US commando describes how he killed Osama
Osama bin Laden. — File photo
WASHINGTON, Feb 11: “There was (Osama) Bin Laden standing there. He had his hands on a woman’s shoulders, pushing her ahead, not exactly towards me but by me, in the direction of the hallway commotion,” says the man who killed the Al Qaeda chief.
In this first ever interview to the media, the US Navy SEAL who killed Bin Laden shares the details of the operation with the Esquire magazine, telling interviewer Phil Bronstein how the raid had affected his life.
Fearing a possible terrorist reprisal, his wife left him and he has been unemployed since he retired from the Navy in September, 2012.
The woman Bin Laden was using as a shield, the Navy SEAL explained, was his youngest wife, Amal.
When the Team6, which killed the Al-Qaeda chief, arrived at Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad on May 1, it was “coal-dark” and they could hear Bin Laden and other residents but could not see them without their night-scopes.
Bin Laden “looked confused” and was “way taller than I was expecting”, said the shooter. “He had a cap on and didn’t appear to be hit. I can’t tell you 100 per cent, but he was standing and moving. He was holding her in front of him. Maybe as a shield, I don’t know,” he said.
“For me, it was a snapshot of a target ID, definitely him. Even in our kill houses where we train, there are targets with his face on them. This was repetition and muscle memory. That’s him, boom, done.”
Bin Laden was skinny, tall and had a short beard. He was wearing a white headgear, which showed his almost shaved head. “I remember all that registering. I was amazed how tall he was, taller than all of us, and it didn’t seem like he would be, because all those guys were always smaller than you think,” said the shooter.
“I’m just looking at him from right here [he moves his hand out from his face about 10 inches]. He’s got a gun on a shelf right there, the short AK he’s famous for. And he’s moving forward,” he added.
“I don’t know if she’s got a vest and she’s being pushed to martyr them both. He’s got a gun within reach. He’s a threat. I need to get a head shot so he won’t have a chance to clack himself off [blow himself up].”
“In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap! The second time as he’s going down. He crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again, Bap! same place. That time I used my (electronic) red-dot holo sight. He was dead. Not moving. His tongue was out. I watched him take his last breaths, just a reflex breath.
“And I remember as I watched him breathe out the last part of air, I thought: Is this the best thing I’ve ever done, or the worst thing I’ve ever done? This is real and that’s him.”
Explaining why he shot Bin Laden at first sight without making any effort to arrest him, the US Navy SEAL said: “Everybody wanted him dead, but nobody wanted to say, hey, you’re going to kill this guy. It was just sort of understood that’s what we wanted to do.”
The shooter also endorsed the Obama administration’s decision to turn down media requests for releasing photos of the shooting.
“His forehead was gruesome. It was split open in the shape of a V. I could see his brains spilling out over his face. The American public doesn’t want to know what that looks like,” he said.
After the shooting Bin Laden’s second wife, Amal, turned back, screaming, first at bin Laden and then at the shooter.
“She came at me like she wanted to fight me, or that she wanted to die instead of him. So I put her on the bed, bound with zip ties”.
The SEAL then noticed Bin Laden’s youngest son, who was about two or three, was standing there on the other side of the bed.
“I didn’t want to hurt him, because I’m not a savage. There was a lot of screaming, he was crying, just in shock. I didn’t like that he was scared.
He’s a kid, and had nothing to do with this. I picked him up and put him next to his mother. I put some water on his face”.
Before they killed Bin Laden, the team also had “zip-tied two other women they met in the compound.
The third-floor action and killing took maybe 15 seconds.
islam is a religion of peace…agree ?
The whole city woke up with the noise of helicopters. They heard a helicopter crash and then gun fire. Osama was hearing all this and yet he did’nt tried to run or hide but waited in his bedroom for marines to come. Nonsense story.
Another drama to make fool especially people of their own country.
As per BBC report, the neighbours say the man killed was Akbar Khan, living there since his childhood. They just killed an innocent person and branded him Osama Bin Laden. Reports suggest that Bin Laden died in 2007 in Afghanistan out of kidney failure. Remember, he was on dialysis in a Karachi hospital in 2005.
so the US govt decides not to upset the American public by releasing photos but has this brave GI do an interview describing the event. When they know killing someone linked to an organization like Al Qaida is a sensitive topic they dont think someone’s going to respond to this interview?
Do you folks have anything usefull to put on your paper anymore??
Yes coverage of Carnival at RIO de Janeiro with photos of semiclad women
Hahaha, he couldn’t find a better story
You can’t stop terrorism by killing terrorists. You need to change their thinking! educate them! let them come on one platform and do dialogue with them.
so why u dont educate TTP & taliban? Why you army with help of US targeting them?
After Bin Laden’s death Why are American soldiers still dieing in Afghanistan ???
GOOD JOB
In Islam, man has to protect his women, but what was Osama doing there??
Is he true Muslim ??
“Was he” might be the correct question to ask !!
Osama was given a decent burial in the Arabian Sea by the US navy and became food for the fish after life. Is it not enough?
Way to go commandoooo killin an unarmed man !!
Because the unarmed man killed thousand of people and brought a lot of trouble to this world.He was a shame to muslims and the human race.
and how many innocent and unarmed men died in 9/11 or in Mumbai? On whose hands does the blood of those innocents rest? And how many innocents are dying even now because of his crooked philosophy?
Thousands who perished in the Twin Towers were ordinary citizens with very little role in the geopolitics, going about earning there livelihood, and none were armed.
And what did this “unarmed man” do to the innocent “unarmed” 9/11 victims ?? Any clues and comments ?
So he’s dead, now what? That’s the question most Pakistani’s should be asking. Are we going to have peace in our country?
It was just another story, peace !!!… we’ve lost our vision
Without trial the killing is unjust. Usama proved courageous and brave as he did not beg mercy. By all means it did not prove that he was using his wife as shield. It was far better if Mullah Omars’ offer was accepted by Bush to have Usama’s trial in accordance to just laws either in Afghanistan or in third country. By overlooking this offer caused loss of hundreds of thousands lives and suffering of people of the region.
Did Osama held a trial before he killed over three thousand innocent men, women and children, quite a few of them were Muslims , in the World Trade Center in New York?
Well said.
Trial of Osama in Afghanistan while Talibans were ruling the country? You must be joking
He tried to hide behind a woman and pushed her ….. so I would not say he was courageous.
not sure why US got so sentimental in the end and decided not to show the dead Bin laden when there is countless footage of civilians killed in Iraq & Afghanistan.
its great that the Americans were successful in killing that coward otherwise he would still be hiding all smug while his terrorists killing people in his name but since Pakistan was suspected of hiding him so all the evidence that came out of the compound & was taken away should be put out in the open. if there are proofs that the Pak Military leadership was involved in hiding him then it should be brought out so that people can demand answers from it
no one believes that he was able to hide there without the support & knowledge of someone in the authority but that responsible person should be exposed so that no more terrorists can use that support while innocent people die every day
Those who live by gun, they die by gun, it is a truth.
yes as we’re seeing it in the US with all the school shoot outs and other acts of gun attacks!
Hmm nice story
The story of him NOT being the real OBL is even nicer….
Thats OK but why it took 9 years to get to him.. The so called super-power USA, cannot find a terror mastermind responsible for the deaths of 3,500 americans in New York. That in itself is a failure of the super-power. 9 years was just too long…
Maybe because he was being hidden by a supposed ally. Pakistan has yet to explain how OBL was living comfortably for a decade withing the shadow of the Pakistan Military Academy. American deserves Kudos for an operation which killed a bad guy with no innocent’s harmed – Pakistan deserves the shame associated with hiding the most wanted terrorist on the planet.
At least they found the murderer.
Easy to say that man…but its USA that nailed him…praise them for that.
I smell conspiracy theory.
It’s all politics, all lies just to cover their own sins and politicians really enjoy all this happening to helpless civilians because their heart became stone.