No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden

CHAPTER 14 Khalid

Not even ten minutes had passed since we crashed. Will and I sprinted through the open gate between the guesthouse and the main compound.

We were headed toward the north door of A1.

“Explosives set, north door A1,” Charlie said over the troop net.

His charge was set and he was waiting for the order to blow the north door. All Charlie and Walt needed now was the radio call from Tom to initiate.

Jen and her analysts were right so far. They suspected that the house was split into a duplex. The Bin Laden family lived on the second and third floors with their own private entrance. The Pacer always came out the north door but the al-Kuwaiti brothers always used the south door.

Unsure if a hallway ran between the north and south doors, we didn’t want to risk two explosive breaches at the same time. So Tom and his team had come up with a plan to clear the south side of the house first, while Charlie waited for Tom’s radio call before setting off the explosive charge.

Tom’s three-man team was inside clearing the first floor. Inside the building was dark, almost pitch-black, but under night vision they could easily make out the hallway and four doors opening off the long hall, two on each side. Tom’s team was no more than a few steps inside the house when the point man spotted a man’s head sticking out of the first room on the left. They had already heard the unmistakable sound of AK-47 fire coming from the guesthouse, and they weren’t taking any chances. There was ample time for whoever was in A1 to get ready to put up a fight.

The point man snapped off a shot. The round struck the occupant, later confirmed to be Abrar al-Kuwaiti, and he disappeared into the room. Slowly moving down the hall, the team stopped at the door. Abrar al-Kuwaiti was wounded and struggling on the floor. Just as they opened fire again, his wife Bushra jumped in the way to shield him. The second burst of rounds killed both of them.

The team saw another woman and several children huddled in the corner crying. An AK-47 was in the room. Grabbing the rifle, Tom unloaded it while the rest of the team searched the remaining rooms.

At the end of the hall was a locked door, which was directly in line with the north door. With the south side of A1 secure, Tom’s team quickly exited.

Usually, we would have left someone to watch the woman and kids in the bedroom, but we didn’t have the time or enough assaulters. The remaining woman and kids were just left in the room.

“Hey, Charlie, send it,” Tom said on the troop net.

As they exited the south door, one of the SEALs threw Abrar al-Kuwaiti’s AK-47 into the courtyard. It was dark and there was little chance anyone would come out looking for it.

Seconds after hearing the call from Tom over the radio, I heard the boom as Charlie set off his breaching charge. Will and I had made our way around the west side of the building and stacked behind the guys lined up to enter the north door, which was now open.

The SEALs from Chalk Two had by now made their way into the compound. After the failed breach, they had moved over to the main gate and were let in by Mike. They were already stacked on the north door.

Charlie was already inside, and a loose line had formed as the rest of us waited to enter the target. Through my night vision I could see multiple lasers tracking along the windows and balconies just in case. Scanning my laser above me toward the second and third floor, I didn’t see any movement. Coating on the windows made it impossible to see in or out.

All of the rushing around had begun to slow. Things were going very smoothly since the crash ten minutes ago. We all wanted to continue the assault up the stairs, but Charlie reported over the radio that an additional metal gate was blocking our path to the second floor. Charlie was busy setting his third explosive charge of the night.

All we could do was wait and pull security. I knew Charlie and the others were working as fast as they possibly could. While I was standing there I began to think about how surreal it all was. It felt like waiting to start a CQB run during Green Team.

The sound of some pissed-off chickens pulled me from my thoughts. Our route to the north door had taken us through a small area of latticework and chicken coops. Our bulletproof vests and tactical gear were getting hung up in the narrow walkway, smashing the coops.

Standing in one place was driving me crazy.

Just in front of me I could hear a couple of guys talking.

“Holy shit, I can’t believe we just crashed,” Walt said.

“Crashed, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Yeah, our helo just crashed,” Walt said.

Standing nearby was Jay, the mission’s commander, who had been on Chalk Two. When he heard Walt talk about the crash, he quickly cut in.

“What?”

“Yeah, we crashed,” Walt said, motioning back toward the crash site. “You might want to take a look in the courtyard.”

Even through night vision I thought it looked funny as the expression on Jay’s face changed as he processed the information. He turned and sprinted back down the line of assaulters. I guess no one from Chalk Two knew we crashed. At this point, it had not been broadcast over the net. When the pilots of Chalk Two saw Chalk One go down in the courtyard, they had skipped the risky fast-rope onto the roof, and landed Chalk Two outside the walls.

Back at the helicopter, Teddy and his crew were shutting down the engines and making sure all of the instruments were destroyed. For a second, he considered attempting to take off again. There was no major visible damage to the helicopter, and he figured with no weight he might be able to lift off. In the end, caution won out.

After rushing to the scene of the crash, Jay immediately got on the satellite radio he was carrying and called the QRF.

The QRF quickly took off from their initial position, located with the second CH-47 a short distance north of the compound, and headed our way. To save time, they took the most direct route over Pakistan’s military academy. But a few minutes later, Jay called back. Although we had crash-landed, we didn’t have any dead or wounded. All the assaulters were consolidated on A1 and they were about to start clearing up the stairs.

“Hold your position,” he said to the QRF.

Inside A1, Charlie set his next breaching charge and checked the back blast. Since the charge was going to explode inside the building, the over pressure was more dynamic and would blow out windows and doors. Two other SEALs were near Charlie. With almost zero cover to shield them from the blast, one SEAL was hiding behind a door that led to another room.

“Hey, buddy, you might want to watch out for that door,” Charlie said.

The assaulter stepped away from behind the door just as Charlie set off the charge. I could hear the loud boom echo from my position outside at the chicken coops. The over pressure blew the door the SEAL had been hiding behind from its hinges and sent it crashing into the opposite wall. The SEAL stood there stunned. A few seconds ago, he was in the path and would have likely been seriously injured if he hadn’t moved.

“Thanks,” he said to Charlie, as they both pushed and pulled open the mangled gate.

With the gate open, we started clearing up the stairs. It took a few seconds for me to get to the door. I hooked right through the second metal gate and began heading up the stairs. Most of the guys were already ahead of me.

The tile stairs were set at ninety-degree angles, creating a sort of spiral staircase separated by small landings. We had no idea what to expect. By now, Bin Laden or whoever was hiding inside had plenty of time to get a weapon and prepare a defense. Since the only way up was through a spiraling staircase, we could easily get bottlenecked.

It was dark and we were doing our best to be quiet. Every step was deliberate.

No talking.

No yelling.

No running.

In the old days, we’d storm the castle, throwing flash grenades as we cleared through an objective. Now we stayed as quiet as possible. We had the advantage with our night vision, but it would be lost if you went barreling into a room. It was all about throttle control. There was no reason to run to our deaths.

When I reached the landing on the second deck, most of the other assaulters had fanned out. The second floor opened into a long hallway heading to a terrace that ran along the south side of the building. The floor had four doors, two right near the landing and two farther down near the terrace. I could see my teammates creeping down the hall, stacking on the doors before quietly clearing inside.

I noticed another assaulter three or four steps up the stairs holding security on the landing between the second and third decks. A body was on the landing. Blood was trickling out onto the marble floor.

While holding security, the assaulter had seen a man quickly poke his head down around the landing. Intelligence reports said there could be up to four males living at the compound. Khalid, one of Bin Laden’s sons, was most likely living on the second floor, while Bin Laden lived on the third floor.

The head peeking around the corner was clean-cut with no beard. It had to be Bin Laden’s son.

“Khalid,” the assaulter whispered. “Khalid.”

Everyone in the compound had heard the helicopter engines. They heard the shots fired at the guesthouse, and they heard the explosive breaches.

But by then everything was quiet again. All they could hear was our footsteps. Then the man on the landing heard his name being called.

They know my name? I imagine him thinking.

Curiosity got the best of him and he stuck his head out to see who was calling his name. The second he stuck his head back around the corner, the assaulter shot him in the face. His body rolled down the stairs and rested on the landing.

Looking back, I saw we had several more SEALs coming up the stairs and beginning to stack behind me. The second-floor hallway was already full of assaulters and they didn’t need any more help.

The only place to go was up.

Standing behind the point man, I gave him a squeeze to let him know we were ready.

“Take it.”