Hunting bin Laden: Part 3 - Storming the Compound

So, they've found his courier, the Kuwaiti. Obama is in office. America seems unlikely to employ a "forgive and forget" policy. What's next?

Well, it's the final stretches now. They didn't know it at the time, but finding the courier would be the key to the final location and putting the whole issue to rest. The States started by talking around a little, and managed to find out the courier's real name (Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed) from an unnamed third country. Managing to track the man down, an asset in Pakistan saw the man's truck and followed it back to Osama's compound.

It's location was in quiet Abbottabad, a place where there are plenty of schools, a low crime rate, and as far as Pakistan goes, a quiet retirement community. Considering that a very real possibility was Osama hiding in a cave, he seemed to have done quite well for himself. He had the place built especially for his needs (well-defended, secretive compounds don't just spring up), designed as a two-story and adding on a third specifically for Osama and his wife (well, one wife). In the compound he had four wives, aged 29-62, a dozen grandkids, as well as the Kuwaiti, his brother, and their families. It was a veritable community inside a single compound.

A view of the compound; it's a bit of a fixer-upper, but
location, location, location.

Naturally, it was well protected; twelve foot high walls, barbed wire, security cameras... the works. The kind of place where "Ocean's Fourteen" might take place. Oddly, the high security and tech stuff goes against the bin Laden style - a very stripped down, spartan existence. Both air conditioning and heating were low, the beds were made from boards hammered together, and there weren't any pictures or paintings.  There was one particularly memorable item, however. To make sure he kept his youthful appearance, he used "Just for Men" on his beard and hair. I guess he wanted to be...

A jihadi and a hottie.

Now, most of this stuff couldn't be discovered from the outside. They could only get so much info, and no one in the surrounding area had any idea of what was going on inside the mysterious, well-protected house/fortress hybrid. Worried about a major international incident, the Americans desperately wanted to know who was inside before storming it. Their ideas for figuring out who was inside ranged greatly from realistic and practical to hairbrained schemes that the most ridiculous television plotlines wouldn't come up with - one was to lob stink-bombs into the place and hope they come out, and another was to place loudspeakers near the compound and pretend to be the voice of Allah, calling for them to leave. Unfortunately, they would have to deal with copyright issues with the latter. As for definitive proof, there was little; just a lot of circumstantial evidence. They believed Osama to be a man they called "the pacer", who would walk the compound daily, providing only the image of his shadowy silhouette obscured by drapes above him.

Even though bin Laden's influence was fading (even pro-al-Qaeda people didn't like the fact that they were also killing Islamic citizens and offered few solutions to their difficulties) the U.S. was still willing to risk a lot going after him. Fortunately for them, they were now allowed to do covert missions without letting congress or the public know, and this would certainly be one of them. The fallout of saying they think they know where Osama is, having everyone get hyped up, only to have it blow up in their face would be catastrophic. With mounting pressure to capture him, the knowledge that intelligence only lasts for so long, and the fact that if anything leaked to Pakistan it might find its way back to Osama they had to act and they had to act quickly.

Not pictured: popcorn and pizza for the bin Laden hunting
viewing party.

One option was to bomb the city, but that was less than desirable. It would mean civilian casualties and uncertainty whether or not bin Laden was actually there. A covert, secret surprise attack would be much safer, and ideally one that had some variety of deniability. That would mean they would have to get in, kill whomever they needed, and get out without leaving much of a trace - especially if they were wrong. If they were right, they could pretty well get away with it, albeit with a little bit of damaged relations but nothing they couldn't fix later. Now, this is all contingent on if they wanted to go in at all; most people were sitting at about seventy percent certainty, but a number were about fifty-fifty on it, which aren't exactly odds you want to bet something of this great importance on. After careful deliberation, they decided it was worth it. It was just a matter of how and when.

Going in at 11:00 p.m. local time, picking a week without a moon and a day where Pakistani guards would be on the lighter side, they sent in the SEALs, America's cream of the crop in regards to their special forces military. Flying in with stealth helicopters just a few feet above ground level, navigating through trees, they arrived at the compound.

It was probably really, really cool.

Initially the plan was to drop off two dozen mend and fly away, returning to pick them up a short time later. However, bad weather caused the helicopter to clip a rotor and have to make a rough landing, no longer able to fly out of there. They would have to call in a reserve helicopter, and, in order to not let the technology fall into the wrong hands, blow up their massively expensive plaything. The downed helicopter wasn't just a money issue either; when it fell the whole plausible deniability idea went out the door with it. Mind you, I can't see how they could cover up a large contingent of highly trained men storming a compound in Pakistan, but... what do I know.

People cheering in the streets outside the White House
following the news. If they were wearing SEAL jerseys
it would look exactly like a sporting event.

Now was the time to storm the compound, shooting everything in sight. Inside, they found the Kuwaiti, shooting him in the head twice, also shooting his wife in the shoulder. Next up, they shot the Kuwaiti's brother and his wife - both unarmed. Next was bin Laden's son, who was also likely without a weapon. None of that really mattered, though - it would all be for naught if they couldn't find the head honcho.

He was next on the list. Finding him in his bedroom as he was listened to the events unfold, they barged in, shot his wife in the calf (who then fell unconscious) and shot him twice, killing him. The pictures were never released as they could serve to spark retaliation as they could use him as a martyr. It was May 2nd, 2011, almost a decade after the initial attacks. Shortly after, Obama announced they defeated Osama bin Laden after long last. Never before had a president walked up to a podium with such a cocky strut.

And the Middle East and the the United States never fought again.