It wasn’t until 8 a.m. Friday that Obama, in a meeting with national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon, his deputy Denis McDonough, Chief of Staff William M. Daley, and Brennan, told the group to move ahead.
He then boarded Marine One, waiting for him on the South Lawn, to carry him on the first leg of a trip to tornado-ravaged Alabama.
Jenifer Bryant pays respect to her husband, Todd Bryant, and friends they shared in his Iraq unit at the Arlington National Cemetery, a day after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. military.
The Navy SEAL commandos picked for the mission had trained for weeks, practicing daily at a precise replica of the compound that they came to know every wall and external feature, as well as where every occupant was likely to be found. The rehearsals also covered a range of scenarios, including the possibility that bin Laden would try to surrender. So the SEAL team members practiced how to take him prisoner, according a military official briefed on the plan. Using Arabic commands, the insertion team would offer bin Laden a chance to give up, and would fire only if he resisted.
“As much as they may have wanted to see him dead, they were ready to offer him a chance to give up,” said the official, who agreed to speak about the mission on the condition of anonymity.
In the end, bin Laden showed no interest in being captured alive.
The SEAL team flew from Afghanistan into Abbottabad aboard two Black Hawk helicopters, U.S. officials said. The raid created enough of a commotion that a Pakistani resident of the city posted a series of tweets describing the sounds of helicopters and explosions.
The most serious stumble occurred at the start: One of the helicopters had a mechanical failure and tumbled into a courtyard, its tail clipping a 12-foot wall. Navy SEALs who were supposed to be dropped safely outside the perimeter were scrambling for cover in bin Laden’s yard.
“Seeing that helicopter in a place and in a condition that it wasn’t supposed to be — that, at least for me and I know for the other people in the room, was the concern,” Brennan said.
A third helicopter, a Chinook, was sent to the scene for emergency support. Meanwhile, the team dropped outside the compound joined the unit from the damaged helicopter and pressed ahead, exchanging fire with the courier and his brother until both men were killed.
The commandos moved inside, and finally reached bin Laden’s upstairs living quarters after nearly 40 minutes on the ground. What words if any were exchanged between the Americans and the Saudi-born terrorist are not publicly known, but the SEALs used the code word “Geronimo” to inform their commanders that they had found the target.
“The woman presumed to be his wife . . . was shielding bin Laden,” Brennan said, adding that it was not clear that anyone had forced her to take the action. The White House later said that a woman who died in the assault was not one of bin Laden’s wives.
A White House spokesman said Tuesday that bin Laden was unarmed, but “resisted.”
The al-Qaeda leader was shot at least once in the head and died instantly, U.S. officials said.
News footage from inside the rooms of the compound showed the aftermath of a ferocious struggle, with blood-soaked carpets and overturned furniture. ABC News, which obtained the footage, said computer equipment appeared to have been seized in the raid. A senior U.S. intelligence official confirmed that the SEAL team seized material from the compound that was being scrubbed for possible leads to other terrorist suspects.
All told, four men and one woman lay dead. Only the body of bin Laden was carried away as the commandos made their way to a designated collection point outside the complex, destroyed the downed helicopter and boarded Black Hawk and Chinook for the return flight to Afghanistan.
Only after the commandos slipped out of Pakistani airspace did Obama call Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, to inform him of the U.S. military raid 35 miles, as the crow flies, from the Pakistani capital.
A series of top-secret briefings at the White House on Sunday afternoon conveyed, with rising certainty, news of the operation’s success. At 7:01 pm, the president was told there was a “high probability” that bin Laden was dead.
Staff writers Peter Finn and Scott Wilson and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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