Original subtitles

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."