Date | May 2, 2011PKT |
---|---|
Location | Osama bin Laden's compound in Bilal Town, Abbottabad, Pakistan |
Participants | Central Intelligence Agency Special Activities Division U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron 4 |
Outcome | Osama bin Laden's body buried in North Arabian Sea |
Deaths | Osama bin Laden (54) Khalid bin Laden (23) Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (33) Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's brother Abrar (30) Bushra, Abrar's wife (age unknown) |
Operation Neptune Spear | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Global War on Terrorism and the War in North-West Pakistan | |||||||
Map of Pakistan. Abbottabad is 34 miles (55 km) from the capital Islamabad, 167 miles (269 km) from Jalalabad Airfield, and 232 miles (373 km) from Bagram Airfield. Bagram is about 850 miles (1,370 km) from the North Arabian Sea. (Straight line distances. Travel distances significantly more.) |
|||||||
|
|||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
United States | al-Qaeda | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Barack Obama William H. McRaven |
Osama bin Laden † Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti † |
||||||
Strength | |||||||
79 JSOC and CIA operators 6 helicopters 1 Belgian Malinois (military working dog) |
22 (number of residents, including children) | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
1 helicopter crash-landed (no casualties) | 5 killed 17 captured (1 injured) |
Pakistan After bin Laden- Vice. |
Osama bin Laden, the founder and head of the Islamist group Al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 am PKT (20:00 UTC, May 1) by United States Navy SEALs of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six). The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a CIA-led operation, with Joint Special Operations Command, commonly known as JSOC, coordinating the Special Mission Units involved in the raid. In addition to SEAL Team Six, participating units under JSOC included the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), aka "Night Stalkers," and operators from the CIA's Special Activities Division, which recruits heavily from former JSOC Special Mission Units.
The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was launched from Afghanistan. U.S. military officials said that after the raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for identification, then buried him at sea within 24 hours of his death in accordance with Islamic tradition. According to Carlotta Gall, a Pakistani official (to whom she later clarified that she did not speak, the information coming through a friend), told her that a senior U.S. official had told him that the United States had direct evidence that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad, but ISI, Pasha, and officials in Washington all denied this.