Behind the hunt

Eight months later,79 American commandos in four helicopters descended on the compound. Shots rang out. Of the five dead,one was a tall,bearded man with a bloodied face and a bullet in his head. Historys most expansive,expensive and exasperating manhunt was over.

The raid was the culmination of years of painstaking intelligence work,including the interrogation of CIA detainees in secret prisons in Eastern Europe,where sometimes what was not said was as useful as what was. Intelligence agencies eavesdropped on telephone calls and e-mails of the couriers Arab family in a Persian Gulf state and pored over satellite images of the compound in Abbottabad to determine a pattern of life that might decide whether the operation would be worth the risk.

LIVE UPDATE

On Sunday afternoon,as the four helicopters raced over Pakistani territory,the President and his advisers gathered in the Situation Room of the White House to monitor the operation as it unfolded. Much of the time was spent in silence. Obama looked stone faced, one aide said. Vice President Joseph R Biden Jr fingered his rosary beads. The minutes passed like days, recalled John O Brennan,the White House counter-terrorism chief.

The code name for bin Laden was Geronimo. The President and his advisers watched Leon E Panetta,the CIA director,on a video screen,narrating from his agencys headquarters across the Potomac River what was happening in Pakistan.

Theyve reached the target, he said.

Minutes passed. We have a visual on Geronimo, he said.

A few minutes later: Geronimo EKIA.

Enemy Killed In Action. There was silence in the Situation Room. Finally,the President spoke up. We got him.

THE COURIER

After 2002,when the CIA began subjecting al-Qaeda operatives to hours of brutal interrogation sessions in secret overseas prisons,they finally began filling in the gaps about the foot soldiers,couriers and money men bin Laden relied on.

Prisoners told stories of a trusted courier. When the Americans ran the mans pseudonym past two top-level detainees 9/11 chief planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and al-Qaedas operational chief Abu Faraj al-Libi the men claimed never to have heard his name. That raised suspicions that the two were lying and that the courier probably was an important figure.

In 2005,the CIAs Operation Cannonball,a bureaucratic reshuffling,placed more CIA case officers on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan. With more agents in the field,the CIA finally got the couriers family name. With that,they turned to one of their greatest investigative tools the National Security Agency began intercepting calls and e-mails between the mans family and anyone inside Pakistan. From there they got his full name.

Last July,Pakistani agents working for the CIA spotted him driving his vehicle near Peshawar. When,after weeks,he drove to the compound in Abbottabad,American operatives felt they were onto something big,perhaps bin Laden himself. He was,said Brennan,hiding in plain sight.

SECRET MEETING

In Washington,Panetta met Obama and his most senior national security aides,including Biden,Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Robert M Gates. The meeting was considered so secret that White House officials didnt even list the topic in alerts to each other.

That day,Panetta spoke at length about bin Laden and his presumed hiding place.

It was electric, an administration official who attended the meeting said. For so long,wed been trying to get a handle on this guy. And all of a sudden,it was like,wow,there he is.

While Panetta advocated an aggressive strategy to confirm bin Ladens presence,some CIA clandestine officers worried that the most promising lead in years might be blown if bodyguards should suspect the compound was being watched and spirit their leader out of the area.

For weeks last autumn,spy satellites took detailed photographs,and the NSA worked to scoop up any communications coming from the house. It wasnt easy: the compound had neither a phone line nor Internet access. Those inside were so concerned about security that they burned their trash rather than put it on the street for collection.

WEIGHING THE OPTIONS

In February,Panetta called Vice Admiral William H McRaven,commander of the Pentagons Joint Special Operations Command,to CIA headquarters in Langley to give him details about the compound and to begin planning a military strike.

Admiral McRaven came up with three options: a helicopter assault using American commandos,a strike with B-2 bombers that would obliterate the compound,or a joint raid with Pakistani intelligence operatives who would be told about the mission hours before the launch.

On March 14,Panetta took the options to the White House.

On March 22,the President asked his advisers their opinions.

Gates was skeptical about a helicopter assault,calling it risky,and instructed military officials to look into aerial bombardment using smart bombs. But a few days later,the officials returned with the news that it would take some 32 bombs of 900 kg each. And how could the American officials be certain that they had killed Bin Laden?

It would have created a giant crater,and it wouldnt have given us a body, said one American intelligence official.

A helicopter assault emerged as the favoured option. The Navy Seals team that would hit the ground began holding dry runs at training facilities on both American coasts,which were made up to resemble the compound. But they were not told who their target might be until later.

Last Thursday,Obama again met his top national security officials.

Panetta told the group that the CIA had red-teamed the case shared their intelligence with other analysts who werent involved to see if they agreed that bin Laden was probably in Abbottabad. They did. It was time to decide.

Around the table,the group went over and over the negative scenarios. There were long periods of silence,one aide said. And then,finally,Obama spoke: Im not going to tell you what my decision is now Im going to go back and think about it some more. But he added,Im going to make a decision soon.

ITS A GO

Sixteen hours later,he had made up his mind. Early the next morning,four top aides were summoned to the White House Diplomatic Room. Before they could brief the President,he cut them off. Its a go, he said. The earliest the operation could take place was Saturday,but officials cautioned that cloud cover in the area meant that Sunday was more likely.

On Sunday,White House officials cancelled all West Wing tours so unsuspecting tourists and visiting celebrities wouldnt accidentally run into all the high-level national security officials holed up in the Situation Room all afternoon monitoring the feeds they were getting from Panetta. A staffer went to Costco and came back with a mix of provisions turkey pita wraps,cold shrimp,potato chips,soda.

At 2.05 pm,Panetta sketched out the operation to the group for a final time. Within an hour,the CIA director began his narration,via video from Langley. Theyve crossed into Pakistan, he said.

ARRIVAL

The commandos had raced into the Pakistani night from a base in Jalalabad,Afghanistan. The goal was to get in and get out before Pakistani authorities detected the breach of their territory and reacted with possibly violent results.

The Seals team stormed into the compound and a firefight broke out. One man held an unidentified woman living there as a shield while firing at the Americans. Both were killed. Two more men died as well,and two women were wounded. American authorities later determined that one of the slain men was bin Ladens son,Hamza; the other two were the courier and his brother.

The commandos found bin Laden on the third floor,and officials said he resisted before he was shot above the left eye near the end of the 40-minute raid. The American government gave few details about his final moments. Whether or not he got off any rounds,I frankly dont know, said Brennan,the White House counterterrorism chief. But a senior Pentagon official said it was clear bin Laden was killed by US bullets.

American officials insisted they would have taken bin Laden into custody if he did not resist,although they considered that likelihood remote. If we had the opportunity to take bin Laden alive,if he didnt present any threat,the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that, Brennan said.

DEPARTURE

But the Americans faced other problems. One of their helicopters stalled and could not take off. Rather than let it fall into the wrong hands,the commandos moved the women and children to a secure area and blew up the helicopter.

By that point,though,the Pakistani military was scrambling forces in response to the incursion into Pakistani territory. They had no idea about who might have been on there, Brennan said. Thankfully,there was no engagement with Pakistani forces.

As they took off at 1.10 am local time,taking a trove of documents and computer hard drives from the house,the Americans left behind the women and children. A Pakistani official said nine children,from 2 to 12 years old,are now in Pakistani custody.

Burial

The Obama administration had already determined it would follow Islamic tradition of burial within 24 hours to avoid offending devout Muslims,yet concluded bin Laden would have to be buried at sea,since no country would be willing to take the body. Moreover,they did not want to create a shrine for his followers.

The Qaeda leaders body was washed and placed in a white sheet in keeping with tradition. On the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson,it was placed in a weighted bag as an officer read prepared religious remarks,which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker,a Pentagon official said.

The body then was placed on a prepared flat board and eased into the sea. Only a small group of people watching from one of the large elevator platforms that move aircraft up to the flight deck were witness to the end of Americas most wanted fugitive.MARK MAZZETTI,HELENE COOPER and PETER BAKER