All language subtitles for Black.Ops.S01E03.Taking.Down.Bin.Laden.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-NTb_track3_[eng]

Narrator: He is the most wanted
terrorist in the world.

After almost a decade,

U.S. intelligence has finally
tracked osama bin laden down

to a compound in Pakistan.

Seal team six, a U.S.
elite special forces unit,

is tasked with a now-historic
capture or kill mission.

They had been
waiting for this call for years.

Narrator:
This is the inside account

of one of the most famous
black ops missions of all times.

Mann: It gets
more excitement in the air,

and everybody starts
getting a lot more serious.

"Board the helos.
We're definitely going now.

We're going in.
It's going in at night."

Narrator: How seal team six
planned this high-risk raid...

...and how it almost failed.

Now on "black ops,"
taking down bin laden.

-- Captions by vitac --
www.Vitac.Com

captions paid for by
discovery communications

operation Neptune spear.

Two black hawk helicopters

carrying
a team of U.S. Navy seals

are approaching a compound
in abbottabad, Pakistan.

They believe
osama bin laden is hiding there.

But then, disaster.

[ Clanking ]

It's rare an op
ever goes like it's planned.

There's always something that
comes up without expecting it.

Causing it to hit the
compound wall and crash-land.

The town's awake,
and so they're thinking,

"any minute now
we can be run down with,

you know, a lot of enemy forces
coming at us."

Narrator: The seals have lost
the element of surprise.

Every second is now critical.

The special forces team
must quickly adapt

and respond to
the changed situation.

What you're expected to do is
make a determination

whether the occupants
are a threat or not a threat.

Narrator:
The seals blow their way
into the compound.

And you have to react
in an instant.

If they're a threat,
then you engage.

[ Gunfire ]

Narrator: This elite unit
has trained for every scenario.

This is the last chapter

in the hunt
to bring bin laden to justice --

a hunt which began
more than a decade earlier.

[ Siren wails ]

On 9/11, 2001, the U.S. endures

the worst attacks on its soil
in modern history.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

Almost 3,000 people are dead.

President bush vows to
hunt down osama bin laden,

Al-qaeda's leader and
the mastermind of the attacks,

and bring him to justice.

There's an old poster out west,
as I recall,

that said,
"wanted, dead or alive."

Narrator: In December 2001,
U.S. forces chased bin laden

to the caves of tora bora
in Afghanistan,

but he manages to slip away.

Townsend:
We were always on the hunt.

We were using every form of
intelligence gathering,

whether it was
human intelligence,

signals intelligence.

Narrator: For the next 10 years,

bin laden manages to
elude U.S. forces.

We still haven't killed
or captured osama bin laden

and his terrorist cadre.

Do you happen to know
where he is?

He may be dead.
He may be seriously wounded.

He may be in Afghanistan.
He may be somewhere else.

Schmitt:
Bin laden learns very early on

that he can't trust
anything electronic.

He almost dies in tora bora
in the mountains of Afghanistan

from using cell phones,

and so
one of the first things he does

is basically gets rid of
anything electronic

that could
be traced back to him.

Narrator: Minimizing the
use of communication technology

allows Al-qaeda's leader
and his close deputies

to operate under the radar.

Mudd: We saw his name
crop up so little

because
very little communication.

I think very few people
in the organization

knew where he was.

[ Speaking native language ]

Narrator:
Bin laden seems to have

disappeared
off the face of the earth.

The only clues come from
videotapes he releases,

taunting the U.S.

Townsend: You were looking at
things as simple as

the foliage
and the light and the terrain

to try and figure out
where it may have been taped.

We looked at his health.

Did he use particular words?

Was it possible that
what looked like

just a sort of message
to followers

might have had
some embedded message?

Narrator: Over the decade,

the U.S.
does achieve some progress.

Senior Al-qaeda figures
are captured and interrogated.

Mudd:
The importance of getting the
big players in the organization,

the archetypal plotters
in the Al-qaeda organization,

was partly trying to
learn locational information.

Where is the man?

So, the first question
you might ask them

might be things like,
"where's bin laden?"

Narrator:
Despite these successes,

public enemy number one
remains at large.

By the time president Obama
takes office in 2009,

most people believe
he'll never be caught.

But at the CIA, some analysts
are still looking for new clues.

Mudd:
The bits and pieces are things
like talking to detainees.

How does the network operate?

Watching them move.

Narrator: Case officers suggest

studying the structure of
Al-qaeda's network.

Who does bin laden use
to pass messages,

allowing him to
remain undetected?

The analysts believe
the answer to this question

will lead them
back to bin laden.

Mudd:
Somebody says something here.

Somebody says something there.

Over the course of years,
you accumulate those grains,

and slowly a picture
comes into focus.

Narrator:
After years of frustration,

the analysts believe
they've got something.

They knew there was probably
a courier out there,

and it was from some of
these initial interrogations

at Guantanamo bay
and other prisons

that they learned of
one courier in particular.

Narrator: Al-qaeda's detainees

reveal the courier
bin laden trusts

is someone
who's known as Al-Kuwaiti --

the man from Kuwait.

Digging deeper,
they find his real name --

saeed Ahmed.

If they find him, they may
be able to find his boss.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

Dozier: Through
intercepts of his cellphones

as he traveled throughout
the Gulf and Pakistan,

they figured out that
he seemed to still be in touch

with the highest ranks
of Al-qaeda.

And they started tracking him
on the ground in Pakistan.

Narrator: As they track him,
CIA operatives notice

a highly suspicious pattern
to Al-Kuwaiti's behavior.

They found this
very strange thing he would do

was to turn off his cellphone,

and then drop off the map
for a while.

Things that
made the Americans think,

"this is the kind of
extraordinary measure

"that the most hunted terrorist
in the world might take.

Let's follow this guy."

Narrator: The breakthrough comes

when the agents manage to
follow the courier's car.

To their amazement,

it is headed toward
a residential compound

in the outskirts
of abbottabad...

A Pakistani army town

about an hour and a half drive
from the capital, islamabad.

Schmitt: It's the home of
Pakistani's west point,

one of its
top military academies.

It's a Garrison town.

Narrator: The CIA
starts watching the compound.

Surveillance reveals
that Al-Kuwaiti, the courier,

lives there with
his brother and their families.

But they are not alone.

Hidden behind
unusually high walls,

there are other residents,
perhaps even another family

living on the top floor
of one of the buildings.

They still don't know
who's in the compound,

of course, in abbottabad,

but they suspect
it's somebody quite senior

either in Al-qaeda

or one of the other
terrorist organizations.

Narrator: Finding out who
that mysterious senior person is

will not be easy.

Townsend: Abbottabad was
teeming with military officials,

likely intelligence officials,
security officials

to protect
the Pakistani military.

So it was a very difficult
operating environment.

Narrator: It's so difficult
that at first,

the CIA is focusing the effort
on surveillance from space.

Schmitt: You had satellites
peering down night and day,

trying to get an image of
whoever was working in there.

You had electronic
eavesdropping equipment

that was trying to
pick up any signals,

be it e-mails, text messages,
cellphone conversations.

And you had
this new, stealthy aircraft

that was
flying high over Pakistan

trying to get a glimpse of,
again, who's inside.

Narrator: After weeks of
satellite imagery,

U.S. intelligence teams
manage to identify

a figure who occasionally
takes walks around the courtyard

but appears to
never leave the compound.

They call him "the pacer."

The pacer is very tall.

Bin laden is about 6'4.

It's a tantalizing clue

that may bring them closer to
tracking down bin laden.

But any attempt
to confirm the pacer's identity

is fraught with risk.

Narrator:
Almost a decade after 9/11,

after poring through intel data

and tracking
an important Al-qaeda courier,

U.S. analysts think they
may have found osama bin laden.

Surveillance shows that

a mysterious compound
not far from Pakistan's capital

is home to what special ops call
an h.V.T. --

a high-value target.

The mysterious resident is
a tall man who paces up and down

but never ventures outside.

To try and confirm
they have the right man,

the CIA activates
agents on the ground.

They had a safe house
overlooking the compound

where they had Pakistani agents,

people spying for the CIA,

trying to establish what
they call a pattern of life.

Who goes in? Who goes out?

How many people live there?

Who's interacting
with the compound?

Narrator:
The agents soon report on

the unusual behavior patterns
of the residents.

Dozier: The house itself had

no real connections
to the outside world.

There was a satellite dish,
but there were no phone lines.

There were no hard wires

beyond some electricity wires
going in and out.

It's as if these people
wanted to live off the grid.

Panetta: My first reaction

when they described
the compound in abbottabad

was that we had something
that was very unusual.

[ Laughs ]

Narrator: Neighbors say

the compound's residents
keep to themselves.

Occasionally,
they have visitors.

Strangely,
they burn their trash.

In Washington,

analysts
are still trying to determine

who is the high-value target
in the compound.

But it's decided there's enough
to brief the president.

Schmitt: President Obama's top

counterterrorism
and intelligence officials

go to him and say,
"look, we think we may have

"the location
where bin laden is right now.

"We can't be certain,

but given all the other clues
that we have..."

Obama is cautiously optimistic.

This is by far
the most solid lead they've had

on the location of bin laden
in years.

Panetta: Once the intelligence
reached a point

where there was at least

a higher confidence level
about the possibility,

the next question we asked was
what should we do operationally?

Narrator: A group of
the president's closest advisers

is called in
to discuss the new lead.

There are many questions
on his mind.

Schmitt:
"Are there military options?

"What are
the diplomatic options?

What are the political options
here that I'm dealing with?"

And, so, he and his advisers

began talking about
those kind of options,

tasking the military and the CIA
to come up with options

of how you deal with this,
assuming bin laden's there.

Narrator: Officially,

the situation-room meetings
don't exist.

The top secret
is shared only with

a handful of people
in the white house.

Schmitt: Whenever they had these
meetings at the white house,

they weren't even put on
the daily schedules

that the top
national security officials get.

It was just a blank space
in their calendars.

Narrator: There's danger that

if bin laden is
among the compound's residents,

he may slip away
before a plan is hatched.

There may be
escape routes or tunnels

leading out of the compound.

They have to act fast.

CIA director Leon panetta

wants to
move things to the next stage.

He calls in the commander
of U.S. special forces,

vice admiral William mcraven.

Dozier: Bill mcraven is a bit of
a legend in the community

for a booming voice,
a lot of charisma.

His guys love him.

Zinke: He has always been
hard-charging,

a good, clear thinker,

and has always understood
that modern warfare changes,

and special operations
has to be flexible.

Narrator: Mcraven oversees jsoc,

the joint
special operations command.

He wrote the book on black ops,

and he needs to
come up with a plan.

In the next weeks,
his team will have to figure out

if there is enough intelligence
to go after the target.

If so, what kind of an operation
is feasible,

and which is
the best unit to carry it out?

Mcraven is looking at what
operatives on the ground found

through surveillance,

satellite imagery,

and the analysis of
communication intercepts.

After reviewing
the intelligence,

he is ready to
present three options

to the president and his team.

The first option involves

a massive bombing campaign
by a b-2 bomber.

The advantage
to this kind of campaign --

it would kill
anybody in the compound.

The down side, of course,

was you'd never be sure
bin laden was ever there.

Narrator: Another option
is a more surgical drone strike.

They had proved effective
against Al-qaeda before.

Dozier: A couple of the
senior advisers to the president

were all for dropping
a small munition, a missile,

onto the compound.

But others were arguing that

there were a lot of civilians
in the compound --

women, children.

That would
produce many casualties.

Narrator: And a drone strike
would still not guarantee

knowing if they had actually
killed bin laden or not...

...leaving
just one other option.

[ Gunfire ]

Schmitt: To ensure that you get
the man that you're going after,

you send in a commando team.

This has the advantage,
of course,

that you can
have eyes on your target.

You can be guaranteed
that he's killed or captured.

Narrator: This is a job made for

an elite unit
like the Navy seals.

Mann: When it came time
to get in the op for bin laden,

I mean,
they were more than ready.

They had more combat experience
now than any unit in the world,

and they'd been fighting
more than we've ever fought

as a country.

Dozier: They've been doing
a dozen raids a night

next door in Afghanistan,

and they've been doing it
for years.

So, they had the skills.

They were close by.

And they'd been
hunting bin laden for a decade.

Narrator:
But planning an operation

based on limited intelligence
is risky.

Even after months
of concentrated efforts,

there's no certainty
that bin laden

is indeed in the compound.

Rushing to action
could needlessly cost

the lives of
dozens of U.S. troops.

Narrator: Almost a decade since
the trail went cold,

the biggest manhunt in history
is coming to a boil.

CIA analysts zero in on
a compound in Pakistan.

They think
osama bin laden is there.

President Obama is facing

the most momentous decision
of his career.

He needs to choose
the best course of action --

bomb the compound from the air,

send in a black ops unit,

or maybe wait until
he is sure bin laden is there.

Schmitt:
The priority was to ensure that

you either kill or capture
osama bin laden.

And the only way
you could do that

was to send in a commando team
to do that job.

Narrator: As the president
considers his options,

one U.S. special ops team
is ordered to start preparing.

Hand-picked for the job,
they are the best of the best --

the Navy's top-secret
counterterrorism force,

seal team six.

Zinke: Well, historically,

people didn't talk about
seal team six.

Is all a close-held secret.

[ Gunfire ]

Narrator: Inside the Navy,

the unit
is only known as devgru,

short for naval special warfare
development group.

You can't really train
all the other teams

to quickly deploy to the jungle,
quickly deploy to the desert

or the arctic or an urban.

So, you have one team
made up of the elite,

who can
deploy anywhere in the world.

And that team really is
our nation's 911 worldwide call.

Narrator: Only seal operators
with years of experience

are considered
for a job with the team.

You have a screen
to become part of seal team six.

There's additional years
of training, of screening,

of requirements
that are involved.

Narrator: Mcraven knows
he can rely on team six.

He was once
a commander with the unit

and helped shape it as

one of the best counterterrorism
forces in the world.

Zinke:
I think the thing that separates
seal team six from all others

is seals just don't quit.

They're trained
never, ever quit.

Narrator: Over the last decade,
U.S. special forces

have had a great deal of
operational experience.

Zinke: Thousands of operations
had been conducted.

Many of them
are not on the front page,

but almost all
have had a significant influence

on the direction of
the war on terrorism.

Narrator: One of the few
publicly known missions

was the rescue of the captain
of the maersk Alabama

from Somali pirates
who hijacked his boat

near the horn of Africa in 2009.

Mann: The hostages were rescued.

The snipers, you know,

did their hit
on the Somali pirates.

For every one
that you hear about,

there's a hundred successes
you don't hear about.

[ Gunshot ]

Narrator:
In Iraq and Afghanistan,

nightly raids had been
part of the seals' mission.

They are ready for action.

They were going to
train and train and train

and be ready
if the president said,

"get on that plane
and get to Pakistan."

Not one of them breathed a word
to their families

or to their other seal teammates
at seal team six.

Narrator:
There's one real concern about
keeping the mission secret --

should the U.S. involve
the Pakistani government?

There are worries about trust.

Mudd: Over time, we saw problems

working with
Pakistani intelligence --

information going
out the back door, for example,

when we were
cooperating with them.

Schmitt:
Too often, when they got a tip,

it turned out that

an hour before a raid,
for instance,

mysteriously, the target of
that raid would disappear.

He would have been tipped off.

Narrator:
The president determines that

bringing the pakistanis
in on the plan

could mean losing the one chance
in almost a decade

to get osama bin laden.

But keeping the pakistanis
in the dark

makes this raid even more risky.

Mudd: This is crossing a border,

crossing a large territory
of Pakistan,

a sovereign country,

without the knowledge of
local security services

with the prospect that
local police might get onto you

and start shooting you
in abbottabad.

The risk factors here
were incredible.

Narrator: The consequences
of a potential disaster

weigh heavy
on the president and his aides.

In the back of everyone's mind

is the failed
desert one operation

to rescue hostages from Iran
in 1980.

Eight American servicemen
were killed

when their helicopters collided
on the way to the mission.

It was a crushing blow
for the Carter presidency.

And some of those
in the room with Obama

are still haunted by

what came to be known as
"black hawk down,"

a special forces operation
code-named "gothic serpent"

into Somalia in 1993.

Militants
shot down two U.S. helicopters.

At the end of the battle,
18 American soldiers were dead,

their bodies mutilated

and dragged through
the streets of mogadishu.

Schmitt:
These are his top advisers --

police like
vice president biden,

secretary of state
Hillary Clinton,

defense secretary Bob gates,

CIA director Leon panetta.

And they're all giving their
assessments to the president.

Some are more skeptical
about this than others.

Joe biden, for instance,
is a little more skeptical.

Gates is skeptical about
sending in ground troops.

He's the one individual
from this group

who lived through desert one.

Other intelligence officials,
however,

including panetta,
were much more bullish.

Whenever
you're advising the president

about a particular operation,

it's how certain do you feel
that your target's there

and that you will have
a good opportunity

to successfully
execute that mission

versus what are
the likely consequences

or potential points of failure?

Narrator:
To stack the odds in his favor,

Obama orders additional backup.

Dozier: The president said,

"I want to be able to

protect these guys
and get them out."

Narrator: The president wants
another seal team ready nearby

as a quick-reaction force.

Schmitt: One thing that
he personally wanted to see

was the option to

fight their way out
if they had to.

They didn't
want to be pinned down.

And so, the military went back
and devised some backup plans

that had additional
transport helicopters ready

on a chance that
there might be a problem.

[ Gunfire ]

Narrator: Even now,

the president
still hasn't decided

whether to
green light the operation.

But members of seal team six
are sent to prepare

in north Carolina
and the Nevada desert.

An exact replica of the compound
is built

especially for them to train
for every potential scenario.

Zinke:
You could have land mines,

or the whole building
could be a trap,

and the moment you
get in the compound, you know,

4,000 pounds of explosives
gets detonated.

You know, that's enough
to kill the entire force.

They know that
they have bunch of contingencies

that they have to prepare for

and that plans don't always
go according to plan.

We have a saying -- you know,

"plan your dive
and dive your plan."

[ Gunfire ]

Narrator:
From the intelligence gathered,

the seals learn that behind the
high walls securing the compound

are at least two buildings.

The mysterious residents
and the courier's brother

seem to be in the main one.

The smaller building houses
Al-Kuwaiti and his family.

To get to them, the seals would
have to split into two groups.

One will land in the courtyard
and secure the perimeter,

and the other
will fast-rope to the roof,

taking the residents
by surprise.

Zinke:
Intelligence was critical.

Our satellite imagery,
our ground intelligence --

to the degree we could,

we had an understanding of at
least the battlefield

exterior of the compound.

Narrator: As the seals prepare,

the president
calls in more experts.

He wants fresh eyes
on intelligence --

what the pros call
a red-team exercise.

Senior analysts are given

everything that's been gathered
on the case.

Their job is to provide

an objective assessment
of the intelligence.

After reviewing the material,
the red team concludes

the chances bin laden is
in the compound are only 50-50.

To get the 50-50 in itself
I thought was significant.

That might seem like
low odds for Vegas.

For me
as an intelligence professional,

that's pretty good odds.

Narrator: In the last
secret white house meeting,

the room is still divided
on the best plan of action.

Schmitt:
As they went around the table,

each one of the participants

basically
is prefacing his or her remarks

by saying, "Mr. president,
we know this is probably

the most difficult decision
you're gonna make."

And, of course, it got to be
a joke as they went around,

'cause they each echo each other
as if to kind of shield them

from the ultimate responsibility
of having to make this decision,

knowing, of course,
the commander in chief

will be the one who decides
whether to go or not.

Mudd: I think most of us
would have said,

"the risk here is huge."

And the best we could to
is to say,

"boss, I'm gonna have to
ask you to take a huge risk."

That said,
I think I would have said,

"I'm not sure
it's gonna get any better,

and now it's on your back."

Narrator:
It's the ultimate decision
for the commander in chief.

Is he willing to risk
the lives of American troops

based on so much uncertainty?

President Obama says
he needs more time to think,

but delay carries its own risk.

Townsend: What happens if

you wait so long
to have it be perfect

that you lose the opportunity?

Narrator: The next morning,

the president
calls his top advisers.

He has made up his mind.

Operation Neptune spear is a go.

Schmitt:
It was the best information

they were going to have
this was bin laden,

and this was
the opportunity to strike,

the opportunity they'd
been looking for for years.

And the risks were worth it.

Narrator: The raid
is planned for the next day,

Saturday, April 30th,

with Sunday, may 1st,
as an alternative

if the weather is bad.

As the seals
prepare for the operation,

the president continues
with his planned commitments.

The white house
correspondents' dinner

is scheduled for Saturday night.

The president always attends it.

Schmitt: This is an annual event
here in Washington

where the president shows up
in a black tie.

He's usually subject --

you know, he's expected to
give a funny speech.

All right, everybody,
please have a seat.

Narrator: To make sure
the operation remains a secret,

everyone has to act as if
it's business as usual.

Dozier: The white house advisers
really debated

"do we pretend
that the president is sick?"

"Do we want him
making jokes from the podium --"

which is the point of
that particular dinner --

"just as the raiders
are hitting the compound?"

What if the helicopters go down?

What if you have another
"black hawk down" situation

where you lose a whole team?

Narrator: In the last minute,

forecasts for cloudy weather
delays the mission.

Seal team six

must wait another day
to carry out the plan.

Narrator: 11:00 P.M.
in jalalabad, Afghanistan.

It's a moonless night.

24 hours later
than originally planned,

two black hawk helicopters
take off from a U.S. air base.

Each is carrying 12 members
of Navy seal team six.

The operation
to get osama bin laden,

code-named Neptune spear,

is finally under way.

Mann: "Boy, this is
a little hairy here.

"Okay, we are
flying into Pakistan.

Yeah, this is a go.
This is definitely a go."

And then it gets
more excitement in the air,

and everybody starts
getting a lot more serious.

"We're definitely going now.

We're going in.
It's going in at night."

Narrator: On the tense flight
to abbottabad,

the troops go through
last-minute preparations.

Mann: And there will be

a very detailed
patrol leader's order --

time you're going in,
time you're coming out,

what gear you're gonna take,

who's gonna be sitting where
in the helos.

Narrator: These seals were
hand-picked for the mission

because of their specialties
and experience.

It's the operation
they've long been waiting for.

Mann: The air is so, so thick.

People are
saying last-minute prayers

and thinking about
their families,

and making sure
their weapons loaded,

doing press checks,

making sure
there's a round in the chamber,

making sure
all the gear's secured.

Going over the last-minute notes
with the buddies,

thinking of all the details.

Narrator:
Also on board the aircraft --

a translator
and a dog named Cairo,

member of the k-9 unit.

Mann: If antipersonnel
and sniffing things out --

go search something for smell,
looking for somebody.

Dozier: Cairo was a veteran --
a veteran of many raids.

He'd actually been wounded
in a previous raid

and had taken six months out
to recuperate.

Narrator: The seals are flying
in new stealth helicopters

specifically designed
for this mission.

Seals have
the state-of-the-art equipment,

and every year,
every generation,

the helicopters
get a little faster,

a little lighter,
a little harder to detect.

Narrator: The operation pilots
are the night stalkers,

members of the army's elite
160th special aviation regiment.

Magness: We're called
"night stalkers" for a reason.

We tend to like to fly at night

to give us
the cover of darkness.

Flying in the dark

is a lot different
than flying in the day.

And sound acts differently.

Light obviously
acts differently.

The whole mission is planned
to hit the target

from an unexpected direction
at an unexpected time.

Narrator: The journey to
the target in abbottabad

takes about 90 minutes.

The two stealth helicopters

manage to cross the border
to Pakistan undetected.

Dozier: In the original plan,

they were gonna fast-rope
down into the outer courtyard.

It would have taken 2 minutes
to land these guys,

and maybe 10 minutes in all
to storm both buildings.

Narrator: Just as he's
hovering above the compound

preparing to land...

[ Clanking ]

...one of pilots
hits serious trouble.

Dozier: The air as hotter
than anyone had expected,

and the helicopter lost control,
'cause the air was thinner,

and the helicopter,
therefore, was heavier

and started falling a little bit
through space,

sliding greasily back and forth.

Narrator:
Drones flying over the compound

stream the unfolding disaster

back to vice admiral mcraven
in jalalabad,

the CIA headquarters in Langley,

and the situation room
in the white house.

Schmitt: You're all, like,

jammed in
a very small kind of room,

listening, watching the feed.

Dozier: All they could see is
the helicopter going down

and then crashing and wondering,
have we just lost the mission?

Narrator:
With one helicopter down

and a loss of
the surprise element,

the seals will have to quickly

adapt their mission
to the situation.

Narrator: The secret raid
on a compound in Pakistan

where osama bin laden
may be hiding

encounters
a serious complication.

One of the helicopters carrying
a Navy seal black ops unit

crash-lands.

President Obama and his team
in the white house follow,

as it looks like the U.S.
mission to get bin laden

is compromised.

Dozier:
Your heart's in your throat.

You don't know at any moment

if the pakistanis
are going to come rushing in.

You don't know
if you're gonna hear

that the whole mission
has been lost.

Narrator:
The white house advisers

are desperate to hear
if the seals survived the crash.

Dozier:
An extremely tense moment

until they heard from mcraven,

"nope, the guys are out.

"The guys are good.

"And we're prepared for this.

We're modifying the plan."

When admiral mcraven
indicated a kind of, you know,

"this is not a problem.

These guys
are gonna do the job,"

it gave me
a sense of confidence.

Narrator: In abbottabad,

the pilot buries the nose
of the helicopter in the ground.

Magness:
If failure's not an option,

you have to have
a way to accomplish the mission.

Narrator: The seals immediately
activate plan "b."

When things go wrong,
you're not gonna overreact.

You have a checklist,

and you can get through
just about anything.

Narrator:
They quickly organize themselves

to storm the compound
from the ground.

Mann: The first thing
the guys have to do

is get a full head count,
make sure everybody's there.

Narrator:
But the crash has caused noise.

The town's awake,
and so they're thinking,

"any minute now
we can be run down with,

you know, a lot of enemy forces
coming at us."

Narrator: Fearing they've
lost the element of surprise,

they know every second
is now critical.

And once you're at the door,
the door's got to be breached.

[ Gunshot ]

As soon as the door's breached,

people are in, left, right,
left, right, left, right.

And then you make movement.

Narrator: The seals
make it to the courtyard.

Now they must
get to the main building

where they think
bin laden may be.

[ Glass shatters ]
[ Woman screams ]

There were
these knots of children

who were
trying to avoid getting caught,

trying to avoid getting hit,

and not knowing
what to do or where to run.

[ Child crying ]

Narrator: They still don't know
who else is in the compound

and how many people are armed.

Mann:
And they're just moving, moving,

going through danger areas,
moving, moving, moving,

checking stairways,

clearing
so people can go up stairways.

[ Gunshots ]

Narrator: When someone
opens fire, they engage.

Ugh!

With still no sign of bin laden,

the seals move
to clear the next building.

They find that
most entrances and pathways

are barricaded or blocked.

Mann: Take out a closed door.

They know to get security on it.

People blast through the door.

Narrator: From his headquarters
in Langley,

CIA director Leon panetta

is narrating the action
for the president.

Panetta: We had heard that
shots had been fired.

We really weren't quite sure
what was happening.

It was a good 15 or 20 minutes
of silence

in the sense of
what exactly was going on.

Narrator: They're inside
the main building.

The young man they just shot

matches the description
of bin laden's son.

They advance up the stairs
leading to the top floor.

Osama bin laden pokes
his head around the doorway.

One of the first seals
in the line

knows that's bin laden.

Narrator: The operational signal
for sighting their target

is sent to the command --
Geronimo.

The signals were set out
by alphabet -- a, b, c, d.

"G" was
securing osama bin laden.

"G" for Geronimo.

[ Gunshots ]

Narrator:
They gun down bin laden

with a signature double tap --

one shot to the chest,
and one to the head.

In the situation room,
it was "we got him...We think.

"Wait. Maybe?

We hope."

Those were
very long and torturous moments,

waiting for the word.

[ Woman shrieking ]
Narrator: The seals move in

to confirm
they got the right man.

A message is sent back.

"E.K.I.A." --
Enemy killed in action.

[ Shrieking continues ]

One of them pushes bin laden's
widows out of the way.

He has to assume they may be
wearing suicide vests.

One of the women is bleeding
from gunfire ricochets.

[ Camera shutter clicks ]

They collect DNA samples.

Dozier: The seals started
evidence collection,

taking photographs
of bin laden's face

and sending those back

so that two waiting teams
in the CIA

who were
facial recognition experts --

measuring the length of
the nose, the length of the jaw.

Narrator:
The operation is not complete.

Bin laden was running Al-qaeda
from the compound.

The evidence he left behind

could be used
to prevent future attacks.

It took them 19 minutes
to get to bin laden,

and then
in the rest of the time,

they were going
from room to room,

looking for computers,
cellphones, documents,

anything that might tell them

what bin laden had been doing
there for the past six years

and anything that might

lead them to
other parts of the network.

Narrator: But every minute
they spend gathering material

puts the teams at greater risk.

One of the helicopters
positioned nearby

makes its way to the compound
to assist in evacuating them.

Magness: We have everybody.

We have the aircraft that we're
exiting on the right route.

Narrator: Before taking off,

one team blows up
the crashed helicopter,

making sure its classified
design features and technology

will not
fall into the wrong hands.

In the early morning hours,

the seal teams finally
make it back to jalalabad.

Before being taken away,

Al-qaeda's leader is identified
with almost 100% certainty.

Hours later, his body will
arrive at the USS Carl vinson,

and bin laden
will be given a burial at sea.

The white house team

is getting ready to
announce the news to the world.

America's number-one
most wanted terrorist is dead.

Dozier:
When the helicopters got back
over the border into Afghanistan

and it dawned on the people
inside the situation room

and the top CIA officials that,
they've done it.

Looks like we got bin laden.

And all the seals and
all the teams supporting them

is safely out.

That's when people

quietly started
popping the champagne bottles.

Good evening.

Tonight I can report to the
American people and to the world

that the United States
has conducted an operation

that killed osama bin laden,
the leader of Al-qaeda,

and a terrorist who's
responsible for the murder

of thousands of innocent
men, women, and children.

[ Cheering ]

[ Chanting ] Usa! Usa!

Narrator:
When president Obama goes

to congratulate the seals
who took part in the mission

a few days later,

the question of the identity of
the seal who shot bin laden

comes up.

They collectively answer,
"we all did, sir."

The team
then hands the president

an American flag
with an inscription saying,

"operation Neptune spear,
may 1, 2011,

for God and country, Geronimo."