That monitored phone call, recounted by a US official, ended a years-long search for Bin Laden’s personal courier, the key break in a worldwide manhunt. The courier, in turn, led US intelligence to a walled compound in northeast Pakistan.
Inside the CIA team hunting Bin Laden, it always was clear that Bin Laden’s vulnerability was his couriers. He was too smart to let Al-Qaeda foot soldiers, or even his senior commanders, know his hideout. But if he wanted to get his messages out, somebody had to carry them, someone Bin Laden trusted with his life.
Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, detainees in the CIA’s secret prison network told interrogators about an important courier with the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed Al-Kuwaiti who was close to Bin Laden.
After the CIA captured Al-Qaeda’s No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he confirmed knowing Al-Kuwaiti but denied he had anything to do with Al-Qaeda.
Then in 2004, top Al-Qaeda operative Hassan Gul was captured in Iraq. Gul told the CIA that Al-Kuwaiti was a courier. In particular, Gul said, the courier was close to Faraj Al-Libi, who replaced Mohammed as Al-Qaeda’s operational commander.
“Hassan Gul was the linchpin,” a US official said.
Finally, in May 2005, Al-Libi was captured. Under CIA interrogation, Al-Libi admitted that he received the word through a courier. But he made up a name for the courier and denied knowing Al-Kuwaiti, a denial that was so adamant and unbelievable that the CIA took it as confirmation that he and Mohammed were protecting the courier. It only reinforced the idea that Al-Kuwaiti was very important to Al-Qaeda.
If they could find the man known as Al-Kuwaiti, they’d find Bin Laden.
Mohammed did not discuss Al-Kuwaiti while being subjected to waterboarding, former officials said. He acknowledged knowing him many months later under standard interrogation, they said.
It took years of work before the CIA identified the courier’s real name: Sheikh Abu Ahmed, a Pakistani man born in Kuwait. When they did identify him, he was nowhere to be found.
Bin Laden was famously insistent that no phones or computers be used near him, so the eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency kept coming up cold.
Ahmed was identified by detainees as a mid-level operative who helped Al-Qaeda members and their families find safe havens. But his whereabouts were such a mystery to US intelligence that, according to Guantanamo Bay documents, one detainee said Ahmed was wounded while fleeing US forces during the invasion of Afghanistan and later died in the arms of the detainee.
But in the middle of last year, Ahmed had a telephone conversation with someone being monitored by US intelligence, according to an American official, who like others interviewed for this story spoke only on condition of anonymity. Ahmed was located somewhere away from Bin Laden’s hideout when he had the discussion, but it was enough to help intelligence officials locate and watch Ahmed.
In August 2010, Ahmed unknowingly led authorities to a compound in the northeast Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where Al-Libi had once lived. The walls surrounding the property were as high as 18 feet and topped with barbed wire.
Intelligence officials had known about the house for years, but they always suspected that Bin Laden would be surrounded by heavily armed security guards. Nobody patrolled the compound in Abbottabad.
In fact, nobody came or went. And no telephone or Internet lines ran from the compound. The CIA soon believed that Bin Laden was hiding in plain sight, in a hideout especially built to go unnoticed. But since Bin Laden never traveled and nobody could get onto the compound without passing through two security gates, there was no way to be sure.
Despite that uncertainty, intelligence officials realized this could represent the best chance ever to get to Bin Laden. They decided not to share the information with anyone, including staunch counterterrorism allies such as Britain, Canada and Australia.
By mid-February, the officials were convinced a “high-value target” was hiding in the compound. President Barack Obama wanted to take action.
Obama tapped two dozen members of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team Six to carry out a raid with surgical accuracy.
Before dawn Monday morning, a pair of helicopters left Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. The choppers entered Pakistani airspace using sophisticated technology intended to evade that country’s radar systems, a US official said.
The helicopters lowered into the compound, dropping the SEALs behind the walls. No shots were fired, but shortly after the team hit the ground, one of the helicopters came crashing down and rolled onto its side for reasons the government has yet to explain. None of the SEALs was injured, however, and the mission continued uninterrupted.
With the CIA and White House monitoring the situation in real time — presumably by live satellite feed or video carried by the SEALs — the team stormed the compound.
Thanks to sophisticated satellite monitoring, US forces knew they’d likely find Bin Laden’s family on the second and third floors of one of the buildings on the property, officials said. The SEALs secured the rest of the property first, then proceeded to the room where Bin Laden was hiding. A firefight ensued, Brennan said.
Ahmed and his brother were killed, officials said. Then, the SEALs killed Bin Laden with a bullet just above his left eye, blowing off part his skull, another official said. Using the call sign for his visual identification, one of the soldiers communicated that “Geronimo” had been killed in action, according to a US official.
Bin Laden’s body was flown to the USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian sea, a senior defense official said. There, aboard a US warship, officials conducted a traditional Islamic burial ritual. Bin Laden’s body was washed and placed in a white sheet. He was placed in a weighted bag that, after religious remarks by a military officer, was slipped into the sea about 0600 GMT Monday.
