By Sasha Taylor | ARCHIVES

The death of Osama Bin Laden sent shock waves through the United Kingdom as Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists  was shot and killed inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2, 2011. SEAL Team 6 (U.S. Navy SEALs) in a covert operation ordered by U.S. President Barack Obama. Shortly after his death, Bin Laden’s body was buried at sea.

In April of 2011, various intelligence outlets were able to pinpoint bin Laden’s suspected location near Abbottabad, Pakistan. It was originally believed that bin Laden was hiding near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but he was actually found 100 miles (160 km) away in a three-story mansion in Abbottabad. Bin Laden’s mansion was located 0.8 miles southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy (Pakistan’s “West Point“).

After being placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, Bin Laden remained in hiding during three U.S. presidential administrations. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who was repeatedly subjected to methods including “waterboarding” and stress positions, provided the CIA with the name of Bin Laden’s personal courier, according to US officials.

A second source – also an al-Qaeda “leader” held at Guantanamo Bay – then confirmed the courier’s identity, sparking an intense manhunt that resulted in the dramatic final raid. Secret documents seen by The Daily Telegraph disclose that this second source – the terrorist operations chief, Abu Farad al-Libby – played a key role in finding “safe havens” for Bin Laden and lived in the military town where he was finally found.

The killing of the world’s most wanted man as a direct result of information obtained from Guantanamo detainees such as KSM will reignite the debate over whether torture is a legitimate interrogation technique in the “war on terror”. Both KSM and al-Libby were subjected to harsh techniques during their interrogations in CIA prisons. Amnesty International has already warned that the killing of Bin Laden must not be used as evidence that torture is “justifiable”.

The military team that killed Osama Bin Laden is an elite Special Forces group unofficially called Seal Team 6. Officially, the team’s name is classified and not available to the public, technically there is no team 6. A Tier-One counter-terrorism force similar to the Army’s elusive Delta group, Team 6′s mission rarely make it to paper much less newspapers or magazines.

The members of Team 6 are all “black” operatives. They exist outside military protocol, engage in operations that are at the highest level of classification and often outside the boundaries of international law. To maintain a veil of invisible identity in case they are caught, records of black operations are rarely, if ever, kept.

The development of SEAL Team 6 was in direct response to the 1980 attempt to rescue the American hostages held in Iran. The mission was a terrific failure that fell apart at many points and illustrated the need for a dedicated counter-terrorist team capable of operating with the utmost secrecy.

The Team was labeled 6 at the time to confuse Soviet intelligence about the number of SEAL teams in operation at the time. There were only two others. Team 6 poached the top operatives from other SEAL units and trained them even more intensely from there. Even among proven SEALs the attrition rate for Team 6 is reported to be nearly half.

There are no names available for current Team 6 members, but the CIA does recruit heavily from their numbers for their Special Operations Group, so it makes sense that they were chosen to work with the CIA on this mission. Team 6 is normally devoted to missions with maritime authority: ship rescues, oil rigs, naval bases or land bases accessible by water. There are no waterways near Bin Laden’s compound.

Some Pakistani eyewitnesses said that the helicopter was brought down by fire from within the compound but US officials insisted this was not the case. Some details of the mission remained a closely guarded secret. These included the types of helicopters used and the route they took to get to Abbottabad. One official said that the stricken helicopter was a CH-47 Chinook and there was an unconfirmed report that the other was a modified MH-60.

The sudden death of Osama bin Laden has left devastating effects on the Jihad networks of the Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban, including the Punjabi Taliban, in the UK, US and the Arab world, but this does not mean that al Qaeda and the Taliban insurgents will end their terror operations. His death is very irksome for the extremist elements in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. In London, radical clerics are outraged by the method of the operation against Bin Laden in a protest outside the US embassy.

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