On May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, was killed by US Special Forces during a morning raid on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
10 years after the death of Bin Laden, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, recently announced that he will withdraw all troops from Afghanistan, thus ending the longest war in the country.
However, in an exclusive interview with Citizen Free Press conducted through intermediaries, an Al Qaeda official said that “the war against the United States will continue on all other fronts unless they are expelled from the rest of the Islamic world.”
How was the operation against the leader of Al Qaeda? What had happened before and what happened after?
What was the Abbottabad complex like?
– Built approximately in 2006.
– Significantly larger than other homes in the area and with a reported value of US $ 1 million.
– Lack of telephone service and Internet.
– Residents burned their garbage instead of having it collected.
– Approximately 24 people lived in the house.
– Surrounded by walls of 3 to 5 meters crowned by barbed wire.
– It had two security doors.
– The houses of Bin Laden and his family were on the second and third levels.
– The third floor terrace had a two meter privacy wall.
– Located just a kilometer and a half from the Pakistan Military Academy.
US forces recovered numerous items from the bin Laden compound, including 10 hard drives, five computers and more than 100 storage devices, such as discs, DVDs and USB sticks, according to a senior US official.
Biden’s speech on Afghanistan to Congress 2:15
Chronology
2007 (aprox.) – US intelligence discovers the name of one of Bin Laden’s most trusted messengers.
2009 (aprox.) – Intelligence sources identify the area of Pakistan where the messenger and his brother live.
August 2010 – US intelligence sources identify the Abbottabad compound as the home of the courier and his brother, who have no obvious means to pay for a $ 1 million home.
September 2010 – The CIA informs President Barack Obama that bin Laden may be living in the Abbottabad compound. They base this on the size and price of the complex, as well as the elaborate security.
February 2011 – The intelligence on the Abbottabad compound is considered strong enough to begin planning action.
March 14, 2011 – President Obama is chairing the first of five meetings of the National Security Council to discuss an operation to raid the Bin Laden compound.
March 29, 2011 – Second National Security Meeting.
April 12, 2011 – Third meeting.
April 19, 2011 – Fourth meeting.
April 28, 2011 – Last of the National Security Council meetings on the Bin Laden raid.
April 29, 2011 – At 8:20 am EDT, President Obama gives the order to raid the Bin Laden compound.
May 2, 2011 – In the early hours of the morning (mid-afternoon on May 1 in the United States), a group of 25 Navy Seals assault the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
– They arrive outside the enclosure in two Black Hawk helicopters.
– The operation takes a total of 40 minutes.
– US Special Forces break through the outer walls of the compound before making their way through the ground floor of the three-story building. The shooting then goes to the second and third floors.
– In the last 5-10 minutes of the shooting, Bin Laden dies from a gunshot wound to the head.
– Three men, including a son of Bin Laden, also die, as well as a woman.
– Bin Laden’s body is identified by one of his wives. Facial recognition is also used.
May 2, 2011 – Bin Laden is buried in the sea off the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea.
– He is buried within 24 hours according to Islamic law.
– The one-hour ceremony is conducted aboard the USS Carl Vinson according to Islamic law.
May 2, 2011 – A DNA test is performed on a sample from the body, confirming that it is Bin Laden.
May 3, 2011 – Attorney General Eric Holder declares the raid “legal, legitimate and appropriate in every way.”
May 3, 2011 – White House Press Secretary Jay Carney offers new details about the raid. He clarifies that the dead woman was on the first floor, not with Bin Laden, and was killed in the crossfire. Carney also says that Bin Laden was not armed, but he put up resistance.
May 3, 2011 – A Congressional source tells Citizen Free Press that Bin Laden had approximately $ 745 and two phone numbers stitched onto his clothing.
May 3, 2011 – Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahed publishes a statement, “Obama does not have any solid evidence to prove his claim about the death of Sheikh Osama Bin Laden … And secondly, the sources closest to Sheikh Osama bin Laden have not confirmed” death.
May 4, 2011 – White House Press Secretary Carney announces that President Obama has decided not to publish photos of Bin Laden’s body.
May 6, 2011 – Al Qaeda confirms the death of Bin Laden, in a statement on jihadist forums.
May 12, 2011 – US officials confirm to Citizen Free Press that US authorities have interviewed three of Bin Laden’s wives.
May 13, 2011 – It is revealed that a large amount of pornography was seized from the Abbottabad compound during the raid. It is unclear who it belonged to.
May 13, 2011 – A US military official told Citizen Free Press that the Navy Seal team that carried out the bin Laden raid used helmet-mounted digital cameras that recorded the mission.
May 17, 2011 – Senator John Kerry announces that Pakistan will return the tail of the US helicopter damaged during the raid.
May 18, 2011 – Admiral Mike Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates tell reporters that there is no evidence that senior Pakistani officials knew of Bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan.
May 26, 2011 – The Pakistani government grants permission to a team of CIA forensic specialists to examine the compound.
June 15, 2011 – Pakistan’s intelligence agency arrests several people suspected of helping the CIA before the raid.
June 17, 2011 – The United States Department of Justice formally withdraws the criminal charges related to terrorism against Bin Laden.
July 11, 2011 – Pakistani security forces detain a doctor suspected of helping the CIA try to collect DNA from members of bin Laden’s family through a vaccination campaign.
October 6, 2011 – Pakistan’s Information Ministry says the doctor suspected of helping find Bin Laden will be charged with treason. In addition, the Bin Laden complex will be handed over to city officials.
February 2012 – Pakistani authorities begin to demolish the complex.
May 9, 2012 – Citing that it is in the interest of national security, a federal judge has denied Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information request regarding the release of bin Laden’s death photos.
May 23, 2012 – Shakeel Afridi, the Pakistani doctor accused of helping the CIA locate Bin Laden, is fined $ 3,500 for spying for the United States and a tribal court sentences him to 33 years in prison for treason.
September 4, 2012 – Memoirs are published «No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden» from former US Army SEAL Matt Bissonnette, written under the name Mark Owen.
February 11, 2013 – Conflicting Information Appears About Which Navy SEAL Killed Bin Laden When The Magazine Esquire reports on an anonymous former Navy SEAL who says he fired the fatal shot, not the point man as stated in Bissonette’s book “No Easy Day.”
May the 21th, 2013 – A three-judge federal appeals court panel rejects an appeal by a conservative legal group, ruling that posting post-mortem images of Bin Laden’s body could result in attacks on Americans.
October 31, 2014 – Admiral Brian Losey, chief of the Naval Special Warfare Command, publishes an open letter warning the Navy SEALs not to betray their promise of secrecy. This is before two upcoming interviews of the SEALs involved in the Bin Laden mission.
What is the truth about Bin Laden’s death?November 7, 2014 – Former Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill says in an interview with The Washington Post that it was he who fired the shot that killed Bin Laden.
May 10, 2015 – In a published report, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh argues that the Obama administration lied about the circumstances surrounding the bin Laden assassination. The White House later dismisses the report as “unfounded.”
May 20, 2015 – The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) begins to disclose and declassify documents recovered in the raid in May 2011.
March 1, 2016 – The DNI delivers a second batch of recovered documents. Included in the materials are Bin Laden’s personal letters and will.
August 2016 – Bissonnette agrees to pay the United States government for all past and future revenue from the book “No Easy Day,” settling a government lawsuit for “breach of contract” by violating a confidentiality agreement.
November 1, 2017 – The CIA announces the release of thousands of files that it says come from the Bin Laden raid. Among them is the personal diary of the late al Qaeda founder.