Commandants threaten consequence for former Navy Seals revealing secret series of events
A former member of the Navy Seals has come forward claiming to have shot the al-Qaeda leader during the daring operation in Pakistan in 2011.
Two years ago, another Seal member said he was among those who shot bin Laden.
Meanwhile, multiple military officials and fellow Seals (members of the US Navy’s principal special operations force)have said that it was a third person, the point man on the darkened staircase that night, who fired the first shot that felled the terrorist leader.
Three and a half years after the mission in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the events in that walled compound remain the object of fascination but also controversy.
It may never be possible to say exactly who fired the fatal shot or shots, with multiple armed men wearing night-vision goggles moving quickly through the terrorist mastermind’s hideout.
No autopsy was performed, and no video has emerged of the shooting. The military never released a photograph of bin Laden after he was killed and said that his body had been buried at sea.
The public claims have antagonised senior military officials, prompted a criminal investigation over disclosing classified information and alienated fellow Seals, who object to individuals taking credit or cashing in on team efforts.
Robert O’Neill (38), a former member of the elite Seal Team 6, said that he was the assaulter whose two shots killed bin Laden, according to an account in The Washington Post yesterday.
The website SOFREP, which focuses on special operations, revealed Mr O’Neill’s name as the self-proclaimed shooter Monday.
The story of Mr O’Neill, who is scheduled to appear in a Fox News documentary next week, was previously featured in Esquire magazine. He was identified only as ‘the Shooter’.
In interviews with the magazine, Mr O’Neill had said that the point man, who saw bin Laden first, shot at the al-Qaeda leader but missed.
Mr O’Neill said that he fired two shots to the head of bin Laden, whom he described as still standing at the time.
One former Seal Team 6 member with knowledge of the raid said in an interview yesterday that he believed the point man had wounded bin Laden with a shot in the side.
Rather than going in for the kill, the point man grabbed the women who were present and pushed them aside, fearing they were wearing explosive vests. Mr O’Neill, in his version, did fire the fatal shots.
“Anyone could have been in that position,” said the former senior member, who declined to be identified given the classified nature of the team’s work. “We have known that this moment with Rob O’Neill coming out was going to happen sooner or later, and here it is.”
But other military officials and Seals took issue with Mr O’Neill’s account.
They credited the unidentified point man, who is still a member of the secret unit, with severely wounding or even killing bin Laden before other Seals fired. A former commander of Seal Team 6 said in an interview that he believed that Mr O’Neill fired insurance rounds into bin Laden’s body, after he was down.
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