Killing the Killers Page 2
The invading SEALs now see bin Laden’s safe house for the first time. They have practiced on a life-sized version at a secret location in North Carolina. But this is the real thing.
“We opened the doors, and I looked out,” SEAL operator Robert O’Neill will remember. Seeing the high walls and knowing what must be done to complete the mission successfully, O’Neill thought, “This is some serious Navy SEAL shit we’re going to do.”
* * *
Osama bin Laden is now awake. A loud, bright explosion shakes the house as he crouches on the bedroom floor; the sound of the crashing helicopter cuts through the night with a noise so loud that a witness will later call it a “noise of magnitude I have never heard before.” Baby Hussein cries. Amal tries to turn on a light, forgetting about the power outage.
“No,” bin Laden commands. Opening the bedroom door, he screams down the stairs to his son Khalid. “Come up!”*
“Americans are coming!” yells Khalid, running up the stairs in white pajamas, clutching a loaded AK-47 automatic rifle. The crying voices of the many children in the three-story structure echo up and down the stairwell.
Outside, a new explosion rings through the night as SEALs breach the perimeter wall on the north side of the compound. Two bodyguards, brothers Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed and Abrar Ahmed, have sworn loyalty to bin Laden and stand ready to fight. The men are Pakistanis who oversaw the construction of the compound but have long feared that a night like this might come. Several times, they suggested that bin Laden and his extended brood relocate.
After a time, the terrorist reluctantly agreed but asked for postponement of departure until September 2011—the tenth anniversary of the terror attack on America.
Now, five minutes into the SEAL landings, as explosions destroy the big metal doors guarding the compound entrances, Osama bin Laden regrets his decision.
* * *
“It appears that we have a helicopter down in the animal pen,” Admiral McRaven says from Afghanistan over the live video feed. “Backup helicopter on the way.”
In fact, McRaven ordered one Chinook to fly to the compound just moments ago.
At CIA headquarters in Virginia, Director Panetta watches the crash of Chalk One with rising fear. A multimillion-dollar helicopter crashes, and it’s Black Hawk down all over again.
Maybe.
At the White House, President Obama will recall feeling “an electric kind of fear. A disaster reel played in my head.”
The mood in the small conference room is grim. More than a dozen of America’s top leaders fill the space, anxiously watching the screen. Mr. Obama sits off to the side in a small chair, leaning forward, eyes riveted. Secretary Clinton presses one hand to her face, covering her mouth.
The video feed is a series of monochromatic images. Twenty-four SEALs are now on the ground, with most inside the compound. Explosions and gunshots can be heard clearly as the SEALs apply breaching charges to blast doorways, even as the trapped occupants open fire with AK-47s.
The SEAL weapons are suppressed, making very little noise when they fire. So all audible gunshots are from bin Laden’s security team, which now includes twenty-three-year-old Khalid. The team from Chalk One can be seen entering the main house. Others make their way to a small annex known by the code symbol C1 on the SEALs’ laminated maps of the compound, secured in their pants pockets.
Suddenly, as the team is about to enter the building, rounds from an AK-47 assault weapon rattle above their heads. Glass shatters, falling onto the crouched Americans. Returning fire, the SEALs shoot into the darkness. There is no response. The firing stops. A woman yells to them, then slowly steps into their sight line. She is holding a baby.
“He is dead,” the woman says to the fighters. The SEALs never take their fingers off the trigger, fearing she may be wearing a suicide vest. Slowly, the invaders follow the wife of Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed into a bedroom. There, her husband—the courier for bin Laden who unknowingly led the CIA to this location—lies in the doorway. The floor is thick with his blood, and the SEALs will later remember the room smelling of heating oil. The demise of Saeed Ahmed is not seen by those watching in Washington, Virginia, and Afghanistan; the drone video cannot show the inside of the buildings. So, for twenty long minutes, the feed from space remains silent.
* * *
Cautiously, the SEALs leave building C1 and cross the compound to the much larger complex mission planners have labeled A1—the main house. The night is far from silent. Children continue to cry. Women are shrieking. A three-man team enters a long hallway with two doors on each side. As the SEALs creep forward, one inhabitant of the residence cautiously leans his head out of the first door on the left. The SEAL walking point immediately fires a single shot.
Unsure if the target is hit, the team moves quickly into the room. Abrar Ahmed lies wounded on the floor, an AK-47 nearby. Suddenly, the bodyguard’s wife jumps forward in the darkness, trying to prevent the SEALs from getting to her husband. The Americans have been warned that women in the compound might be armed and that some might even be wearing explosives. The invaders take no chances, opening fire.
Abrar and his wife, Bushra, both die instantly.
It is known that four men occupy the compound. Two are now dead. That leaves Khalid bin Laden and his father, directly upstairs from where the SEALs now stand.
* * *
In his third-floor bedroom, Osama bin Laden prays. His family is gathered around. “They want me, not you,” the terrorist tells two of his wives who have run upstairs to be at his side. There is confusion as some refuse to leave and others have no idea where to go. Americans are in the courtyard, and some SEALs have entered the main house.
Carefully, six SEALs climb to the second floor using a narrow spiral staircase. The steps are tiled. Fighting here will be at close quarters. Every footfall or whining door hinge spells trouble.
The SEALs see the image of a man standing on the stairwell leading to the third floor. He is seeking to conceal himself and does not present much of a target. Believing the individual might be bin Laden’s son, the SEAL walking point softly calls out in Arabic: “Khalid, come here.”*
The younger bin Laden is confused. Cautiously, he peers out from his hiding spot. He is promptly shot in the chin, the bullet slicing through his brain before exiting out the back of his skull. Khalid bin Laden falls backward onto the stairs. The SEALs continue their advance, stepping around Khalid, whose white shirt is drenched in blood. His loaded AK-47 is propped against a wall, never fired.
At this point, three of the four males occupying the compound have been eliminated.
Only Geronimo remains.
Two rooms stand at the top of the stairs. A curtain conceals the entrance to one. A man with a long beard pokes his head out; he thinks he is invisible in the darkness. The SEALs immediately open fire. The man withdraws back into the bedroom, but his AK-47 pokes out around the doorjamb.
Two SEALs press their advantage, bounding up the stairs and throwing back the curtain. Two young girls stand in the room. One SEAL tackles them, fearing they are wearing bombs. Terrified, they cry out, having never been touched by a man not of their own family. “Sheikh,” one yells toward the man with the beard.
Now comes the stand-off. One SEAL remains, staring into the eyes of Osama bin Laden, who is standing at the foot of the bed. The terrorist’s beard is his most prominent feature. His hair is cut short. Amal stands in front of him. Bin Laden keeps his hands on her shoulders, using the mother of his young child, who now sits sobbing just a few feet away, as a human shield. Amal is bleeding from one leg, having taken one of the bullets fired up the stairwell.
Osama bin Laden has had years to prepare for this moment. There is a chance he is wearing a suicide vest, or perhaps concealing a gun or knife, using his wife’s torso to prevent the intruders from seeing these weapons. Bin Laden is a man who hates Americans and would have no compunction about blowing himself up to take more American lives in his final act.
The SEAL weighs all these realities.
So it is that Senior Chief Petty Officer Robert O’Neill raises his weapon high, to accommodate bin Laden’s height. The barrel is aimed at a spot just over Amal’s shoulder. The SEAL does not hesitate. The first bullet cuts a furrow through the top of bin Laden’s skull. The second shot is insurance. So is the third. The terrorist’s tongue hangs from his mouth as his body goes limp. His head is blown apart.
Other SEALs enter the room, having made their way up the stairs. One by one, they fire into the corpse, payback for those who died on 9/11.
The message is radioed back to Jalalabad and then relayed to Langley and the White House. The acronym for “enemy killed in action” rockets halfway around the world.
“We heard McRaven’s and Leon’s voices, almost simultaneously, utter the words we’d been waiting to hear,” President Obama will write.
“Geronimo, EKIA.”
* * *
There is no celebration. Not yet. Osama bin Laden’s corpse is placed in an olive drab body bag, and SEALs carry him to the waiting helicopter outside the compound walls. Inside, the buildings are ransacked for intelligence. Computer hard drives, laptops, thumb drives, documents, and cell phones are seized. This treasure trove of information is the most captured in a single recent raid. Vacuum-sealed piles of opium are discovered beneath bin Laden’s bed, the source of his income in the many years since his bank accounts were frozen.
Meanwhile, the explosions have attracted a crowd. Cairo is kept on his leash as the interpreter warns away curious citizens arriving to see the source of the noise. Dogs are considered devilish and filthy in Muslim culture, and the mere presence of a snarling Cairo is enough to deter the crowd.
A Chinook arrives to ferry out operators and captured intelligence. Bin Laden’s wives and children will be left behind.* The dead terrorist has two emergency phone numbers and five hundred euros sewn into the fabric of his underwear. Space inside the helicopter carrying Osama bin Laden is so cramped that one SEAL has no choice but to sit atop the body for the flight back to Jalalabad. Photos are taken of bin Laden’s face as the first step in authenticating the terrorist’s identity.
Inside the compound, the downed UH-60 is blown up to prevent its technology from falling into the hands of the Pakistanis. The bright light and noise of the detonation is so powerful that it can be heard and seen for miles around. A Pakistani military response is surely imminent.
Time to go. The mission is now almost over.
But there is one more danger to overcome. The two US helicopters have a ninety-minute flight back to Afghanistan. A single Pakistani fighter jet could shoot the helicopters from the sky. The SEALs are apprehensive—the journey is especially long.
* * *
At 5:41 p.m., Eastern time, cheers go up in Washington, DC. This is the moment when both SEAL teams cross safely into Afghanistan. Nine minutes later, they touch down safely at Jalalabad Air Base. US intelligence will later learn that Pakistani authorities had turned off their radar on this hot Sunday night, and that even if there had been advance warning, their fighter pilots were unwilling to fly in the dark.
“Let’s see him,” Admiral McRaven says as the body bag is removed from the UH-60.
The corpse is dropped onto the cement hangar floor. CIA analysts hastily begin conducting DNA tests to confirm the identity of the body. The sample matches those recently taken from family members. In order to calculate bin Laden’s height, one very tall SEAL is ordered to lie down on the floor next to the terrorist’s body.*
* * *
At 11:35 p.m. Eastern, President Barack Obama addresses the nation. In his hastily written speech, he informs the world that the long hunt for Osama bin Laden is over.
CIA director Panetta, who has driven to the White House to share the triumph with the president, leaves shortly after the speech. He is stunned to see crowds lining the sidewalk, cheering this moment of national victory: “USA, USA, USA,” they chant.
Panetta will call it one of the best moments of his life.
* * *
In Afghanistan, the Navy SEALs and their army pilots are reveling in the mission’s success, laughing and rehashing the action moment by moment just a few feet from the body of Osama bin Laden. The sense of relief is palpable, with thoughts of the many things that could have gone wrong after the crash of Chalk One in everyone’s heads.
This is also a sad moment for Will Chesney, Cairo’s handler, who must soon say good-bye to the veteran dog after three years working together. Cairo often sleeps in Chesney’s bed and has been his constant companion through that time.*
But the night is not over. Shortly after landing in Jalalabad, the SEALs, Cairo, their harvest of intelligence data, and the body of Osama bin Laden board a C-130 Hercules cargo plane for the flight to Afghanistan’s Bagram Air Base—150 miles away. There, they watch President Obama’s speech on a big-screen television, clean their weapons, store their gear, and grab a bite. The feeling of elation does not subside. The SEALs will soon continue to Washington, there to meet the president. Each will receive a Silver Star for bravery.†
* * *
As the SEALs depart for the United States, the body of Osama bin Laden is placed in the hold of a US Navy V-22 Osprey cargo plane and flown to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, in the northern Arabian Sea. The terrorist has been dead less than twelve hours. Rather than bury bin Laden on land, and have his grave become a shrine for terrorists everywhere, the team will dispatch the corpse at sea, where there is no chance his final resting place will ever be located.
In strict accordance with Islamic law, bin Laden is buried within twenty-four hours of his death. He is washed and shrouded in white cloth. There is no coffin. A US Navy sailor of the Muslim faith witnesses the cleaning and wrapping of the body.
And so it is that Osama bin Laden, wrapped tightly in the cloth, is placed inside a body bag with three hundred pounds of iron chains. The bag, resting on a flat board, is tipped over the side of the Vinson, sliding into the depths of the Arabian Sea. There are some eyewitnesses who suggest the body bag holding bin Laden might have been sliced open to allow creatures of the deep easier access to his remains. But that is unconfirmed.
What is confirmed is that the heinous mastermind of 9/11 has finally received justice.
But as one killer leaves the stage, many others are anxious to take his place.
There will be no shortage of terror killers in the years to come.
CHAPTER ONE
AUGUST 19, 2014
SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN SYRIA
TIME UNKNOWN
The condemned man kneels on the rocky ground in an orange jumpsuit. He is emaciated and barefoot, hands cuffed behind his back. The bright sun casts strong shadows. The landscape around him is nothing but beige desert hills—no vegetation, no sign of life. The garish prison garb is intentional, a mocking reminder of the uniform captured terrorists are forced to wear at America’s Guantánamo Bay prison.
The executioner is clad in all black, face covered by a balaclava. He stands behind the condemned, right hand gripping his shoulder, left fist clutching a long steel-bladed knife. Both men know that a video crew is recording every word and movement. The desert backdrop offers absolutely no clue to the location of the grisly scene now being filmed.
James Foley is a good man. He stares straight into the camera. His head and face are shaved. Foley is forty and Catholic, raised in New Hampshire, a freelance journalist with a long history of covering war in the Middle East. Almost two years ago, on November 22, 2012, Foley was taken hostage by a Muslim militia while covering the Syrian Civil War. His hired driver and translator were not kidnapped, but fellow journalist John Cantile was also abducted with Foley.*
It is often said that prostitution is the oldest profession in the world, but in the Middle East that title goes to kidnapping. The motives of terror kidnappers are many, among them seeking to trumpet their atrocities, to influence foreign powers to remove their armed
forces, and to convince corporations to do business elsewhere.
But the prime reason is money. Ransom payments raise millions to fund insurgent movements. This “hostage terrorism” makes it almost suicidal for foreign journalists and aid workers to do their jobs in places like Syria. And yet they still come, from nations all around the world, their caution overridden by a desire to find information or save lives in conditions where the term “adventure” does not begin to describe the danger. While some reporters think themselves brave and noble for pursuing this work, many officials from their home countries marvel at their naïveté and label them “useful idiots.”
But for James Foley, covering war was his profession, risks and all. “I had done several tours as an embedded reporter with US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, for me, the frontlines felt natural. And I believed it was my job,” he has written.
At the time of their kidnappings, James Foley and John Cantile knew the risks of this hostile war zone, both men having previously been taken hostage and subsequently released. Foley was kidnapped in North Africa in 2011, while covering the fall of Libyan strongman Muammar al-Gaddhafi.
“I woke up in a white washed cell, grimed with streaks of either blood or feces, or both. Sun peeked through from a barred window high on the back wall,” Foley wrote of his first morning as a hostage in Libya. “I spent the whole day thinking and trying to sleep, my mind wandering between anguish and confusion. I was given rice dishes with no silverware. I ate greedily with my hands.”
The journalist spent forty-four days being beaten and mistreated before his release. He went home to New Hampshire afterward, speaking openly about his time as a hostage. But despite his experiences, and well knowing the risks, he chose to go back to war again—this time to Syria.