Good Camouflage
After looking at the maps, and checking some facts to be sure my memory was correct, bin Laden’s hide-out was a superb choice, with or without ISI assistance.
Abbottabad is a resort area where the elites from Islamabad and Rawalpindi go to escape the heat during the summer. Foreign embassies no doubt have compounds in the area for their staff, so the local people would be accustomed to having “tourists” in their midst.
The area is only about 100 miles East of Peshawar, but the local official interest is directed towards Indian border and Kashmir, not what is happening in Afghanistan. The area is patrolled by the Frontier Corps, not the Pakistani Army, which is concentrated on the Indian border.
It has been mentioned that the compound was less than a mile away from the Pakistan Military Academy, but that just improves the camouflage. Who checks the motel next to the police station for wanted criminals?
Abbottabad is just north of the Grand Trunk Road that runs all the way to Kabul, so communications and supplies can flow freely. Couriers were used, and I assume there were blind mail drops involved, so tracing messages would be a major problem for intel. The resort nature of the town would make most of the traffic blend with the churn in the local area as people would be making short trips to look at the scenery.
It has been reported that the compound was targeted because of a lack of telephone or Internet connections, which would be quite unusual in an expensive house in the area, so he may have been turned in by The Phone Company, or The Cable Company for failing to become a customer.
21 comments
What batter than to hide in plain sight.. after a fashion
As John le Carré made plain in his novels, based on his real-life experience, not acting unusual is the key to not being seen. Drab is good. Tourist areas and cities are good. Being totally forgettable is the best qualification there is for a spy.
You should never try to hide in a village, because everyone is looking for anything different or interesting to talk about at the local. Even in a city, you want to avoid established small neighborhood, and find an area in transition.
Hell, in the US the towns by military bases are perfect places to hide with people moving in and out all the time.
Being totally forgettable is the best qualification there is for a spy.
Indeed! 🙂 When I was trained in infiltration, we were taught to “look, act, sound and smell like we belonged there” (many forget the *smell* part! Amazing how many get caught because they smell wrong! We were trained to use eyes, ears & nose.) He made a mistake with the phone & Internet, curiously. Also surprised he didn’t have FIM-92’s (US Stingers) or KBM IGLA-S (Russian Manpads) on the roof. He must have known an assault by chopper was highly possible. Other than that, it was pretty good cover. It obviously worked for several years, thought staying in one place can be a problem long term also. The best place to hide is in a busy large city. Most people don’t even know who lives next door, and could usually care less, in a small town or village, anything *different* is obvious to the locals. (This is what made our job easier in Cambodia). I could say that if I’d been in charge of security… they would have needed a lot more than 4 blackhawk’s! 😛 😉
Here’s a complete AP report from a blog. You may find the comments interesting, but typical. The first comment is probably the sanest. 😉 😆
Navy SEAL team ferried in by Blackhawk to kill Osama bin Laden
And so… the World turns, and nothing really changes.
Oh! One other comment (from a pro trained for these things).
Bin Laden was assassinated. SF teams are trained to use triple-tap central body mass shots (the automatic weapons they use, either MP5 or mod M4, have a fire selector for single shot (accurate), triple shot (designed to take down a target even if wearing body armor), or full auto. A single shot to the head (above the nose) is what we called a *kill shot*, used when you wanted to be sure the target was dead. One or two of the best shooters would have been tasked to take him out with a head shot. They may even have been armed with a short or medium range sniper rifle to be sure. Be interesting if an autopsy report’s on the round used to kill him. 🙂
*shrug*
Have you lost your mind, Kryten – that was al.com, as in Alabama, as in the central province of South Fundistan and home of the Shrubbery’s fan club. Reading comments there can be hazardous to your mental well-being. You should warn people before linking to them.
Actually, the BBC sent one of their teams up there from Islamabad, and it looks more and more like an ISI op, as that compound was initially constructed in the middle of empty farmland, and the other houses were all built later by individuals. For at least a couple of years it was the only structure between the military academy and the town of Abbottabad, so it clearly wasn’t “blending in”.
I would assume that the Pakistanis wouldn’t have been too amenable to his having manpads. Trust only goes so far, and they might have wanted to sell him at some point.
The last I heard was that he was hit center mass and wounded, then they went for the head shot as they had no way of carrying him wounded because you can’t use restraints.
Have you lost your mind, Kryten – that was al.com, as in Alabama…
😆 😆
Duh! That’s why the comments were so funny, and the reason I chose it! 😆 A warning would have spoiled the fun! 😀 (It was either that, or LGF, RedSt***, etc). 😉
Well… I have to go to the Pharmacy now… and I’ll be chuckling all the way! 😉 😀
… they had no way of carrying him wounded because you can’t use restraints.
Sorry m8, not necessarily so. 🙂 Especially with 4 choppers available, and they all carry those nylon zip-ties (like cable ties), they have *101* uses in the field, and if it was a *snatch and grab* mission, they would also have had special black head bags that just allow you to breathe, but effectively make you blind and can’t easily be removed (some use velcro, some have a quick-tie), and other means of quick immobilization! 😉 The mission profile was obviously not a capture mission, based on available intel. They were geared up to *hit and run*.
If you are hit in cbm with three high-velocity rounds wearing any of the normal body armor, you are *not* getting up or going anywhere any time soon, and especially someone over 50 on regular dialysis. In fact, there was a good chance that just the impact shock could have killed him. They knew what they were doing. A head shot is a kill shot. It’s in the *manual*. 😉
Anyway… I’m off! (And still chuckling…) 😉 😀
Not *just* an ISI op. Other elements of the Pakistani military had to know too. You suddenly build a huge armed compound right next to the main military academy, someone’s going to come sniffing around to check you out, even in Pakistan. There was at the very least some palm greasing going on…
If you are hoping to keep them alive, you can’t use restraints. I would assume they had complete sets of shackles with them, as well as the flex-cuffs if he had surrendered. They would have needed a litter and more equipment to keep him alive after a center mass hit. He would have died anyway, so they ended it.
It isn’t unusual to have a broken rib puncture the heart with a true cbm hit and they didn’t have time to “play nice”.
Oh, yes, Badtux, the senior military had to know about it. It it had been built in a gated community, as was initially reported, it would have had some cover, but it was the first structure up in the middle of empty farmland. The locals probably assumed the military built it.
The locals who talked to the BBC say they noticed Pashtuns going in and out of the place (the locals are Hazari), if the locals noticed it, the notion that the police, ISI, and military didn’t notice it is laughable on its face. Which is why the locals had no idea that Osama bin Laden was living there. After all, if *they* knew Pashtuns were going in and out of the place, the police, ISI, and military certainly knew that too, and would have checked it out and cleared them, right? 😈
Considering that the Pakistani Taliban are predominantly Pashtuns and there was supposed to be a “war against terrorism”, next door to the military academy, it would certainly be reasonable that someone official checked on the residents of that compound.
This is up in the Northwest tribal area. The more civilized part to be sure, but people certainly noticed that something was going on, and had to have been led to believe that everything had been checked out by the authorities.
I don’t doubt that there will be a lot of retirements when the Pakistani military start thinking about what was on the hard drives of the computers the SEALs took.
The official Pakistani government response is a masterpiece of diplomatic circumlocution. In it, they say a) they had no idea bin Laden was there and it’s embarrassing, b) they *are* loyal allies in the War on Terrah, c) they had nothing to do with the raid and didn’t know about it beforehand, and d) please don’t do that again, United States. It appears calculated to avoid offending both the U.S. and supporters of Osama bin Laden. It paints Pakistan as the Sgt. Shultz of nations, “We know no-think! We see no-think!”. It makes me chuckle slightly just reading it, thinking of the thin line the Pakistani Foreign Ministry is tapdancing on…
The last thing the Pakistani government wanted to “know” was that ISI and the military have had bin Laden living in a “guest cottage” at the military academy for years.
Actually, the situation gives the civilians an edge to use against the military in their on-going struggle. As long as they don’t overreach, they have an opportunity to do some “house cleaning” among the senior officers. The civilian government has “plausible deniability”, which is the gold standard of political excuses.
The burning question for Congress will be: did US taxpayer money pay for bin Laden’s compound? and hilarity ensued…
The interesting thing will be to watch for how many Pakistani officers “retire to spend more time with their family”. Or is that the euphemism used in Pakistan? 😈
I think they are just hoping to spend time with a pension to pay for it.
I believe there’s a “fixer-upper” available in the near future near the military academy. 😈
I’ve been doing what research I am able, and there is a lot of disinfo (and just plain ignorance and stupidity) in many reports, even from supposed professional journalists (and not just in the USA). Anyway, I have one advantage in that I was in a SOP team and had opportunities to work with US Rangers, SEALs and others, and we compared notes on such things as training, weapons, and mission prep. After the debacle in 2010 when a SEAL killed UK hostage Linda Norgrove with a frag grenade and lied about it to everyone (even his superiors), the SEALs, and SEAL Team Six in particular, had to carry out this mission perfectly. (I’ll refrain from commenting on WTF a SOP unit was doing tossing grenades into rooms without verifying non-combatants were not present and what was supposedly a hostage rescue mission, and NOT for the first time either!)
So, this is how I *think* it went down:
The assult group consisted of two parts:
1. A Ranger platoon in two Chinook’s (either MH-47G, or E’s) flown by flown by Nightstalkers from the 160th SOAR (a very skilled bunch). The platoon consisted of 4 squads of probably 9-man teams (this is their normal platoon compliment of 42 troops plus NCO’s and officer’s). It would have to have been Chinook’s because they can carry from 33 to 55 troops, depending on other paylod (weapons, equipment, fuel etc), and a Blackhawk can only carry 12 to 14. Ranger’s typically are used to support SEAL’s who normally lead the assault. From reports so far, it would seem that the Ranger’s were used to provide a *fight-out* option if things went seriously pear shaped (greater number or heavily armed target’s for eg., or a quicker then expected response from Pakistani forces). They would also have provided cover and suppression fire during the SEAL assault.
2. Two 6-man SEAL teams in 2 Blackhawks (UH-60’s were reported, but I find this unlikely. They would more likely have been MH-60K or L’s which have night-vision & TFR (terrain following radar, for those not in the know) capabilities and are the preferred models of the Nightstalkers, who piloted the 4 chopper’s). It was reported that a blackhawk suffered a mechanical malfunction, but reading the available reports and comments from Military and other sources, it seems more likely it took a hit from small-arm’s fire or an RPG (both of which were reported to be used by Bin Laden’s force on the third-story roof of the main building when the Assault group reached the compound.) In any case, the blackhawk lost lift and hit the ground hard, and probably damaged the tail rotor in the process (normally the case in this situation), making it impossible to fly again, so it was destroyed after the assault. It wouldn’t have really bothered the US forces, as both Chinooks were flying *light* and had ample room for the SEAL team and crew from the downed blackhawk. It seems the *official* line about the crash is currently “One helicopter lost lift because the compound’s high walls upset its supporting airflow, forcing it to make a hard landing.” I find it extremely difficult to believe a crew of the caliber of the Nightstalkers would have made such a basic and stupid error, but I guess it is possible. *shrug*
I’ll pass over the actual assault, and look at the attack on Bin Laden himself.
There are many conflicting reports, but sifting through many (and especially those usually more accurate than others), this seems likely at this stage:
1. Bin Laden was in his bedroom with one of his wives, and was apparently unarmed.
2. Bin laden took two rounds (either 2 to the head, or 1 to the chest and 1 to the head).
It was reported by White House press secretary Jay Carney that the wife (unarmed) rushed the SEAL’s and was shot in the calf for her trouble (I probably would have done the same if I didn’t know if Bin Laden was armed or not, and there may have been others hiding in the room). SOP forces are well trained to disable rather than kill, and are accurate shooters, and a calf shot is the most common to disable). Carney also said that Bin Laden *resisted* but offered no details, then stated: “Bin Laden was then shot and killed,” Carney said. “He was not armed.”
The plan would probably have been something like:
The chinooks would have been somewhere near the perimeter of the compound and the Rangers would have fast-roped down, secured the perimeter, and began suppression fire. The two SEAL teams would have also used a fast-rope descent from the blackhawks into the compound closer too the target. The date and time of the assault would have been chosen because it was the darkest night available (bright moonlight can seriously ruin a mission like this).
As far as I can see from available info, Bin Laden was assassinated. There was never any plan to capture him alive. And now that he’s been tossed off a warship in the big ol’ ocean (sorry, *buried at sea*), we’ll probably never know… Well apart from the pic’s from the SEAL’s helmet-cam’s. Maybe someone will leak them one day, assuming they aren’t conveniently *lost*. 😉
Sorry, this is pretty rushed, but hope it makes some sense. *shrug* I have a lot on these days. I don’t know for sure how accurate any of this is, but I have experience and expertise as my guide. We’ll see how this all plays out I guess. *shrug*
I frankly don’t care how they got him, just that they got him. Sets a precedent that needed setting — you attack and kill innocent Americans, and your ass is toast even if it takes ten years to catch you.
– Badtux the Ruthless Penguin
Add to your file, Kryten, I’ve seen a photo [Beeb probably] that had a Blackhawk tail assembly leaning against a wall outside of the compound, as if it broke off during landing by striking the wall. If they lost power [the initial report], they may have autogyroed into the compound, but couldn’t avoid the wall.
Not enough information to know if this was a directed assassination, but having hit some doors in the middle of the night, if you have already been shot at, and you hit a door and get rushed, you don’t check for weapons or hold conversations, you shoot.
I’m assuming low-light conditions and laser-sighted weapons. There were probably two shooters, one cbm, and one head. The head shot was probably from the second SEAL through the door, shooting over the first SEAL, who would have made the cbm shot, after pushing away the woman.
Working from 10-year-old photos, I seriously doubt that they were sure the guy on the third floor was bin Laden. Hell, during the middle of a fire fight anyone who isn’t obviously a child is apt to get shot. If the guy on the third floor had raised his hands and spread his fingers, they would have probably just bundled him up, but given the torture regime instituted by the Shrubbery, who would do that?
I’m with Badtux, if you publicly confess to killing thousands of people, you need to be removed from the world.
Oh, I don’t care that OBL was killed at all. I did my share with bastards just like him. He got what he deserved IMHO. *shrug* All I’m saying is that there was never any plan to capture him. 🙂 As we used to say… it was *take out the garbage* night! 😉 Bin Laden could have been on his knees crying and waving a white flag, and he would have been taken out IMHO. I would have. Apparently (according to the US ABC), one *Senior Gov Official* has admitted that it was a kill mission. *shrug*
Bryan, SOP teams train constantly for hot threat eval on missions. The fact that the SEAL deliberately shot the woman (who was advancing on him) in the calf, means he knew the situation, otherwise she would have been hit in CBM or head like Bin Laden. He would have had to lower his weapon to shoot her in the calf, then raise it to shoot Bin Laden. In a hot zone where you don’t yet know the threat level, you are trained never to lower your weapon, you never approach a room with less than two, one drop’s to a knee, or to the ground and roll’s in (optional) and fire prone, while the second covers the room from the door. If you have three, two enter left & right, one covers from the door.
BTW, most press are calling the op “Operation Geronimo” which is not correct. The code name was “Operation Neptune’s Spear”. Geronimo was the code that Bin Laden was dead (or captured). “Jackpot” was the code that a SEAL had eye’s on Bin Laden.
“Senior Government Official” is media-speak for a self-important weasel attempting to convince a reporter that he’s a source for the real “inside information”. The only people other than the SEAL team who actually know what the orders were, are the National Security Council. There is a multi-stage process to release information on an operation like this because it involves things that really are classified. The media are releasing rumor and gossip to fill space.
What I really would like to see is a floor plan. That had to be a major PITA because they had to force entry without knowing anything about the interior. There were effective shields in place that would have defeated the normal methods of determining what it was really like inside – where the doors were, where the stairs were, a lot of other information.
Without that it is hard to know what they had to do inside. The worse is when you are channeled down a hall that is not significantly wider than the door at the end, and you suspect that door is hollow-core and won’t even slow firing from the other side.
All we have are guesses.
Oh, I think he would have been killed, even if it was a police raid to arrest him, because, having already encountered opposition, you have to assume that there will be opposition from everyone. What I mean is that, you start prepared to be opposed, but if there had been no opposition, blood pressure and adrenalin levels would be lowered. When the first shot is fired, everything spikes, and you don’t take any chances.
Geronimo and Jackpot aren’t codes, they are standard military jargon. US military Operations always have two words and are pulled from a list.