The third opportunity was in May 1999. At that time, there was information that bin Laden had gone somewhere in Kandahar and was going to stay for 5 days. But the CIA was told that such an attack could not be ordered because of doubts about the accuracy of the intelligence sources and the damage that could be done with the accompanying attack.
On September 11, 2001, the shocking 9/11 terrorist attacks broke out, completely destroying 6 buildings in New York and killing about 3,000 people.
On November 14, 2001, the U.S. government issued a global wanted warrant offering a $25 million reward for bin Laden's arrest. The wanted list describes the world's leading terrorist as follows: "Osama bin Laden, born in 1957, a Saudi, is between 1.93 and 1.98 meters tall. Weighing about 73 kg, he has a thin body, his hair color, eyes are brown, and his skin color is olive. He's left-handed."
The U.S. government claims that bin Laden is linked to multiple terrorist bombings in the United States and that he is an extremely dangerous figure who carries weapons. While sending a large army to suppress Afghanistan, the U.S. government did not hesitate to send special forces to launch a special operation against bin Laden.
In 2007, the CIA learned from a prisoner in custody that a Kuwaiti named Abu Ahmed was a senior al-Qaida intelligence officer who had served as a bodyguard for a senior al-Qaida leader. In 2009, the CIA finally found Abu's hiding place and managed to track him down.
After more than a year of follow-up investigations, the C.I.A. locked down abbottabad, a small town near Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. There is a three-story building here that is very suspicious.
Over the next few days, CIA agents used special technical means to monitor the building around the clock, and gradually they discovered that a tall man who looked a lot like bin Laden was often in the courtyard. At the time, the agent in charge of surveillance was not sure. After much comparison, the CIA concluded that the tall man was bin Laden with a 60 to 80 percent chance.
After the CIA reported to President Barack Obama, on April 29, 2011, Obama ordered a raid on the compound suspected of being bin Laden's hiding place.
The raid was code-named "Blade of Neptune" (i.e., "Blade of the Sea God"), and the code name for capturing or killing bin Laden was "Geronimo" (Geronimo was a famous American Indian warrior who led the Indians against the U.S. government).
After deliberation, the CIA and the U.S. military agreed to set the raid at midnight on May 1, which happened to be Sunday, and the weather conditions on this day were suitable, and midnight was when people were asleep, the night was dark, it was good for cover, and even if it was discovered, the enemy was not easy to move.
The CIA's early investigation revealed that bin Laden's hideout had multiple walls, some five or six meters high, and the general walls were three or four meters high, and the walls were set up with barbed wire. The main building in the courtyard is a 3-storey building with few windows facing outwards. On the third floor, there is also a separate wall, about two meters high. This wall blocks the entire three floors, and the terrain is very complicated. There are 3 families in the building, and it is speculated that bin Laden's family lives on the 2nd and 3rd floors.
The entire operation was conducted by Admiral William McRaven, chairman of the U.S. Joint Committee of Special Operations Agencies, and the mission was carried out by the Navy SEAL Unit 6 at the Jalalabad base in Afghanistan.
A total of 24 U.S. special operators participated in the operation, divided into two teams, aboard two Black Hawk helicopters. The two aircraft were a new version of the Black Hawk fighter H-60, and their model and internal settings were likely to be highly classified, which may have been the reason why the special operations team took valuable time to blow up the first aircraft crash to prevent pakistani access to aircraft data.
Before leaving, the task force was given the main task: to capture or kill bin Laden alive, and if it was, to take bin Laden's body. According to CIA Director Panetta afterwards, the special operators were given a precise order in advance that if bin Laden refused to surrender, he could be killed on the spot.
Prior to the operation, the U.S. military used special equipment to obtain images of the geographical and architectural characteristics of bin Laden's hideout, and built similar buildings for field training, so that every member of the team was familiar with every feature in the building, and special memory training was conducted on bin Laden's physiognomy.
Late on the night of May 1, 2011, U.S. military aircraft arrived at the designated location. According to the plan, the first Black Hawk fighter was supposed to land on the roof, but the plane suddenly had a mechanical failure and had to land on the west side of the yard, in the process, the tail rotor of the aircraft was seriously damaged. However, the operations of the special operations team were not substantially affected, and they quickly climbed over the courtyard wall. Another Black Hawk fighter landed on the north side of the courtyard, and then the courtyard wall was blasted, and the second group of special operations team rushed into the courtyard.
Soon after the Americans entered the building, they encountered resistance, and the resisters were killed. It was later confirmed that the person killed was Abu Ahmed, the first suspect to be targeted by the CIA.
Soon, the special operators entered bin Laden's hiding place from the south side and killed Abu's brother on the first floor. Subsequently, he killed bin Laden's son.
Soon, special operators found bin Laden on the third floor of the small building, along with his Yemeni wife and several children. After the special operations team confirmed that it was bin Laden, someone shot bin Laden in the abdomen, and then bin Laden was hit by a bullet in the left eye and fell to the ground in an instant. U.S. Attorney General Eric Hoddell later said the special operators were shot and killed on orders by bin Laden without the intention of surrendering.
Throughout the operation, in addition to bin Laden, 4 others were killed, including 1 woman. The operation lasted 38 minutes, with the special operators taking away bin Laden's body, a large number of electronic products about bin Laden, and bin Laden's personal weapons. The rest of the personnel and bodies were left at the scene. Subsequently, these people, including bin Laden's wife, were taken away and detained by the Pakistani side.
It is worth mentioning bin Laden's close-fitting weapon, the AKS–74U. The AKS–74U was an improvement on the AK series of rifles by Soviet firearms designers, manufactured by the Soviet State Arsenal, finalized in 1974, and installed in 1977. The gun was a small-bore, firing a specially developed 5.45 mm cartridge, with improvements in barrel length and rifling winding, as well as chamber shape, automatons and feed mechanisms, some of which were still interoperable with the AK–74. The swat team took the gun with it because it often appeared in the al-Qaida video along with the 45-round RPK–74 machine gun magazine along with bin Laden.
The image has a deep meaning, because the gun was captured in the Afghan war, so it has a symbolic meaning of "victory", and the 45-round oversized magazine hints at the determination to fight to the end and kill more infidels. In addition, the gun was originally designed for personal defense, which partly indicates that bin Laden's "holy war" will be a short guerrilla war. The AKS–74U was spread around the world along with os-din bin Laden's elaborate videotapes, suggesting and stirring up the emotions of terrorists.
According to the information currently released by the United States, the US military buried bin Laden's body in the northern Arabian Sea, and the Obama administration decided not to disclose the photos of bin Laden's body...
With the announcement of the "death of bin Laden", the global financial market has been shaken, gold and crude oil have fallen, and most of the Asia-Pacific stock indexes have risen. Obviously, the news of bin Laden's death was only very short-lived, and its influence was negligible, mainly because his death could not significantly boost U.S. jobs and economic growth, nor would it reverse the U.S. fiscal dilemma.
After bin Laden's death, al-Qaida and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan threatened to avenge bin Laden. An Afghan Taliban spokesman reportedly said their primary target for retaliatory attacks would be Pakistani government officials, including the president, prime minister and army chief of staff. The second target will be the United States.
Pakistan's Taliban group has also threatened to launch attacks against Pakistan and the United States. Pakistani President Zardarri wrote in the May 3, 2011 issue of The Washington Post, stating that Pakistan was not involved in the U.S. military's killing of bin Laden...
In March 2012, Pakistan arrested bin Laden's three wives, eight children and one grandchild for illegal entry and detention. After 45 days in prison, Pakistani authorities announced on April 27, 2012, that they had expelled bin Laden's three wives and family members. Subsequently, saudi Arabia confirmed that bin Laden's family had arrived in Jeddah, the largest city in western Saudi Arabia, on the evening of April 26, and members of bin Laden's family went to greet him...
On March 7, 2013, it was reported that Suleiman Abu Ghaith, son-in-law of former al-Qaida leader bin Laden and one of the leaders of al-Qaida, was captured in Jordan by CIA agents and sent to the United States. Abu Ghaith was arrested in a hotel in Ankara on February 2 during a joint operation between Turkish national intelligence agencies and the U.S. CIA...
Although bin Laden is dead, U.S. forces remain on duty in Afghanistan. The latest information shows that NATO's scheduled withdrawal time is 2014. White House spokesman Carney recently said the United States would not seek a permanent military base in Afghanistan after the 2014 withdrawal.