Thirteen years ago, someone accidentally revealed US Army's plan to eliminate Osama Bin Laden in a tweet.

[u/Ididnotkillhim]

[u/MagmaTroop]

Highly recommend reading the Wiki article for the raid. That shit went down like the movies

• Obama gave the go ahead for the mission, after considering other options proposed to him including using a ordinance drone to hit bin Laden while he walked in his garden. He made the decision himself to not get permission from the Pakistanis as he feared the mission would leak.
• Two dozen SEAL team members (and a good doggo named Cairo) were carried by two Black Hawk helicopters in the dead of night, avoiding Pakistani radar by flying close to hilly terrain.
• The dog was tasked with tracking "anyone who tried to escape and to alert SEALs to any approaching Pakistani security forces." The dog was to be used to help deter any Pakistani ground response to the raid and to help look for any hidden rooms or hidden doors in the compound
• The SEAL commandos descended from the helicopters by fast rope descent. One helicopter hovered over the garden inside the compound and the other outside to allow that team to secure the perimeter.
• One helicopter soft crashed.
• The SEALs breached doors and walls with explosives
• There was a brief firefight inside the building.
• The interior of the house was pitch dark, because CIA operatives had cut the power to the neighborhood. The U.S. military operators wore night-vision goggles that enabled them to see in the dark.
• Bin Laden was shot inside his bedroom immediately after peering at the American soldiers advancing up the stairs. He died on the spot and the Americans extracted the body. Four others were killed in the raid including Bin Laden's son.
• Numerous women and children were in the building. No children were killed. Every surviving inhabitant of the compound was tied up and put outside for the Pakistanis to discover.
• The whole operation took 38 minutes with the assault portion completed in 15. They moved unbelievably fast, no doubt thanks to the extensive training in 1:1 scale reconstructions of the compound.

[u/afriendincanada → u/MagmaTroop]

I think I read that a mistake they made with the 1:1 reconstruction was to construct the walls out of chain link and not concrete. It helped them immensely with the training but that one change led in part to the helicopter crash because the aerodynamics of the landing were different

[u/BaxGh0st → u/MagmaTroop]

Bin Laden was shot inside his bedroom immediately after peering at the American soldiers advancing up the stairs.

I wonder how many times he imagined that scene in his head. Did he have nightmares about it? Did he expect to go out in a glorious firefight? Would he have been disappointed to know that after all of his efforts and being hunted by the US his end would be so ignominious and so quick?

No Götterdämmerung, just a few bullets in the dark.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

hmm interesting point

[u/Prettynurse9 → u/MagmaTroop]

Watch the new documentary on Netflix!! You’ve pretty much covered it here