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Osama bin Laden

By: History.com Editors

Updated: September 11, 2023 | Original: December 16, 2009

On May 1, 2011, American soldiers killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his compound near Islamabad, Pakistan. Intelligence officials believe bin Laden was responsible for many deadly acts of terrorism, including the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. He had been on the FBI’s “most wanted” list for more than a decade.

Osama bin Laden: Early Life

Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1957 or 1958. He was the 17th of 52 children born to Mohammed bin Laden, a Yemeni immigrant who owned the largest construction company in the Saudi kingdom. Young Osama had a privileged, cosseted upbringing. His siblings were educated in the West and went to work for his father’s company (by then an enormous conglomerate that distributed consumer goods like Volkswagen cars and Snapple beverages across the Middle East), but Osama bin Laden stayed close to home. He went to school in Jiddah, married young and, like many Saudi men, joined the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

Did you know? Bin Laden’s body was evacuated from the Abbottabad compound by helicopter and flown to an American aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean. The corpse was buried at sea.

Osama bin Laden: The Pan-Islamist Idea

For bin Laden, Islam was more than just a religion: It shaped his political beliefs and influenced every decision he made. While he was at college in the late 1970s, he became a follower of the radical pan-Islamist scholar Abdullah Azzam, who believed that all Muslims should rise up in jihad, or holy war, to create a single Islamic state. This idea appealed to the young bin Laden, who resented what he saw as a growing Western influence on Middle Eastern life.

In 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan; soon afterward, Azzam and bin Laden traveled to Peshawar, a Pakistani city on the border with Afghanistan, to join the resistance. They did not become fighters themselves, but they used their extensive connections to win financial and moral support for the mujahideen (the Afghan rebels). They also encouraged young men to come from all over the Middle East to be a part of the Afghan jihad. Their organization, called the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) served as a global recruitment network–it had offices in places as far away as Brooklyn and Tucson, Arizona–and provided the migrant soldiers, known as “Afghan Arabs,” with training and supplies. Most importantly, it showed bin Laden and his associates that it was possible to put pan-Islamism into practice.

Osama Bin Laden: Building Al Qaeda

In 1988, bin Laden created a new group, called al Qaeda (“the base”) that would focus on symbolic acts of terrorism instead of military campaigns. After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia to step up fundraising for this new and more complicated mission. However, the comparatively pro-Western Saudi royal family feared that bin Laden’s fiery pan-Islamist rhetoric might cause trouble in the kingdom, and so they tried to keep him as quiet as they could. They took away his passport and spurned his offer to send “Afghan Arabs” to guard the border after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. Then, adding insult to injury, they sought help from the “infidel” U.S. instead. Furious about being snubbed, bin Laden vowed that it was al Qaeda, and not the Americans, who would one day prove to be “master of this world.”

Early the next year, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia for the more militantly Islamist Sudan. After one more year of preparation, al Qaeda struck for the first time: A bomb exploded in a hotel in Aden, Yemen, that had housed American troops on their way to a peacekeeping mission in Somalia. (No Americans died in the blast, but two Austrian tourists did.)

Osama bin Laden: Worldwide Jihad

Emboldened, bin Laden and his associates embraced violent jihad in earnest. For example, they trained and armed the Somali rebels who killed 18 American servicemen in Mogadishu in 1993. They were also linked to the 1993 bombing of New York’s World Trade Center ; the attempted assassination of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarek in 1995; the bombing of a U.S. National Guard training center in Riyadh that same year; and the truck bomb that destroyed the Khobar Towers, an American military residence in Dharan, in 1996.

Osama bin Laden: 'Public Enemy #1'

In an attempt to protect himself from arrest and win even more recruits to al Qaeda’s deadly cause, bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996. Meanwhile, the scale of al Qaeda’s attacks continued to increase. On August 7, 1998, bombs exploded simultaneously at the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, where 213 people were killed and 4,500 were injured, and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, where 11 people were killed and 85 were injured. Al Qaeda took credit for the bombings.

Then, on October 12, 2000, a small boat loaded with explosives plowed into the hull of the U.S.S. Cole, an American naval destroyer docked off the coast of Yemen. 17 sailors were killed and 38 were injured. Bin Laden took credit for that incident as well.

A federal grand jury in the United States indicted bin Laden on charges related to the embassy bombings, but with no defendant there could be no trial. Meanwhile, al Qaeda operatives were busy planning the biggest attack of all: the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon .

Even in the frenzy of the post-September 11 “global war on terror,” bin Laden eluded capture. For almost 10 years, he remained in hiding, issuing fatwas and taunts over radio and television, recruiting enthusiastic young jihadis to his cause and plotting new attacks. Meanwhile, the CIA and other intelligence officials searched in vain for his hiding place.

Finally, in August 2010, they traced bin Laden to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, about 35 miles from Islamabad. For months, CIA agents watched the house while drones photographed it from the sky. Finally, it was time to move. On May 2, 2011 (May 1 in the United States), a team of Navy SEALs burst into the compound. They found the al Qaeda leader in an upstairs bedroom with a pistol and an assault rifle nearby and shot him in the head and chest, killing him instantly. “Justice,” said President Obama in a televised address to the nation that night, “has been done.”

Bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, became leader of al Qaeda after bin Laden's death. On July 31, 2022, he was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, ending a two decade-long manhunt. In 2019, bin Laden's son, Hamza bin Laden, who had been viewed as a potential successor to the al Qaeda leader, was killed in a U.S. counterterrorism operation. 

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UPDATED May 8, 2011

How osama bin laden was located and killed.

• The Compound
• The Intelligence Trail

A Sprawling Compound in a Middle Class Neighborhood

Bin Laden and his family had been living on the second and third floors of the compound’s main building.

How the Raid Unfolded

In the days after the raid, officials gave some conflicting details of the operation. Here is a sequence of events compiled from the most current accounts given by American officials.

1 Operation Begins Four helicopters carrying 79 Americans leave from Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

2 Crash Around 1 a.m. Pakistan time, high walls and high temperatures cause the first helicopter to descend faster than expected. Its tail hits a wall and snaps off, but no one is hurt.

3 Change of Plans A second helicopter was supposed to hover over the main building while Seal members rappelled down to the roof, but it lands on the ground as well.

4 Firefight Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, Osama bin Laden’s courier, opens fire from behind a door of the guesthouse. Commandos kill the courier. His wife is caught in the cross-fire and killed.

5 In the Main Building The commandos blow open the front door of the main house as well as a brick wall behind it. On the first floor, they see the courier’s brother, who they believe is preparing to fire a weapon. They shoot and kill him.

6 On the Way Up As they make their way up the stairs, they kill Bin Laden’s son Khalid as he lunges toward the Seal team.

7 Bin Laden Killed When the commandos reach Bin Laden’s room on the third floor, an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol are seen in arm’s reach of Bin Laden. A commando shoots Bin Laden in the left eye and chest, killing him. Bin Laden’s wife lunges at a commando and is shot in the leg but not killed.

Mission Time The Seal team is on the ground for an estimated 38 minutes. Bin Laden is killed about 20 minutes into the raid.

Verification The Seal team takes a photograph of Bin Laden’s face and transmits it to American officials. Bin Laden’s remains are flown first to Afghanistan, then to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea. He is buried at sea within 12 hours of his death.

Others in the Compound Three women and nine children are taken away from the compound by the Pakistani military, who arrive after the raid.

Items Seized The Seal team removes about 100 thumb drives, DVDs, computer disks, 10 computer hard drives, five computers and piles of paper documents from the house.

Finding the Town Where He Was Hiding

While Bin Laden had long been rumored to be hiding in remote tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border, he had been living near the Pakistani Army’s military academy in Abbottabad, a medium-sized city.

Photos of the Compound

Intelligence leading to bin laden’s killing.

Four years ago — American intelligence for the first time uncovers the name of Osama bin Laden's trusted courier but cannot locate him.

Two years ago — American intelligence identifies areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother have operated but cannot pinpoint exactly where they live.

August 1, 2010 — American intelligence locates the brothers' residence, a compound in Abbottabad. The compound is so large, secluded and secured that analysts conclude it must shelter a high value target.

September 1, 2010 — The C.I.A. begins to work with President Obama on assessments that lead them to believe that Bin Laden may be located at the compound.

Mid-February 2011 — United States government authorities determine that there was a sound intelligence basis to pursue this aggressively and develop courses of action.

March 14-28, 2011 — Mr. Obama holds a series of National Security Council meetings to develop options for capturing or killing Bin Laden.

April 29, 2011 — Mr. Obama authorizes the operation before flying to Alabama to inspect tornado damage.

May 1, 2011, 4-4:30 p.m. ET — United States forces raid Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad around 1 a.m. Pakistan time. Bin Laden, three other men and a woman are killed in a firefight.

May 1, 2011, 11:35 p.m. ET — Mr. Obama announces Bin Laden's death to the world.

Source: Roads data from LeadDog Consulting ; 2005 satellite image by Digital Globe and Google Earth; U.S. Defense Department; Central Intelligence Agency

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Bin Laden’s Road to Abbottabad: Where Osama Went and When

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/bin-laden-s-road-to-abbottabad-where-osama-went-and-when

Osama bin Laden hid for nine years in Pakistan after the Sept. 11 attacks -- from Peshawar to Haripur, where at least two of his children were born in government hospitals, according to new details uncovered in Pakistani interrogations of his youngest wife. Margaret Warner and guests discuss his secret life before his death.

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Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

JUDY WOODRUFF:

Next, new details of the secret life of Osama bin Laden between 9/11 and the day he was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in Pakistan nearly 10 years later.

Margaret Warner has the story.

MARGARET WARNER:

Much of the new information comes from Pakistani interrogations of bin Laden's youngest wife, a 30-year-old Yemeni who sustained a gunshot wound to her leg the night bin Laden was killed.

The interrogation report first disclosed by the Pakistani newspaper Dawn shows bin Laden ask his three wives were living in Pakistani cities and towns for nearly all the time the Americans were hunting him after the November 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.

Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah told interrogators that from 2002 to 2010, bin Laden moved among at least five houses and fathered four children in the northwest city of Peshawar near the Afghan border, in the Swat district 80 miles from the capital, Islamabad, the small town of Haripur in the same region, and finally from 2005 on in Abbottabad, just 30 miles from Islamabad.

Fatah and the two older Saudi widows of bin Laden are now under house arrest in the capital.

And for more on all of this, we turn to Declan Walsh of The New York Times in Islamabad, who has been reporting this story, and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who has written widely on Pakistan and has had access to some of the documents found in bin Laden's last house.

Welcome to you both.

Declan, beginning with you, the picture that emerges here is quite the opposite of what many Americans thought for a long time, was that bin Laden was some kind of hunted figure on the run living in caves. Flesh it out for us, the picture that we get from this.

DECLAN WALSH, The New York Times:

Absolutely.

The working assumption for certainly most of the public interpretation of bin Laden's whereabouts for most of the past decade has been that he was in Pakistan's tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan. And this testimony from his youngest wife now suggests that that wasn't the case, that bin Laden in fact spent most of his time in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which is next to the tribal belt, but which is very much part of the settled areas of Pakistan, if you like.

Bin Laden's wife says that she met him in Peshawar, which is the main city in that region, in around mid-2002, that they moved north into the mountains into the Hindu Kush, to the Swat Valley. They spent some time there with the relative — in two houses with the relatives of a close associate of his.

Then they moved to another house in a place called Haripur, as you say, where bin Laden's youngest wife gave birth to two children in a local government hospital, apparently staying in the hospital for a short period of two, three hours on each occasion. And then finally they moved to the house in Abbottabad in mid-2005, where they stayed for six years, until the American Navy SEALs broke through the door last May, killed bin Laden and wounded his youngest wife during the raid.

And what — tell us about — she's quite specific about who helped them in all these moves and found the houses for them. Tell us briefly about that.

DECLAN WALSH:

Well, on the one hand, there is very little information in fact about who exactly was helping the bin Laden family.

There's a number of references in these documents, particularly in the early part of their journey through Pakistan, to what are referred to as Pakistani families, but giving very little other details about who was helping them. That's very intriguing.

But, secondly, it seems that in the latter part of their stay, in the second part of the last decade in bin Laden — in Pakistan, rather, the bin Laden family was sheltered by a pair of Pashtun brothers. These are referred to in the documents as Ibrahim and Abrar.

Ibrahim is believed to be a man who was known to American intelligence as the courier, because he was the person who was delivering messages from bin Laden to the outside world for most of this time. The courier and his brother and their families lived with bin Laden's wives over most of that period and it seems protected them as well.

So, David Ignatius, what does this in total add to our understanding of bin Laden's — really the last decade of his life after 9/11?

DAVID IGNATIUS, columnist, The Washington Post: Well, it fleshes out a picture of this man in hiding, but really so far from the fight.

We had imagined him, as you said earlier, in caves with, later, Predator attacks overhead. I think the question that's raised by these documents is, who knew about bin Laden's movements? It just strains any credulity that he could have lived in five different houses in Pakistan, that his wife gave birth to four children, two in government hospitals, and that there wasn't some official knowledge.

Pakistan is a place where you don't move down the street without people seeing and knowing and asking questions and making inquiries.

And reporting often.

DAVID IGNATIUS:

And reporting to the security authorities.

This is one of those countries where the internal security apparatus makes it its job to know who's where. So the question who knew in Pakistan, who facilitated the movements that Declan was talking about, but, more to the point, who in the chain of command might have been knowledgeable as he moved from place to place? And then in this long stretch of six year in Abbottabad, which is the Pakistani version of West Point, who knew he was there? Who asked the questions?

And you think that this account, if true, just really strongly suggests it wouldn't have been plausible or possible for him to operate without somebody knowing.

Somebody must known that a tall foreigner was present in these places, and especially finally in Abbottabad.

I don't mean to point the finger at the senior leadership of the Pakistani military. We don't have evidence that suggests that, but somebody knew, and nobody followed up.

Declan, let me get back to you briefly.

Was this account — her account seems very focused on her visa status, the questions and the answers. Is this part of a broader investigation into who knew where bin Laden was, or is this very focused on the charges they may want to bring against the widows?

Well, actually, the ground has shifted under this investigation in the last couple of months.

Initially, the Pakistani government formed an investigation team to debrief bin Laden's wives, who, of course, are the people who know most about his movements in many respects over the last decade. Until just a couple of months, senior officials were saying that they expected to interrogate and then deport these women back to their countries of origin, to Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

But in the last month, the interior minister has turned around and said, no, that now they are actually going to prosecute them for illegal entry into the country, which are crimes that face a possible penalty of up to five years in prison in this country.

So people are asking questions about why the government has had this change of tactics, and whether there's some other reason why they want to keep bin Laden's wives in Pakistan, either to get further information out of them or to prevent other people from asking those sort of questions from them.

And, David, before we go, you have seen documents that were captured, seized during this Navy SEAL raid. What's the most fascinating tidbit you saw?

I'd say two things, briefly.

First, to the end of his life, bin Laden wanted to kill Americans, thought of how he could do it, specifically wanted to kill President Obama. Second, it's amazing that, on the run, in hiding in these remote places, he was honest enough about what had happened that he admitted to himself that, in many ways, al-Qaida had failed, to the point that in one draft memo that I saw, he talks about changing the name of the organization, al-Qaida, to something different that won't have such bad connotations with Muslims.

With killing Muslims.

Well, David Ignatius and Declan Walsh, thank you both.

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Biographer Traces Osama Bin Laden's 'Rise And Fall'

Dave Davies

Journalist Peter Bergen talks about bin Laden's path to mass murder and reflects on the consequences of the recent U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Originally broadcast Aug. 4, 2021.

Hear The Original Interview

Osama Bin Laden Biography Goes Inside Al-Qaida Leader's Final Hideout

Copyright © 2021 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Osama Bin Laden's death: How it happened

• The operation
• White House watches
• 1 Helicopter-borne US Navy Seals fly from Afghanistan to Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, arriving at around 0030 Monday (0930GMT Sunday).
• 2 Two Black Hawk helicopters set down at the compound after one develops problems. A team of 25 Seals breaches at least three walls to reach the main building.
• 3 As they go through the compound one person fires on the commandos. Three men and a woman are killed by the US Navy Seals. There are no US casualties.
• 4 On the second floor US commandos find Osama Bin Laden with his wife. She is shot in the leg. Bin Laden, who is unarmed, is shot twice and killed.
• 5 Computer hard drives and other evidence is taken from the compound, along with Bin Laden's body. The US team departs after destroying the damaged aircraft.

CLICKABLE How the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden was carried out.

The high-risk mission to hunt down Washington's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden, was given the green light by President Barack Obama in what his counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan termed "one of the gutsiest calls by any president in recent memory". The operation, which took place at a fortified compound on the outskirts of Abbottabad in north-west Pakistan, involved a team of some 20-25 highly-trained US Navy Seals.

Tension in the White House situation room

President Barack Obama followed the raid on Bin Laden's compound from the White House situation room - a secure space used to monitor and manage crises. For 40 minutes, the president and his senior aides were kept updated of the progress of the operation. "The minutes passed like days," said White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan. On hearing of Bin Laden's death, Mr Obama declared: "We got him."

1. Joe Biden

Vice president of the united states, 2. barack obama, president of the united states, 3. brigadier general marshall b "brad" webb, joint special operations command, 4. denis mcdonough, deputy national security adviser, 5. hillary clinton, secretary of state, 6. robert gates, secretary of defense, 7. admiral mike mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, 8. tom donilon, national security adviser, 9. bill daley, chief of staff, 10. tony blinken, national security adviser to the vice president, 11. audrey tomason, director for counter-terrorism, 12. john brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, 13. james clapper, director of national intelligence, bin laden's bedroom.

Footage from inside Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound tells of the bloody fire fight that left the al-Qaeda leader dead.

Crashed helicopter

One of the helicopters used in the operation failed and was destroyed by the special forces before they left.

The compound

The fortified compound was built on the edge of the hill town of Abbottabad, with no phone or internet connections.

Osama Bin Laden's compound: How it evolved over time

The Pentagon released satellite images dating back several years of the compound where Osama Bin Laden was discovered. They clearly show how it was extended over the years.

Bin Laden killed

Revealing images, what videos show, at al-qaeda's helm, was killing legal.

The US operation to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden was months in the planning but took just minutes to complete.

In a daring raid 120 miles (192km) inside Pakistan, a team of US special forces flew from Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hiding place in the dead of night. They swooped down on the compound in stealth helicopters, swept through the buildings within the high walled enclosure and shot dead a total of five people including Bin Laden.

Around 40 minutes later they left, taking with them Bin Laden's body and a hoard of computer data devices and other information containing intelligence about al-Qaeda and Bin Laden's activities.

They left behind the other dead, among whom were a woman and one of Bin Laden's sons. They also left a group of three women and 13 children - two girls and 11 boys - bound with plastic ties.

The US team was forced to abandon one of its helicopters after it was damaged in a hard landing at the compound site. It was mostly destroyed in an explosion set by the US forces as they departed.

Publicly, the US authorities have given few details about the raid and some of these have changed since the news of Bin Laden's death was officially announced.

What follows has been pieced together from official US statements and off-the-record interviews, other news sources and BBC interviews with those living near the compound in Abbottabad, the quiet, leafy garrison town 35 miles north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Just a handful of US military and senior officials around President Obama knew of the planned raid. However, within seconds of the arrival of the US helicopters overhead in Abbottabad on Monday, their presence was being advertised on Twitter.

"Helicopter hovering above Abbotttabad at 1am (is a rare event)," tweeted Sohaib Athar, an IT engineer who lives about 3km (two miles) from the compound.

Eleven minutes later Athar reported: "A huge window-shaking bang here in Abbottabad. I hope it's not the start of something nasty."

Mardell's America

“ start quote.

There is the suspicion that the US never wanted to take Bin Laden alive”

• Read Mark's thoughts in full

On the other side of the world President Obama and his closest advisers had gathered in the White House situation room to monitor progress of the assault. A few miles away, at CIA headquarters, the spy agency's director Leon Panetta sat in a windowless seventh floor room, which had been turned into a command centre.

From there he fed the president and his team details of the raid as it unfolded. The operation now under way was the culmination of weeks of detailed surveillance and planning involving some of the United States' most sophisticated technology.

Planning for the raid started late last year. US officials have spoken of how an intercept in late August 2010 of a phone call to a trusted courier of Bin Laden in Pakistan was a breakthrough that led to the raid.

The call was made to Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, a man the US had been seeking for years as part of the decade long hunt for Bin Laden . Controversially, they had learnt of his identity from interrogations of detainees in Guantanamo. Armed with the mobile phone number, the US was able to track him to the compound in Abbottabad.

It was unusual. High walls prevented anyone from seeing in and privacy screens on the main building's balconies blocked all sight lines. It had no phone or internet connection and all rubbish was burnt inside the high walls rather than being collected as usual.

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

The BBC's Orla Guerin looks around the perimeter of Bin Laden's compound

Access to the site was through a tall green metal security gate which led into a passageway with high walls either side, and another security gate leading to an inner compound at the other end.

According to neighbours who spoke to the BBC , the occupants rarely went out and when they did so - in either a red Suzuki jeep or van - they passed through security doors that closed immediately afterwards.

US intelligence soon began an intensive period of surveillance. While satellites watched from the sky a CIA safe house was set up nearby.

From the safe house, agents were able to observe the comings and goings from the compound in order to establish a "pattern of life" at the building. Some details of how they tried to obtain key information about the building have emerged.

Locals told the BBC that in the weeks leading up to the raid, people in "simple, plain clothes" knocked on doors in the neighbourhood posing as prospective property buyers. They would admire the homes and ask for any architectural plans, saying that they wanted to build something similar.

One of the men even went to Bin Laden's compound to make inquiries, they said.

The CIA also employed a sophisticated stealth drone that could float high about the compound without detection by the Pakistani authorities.

With its distinctive bat-winged shape, the RQ170 Sentinel is capable of flying undetected at high altitude taking photographs and sending real-time video. The aircraft can also capture images shot at an angle. This has the advantage of not having to fly directly over its target.

Despite the presence on the ground and observation from the sky, the CIA was still unable to positively identify Bin Laden as the man often spotted often walking up and down outside the house. Agents dubbed him "the pacer".

He and his associates went to extraordinary efforts to remain undetected. According to a detailed account of the lead-up to the raid in the Washington Post, US officials were "stunned to realise that whenever Kuwaiti or others left to make a call, they drove for 90 minutes before placing" a battery in a mobile phone.

In the meantime, a team from the secretive US Navy Seal Team 6 unit , had been practising storming a mock up of the compound, constructed at US bases on both coasts.

In the end, after months of investigation, the US had no conclusive proof of Bin Laden's presence in the compound. As President Obama told CBS television news, "this was still a 55/45 situation."

Nevertheless, 2 May presented a moonless night on which to mount the raid. The president formally gave the go-ahead on the morning of Friday 29 April.

But despite the detailed planning, the operation began to go wrong almost as soon as the raiders appeared overhead.

Five aircraft flew two teams of Navy Seals from a US base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, into Pakistan. Three large Chinook helicopters carrying a back-up team of 24 Seals put down near the Indus River, a 10-minute flight from the compound.

The two other aircraft, specially adapted Black Hawk helicopters , flew on to Abbottabad. On board, were 23 Seals, a translator and a tracking dog called Cairo. Three of the Seals were specifically tasked to seek out Bin Laden.

In the original plan, one of the helicopters was to hover over the main building allowing the Seals to clamber down ropes onto the roof. The other was to drop its team within the grounds of the compound. This should have taken just a couple of minutes allowing the aircraft to fly away, thereby attracting less attention.

However, on arrival, the Black Hawk hovering over Bin Laden's building skittered around in the heat-thinned air forcing the pilot to ditch the craft into the ground. It made a hard landing inside the compound but its tail and rotor caught on one of the high walls.

The other aircraft immediately landed outside the walls. Both teams clambered out unhurt but they had now lost the element of surprise and had to start blasting their way into the compound.

Behind the perimeter walls were further inner walls cordoning off the three-storey main building where Bin Laden and his family lived and a smaller single-storey guard house.

Leon Panetta, the CIA chief, has said the commandos blasted their way through "three or four" walls to get into the buildings. As the raid got under way, Panetta said, he and those in the White House situation room were in the dark for "around 20-25 minutes" as to what was actually going on in the compound.

According to US officials, as the members of the US team moved to search the buildings they were fired on by one of the two brothers who were close confidantes of Bin Laden. Al-Kuwaiti is said to have fired from behind a door of the guard house. The Navy Seals killed him and his wife, who reportedly made a lunge for the soldiers.

Moving into the main building the commandos come across al-Kuwaiti's brother on the ground floor. Believing that he was about to shoot, they shot him dead. On the way up the stairs, Bin Laden's adult son, Khalid Bin Laden , met the Navy Seal team. He too was shot and killed.

On the top floor the trio of Seals looking for Bin Laden found him, some 20 minutes into the raid, standing at the end of the corridor. They recognised him immediately. He also saw them and ducked back inside a room.

Initial US accounts of the mission said that before he was killed he had exchanged fire with the commandos while using his wife as a human shield. US officials have now told the Associated Press news agency that after the Seals rushed into the room, they found two women in front of Bin Laden, screaming and trying to protect him.

One of the soldiers pushed the women aside, the Seal behind him fired at Bin Laden, hitting him in the head and chest killing him instantly.

A later account from one of the Seals involved in the raid suggested that there was no fire fight with the US soldiers.

According to this account, Bin Laden was killed as soon as he stuck his head out of his bedroom. He was still alive although badly injured when the Seal team entered the room where they shot him again killing him.

After the shooting, one of the soldiers radioed his commanders: "Geronimo EKIA". In the cold military jargon, "EKIA" (Enemy killed in action) signalled that the team had killed their target.

The message was relayed to the White House where President Obama is said to have received the news with a terse " We got him ". Those in the situation room did not see the moment of Bin Laden's death.

Geronimo, it has been suggested was the code name for Bin Laden, but US officials have indicated that this referred to the stage in the operation in which Bin Laden was either captured or killed.

As they began photographing his body, an AK-47 and a Russian-made Makarov pistol were discovered in the room, but Bin Laden had not touched them.

The White House has corrected the version of events about the death of Osama Bin Laden

Earlier reports suggested that Bin Laden's wife, believed to be 29-year-old Amal al-Ahmed Sadah, was in the room with him and was shot in the leg when she lunged at the soldiers. Pakistani police say that the couple's 12-year-old daughter was also in the room and witnessed Bin Laden's death .

As the minutes ticked by, a suspicious Pakistani air force began scrambling some of its fighter jets, heightening fears in Washington that the US commandos could still be in danger as they tried to return to Afghanistan.

Pakistan was not tipped off in advance about the raid although a Pakistani intelligence official told the BBC that once US helicopters entered Pakistan air space the US officials told their counterparts that an operation was under way against "a high value target". They were not told the target was Bin Laden. This ultimately led to the jets being called back.

With Bin Laden dead, the US team prepared to leave.

They trawled through the rest of the compound collecting a " treasure trove" of documents, computer hard drives, memory sticks and other material that could provide useful intelligence.

One of the Chinooks flew in to collect the team from the broken helicopter. They loaded up Bin Laden's body, corralled those still alive into a room, piled explosives into the damaged aircraft and blew it up. They then left for the US air base in Bagram, Afghanistan.

One neighbour in Abbottabad told the BBC how one of the departing helicopters swept past his house, "flying very low, coming very close".

"I threw myself to the ground thinking it was going to collide with my house," Zahoor Abbasi said.

From there Bin Laden's body was flown to the USS Carl Vinson, a US aircraft carrier in the north Arabian sea, where Bin Laden was prepared for burial. A White House spokesman said the corpse was prepared for burial "in conformance with Islamic precepts and practice", then placed in a weighted bag and dropped into the water from the vessel's deck.

Officials said this was to prevent his grave from becoming a shrine..

More on This Story

The Pentagon's release of "home videos" of Osama Bin Laden show the US is now in control of the al-Qaeda leader's public image, the BBC's Natalia Antelava says.

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Osama in America

By Steve Coll

On Saturday, the Times published a useful interview with Yassin Kadi, a Saudi businessman who has been designated as a supporter of terrorism by the Treasury Department, but who has long maintained his innocence. In the seventeenth paragraph, the story rather casually mentions Kadi’s claim that he first met Osama Bin Laden in Chicago, in 1981. According to the story: “Mr. Kadi says he was working for the architectural firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill and that Mr. bin Laden—who is not known to have visited the United States—came to Chicago to recruit American-trained engineers for his family’s construction business.”

Kadi’s remarks are the latest piece of evidence suggesting that Osama knew America firsthand, although not deeply, from one or more trips taken as a young man. The matter is uncertain; Osama has never spoken about it one way or another, and no records or photographs have surfaced to confirm such a trip. While investigating the question during research for “ The Bin Ladens ,” my book about Osama’s family, I learned, however, that U.S. customs and immigration records from that period no longer exist. So as Donald Rumsfeld would say, the absence of evidence in this case is not evidence of absence.

Here are the known dots about this mystery that are available for connecting:

In December, 2005, I published a story in The New Yorker called “ Young Osama ,” which was mainly about the private high school Osama attended in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and how he was converted to a radical and political Islamic ideology by a Syrian physical-education teacher at the school. The story also quoted a friend and neighbor of Osama’s, Khaled Batarfi, who has published an interview with Osama’s mother and has been in recent touch with his son Abdullah and his stepbrothers, who all live in Jeddah. Citing these family members, Batarfi said that Osama had visited the United States sometime after his marriage, at around age seventeen. Batarfi thought the purpose of the trip involved medical treatment for Osama’s eldest son. He said that Osama had described sitting in an airport with his wife, who was in full hejab, and that they had been stared at like animals in a zoo. The implication was not that this had scarred or radicalized Osama, or that the visit was somehow responsible for his later declaration of war against the United States. The anecdote was presented, instead, as an intriguing sidebar to his Saudi- and Afghan-rooted biography. During our interviews, I tried again and again to tease out Batarfi’s memory about this supposed trip—where it had been, exactly, that Osama went. He kept saying that he thought it was in the Midwest. Cleveland, he said, but with a question mark in his voice. I actually contacted the Cleveland Clinic and tried to run down any doctors or records that might have survived or resurfaced after 9/11, but to no avail. Now, of course, comes Kadi’s fragmentary suggestion that Osama did, indeed, visit the Midwest, but that the city in question was Chicago.

Later, my colleague Larry Wright published “ The Looming Tower, ” his majesterial and definitive history of Al Qaeda. In it, Wright reported on interviews he conducted with other friends and relations of Osama who said that the medical trip involved a different son, Abdul Rahman, and that the destination involved had been London, not America. This reporting seems completely convincing, and seems to explain Batarfi’s reference to medical treatment, but it does not rule out a separate trip to America.

Still later, while researching “The Bin Ladens,” I came across several more pieces of evidence about Osama’s international travel. The first was a published interview with Walid Al-Khatib, a Palestinian who supervised Osama in the Mecca office of the family construction business. Al-Khatib, too, reported that Osama had once visited America, but he did not specify the purpose of the trip. A second official in the Bin Laden business empire described how Osama travelled, during the early nineteen-eighties, to Egypt to interview engineers and discuss construction projects—the same kind of trip described by Kadi in Chicago. In this account, Osama is depicted as a painfully shy and young junior executive who was escorted by more experienced men who were not Bin Laden family members but who actually ran the show. Osama was described as almost a nonentity in these meetings; if this portrait is accurate, it might explain why those he met with in Chicago apparently took no photographs or other note of him.

All in all, we do know that Osama travelled somewhat more often and more widely in the West than the standard portraits of him typically note. In “The Bin Ladens,” I describe how he flew to London to meet with German arms dealers who sold him missiles and ammunition. We know, too, that in the mid nineteen-nineties, while living in exile in Sudan, he inquired about obtaining asylum in Britain.

Why does this matter? It is more than a curiosity. It is a matter of nuance, perhaps, but in the popular media, the misreading and under-representation of Osama’s direct knowledge and experience of the West has contributed, since 9/11, to a sense that he is an obscurantist in a faraway cave, a backward-looking madman. A fuller reading of the man and his movement has to account for all of the ways that he is, at the same time, a creature of modernity and of globalization—its technologies, its media, and its mobility. Then, too, there is the matter of his imagination. We know of his longstanding interest and involvement with architecture and construction. If he did visit Chicago, surely he took note of its skyscrapers.

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By M. Z. Adnan

By Krithika Varagur

By Merve Emre

By Susan B. Glasser

Osaka (���, Ōsaka) is Japan's second largest metropolitan area after Tokyo . It has been the economic powerhouse of the Kansai Region for many centuries. Osaka was formerly known as Naniwa. Before the Nara Period , when the capital used to be moved with the reign of each new emperor , Naniwa was once Japan's capital city, the first one ever known.

In the 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi chose Osaka as the location for his castle , and the city may have become Japan's political capital if Tokugawa Ieyasu had not terminated the Toyotomi lineage after Hideyoshi's death and established his government in distant Edo (Tokyo) .

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Security Alert May 17, 2024

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Russia Travel Advisory

Travel advisory september 5, 2023, russia - level 4: do not travel.

Updated to remove COVID-specific information and the kidnapping risk indicator as well as updates to security risks.

Do not travel to Russia due to the unpredictable consequences of the  unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces , the potential for  harassment and the singling out of U.S. citizens for detention by Russian government security officials , the  arbitrary enforcement of local law ,  limited flights into and out of Russia , the  Embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia , and the possibility of  terrorism .  U.S. citizens residing or travelling in Russia should depart immediately.  Exercise increased caution due to  the risk of wrongful detentions.

The U.S. government’s ability to provide routine or emergency services to U.S. citizens in Russia is severely limited, particularly in areas far from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, due to Russian government limitations on travel for embassy personnel and staffing, and the ongoing suspension of operations, including consular services, at U.S. consulates.

There have been numerous reports of drone attacks, explosions, and fires in areas in Western and Southern Russia, particularly near the Russian border with Ukraine, as well as in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In the event of an emergency, U.S. citizens should follow instructions from local authorities and seek shelter immediately.

In September 2022, the Russian government mobilized citizens to the armed forces in support of its invasion of Ukraine. Russia may refuse to acknowledge dual nationals’ U.S. citizenship, deny their access to U.S. consular assistance, subject them to mobilization, prevent their departure from Russia, and/or conscript them. 

U.S. citizens should note that U.S. credit and debit cards no longer work in Russia, and options to electronically transfer funds from the United States are extremely limited due to sanctions imposed on Russian banks. There are reports of cash shortages within Russia.

Commercial flight options are extremely limited and are often unavailable on short notice. If you wish to depart Russia, you should make independent arrangements as soon as possible. The U.S. Embassy has severe limitations on its ability to assist U.S. citizens to depart the country and transportation options may suddenly become even more limited. Click  here  for Information for U.S. Citizens Seeking to Depart Russia.

U.S. Embassy personnel are generally not permitted to travel on Russian air carriers due to safety concerns.  The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) downgraded the air safety rating for Russia from Category 1 to Category 2 on April 21, 2022, due to Russia’s Federal Agency for Air Transport noncompliance with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) safety standards.  The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) prohibiting U.S. aviation operations into, out of, within, or over those areas of the Moscow Flight Information Region (FIR), the Samara FIR (UWWW) and the Rostov-na-Donu (URRV) FIR within 160NM of the boundaries of the Dnipro (UKDV) Flight Information Regions. For more information, U.S. citizens should consult the  Federal Aviation Administration’s Prohibitions, Restrictions, and Notices .

The right of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression are not consistently protected in Russia. U.S. citizens should avoid all political or social protests and not photograph security personnel at these events. Russian authorities have arrested U.S. citizens who have participated in demonstrations and there are numerous reports Russian nationals have been detained for social media activity. 

Country Summary:

U.S. citizens, including former and current U.S. government and military personnel and private citizens engaged in business who are visiting or residing in Russia, have been interrogated without cause and threatened by Russian officials, and may become victims of harassment, mistreatment, and extortion. 

Russian security services may fail to notify the U.S. Embassy of the detention of a U.S. citizen and unreasonably delay U.S. consular assistance. Russian security services are increasing the arbitrary enforcement of local laws to target foreign and international organizations they consider “undesirable.”

Russian security services have arrested U.S. citizens on spurious charges, singled out U.S. citizens in Russia for detention and harassment, denied them fair and transparent treatment, and convicted them in secret trials or without presenting credible evidence. Furthermore, Russian authorities arbitrarily enforce local laws against U.S. citizen religious workers and have opened questionable criminal investigations against U.S. citizens engaged in religious activity. U.S. citizens should avoid travel to Russia to perform work for or volunteer with non-governmental organizations or religious organizations.

There have been multiple security incidents in southwestern Russia related to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine. The Russian government declared martial law in Russia’s regions bordering Ukraine (Bryansk, Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh, Rostov, Krasnodar) on October 20, 2022. The martial law regime allows the rapid introduction of restrictive measures such as curfew, seizure of private property, restriction of entry/exit and freedom of movement, internment of foreigners, forced relocation of local residents, and restrictions on public gatherings. U.S. citizens should avoid all travel to these areas.

Recent legislation has expanded the ability of Russian authorities to detain, question, and arrest individuals suspected of acting against Russia’s interests, including posts on personal social media accounts, engaging with foreign and international entities, discrediting the Russian state or military, as well as advocating for the rights of LGBTQI+ persons.

Terrorist groups, both transnational and local terrorist organizations, and individuals inspired by extremist ideology continue plotting possible attacks in Russia. Terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs and systems, markets/shopping malls, local government facilities, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, parks, major sporting and cultural events, educational institutions, airports, and other public areas. Travel to the North Caucasus (including Chechnya and Mt. Elbrus) is prohibited for U.S. government employees and strongly discouraged for U.S. citizens.

The international community, including the United States and Ukraine, does not recognize Russia’s purported annexation of Crimea as well as four other Ukrainian oblasts – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya – that Russia has purported to annex more recently. There is extensive Russian Federation military presence in these areas. Russia staged its further invasion of Ukraine, in part, from occupied Crimea, and Russia is likely to take further military actions in Crimea, and the four other Ukrainian oblasts are the subject of intensive fighting. There are continuing abuses against foreigners and the local population by the occupation authorities in these regions, particularly against those who are seen as challenging Russia’s authority.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv continues to provide consular services to U.S. citizens in Crimea as well as four other Ukrainian oblasts partially occupied by Russia – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya, although the ongoing conflict severely restricts the Embassy’s ability to provide services in these areas.

Read the  country information page  for additional information on travel to Russia.

If you decide to travel to Russia:

• Familiarize yourself with the information on  what the U.S. government can and cannot do to assist you in a crisis overseas .
• Have a contingency plan in place that does not rely on U.S. government assistance. Review the  Traveler’s Checklist .
• Monitor local and international media for breaking events and adjust your contingency plans based on the new information.
• Ensure travel documents are valid and easily accessible.
• Visit our website for  Travel to High-Risk Areas .
• Enroll in the  Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP)  to receive Alerts and make it easier to locate you in an emergency.
• Follow the Department of State on  Facebook  and  Twitter .
• Review the  Country Security Report  for Russia.
• Visit the CDC page for the latest  Travel Health Information  related to your travel.

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How to Visit Russia as an American

 Luxy Images / Getty Images

While U.S. citizens are welcomed with visas on arrival to 184 countries around the world, Russia isn’t one of them. American citizens need to obtain a Russian tourist visa before they’re allowed to depart for the country. 

There is one loophole, at least for now: cruise passengers are allowed to visit Russia without a tourist visa for up to 72 hours, presuming they follow a rigid set of rules. 

If you’re an American looking to plan a trip to Russia, here are your travel options.

How to Get a Russian Tourist Visa

Americans looking to visit Russia on tourist visas have two options, a single-entry visa for $113 or a multiple entry visa for $273 dollars. It’s recommended to apply for Russia travel visas 30 to 90 days before departure, but procrastinators can typically pay extra to have visa applications expedited.

The first step in getting a visa to visit Russia is securing a formal invitation. This is easier than it sounds. The Petr Hotel in St. Petersburg, Russia , for example, offers guests visa invitation letters instantly online for a $16 fee. Many hotels, tour operators and travel agents provide similar services.

Once you’ve got your invitation letter, you’ll need to fill out an online Russia tourist visa application , but prepare yourself. The application asks for a detailed log of your past decade of travel abroad as well as for information about your schooling, parents, occupation, and involvement with professional or other organizations. If you’re an avid traveler it might take you awhile.

After completing your application, you'll need to submit it through a visa processing company and pay the required fees. Travisa , CIBT Visas , and Allied Passport & Visa are among the companies you can use. For Travisa, processing fees start at $164, but that’s in addition to the visa fee itself. 

You will need to send in your physical passport and two passport size photos as part of the process. If approved, your passport will be returned to you with a full-page Russian tourist visa. 

Getting a visa to visit Russia can be a good way to avoid the crowds that often accompany large cruise ships and to have more time and freedom to explore on your terms. Lines at the Hermitage Museum and other sites are noticeably shorter once the cruise ships have pulled out of town, leaving a more authentic feeling in St. Petersburg. If you’re looking to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg , you’ll want more than 72 hours and will be best served by having a Russian tourist visa.

Take a Visa-Free Cruise to Russia

Passengers visiting Russia on cruise ships or via ferry services are allowed to stay in the country for up to 72 hours without a visa. This option limits both your time and independence in Russia.

If you’re on a major cruise line that’s making a stop in St. Petersburg, you’ll need to buy a shore excursion from the operator or book a city tour with a local company. You will need to remain with your tour group the entire time you’re on land, so kiss that casual wandering goodbye.

If you opt for the St. Peter Line ferry from Helsinki, you’ll have a little more freedom but not much. You’ll have to either sleep on the ferry or at one of a number of pre-approved hotels. You’ll also need to take the company’s sightseeing bus tour, something that’ll eat into the precious little time you’ll actually have on land.

And while you won’t need a tourist visa, you’ll still have to go through Russian customs, which can be an experience.

It’s worth keeping in mind the St. Peter Line ferry is no luxury cruise ship. Rooms are small and basic, with the most budget-friendly options coming in at around $230, not including extras like the required shore tour, an extra $30 per person. There are restaurants, bars, and a dance club on board, but ships sailing this route look like they’re straight out of the 1990s.

This option will save you visa fees and the hassle of applying for a Russia travel visa, but there is a cost. Ferry schedules typically have passengers arriving in St. Petersburg around 9 a.m. after an overnight journey from Helsinki and departing two days later around 7 p.m., giving visitors a scant 58 hours to explore a sprawling metropolitan area that was Russia's imperial capital for two centuries and remains its cultural capital.

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