defense Department had no comment except to say that no disrespect was intended. == Derivation of intelligence ==

After the death of bin Laden, some officials from the Bush administration, such as former Bush Office of Legal Counsel attorney John Yoo and former attorney general Michael Mukasey, wrote op-eds stating that the enhanced interrogation techniques they authorized (since legally clarified as torture) yielded the intelligence that later led to locating bin Laden's hideout. Mukasey said that the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed caused him to reveal the nickname of bin Laden's courier. U.S. officials and legislators, including Republican John McCain == Intelligence postmortem ==

Evidence seized from the compound is said to include ten cell phones, five to ten computers, twelve hard drives, at least 100 computer disks (including thumb drives and DVDs), handwritten notes, documents, weapons, and an assortment of personal items. It was described by a senior Pentagon intelligence official as "the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever." On November 1, 2017, the CIA released to the public approximately 470,000 files and a copy of bin Laden's diary. Intelligence analysts also studied call detail records from two phone numbers that were found to be sewn into bin Laden's clothing. The CIA team is working in collaboration with other U.S. government agencies "to triage, catalog and analyze this intelligence." Amal Ahmed al-Sadahk, Bin Laden's youngest wife, told Pakistani investigators that the family lived in the feudal village of Chak Shah Muhammad, in the nearby district of Haripur, Pakistan, for two and a half years before moving to Abbottabad in late 2005. According to the material, he sought to reassert control over factions of loosely affiliated jihadists from Yemen to Somalia, as well as independent actors whom he believed had sullied al-Qaeda's reputation and muddied its central message. Bin Laden was worried at times about his personal security and was annoyed that his organization had not utilized the Arab Spring to improve its image. The documents covered subjects such as the news media in America, affiliate organizations, targets, security, and the Arab Spring. In the documents, bin Laden said al-Qaeda's strength was limited and therefore suggested that the best way to attack the U.S., which he compared to a tree, "is to concentrate on sawing the trunk." The seized material suggested that former commander of the international forces in Afghanistan David Petraeus and U.S. president Barack Obama should be assassinated during any of their visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan, if there was an opportunity to do so. Bin Laden opined that U.S. vice president Joe Biden should not be a target because "Biden is totally unprepared for that post [of president], which will lead the US into a crisis." The United States Department of Justice released a further eleven documents in March 2015. The documents were part of the trial against Abid Naseer, who was convicted of plotting to bomb a Manchester shopping mall in 2009. They included letters to and from Osama bin Laden in the year before his death, and showed the extent of the damage the CIA drone program had done to Al-Qaeda. In addition to information and data recovered that were of intelligence interest, the documents and computer items also contained personal files, including family correspondence and a large stash of pornography. US officials have refused to characterize the type of pornography found other than to say that it was "modern" in nature. The most likely explanation for the pornography on bin Laden's hard drive is that he bought a poorly refurbished computer, since bin Laden did not have internet access and the computer was also infected with viruses. == Helicopter stealth technology revelations ==

The tail section of the secret helicopter survived demolition and lay just outside the compound wall. (an unrelated possible cause of the crash was that the rehearsal mock-ups of the compound had used a chain-link fence rather than a solid wall for the perimeter and thus had not reproduced the airflows that the helicopter would face). Experts disagreed as to how much information could have been gleaned from the tail fragment. Stealth technology was already operational; the modified Black Hawk was the first confirmed operational "stealth helicopter". It is likely that the most valuable information obtainable from the wreckage was the composition of the radar-absorbing paint used on the tail section. Pakistan and the PRC denied these claims. ==See also==