The bombing of the USS Cole. It is one of the first of a series of deadly strikes by al-Qaeda on US targets.
“We had to avenge the 17 souls that perished in the USS Cole.”
The organization responsible is quickly identified.
“The only people out there who had anywhere close to this capability was al-Qaeda, but it’ll take the best to find and stop the killers themselves.”
“We want to know their tactics, their techniques, their procedures—who’s involved.”
This is the top-secret story of how the CIA used cutting-edge technology in one of the most inhospitable regions in the world to hunt down the terrorist mastermind behind the attack on the USS Cole and deliver lethal justice.
“Abu Ali was the godfather, the head of the snake that needed to be decapitated in a country where it’s easy to hide and impossible to search. Finding a bunch of guys in the most rugged, forbidding territory I’ve ever seen… highly tribal areas. The tribes were armed to the teeth.”
“Yeah, it’s going to be hard.”
It’s a sultry morning in the poor town of Aden in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country. Aden’s location on the southern tip of the region makes it useful as a refueling point for US vessels starting a tour of duty. From year to year, little happens here to grab the world’s attention. Today, the USS Cole, an American warship with 220 sailors on board, has come into Aden to refuel before heading off on a training exercise. It’s nearly 11:00 a.m. The harbor is busy with small boats and skiffs selling everyday wares to the passing fleets. Then one of them approaches the Cole. Its smiling occupants wave at the sailors.
“Very early morning on the 12th of October 2000, I received a telephone call, and it was, uh, my good friend and colleague, Special Agent Randy Hughes, and he had told me in a very excited voice, ‘Dude, turn on the TV.'”
Morning. A US destroyer sits crippled in a Yemen harbor, and there on the screen was breaking news.
“Target of a terrorist attack. A US warship in the port of Aden had experienced an explosion.”
“It’s more than an explosion.”
A suicide bomb has ripped a 40-foot hole in the hull of the Cole, nearly sinking the ship.
“The latest figures are seven dead, 10 missing, and 38, uh, wounded.”
Eventually, the death toll rises to 17, with 39 injured. Back in the US, the families of the dead and injured struggle to make sense of the first attack of its kind in US military history.
“If it turns out that this is a terrorist act, as it appears to be, but certainly the investigation will prove that, and any leads on who might have done it will be followed wherever they go.”
To most people, this is an incomprehensible crime, but to a small number of experts in the FBI and the CIA, it’s got all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack. Prime suspect: al-Qaeda. And the largely lawless mountains and deserts of Yemen is one of its favorite hiding places. With alarm bells ringing across the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, and the military send in plane loads of their best teams. Special Agent Bob McFadden is a seasoned operator in the Middle East with long stints of service in Bahrain and a command of fluent Arabic. He’s summoned to Yemen to join a task force of investigators.
“The word was to, uh, pack my bags for about 10 days, and 10 days wind up being the better part of two years.”
And they have just one mission objective: find the killers of America’s 17 sailors and bring them to justice.
“Words fail us, but our feelings are pure.”
And only now can all the details of that extraordinary mission be told, for it would be a mission that would test the CIA to its limits and involve every counterterrorism agency in the US.
“I get word that some of the US government support elements are starting to come into Aden, so I go down to Aden airport to meet what I think is a relatively small group of people, and there’s about seven US government planes of different varieties that had landed at the airport, and I didn’t know they were coming in.”
“The Yemenis didn’t know they were coming in. No one had told the Yemenis that what looked like a small invasion force was going to be coming in.”
“At its height, we were somewhere around 350 people.”
When investigators arrive, the USS Cole is listing heavily, and they have to move fast to gather what evidence they can from the stricken vessel before it sinks.
“Seeing the, uh, the news clips of the ship is one thing, but then actually seeing it and being aboard the ship is another altogether, very emotional, visceral.”
“The sights, the sounds, the smells of destruction and decay is just remarkable.”
“It looked like a—like a wounded animal.”
“There was something horrific about a ship that mortally wounded and yet still somehow struggling to stay afloat. It should have sunk. It didn’t.”
Aden’s local police start mass arrests, seizing anyone they suspect.
“Don’t move.”
And from eyewitness evidence, very quickly figure out the basics of how the operation was carried out.
“They were able to identify the launching spot of the skiff that attacked the ship.”
“They were able to identify very early on the compound where the bomb in the skiff had been assembled. So they were able to do a lot of those basics pretty quickly.”
Now hundreds of US detectives from the CIA, the FBI, and the Naval Criminal Investigation Service get to work with ferocious energy.
“There truly was a 24-hour operation, and it was an exceptional, uh, working element among all those different agencies.”
“There’s so much to do, so many tasks to take care of—setting up, uh, the communications and technicians, setting up comms, secure comms with Washington, getting facsimiles up, getting, uh, internet connectivity for unclass, and then various levels of classified systems.”
The army of investigators is led by an extraordinary boss who commands fierce loyalty among his team: John O’Neal, one of America’s top experts on a terrorist who few at this point have heard of called Osama bin Laden, and the shadowy group he commands called al-Qaeda. O’Neal leads his massive team from the front, working tirelessly to deliver results.
“Bigger than life personality, uh, very confident, articulate, uh, very personable, uh, very, very quick on his feet, and uh, truly someone who has a natural multitasking capability.”
Gathered around O’Neal is a team of the best intelligence officers in the US, and leading them is a Lebanese PhD called Ali Soufan, one of the few investigators who speaks fluent Arabic.
“Gali Soufan is someone with Arabic skills, you know, not just with language, but a lot of the unspoken things, a lot of the cultural things that might not go into a bureaucratic report but that make a lot of difference in building personal relationships.”
The CIA believe that the men they want are al-Qaeda, but finding the individuals in Yemen who carried out the crime seems an enormous challenge. At this stage, all they have is scraps of evidence and eyewitness testimony. Then Soufan and McFadden make a connection with another terrorist crime two years earlier in the East African country of Kenya.
There, two simultaneous attacks on US embassies in 1998 killed over 200 people and wounded 4,000. As President Clinton has had on Osama bin Laden, he could have been hiding on the moon as far as the American intelligence community knew. President Obama weighs the odds and gives the CIA permission to plan a raid.
Now, more than ever, the CIA needs a surefire plan. Crucially, they need a plan that takes into account the Pacer may not be Bin Laden after all. A bombing mission is ruled out; forensic evidence to prove the mystery man’s identity would be vaporized. They need eyes on to confirm the Pacer’s identity, face to face. There is only one real option. They propose a helicopter raid involving the best of the best of the special forces: SEAL Team Six. It’s a daring proposal. The CIA takes their plan to President Obama.
“What he was presented with was an opportunity to do what Mr. Clinton should have done, uh, 10 times, what Mr. Bush had a chance to do once.”
“You know, these CIA officials could argue, ‘Well, this may be the best chance we have. Do you remember these other chances that we had that we passed on before the September 11 attacks? Do you want to be the president who passes on this chance?’ And that’s a pretty compelling argument.”
President Obama gives the go-ahead. 15 years after the manhunt began, a date for the raid to capture or kill Osama bin Laden is set: May the 1st, 2011. Code name: Operation Neptune Spear.
Two dozen members of Navy SEAL Team 6 are temporarily transferred to the CIA’s command. No one officially designated as military will cross into Pakistani airspace. The White House does not want to trigger a war with Pakistan. At 2300 hours, the SEAL’s stealth Blackhawk helicopters take off. Destination: the Abbottabad compound in Pakistan. The target: Osama bin Laden, America’s most wanted, a man who has eluded the CIA for over a decade and a half.
There is no turning back. Navy SEAL Team 6 are about to touch down at the compound. It’s zero dark thirty, a military term for 30 minutes past midnight. Just as they’re preparing to fast-rope down to the compound, one of the pilots hits serious trouble and loses lift. To save his crew and the mission, the pilot pulls off a daring emergency landing. Instantly, the SEALs adapt their mission plan. They storm the compound from the ground. The first SEAL team encounters Bin Laden’s courier. A second SEAL team finds the courier’s brother and his wife. Inside, a man identified as Osama bin Laden’s son is also killed. On the third floor of the main building, the SEALs encounter the man the CIA call the Pacer.
5 seconds later, the team leader radios a message:
“Geronimo.”
The code word for Bin Laden.
“E-K-I-A.”
Enemy killed in action. Osama bin Laden is dead.
“Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”
From touchdown to mission completion, the 38 minutes in the Abbottabad compound draws to a close. The most extensive and expensive manhunt in history. For the CIA’s Mike Scheuer, it’s been a long journey, but one ending in victory.
“I was of course delighted that he was dead, um. He was a very serious enemy of the United States.”
“And it’s a victory too for the sisterhood team Scheuer first set up in 1995, 6 years before 9/11.”
“We achieved all of the—all of the things that we were assigned to do. Not to my credit, but to the credit of the officers that work for me, because they were truly extraordinary at what they do.”
The determination of the CIA analysts, painstaking scrutiny of 15 years of intelligence gathering, finally pays off to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
