New book tells Bin Laden unarmed and already dead

WASHINGTON

A file photo of Osama Bin Laden. REUTERS Photo

A firsthand account of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden has revealed that he was unarmed and was already dead from a bullet to the brain when soldiers entered his bedroom in his compound.

Bin Laden had apparently been shot in the head when he looked out of his bedroom door into the top-floor hallway of his compound as the United States Navy’s Sea, Air, and Land Teams (SEAL) rushed up a narrow stairwell in his direction, according to former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, writing under the pseudonym Mark Owen in “No Easy Day.”

‘Supressed’ gunfire

Bissonnette said he was directly behind a “point man” going up the stairs. “Less than five steps” from the top of the stairs, he heard “suppressed” gunfire: “BOP. BOP.”

The author wrote that bin Laden ducked back into his bedroom and the SEALs followed, only to find the terrorist crumpled on the floor in a pool of blood with a hole visible on the right side of his head and two women wailing over his body. Bissonnette said the point man pulled the two women out of the way and shoved them into a corner and he and the other SEALs trained their guns’ laser sites on bin Laden’s still-twitching body, shooting him several times until he lay motionless, according to the Associated Press. In the account related by administration officials after the raid in Pakistan, the SEALs shot bin Laden only after he ducked back into the bedroom because they assumed he might be reaching for a weapon. Despite numerous reports that bin Laden had a weapon and resisted when Navy SEALs entered the room, he was unarmed, wrote Bissonnette. The book would be available on Sept. 4. Bissonnette also wrote disparagingly that none of the SEALs were fans of President Barack Obama and knew that his administration would take credit for ordering the May 2011 raid. One of the SEALs said after the mission that they had just gotten Obama re-elected by carrying out the raid.