US Navy SEAL who killed Osama Bin Laden reveals special gift for analyst who found terrorist
The Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden has revealed the special gift he gave the “badass” CIA analyst who spent years hunting down the world’s most wanted terrorist
Under orders from then-President Barack Obama, U.S. intelligence agencies and elite military forces carried out the mission that finally cornered the al Qaeda leader inside a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011.
At the center of the intelligence effort was a determined CIA analyst from a group informally known as “The Sisterhood,” a team of women analysts who helped piece together the clues that led to bin Laden’s hiding place.
Former SEAL Team Six member Robert O’Neill, now 50, shared new details about the mission during a recent interview, including the moment he handed the analyst a deeply personal keepsake after the raid was over.
‘One-way mission’ to kill bin Laden
As the SEALs prepared to fly into Pakistan, O’Neill said everyone involved understood the mission could easily end in death instead of a return home.
“We were going after bin Laden for the first Americans who were forced to fight al Qaeda, to the death, toe-to-toe,” O’Neill told the New York Post. “This would be a one-way mission. You’re not afraid you’re gonna die, but you’re prepared for death.”
But the SEALs were loaded with confidence as the CIA analyst supported their efforts with her precision and command of the intelligence surrounding the compound.
“The lead CIA analyst who found bin Laden was this badass, no-nonsense woman,” he said. “She walked us through how she found him and what we could expect when we got to his compound in minute detail.”
Pre-mission jitters
Just before boarding the helicopter for Abbottabad, O’Neill said he had a conversation with the analyst that captured the pressure both sides were carrying into the mission.
“I was like, ‘Hey why are you nervous?’” O’Neill recalled asking.
“And she looked at me and said like, ‘Why aren’t you nervous?’ “I was like oh, we do s**t like this every day, fly somewhere and fuck s**t up, but on this one, you have to be right, this is gonna be a longer flight for you than it will be for us.”
‘Just like the woman said’
After the chopper landed, SEAL Team Six entered the darkened compound, quickly searching room after room for the notorious terrorist.
“Down the long hallway there was a stairwell. The CIA analyst said [Osama’s adult son] Khalid bin Laden would definitely be on it and if you can ace him, you get a shot at the big guy.”
O’Neill said Khalid was exactly where the analyst predicted he would be: “Just like the woman said.”
As the team pushed deeper inside, they spotted movement behind a curtain where a door should have been.
“We thought they were suicide bombers,” O’Neill said. “We went through that curtain, and he moved them out of the way. They turned out to be Bin Laden’s wives.”
‘Geronimo’
Moments later, O’Neill came face-to-face with bin Laden.
“I turned right and there was bin Laden standing there, three feet away.”
The former SEAL said he “recognized him immediately.” “I was impressed with how skinny he was. His beard was sort of gray. His hands were on his wife Amal’s shoulders. I took it as a threat; he could blow himself up.”
“At SEAL Team Six, we shoot you twice in the head right away. I shot him twice and shot him again with my H&K 416. He crumpled on the foot of his bed.”
Almost instantly, the magnitude of the moment hit him: “I just shot Bin Laden – like what the f**k?”
Shortly after, “Geronimo,” the “code word to signify bin Laden had been killed” was broadcast and the team “high-fived.”
The gift he handed the CIA analyst
After the operation ended, the SEALs returned to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where O’Neill reunited with the analyst who was portrayed by Jessica Chastain in the 2012 movie, Zero Dark Thirty.
“You could tell it was her baby,” O’Neill said of the analyst’s years-long hunt for bin Laden.
“She would say certain things, she would point at [bin Laden] in the model of his compound and say, ‘Osama bin Laden’s on the 3rd floor of this house right now. I don’t understand why we’re not going. Have a good night.’ Like frustrated.”
Wanting to honor the role she played in finding bin Laden, O’Neill decided to give her something only she would ever possess.
“I pulled out the magazine from my gun that I used to kill bin Laden, with the remaining 27 rounds in it, walked up to her and asked, ‘Do you have room for this in your backpack?’” O’Neill said, adding, “She said ‘I think I do.’”
Later, back at base, when the two stood over bin Laden’s corpse, O’Neill expected the analyst to finally let her guard down after years spent hunting the terrorist. Instead, she stayed completely matter of fact.
“She looked down at his body, and said, ‘F**k, I’m out of a job.’”
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