Fugitive evaded manhunt for nearly 10 years

For almost 10 years Osama bin Laden held the title of the world’s most wanted man, his masterminding of the 9/11 terror attacks assuring his infamous place in history and leaving him destined for a life on the run.

For almost 10 years he was the subject of the biggest manhunt the world has ever seen, the vast resources of the planet’s greatest superpower poured into a search-and-destroy mission like no other. Yet for almost 10 years, bin Laden remained at large.

The reasons for his success were multiple. That he was finally tracked down to a large villa in an affluent military town just 40 miles from Islamabad speaks volumes for the role of Pakistan in the failure to secure his capture.

But both American incompetence, and his own secret network of contacts – plus a sizeable slice of luck – had their parts to play in extending his freedom, and ultimately his life, for so long.

Indeed, bin Laden’s time on the run stretches back further than the watershed 2001 terror attacks on mainland America.

He had been on the CIA’s radar since the early 1990s, picked out as a dangerous Islamist dissident and a likely financier of terror. Diplomatic pressure saw his Saudi citizenship revoked in 1994, and his expulsion from his first sanctuary, Sudan, in 1996.

Efforts to hunt him down were stepped up markedly in 1998 after he organised successful attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people.

The first American attempt on his life swiftly followed, as President Clinton retaliated with missile attacks on bin Laden-linked facilities in both Sudan and his new home, Afghanistan. Many of his allies were killed, but bin Laden himself escaped unscathed.

It was a pattern which would repeat itself again and again.

The following year, as bin Laden and his al-Qaida cohorts began drawing up plans for their devastating attacks on New York and Washington, the CIA set up its own “bin Laden unit” and placed a $5m bounty on his head. President Clinton directly authorised the agency to bring the fugitive to justice – dead or alive.

His efforts were in vain. In 2000, bin Laden masterminded an attack on a US warship in Yemen.

The same year saw another remarkable escape, as a CIA rocket attack on a convoy of vehicles in Afghanistan hit a different truck to the one carrying bin Laden.

Then came the horror of 9/11.

Within hours, President Bush had pointed the finger at bin Laden, and the ongoing manhunt went into overdrive. America became obsessed with his capture.

With the Taliban in Afghanistan refusing to give up the fugitive, a US-led coalition launched an invasion. Bin Laden was traced to the Tora Bora mountains, and in late 2001 the region was subjected to heavy bombardment.

But in a disastrous error of judgment by Bush’s defence officials, insufficient ground forces were committed to the operation. Bin Laden, once again, slipped away.

It was America’s great missed opportunity. For the next nine years rumours would sporadically surface of bin Laden’s whereabouts – he was still hiding in mountains in Afghanistan; he had slipped across into remote tribal parts of Pakistan; he was holed up in a bunker in the border regions.

US efforts became increasingly desperate. Tora Bora was raided again in 2007, just weeks after Washington’s reward for information had been hiked to $50m. Bin Laden was nowhere to be seen.

In 2009, US defence secretary Roberts Gates admitted officials had received no reliable information on bin Laden for “years”.

But in August 2010, unbeknown to all but those at the very top of the US security services, the picture began to change.

After a five-year operation, the CIA finally traced a courier said to be extremely close to their man. Their suspect lived with his brother in a fortified compound in Abbottabad, 40 miles north of the Pakistani capital Islamabad.

Situated in an affluent neighbourhood just 800 yards from the Pakistani Army’s officer training headquarters, the compound was surrounded by 18ft walls and barbed wire. Security gates guarded the only entrance. A third-floor terrace was shielded by a huge wall. No phone or internet lines ran to the property. The residents burned every piece of rubbish.

It quickly became clear the million-dollar compound had been purpose-built to protect a major terrorist figure. By February, intelligence officials were confident they had finally found their man.

Over the following weeks, President Obama – the third and last US leader to take on the hunt for bin Laden – led a series of top-secret National Security Council meetings focused solely on the operation. The usual sharing of intelligence with allies was bypassed to avoid any risk of a leak.

Finally, last Friday morning, as the rest of the world sat transfixed by the Royal wedding, Obama gave the mission the green light.

The sophisticated unmanned drones often used by the US to attack targets would be eschewed in favour of a more precise method – a crack team of Navy Seals.

There was little question of bin Laden being brought out alive.

“This was a kill operation,” a defence official said yesterday.

After all the years of searching, the end, when it came, was quick.

Under the direct command of CIA director Leon Panetta, the Seals arrived by helicopter in the dead of night. They came under fire and one of the choppers came down, although no Americans were injured in the operation.

Nearby residents Tweeted news of explosions and a firefight.

Within 40 minutes the courier, his brother and one of bin Laden’s sons were all dead. Bin Laden himself “resisted” and was killed by an American bullet to the head.

Back in Virginia, it was mid-afternoon when Mr Panetta and his team received the news they had been waiting for. Cheers and applause broke out across the room.

Within hours, Obama was preparing the televised speech destined to become one of the defining moments of his presidency.

“Justice,” he told the watching millions, “has been done.”

Scion of wealthy Saudi family rejected life of privilege

OSAMA Bin Laden was born into a large and wealthy family in Saudi Arabia in around 1957.

But he eschewed a life of privilege following a trip to Afghanistan in 1979, where he joined Arab fighters in their war against the invading Soviet Union. During this time with the Mujahideen during the 1980s, he was actually funded by the CIA, but within years he had turned his sights on the USA after its forces set up bases in Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War. Bin Laden, already deeply hostile towards the US over its support for Israel, viewed their presence as a desecration of the land of Islam.

On his return home he began raising funds for the Afghan resistance and drew on his own fortune, once estimated at $300m. Moving first to Sudan and then later to Afghanistan, he and a group of associates formed the al-Qaida group.

He went on to issue a fatwa that US soldiers should be killed, warning US civilians they would also be targeted inside their own country as part of a “holy war”. A series of terror attacks around the world followed.

Few outsiders met bin Laden, but he was frequently described as being modest, even shy, and as having had several wives.