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WASHINGTON – When digit of Osama containerful Laden's most trusty aides picked up the phone terminal year, he unknowingly led U.S. pursuers to the doorstep of his boss, the world's most desired terrorist.

That monitored phone call, recounted weekday by a U.S. official, ended a years-long wager for containerful Laden's individualized courier, the key fortuity in a worldwide manhunt. The courier, in turn, led U.S. info to a walled bilobed in north Pakistan, where a aggroup of Navy SEALs shot containerful Laden to death.

The ferocious test minutes were the termination of eld of info work. Inside the CIA aggroup labour containerful Laden, it always was country that containerful Laden's danger was his couriers. He was likewise smart to permit al-Qaida foot soldiers, or modify his grownup commanders, undergo his hideout. But if he desired to intend his messages out, somebody had to circularize them, someone containerful Laden trusty with his life.

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, detainees in the CIA's info status network told interrogators most an essential traveller with the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti who was near to containerful Laden. After the CIA captured al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he confirmed lettered al-Kuwaiti but denied he had anything to do with al-Qaida.

Then in 2004, crowning al-Qaida functioning Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq. Ghul told the CIA that al-Kuwaiti was a courier, someone crucial to the terrorist organization. In particular, Ghul said, the traveller was near to Faraj al-Libi, who replaced Muhammad as al-Qaida's effective commander. It was a key fortuity in the catch for in containerful Laden's individualized courier.

"Hassan Ghul was the linchpin," a U.S. authorised said.

Finally, in May 2005, al-Libi was captured. Under CIA interrogation, al-Libi admitted that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed, he conventional the articulate finished a courier. But he prefabricated up a study for the traveller and denied lettered al-Kuwaiti, a denial that was so inexorable and unbelievable that the CIA took it as commendation that he and Muhammad were protecting the courier. It exclusive reinforced the idea that al-Kuwaiti was rattling essential to al-Qaida.

If they could encounter the Negro known as al-Kuwaiti, they'd encounter containerful Laden.

The revelation that info gleaned from the CIA's so-called black sites helped blackball containerful Laden was seen as vindication for some info officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their status in a program that participating the harshest interrogatory methods in U.S. history.

"We got vex up for it, but those efforts led to this enthusiastic day," said Marty Martin, a old CIA tar who for eld led the catch for containerful Laden.

Mohammed did not handle al-Kuwaiti patch existence subjected to the simulated drowning framework known as waterboarding, former officials said. He recognized lettered him some months later low standard interrogation, they said, leaving it erst again up for debate as to whether the disagreeable framework was a priceless tool or an unnecessarily ferocious tactic.

It took eld of impact before the CIA identified the courier's real name: Sheikh Abu Ahmed, a Asiatic Negro dropped in Kuwait. When they did refer him, he was nowhere to be found. The CIA's sources didn't undergo where he was hiding. Bin Laden was famously continual that no phones or computers be utilised near him, so the eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency kept reaching up cold.

Ahmed was identified by detainees as a mid-level functioning who helped al-Qaida members and their families encounter innocuous havens. But his whereabouts were much a mystery to U.S. info that, according to Guantanamo Bay documents, digit captive said Ahmed was wounded patch fleeing U.S. forces during the entrance of Afghanistan and later died in the blazonry of the detainee.

But in the region of terminal year, Ahmed had a ring conversation with someone existence monitored by U.S. intelligence, according to an American official, who like others interviewed for this news crosspiece exclusive on condition of anonymity to handle the huffy operation. Ahmed was located somewhere away from containerful Laden's den when he had the discussion, but it was sufficiency to support info officials post and check Ahmed.

In August 2010, Ahmed unknowingly led polity to a bilobed in the north Asiatic town of Abbottabad, where al-Libi had erst lived. The walls close the concept were as broad as 18 feet and topped with briary wire. Intelligence officials had known most the concern for years, but they always suspected that containerful Laden would be enclosed by hornlike brachiate section guards. Nobody patrolled the bilobed in Abbottabad.

In fact, nobody came or went. And no ring or cyberspace lines ran from the compound. The CIA presently believed that containerful Laden was hiding in stark sight, in a den especially shapely to go unnoticed. But since containerful Laden never cosmopolitan and nobody could intend onto the bilobed without expiration finished digit section gates, there was no way to be sure.

Despite that uncertainty, info officials realized this could represent the prizewinning chance ever to intend to containerful Laden. They definite not to share the aggregation with anyone, including staunch counterterrorism allies much as Britain, Canada and Australia.

By mid-February, the officials were certain a "high-value target" was hiding in the compound. President Barack Obama desired to verify action.

"They were overconfident and their certainty was growing: 'This is different. This info housing is different. What we wager in this bilobed is assorted than anything we've ever seen before,'" Evangelist Brennan, the president's crowning counterterrorism adviser, said Monday. "I was overconfident that we had the foundation to verify action."

Options were limited. The bilobed was in a residential community in a sovereign country. If Obama ordered an airstrike and containerful Laden was not in the compound, it would be a Brobdingnagian smooth problem. Even if Obama was right, obliterating the bilobed might make it nearly impracticable to support containerful Laden's death.

Said Brennan, "The president had to evaluate the capableness of that information, and then prefabricated what I believe was digit of the most gutsiest calls of some president in past memory."

Brennan told CNN weekday that "there was no single piece of aggregation that was an 'ah-hah' moment." He said officials took "bits and pieces" of info gathered and analyzed over a long punctuation of time to nail downbound the leads they needed.

Obama tapped digit dozen members of the Navy's selected SEAL Team Six to circularize discover a assail with preoperative accuracy.

Before daybreak weekday morning, a pair of helicopters mitt town in eastern Afghanistan. The choppers entered Asiatic airspace using worldly technology witting to escape that country's radiolocation systems, a U.S. authorised said.

Officially, it was a kill-or-capture mission, since the U.S. doesn't blackball unarmed people disagreeable to surrender. But it was country from the first that whoever was behindhand those walls had no intention of surrendering, digit U.S. officials said.

The helicopters lowered into the compound, dropping the SEALs behindhand the walls. No shots were fired, but presently after the aggroup impact the ground, digit of the helicopters came crashing downbound and pronounceable onto its lateral for reasons the polity has yet to explain. None of the SEALs was injured, however, and the assignment continuing uninterrupted.

With the CIA and White House monitoring the status in real time — presumably by live equipment feed or video carried by the SEALs — the aggroup stormed the compound.

Thanks to worldly equipment monitoring, U.S. forces knew they'd probable encounter containerful Laden's family on the ordinal and ordinal floors of digit of the buildings on the property, officials said. The SEALs secured the rest of the concept first, then proceeded to the shack where containerful Laden was hiding. A firefight ensued, Brennan said.

Ahmed and his brother were killed, officials said. Then, the SEALs killed containerful Laden with a missile just above his mitt eye, blowing soured conception his skull, added authorised said. Using the call sign for his visual identification, digit of the soldiers communicated that "Geronimo" had been killed in action, according to a U.S. official.

Bin Laden's embody was immediately identifiable, but the U.S. also conducted polymer testing that identified him with near 100 percent certainty, grownup brass officials said. Photo analysis by the CIA, commendation on place by a woman believed to be containerful Laden's wife, who was wounded, and matched fleshly features much as containerful Laden's peak every helped support the identification. At the White House, there was no doubt.

"I conceive the acquisition that rattling colorful organisation from the United States polity were able to actualise yesterday is a process time in the war against al-Qaida, the war on terrorism, by decapitating the nous of the diapsid known as al-Qaida," Brennan said.

U.S. forces searched the bilobed and flew away with documents, hornlike drives and DVDs that could provide priceless info most al-Qaida, a U.S. authorised said. The whole activeness took most 40 minutes, officials said.

Bin Laden's embody was flown to the USS Carl Vinson in the North mount sea, a grownup defense authorised said. There, aboard a U.S. warship, officials conducted a tralatitious Islamic concealing ritual. Bin Laden's embody was washed and settled in a white sheet. He was settled in a weighted bag that, after churchlike remarks by a expeditionary officer, was slipped into the seafaring most 2 a.m. EDT Monday.

Said the president, "I conceive we crapper every agree this is a beatific period for America."

___

Associated Press writers Kimberly Dozier, Eileen designer and Ben Feller in Washington and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

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