How Osama Bin Laden Was Killed (Part 1)

Image link: https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2017/01/24/declassified-cia-papers-question-mahathir-over-us1-billion-banking-scandal/

September 11th, 2001 was supposed to be a regular day for the workers in the World Trade Center. These two impressive skyscrapers each rose to a height of about 1400 feet. However, along with all other Americans, their days would be shaken, as two planes crashed, in quick succession, into both the North and South tower, collapsing both of them. The American nation demanded answers, thus the government quickly got on the case.

In 2004, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was no closer to finding Bin Laden than they were in 2001, wherein the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda fighters had been pushed into a corner of Afghanistan—Tora Bora. The United States government enlisted the help of Afghan native tribes because they believed Bin Laden to be among them. These tribes fought through the mountainous terrain, with Americans providing air support. However, after the battle was won, it was figured out that Bin Laden had fled the battle, with the CIA capturing only 20 stragglers. But, a big lead in 2004 came when the U.S. government received a videotape just a few days before the presidential election between Bush and Kerry. The tape showed Osama Bin Laden, who had recovered from his wounds, claiming responsibility for the terrorist attacks far more directly than before. Now, the CIA had someone to target. 

However, among the captured was a man named Mohammad al-Qahtani. Although this man claimed that he only was in Afghanistan for falconry and was not associated with Al-Qaeda, the CIA took his fingerprints and found that this man was actually an individual who tried and failed to enter the US. However, at this time, it was also known that a call was placed from the airport to Al-Qaeda in the UAE(United Arab Emirates). Investigators tried to find a connection between this man(al-Qahanti) and the phone call. Soon, they found what they were looking for: a car rented by Mohammad Atta, the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks, who flew the plane into the North Tower. Most of the agents believed that Atta was waiting to pick up al-Qahtani. 

More evidence was found after questioning Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in 2002, offered information about al-Qaeda’s operational leader Khalid Sheik Mohammad, who planned the attacks on America. Later, this man was arrested. In another session of questioning, Qahtani also revealed something that the CIA did not know: in July 2001, in preparation for the attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammad introduced him to someone the CIA did not know of before—Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, who was the trainer of Qahtani. All of this intel taught the CIA what the inner workings of al-Qaeda were. However, the CIA still did not discover Bin Laden’s whereabouts, thus  they changed their strategy: they decided to look at the courier network, which sent Bin Laden’s video messages to the United States. As Bin Laden had already sent multiple videos to the US at this point, the CIA decided that this was their best lead on tracking down the terrorist and eliminating him.