Osama bin Laden, the former head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda known for the September

11 attacks, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1am local time by Navy SEALs of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group. The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by United States President Barack Obama and carried out in a Central Intelligence Agency-led operation. Participating units included the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group the U.S. Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), and CIA operatives. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for identification, then buried it at sea within 24 hours of his death. Al-Qaeda confirmed the death on May 6 with posts made on militant websites, vowing to avenge the killing. Other Pakistani militant groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, also vowed retaliation against the U.S. and against Pakistan for not preventing the operation. Bin Laden's killing was generally favorably received by U.S. public opinion; was welcomed by the United Nations, NATO, the European Union, and a large number of governments; but was condemned by some, including Fidel Castro of Cuba and Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamas administration of the Gaza Strip. Legal and ethical aspects of the killing, such as his not being taken alive despite being unarmed, were questioned by others, including Amnesty International. Also controversial was the decision to not release any photographic or DNA evidence of bin Laden's death to the public. Identification of al-Qaeda couriers was an early priority for interrogators at CIA black sites and Guantanamo Bay detention camp, because bin Laden was believed to communicate through such couriers while concealing his whereabouts from al-Qaeda foot soldiers and top commanders. Bin Laden was known not to use phones, as the U.S. launched missile strikes against his bases in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998 (Operation Infinite Reach) after tracking an associate's satellite phone. By 2002, interrogators had heard uncorroborated claims about an al-Qaeda courier with the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. In 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged operational chief of al-Qaeda, revealed under interrogation that he was acquainted with al-Kuwaiti but that he was not active in al-Qaeda. In 2004, a prisoner named Hassan Ghul told interrogators that al-Kuwaiti was close to bin Laden as well as Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Mohammed's successor Abu Faraj al-Libi. Ghul further revealed that al-Kuwaiti had not been seen in some time, which led U.S. officials to suspect he was traveling with bin Laden. When confronted with Ghul's account, Khalid Sheik Mohammed maintained his original story. Abu Faraj al-Libi was captured in 2005 and transferred to Guantnamo in September 2006. He told CIA interrogators that bin Laden's courier was a man named Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan and denied knowing al-Kuwaiti. Because both Mohammed and al-Libi had minimized al-Kuwaiti's importance, officials speculated that he was part of bin Laden's inner circle. In 2007, officials learned al-Kuwaiti's real name, though they will not disclose the name nor how they learned it. Since the name Maulwi Abd al-Khaliq Jan appears in the JTF-GTMO detainee assessment for Abu Faraj al-Libi released by WikiLeaks on April 24, 2011, there was speculation

that the U.S. assault on the Abbottabad compound was expedited as a precaution. The CIA never found anyone named Maulawi Jan and concluded that the name was an invention of al-Libi. A 2010 wiretap of another suspect picked up a conversation with al-Kuwaiti. CIA paramilitary operatives located al-Kuwaiti in August 2010 and followed him back to bin Laden's Abbottabad compound.[16] The courier and a relative (who was either a brother or a cousin) were killed in the May 2, 2011 raid.[18] Afterward, some locals identified the men as Pashtuns named Arshad and Tareq Khan.[23]Arshad Khan was carrying an old, noncomputerized Pakistani identification card which said he was from Khat Kuruna, a village nearCharsadda in northwestern Pakistan. Pakistani officials have found no record of an Arshad Khan in that area and suspect the men were living under false identities.[24] In June 2011, Pakistani officials revealed the courier's name as Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed from Pakistan's Swat Valley. He and his brother Abrar and their families were living at bin Laden's compound The CIA used surveillance photos and intelligence reports to determine the identities of the inhabitants of the Abbottabad compound to which the courier was traveling. In September 2010, the CIA concluded that the compound was custom-built to hide someone of significance, very likely bin Laden.[26][27] Officials surmised that he was living there with his youngest wife.[27] Built in 2004, the three-story[28] compound was located at the end of a narrow dirt road.[29]Google Earth maps made from satellite photographs show that the compound was not present in 2001 but did exist on images taken in 2005.[30] It is located 2.5 miles (4.0 km) northeast of the city center of Abbottabad.[26] Abbottabad is about 100 miles (160 km) from the Afghanistan border on the far eastern side of Pakistan (about 20 miles (32 km) from India). The compound is 0.8 miles (1.3 km) southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy(PMA), a prominent military academy that has been compared with West Point in the United States and Sandhurst in Britain.[3]Located on a plot of land eight times larger than those of nearby houses, it was surrounded by a 12-to-18-foot (3.7 5.5 m)[27] concrete wall topped with barbed wire.[26] There were two security gates, and the third-floor balcony had a seven-foot-high (2.1 m) privacy wall, tall enough to hide the 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) bin Laden. There was no Internet or landline telephone service to the compound, and its residents burned their refuse, unlike their neighbors who set their garbage out for collection.[28] Local residents called the building the Waziristan Haveli, because they believed the owner was from Waziristan.[31] The compound was demolished in February 2012

Objective
The Associated Press cited two U.S. officials as stating the operation was "a kill-or-capture mission, since the U.S. doesn't kill unarmed people trying to surrender", but that "it was clear from the beginning that whoever was behind those walls had no intention of surrendering".[37] White House counterterrorism advisor John O. Brennan stated after the raid: "If we had the opportunity to take bin Laden alive, if he didn't present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that."[38] CIA Director Leon Panetta stated on PBS NewsHour: "The authority here was to kill bin Laden...Obviously under the rules of engagement, if he in fact had thrown up his hands, surrendered

and didn't appear to be representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But, they had full authority to kill him."[39] However, a U.S. national security official, who was not named, told Reutersthat "'this was a kill operation', making clear there was no desire to try to capture bin Laden alive in Pakistan".[40] Another source referencing a kill(rather than capture) order states, "Officials described the reaction of the special operators when they were told a number of weeks ago that they had been chosen to train for the mission. 'They were told, "We think we found Osama bin Laden, and your job is to kill him",' an official recalled. The SEALs started to cheer.

Date Location

May 12, 2011 Osama bin Laden's hideout compound,Abbottabad, Pakistan 34109N 731433E Osama bin Laden killed

Result

Belligerents

United States

al-Qaeda

Commanders and leaders

Osama bin Laden Abu Ahmed alKuwaiti

Barack Obama William H. McRaven

Strength
79 6 helicopters 1 Belgian Malinois (military working dog) 22 (number of residents, including children)

Casualties and losses

1 helicopter lost to malfunction 5 killed 17 captured (3 injured) 1 escaped

Planning

The CIA briefed Vice Admiral William H. McRaven, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), about the compound in January 2011. McRaven said a commando raid would be fairly straightforward but he was concerned about the Pakistani response. He assigned a captain from the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU) to work with a CIA team at their campus in Langley, Virginia. The captain, named "Brian", set up an office in the printing plant in the CIA's Langley compound and, with six other JSOC officers, began to plan the raid.[42] In addition to a helicopter raid, planners considered attacking the compound with B-2 Spirit stealth bombers. They considered a joint operation with Pakistani forces. President Obama, however, decided that the Pakistani government and military could not be trusted to maintain operational security for the operation against bin Laden. "There was a real lack of confidence that the Pakistanis could keep this secret for more than a nanosecond," a senior adviser to the President told The New Yorker.[42] President Obama met with the National Security Council on March 14 to review the options. The president was concerned that the mission would be exposed and wanted to proceed quickly. For that reason he ruled out involving the Pakistanis. Defense SecretaryRobert Gates and other military officials expressed doubts as to whether bin Laden was actually in the compound, and whether a commando raid was worth the risk. At the end of the meeting the president seemed to be leaning toward a bombing mission. Two US Air Force officers were tasked with exploring that option further.[43] The CIA was unable to rule out the existence of an underground bunker below the compound. Presuming that one existed, 32 2,000-pound (910 kg) bombs fitted with JDAM guidance systems would be required to destroy it.[44] With that amount of ordnance, at least one other house was in the blast radius. Estimates were that up to a dozen civilians would be killed in addition to those in the compound. Furthermore it was unlikely there would be enough evidence remaining to prove that bin Laden was dead. Presented with this information at the next Security Council meeting on March 29, President Obama put the bombing plan on hold. Instead he directed Admiral McRaven to develop the idea of a helicopter raid. McRaven assembled a team drawing from Red Squadron, one of four that make up DEVGRU. Red Squadron was coming home from Afghanistan and could be redirected without attracting attention. The team had language skills and experience with cross-border operations into Pakistan.[43] Without being told the exact nature of their mission, the team performed two rehearsals in the U.S. on April 10 in North Carolina and April 18 in Nevada.[42][44] Planners believed the SEALs could get to Abbottabad and back without being challenged by the Pakistani military. The helicopters to be used in the raid had been designed to be quiet and to have low radar visibility. Since the U.S. had helped equip and train the Pakistanis, their defensive capabilities were known. Furthermore the U.S. had supplied F-16 Fighting Falcons to Pakistan on the condition they were kept at a Pakistani military base under 24-hour U.S. surveillance.[45] The U.S. would know immediately if the Pakistanis scrambled their jets.

If bin Laden surrendered he would be held near Bagram Air Base. If the SEALs were discovered by the Pakistanis in the middle of the raid, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen would call Pakistan's army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and try to negotiate their release.[46] When the Security Council met again on April 19, President Obama gave provisional approval for the helicopter raid. But he worried that the plan for dealing with the Pakistanis was too uncertain. Obama asked Adm. McRaven to equip the team to fight its way out if necessary.[43] McRaven and the SEALs left for Afghanistan to practice at a one acre full-scale replica of the compound built on a restricted area of Bagram known as Camp Alpha.[47][48] The team departed the U.S. from Naval Air Station Oceana on April 26 in a C-17 aircraft, refueled on the ground at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, landed at Bagram Air Base, then moved to Jalalabad on April 27.[42] On April 28 Admiral Mullen explained the final plan to the Security Council. To bolster the "fight your way out" scenario, Chinook helicopters with additional troops would be positioned nearby. Obama said he wanted to speak directly to Admiral McRaven before he gave the order to proceed. The president asked if McRaven had learned anything since arriving in Afghanistan that caused him to lose confidence in the mission. McRaven told him the team was ready and that the next few nights would have little moonlight over Abbottabad, good conditions for a raid.[42] On April 29 at 8:20 a.m., Obama conferred with his advisers and gave the final go-ahead. The raid would take place the following day. That evening the president was informed that the operation would be delayed one day due to cloudy weather. On April 30 Obama called McRaven one more time to wish the SEALs well and to thank them for their service.[42] On May 1 at 1:22 p.m., Panetta, acting on the president's orders, directed McRaven to move forward with the operation. Shortly after 3 p.m., the president joined national security officials in the Situation Room to monitor the raid. They watched night-vision images taken from a drone while Panetta, appearing in a corner of the screen from CIA headquarters, narrated what was happening.[46] Video links with Panetta at CIA headquarters and McRaven in Afghanistan were set up in the Situation Room. In an adjoining office was the live drone feed presented on a laptop computer operated by Brigadier General Marshall Webb, assistant commander of JSOC. Two other command centers monitored the raid from the Pentagon and the American embassy in Islamabad Main article: Reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden

Americans celebrating after the death of Osama bin Laden in front of the White House

Before the official announcement, large crowds spontaneously gathered outside the White House, Ground Zero, the Pentagon and in New York's Times Square to celebrate. In Dearborn, Michigan, where there is a large Muslim and Arab population, a small crowd gathered outside the City Hall in celebration, many of them being of Middle Eastern descent.[135] From the beginning to the end of Obama's speech, 5,000 tweets per second were sent on microblogging platform Twitter.[136] As news of bin Laden's death filtered through the crowd at a nationally-televised Major League Baseball game, "U-S-A!" cheers began.[137][138]In Tampa, Florida, at the conclusion of a professional wrestling event which was occurring at the time, WWE Champion John Cena announced to the audience that bin Laden had been "caught and compromised to a permanent end," prompting chants while he exited the arena to the song Stars and Stripes Forever.[139] The deputy leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said that, with bin Laden dead, Western forces should now pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan; authorities in Iran made similar comments.[140] Palestinian Authorityleaders had contrasting reactions. Mahmoud Abbas welcomed bin Laden's death, while Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Hamasadministration in the Gaza Strip, condemned what he saw as the assassination of an "Arab holy warrior".[13] The 14th Dalai Lama was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying, "Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened. ... If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures." This was widely reported as an endorsement of bin Laden's killing and was criticized in Buddhist circles, but another journalist cited a video of the discussion to argue that the comment was taken out of context and the Dalai Lama only supports killing in selfdefense.[141] A The New York Times/CBS poll taken after bin Laden's death showed that 16% of Americans feel safer as the result of his death while 60% of Americans of those polled believe killing bin Laden likely would increase the threat of terrorism against the United States in the short term.[142] In India, Minister for Home Affairs P. Chidambaram said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He also called on Pakistan to arrest them,[143] amidst calls for similar strikes being conducted by India against Hafeez Saeed and Dawood Ibrahim

Bin Laden's will

After bin Laden's death, it was reported he had left a will written a short time after 9/11[171] in which he urged his children not to join al-Qaeda and not to continue the Jihad Pakistan came under intense international scrutiny after the raid. The Pakistani government denied that it had sheltered bin Laden, and said it had shared information with the CIA and other intelligence agencies about the compound since 2009.[191] After the raid, there was an unconfirmed report that Pakistan allowed Chinese military officials to examine the wreckage of the crashed helicopter.

Abbottabad attracted refugees from fighting in the tribal areas and Swat Valley, as well asAfghanistan. "People don't really care now to ask who's there," said Gohar Ayub Khan, a former foreign minister and resident of the city. "That's one of the reasons why, possibly, he came in there."[193] The city was home to at least one al-Qaeda leader before bin Laden. Operational chief Abu Faraj alLibi reportedly moved his family to Abbottabad in mid-2003.[194] Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) raided the house in December 2003 but did not find him.[195] A courier told interrogators that al-Libi used three houses in Abbottabad. Pakistani officials say they informed their American counterparts at the time that the city could be a hiding place for al-Qaeda leaders.[196] In 2009 officials began providing the U.S. with intelligence about bin Laden's compound without knowing who lived there.[195] On January 25, 2011,[197] ISI arrested Umar Patek, an Indonesian wanted in connection with the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, while he was staying with a family in Abbottabad. Tahir Shehzad, a clerk at the post office, was arrested on suspicion of facilitating travel for al-Qaeda militants.[194] Numerous allegations were made that the government of Pakistan had shielded bin Laden.[96][198][199] Critics cited the very close proximity of bin Laden's heavily fortified compound to the Pakistan Military Academy, that the U.S. chose to not notify Pakistani authorities before the operation, and the double standards of Pakistan regarding the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.[199][199][200][201] U.S. government files, leaked by Wikileaks, disclosed that American diplomats had been told that Pakistani security services were tipping off bin Laden every time U.S. forces approached. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), also helped smuggle al-Qaeda militants into Afghanistan to fight NATO troops. According to the leaked files, in December 2009, the government of Tajikistan had also told U.S. officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden's whereabouts.[202] CIA chief Leon Panetta said the CIA had ruled out involving Pakistan in the operation, because it feared that "any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission. They might alert the targets."[203] However, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stated that "cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound in which he was hiding".[204] Obama echoed her sentiments.[205] John O. Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor, said that it was inconceivable that bin Laden did not have support from within Pakistan. He further stated: "People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long."[206]

Abbottabad, Pakistan, at night, showing the lights of the city

Indian Minister for Home Affairs P. Chidambaram said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India, and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He called on Pakistan to arrest them Several officials who were present in the Situation Room, including the president,[182] told reporters that the code name for bin Laden was "Geronimo." They had watched Leon Panetta, speaking from CIA headquarters, while he narrated the action in Abbottabad. Panetta said, "We have a visual on Geronimo," and later, "Geronimo EKIA"--enemy killed in action.[44] The actual words of the commander on the ground were, "For God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo."[214] Officials subsequently explained that each step of the mission was labelled alphabetically in an "Execution Checklist," which is used to ensure all participants in a large operation are kept synchronized with a minimum of radio traffic. "Geronimo" indicated the raiders had reached step "G," the capture or killing of bin Laden.[54] Osama bin Laden himself was identified as "Jackpot," the general code name for the target of an operation.[214]ABC News reported that otherwise his regular code name was "Cakebread."[46] The New Yorker reported that bin Laden's codename was "Crankshaft."[42] Many Native Americans were offended that Geronimo, the legendary 19th century Apache, was irrevocably linked with bin Laden. The chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, the successor to Geronimo's tribe, wrote a letter to President Obama asking him to "right this wrong."[215] The president of the Navajo Nation requested that the U.S. government change the code name retroactively.[216] Officials from the National Congress of American Indians said the focus should be on honoring the disproportionately high number of Native Americans serving in the military, and they had been assured that "Geronimo" was not a code name for bin Laden.[217] The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs heard testimony on the issue from tribal leaders, while the Defense Department had no comment except to say that no disrespect was intended Evidence seized from the compound is said to include ten cell phones, five to ten computers, twelve hard drives, at least 100 computer disks (including thumb drives and DVDs), handwritten notes, documents, weapons and "an assortment of personal items".[231][232]Intelligence analysts will also study call detail records from two phone numbers that were found to be sewn into bin Laden's clothing.[231] They helped over the course of several months to apprehend several al-Qaeda members in several countries and to kill several of bin Laden's closest associates by CIA drone attacks in Pakistan.[232] The material gathered at the compound is being stored at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, where forensic experts will analyze fingerprints, DNA and other trace evidence left on the material.[231] Copies of the material are being provided to other agencies; officials want to preserve a chain of custody in case any of the information is needed as evidence in a future trial.

A special CIA team has been given the responsibility of combing through the digital material and documents removed from the bin Laden compound.[233] The CIA team is working in collaboration with other U.S. government agencies "to triage, catalog and analyze this intelligence."[104] Bin Laden's youngest wife told Pakistani investigators that the family lived in the feudal village of Chak Shah Mohammad Khan, in the nearby district of Haripur, for two-and-a-half years prior to moving to Abbottabad in late 2005.[124] The material seized from the compound contained al-Qaeda's strategy for Afghanistan after America's withdrawal from the country in 2014[234] as well as thousands of electronic memos and missives that captured conversations between bin Laden and his deputies around the world.[235] It showed that bin Laden stayed in touch with al-Qaeda's established affiliates and sought new alliances with groups such as Boko Haram from Nigeria.[234] According to the material, he sought to reassert control over factions of loosely affiliated jihadists from Yemen to Somalia, as well as independent actors whom he believed had sullied al-Qaeda's reputation and muddied its central message.[235] Bin Laden was worried at times about his personal security and was annoyed that his organization had not utilized the Arab spring to improve its image.[235] He acted, according to the Washington Post, on the one hand as "chief executive fully engaged in the group's myriad crises, grappling with financial problems, recruitment, rebellious field managers and sudden staff vacancies resulting from the unrelenting U.S. drone campaign.",[235] and on the other hand as "a hands-on manager who participated in the terrorist group's operational planning and strategic thinking while also giving orders and advice to field operatives scattered worldwide."[235] The material also described Osama bin Laden's relation with Ayman al-Zawahiri and Atiyah Abd al-Rahman.[235] Seventeen documents seized during the Attabotad raid, consisting of electronic letters or draft letters dating from September 2006 to April 2011, were released by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point one year and one day after bin Laden's death.[232] and made available at the Washington Post Homepage[236] The documents cover the areas of news media in America, affiliates, targets, America, security, and the Arab Spring.[237] In the documents, bin Laden stated that al-Qaeda's strength is limited and suggested therefore that the best way to attack the United States, which he compared to a tree, "is to concentrate on sawing the trunk".[232]Osama bin Laden refused the promotion of Anwar al-Awlaki when this was requested by Nasir al-Wuhayshi, leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. "We here become reassured of the people when they go to the line and get examined there,"[232] bin Laden said. He told al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to expand operations in the United States in the wake of the 2009 Christmas Day bomb plot by writing "We need to extend and develop our operations in America and not keep it limited to blowing up airplanes."[232] The seized material shed light on al-Qaeda's relationship with Iran, which detained jihadis and their relatives in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, including members of bin Laden's family. Al-Qaeda's relationship with Iran was, according to the Combating Terrorism Center, an "unpleasant byproduct of necessity, fueled by mutual distrust and antagonism."[232] An explicit reference to any institutional support from Pakistan for al-Qaeda wasn't mentioned in the documents; instead, bin Laden instructed his family members how to avoid detection so that members of Pakistani intelligence couldn't track them to find him.[238] According to the seized material, the former commander of the international forces in Afghanistan, David Petraeus, and US President Barack

Obama should be assassinated during any of their visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan, if there was an opportunity to do so. US Vice-President Joe Biden should not be a target according to bin Laden, because "Biden is totally unprepared for that post [of president], which will lead the US into a crisis."[238] Al-Qaeda leader bin Laden was also against one-person suicide attacks and was of the opinion that instead at least two persons should be sent to undertake these attacks.[238] He planned to reform in a way so that al-Qaeda's central leadership has a greater say in the naming of the alQaeda branch leaders and their deputies. Osama bin Laden expressed his opinion that killing Muslims has weakened his organization and not helped al-Qaeda. He wrote that the killing of Muslims has "cost the mujahedeen no small amount of sympathy among Muslims. The enemy has exploited the mistakes of the mujahedeen to mar their image among the masses. Aviation Week said the helicopter appeared to be a significantly modified MH-60 Black Hawk. Serial numbers found at the scene were consistent with an MH-60 built in 2009.[243] Its performance during the operation confirmed that a stealth helicopter could evade detection in a militarily sensitive, densely populated area. Photos showed that Black Hawk's tail had stealth-configured shapes on the boom and the fairings, swept stabilizersand a "hubcap" over the noise-reducing five- or six-blade tail rotor. It appeared to have a silver-loaded infrared suppression finish similar to some V-22 Ospreys.[240] The U.S. requested return of the wreckage and the Chinese government also expressed interest, according to Pakistani officials. Pakistan had custody of the wreckage for over two weeks before its return was secured by US Senator John Kerry.[244] Experts disagreed as to how much information could have been gleaned from the tail fragment. Stealth technology was already operational on several fixed-wing aircraft and the cancelled RAH-66 Comanche helicopter- however, the modified Black Hawk was the first confirmed operational "stealth helicopter". Likely, the most valuable information could come from radar-absorbing paint used on the tail section.[240][245] Local children were seen picking up pieces of the wreckage and selling them as souvenirs.[120] In August 2011, reports surfaced that Pakistan had allowed the People's Republic of China scientists to examine the helicopter's tail section and were especially interested in its radar-absorbing paint.[246] Pakistan and the PRC subseq uently denied these claims.

Previous attempts to capture or kill bin Laden

See also: Battle of Tora Bora and Location of Osama bin Laden

Air strikes on Tora Bora in 2001

February 1994: A team of Libyans attacked bin Laden's home in the Sudan. The CIA investigated and reported that they had been hired by Saudi Arabia, but Saudi Arabia accused them of lying to make bin Laden more amenable to Sudanese interests.[251][252] August 20, 1998: In Operation Infinite Reach, the U.S. Navy launched 66 cruise missiles at a suspected al-Qaeda training camp outside Khost, Afghanistan, where bin Laden was expected to be. Reports said that 30 people may have been killed.[253] 2000: Foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one in which bin Laden was riding.[254] December 2001: During the opening stages of the war in Afghanistan launched following the September 11 attacks, the U.S. and its allies believed that bin Laden was hiding in the rugged mountains at Tora Bora. Despite overrunning the Taliban and al-Qaeda positions, they failed to capture or kill him