US Forces Kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad

On May 2, 2011, United States special operations forces carried out Operation Neptune Spear, an airborne assault on a fortified residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The raid culminated in the shooting death of Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda who had orchestrated the catastrophic attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Bin Laden had evaded an extensive American manhunt after escaping across the Afghan border into Pakistan, where, according to a later Pakistani inquiry, he arrived around mid-2002. Authorized by President Barack Obama, the mission was carried out by about two dozen Navy SEALs who arrived in two Black Hawk helicopters.

The path to the Abbottabad residence depended on tracking al-Qaeda's internal courier networks. Around 2007, US intelligence learned the name of one of bin Laden's most trusted couriers, one of two brothers who used the name al-Kuwaiti, and by about 2009 it had identified the area of Pakistan where the brothers lived. In August 2010, intelligence officers linked them to a large three-story compound in Abbottabad, and Obama was briefed that month on a possible lead to bin Laden. The property, worth a reported one million dollars, was surrounded by walls 12 to 18 feet high topped with barbed wire, had no telephone or internet service, and its residents burned their rubbish rather than having it collected.