How Bin Laden Was Killed Hiding Behind 3 Wives
When SEAL Team 6 breached Osama bin Laden’s compound in May 2011, the CIA analyst who found the house gave them one prediction.
She told them bin Laden’s 23-year-old son Khalid would be waiting on the stairs with an AK-47, and if they got past him, they would get a shot at his father.
In the video below, Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill describes the final 90 seconds on that staircase.
Ten minutes earlier, the raid had already gone sideways when their stealth Black Hawk helicopter lost lift and crashed inside the compound courtyard.
Moving in complete darkness with zero flashlights and zero shouting, the team entered the main house. Just as the CIA analyst predicted, Khalid bin Laden was crouched behind a concrete banister on the second-floor landing with an automatic rifle.
Only 10 inches of concrete separated Khalid from the lead SEAL.
Instead of throwing a grenade or firing blind, the point man used a trick from years of urban raids. Knowing Khalid spoke Arabic and Urdu, the SEAL quietly whispered his name:
“Khalid.”
Confused, Khalid leaned his head over the banister and said, “What?”
The point man shot him immediately.
The rest of the squad peeled off to clear the second-floor hallways until only two men were left at the bottom of the third-floor stairs: the point man and O’Neill.
O’Neill put his hand on the point man’s shoulder. Both men were convinced bin Laden was behind the curtain at the top of the steps wearing a suicide vest.
They rushed the stairs anyway. O’Neill turned into the bedroom, saw bin Laden standing taller than expected at the foot of his bed shielding himself behind his youngest wife, and shot him three times in the face.
After moving bin Laden’s wounded wife and two-year-old son out of the room, O’Neill froze at the foot of the bed, staring at the body.
Another SEAL walked in, looked at him, and asked if he was good.
“What do we do now?” O’Neill asked.
His teammate smiled and snapped him out of it:
“You just killed Osama bin Laden. Your life just changed. Now get to fucking work.”
For the next 30 minutes, the team stuffed computers, hard drives, and thumb drives into bags before blowing up their crashed helicopter and flying back to Afghanistan.
Was whispering Khalid’s name in the dark the smartest split-second move of the raid, or was the mission already won the moment the SEALs got inside the walls?
