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Who killed Osama? Feud among SEALs

Who killed Osama bin Laden? US SEAL Team 6 commandoes, for sure. But which one of them? The story has now come a full circle to where it was in the days after the raid on May 2, 2011. No one knows for sure, as it was originally intended — “We all did,” they had told President Barack Obama — before first-hand accounts began tumbling out, reports Yashwant Raj.

Updated on: Mar 28, 2013, 23:35:38 IST
Hindustantimes.com | By , Washington
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Who killed Osama bin Laden? US SEAL Team 6 commandoes, for sure. But which one of them? The story has now come a full circle to where it was in the days after the raid on May 2, 2011. No one knows for sure, as it was originally intended — “We all did,” they had told President Barack Obama — before first-hand accounts began tumbling out.

HT Image
HT Image

First came No Easy Day, a book by Matt Bissonette, a member of the raiding team, who wrote under the pseudonym Mark Owen. Bissonette was the third man into the room. He mortally wounded Osama.

The next man in — an operative identified as The Shooter in an Esquire magazine story — put two bullets into bin Laden’s forehead. Two accounts, also by team members, over the last two days dispute The Shooter’s account.

The Shooter’s account: With “point man” in lead the two saw the women, who were taken to a side. “In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead.”

Bissonette’s account runs something like this: he entered the third floor behind “the point man”, who took a shot at bin Laden as he peered out the doorway. It tracks with the fresh account emerging now. The “point man” shot Osama and kept going.

Osama fell to the floor. The next men in — two SEALS — shot him several times, killing him for sure. But, goes this version, it was the “point man” who felled Osama. And he is not talking. Not yet, at least.

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