The decision
On 1 May 2011, at 1:25 p.m. Eastern time, President Barack Obama, CIA Director Leon Panetta and Adm. William McRaven, the head of Joint Special Operations Command, gave the go-ahead. Panetta later described it as a covert “Title 50” operation: the authority ran from the President to the CIA Director, while McRaven commanded the military operation itself.
At 1:51 p.m. Eastern time the helicopters lifted off from Afghanistan. They were flown by US Army aviators; published accounts describe them as specially modified, stealth-configured Black Hawks, a detail the US government has never confirmed. Chinook helicopters waited in reserve.
Nine minutes to the third floor
The helicopters reached the compound in Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, at 00:30 Pakistan time on 2 May 2011 — 3:30 p.m. in Washington on 1 May. One of the two helicopters crashed inside the compound walls, but, in the CIA’s words, the assault continued “without delay or injury”.
The assault team was made up of US Navy SEALs. Published accounts put it at about two dozen operators, with an interpreter and a military working dog reportedly named Cairo, and identify the unit as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group — widely known as SEAL Team Six — though the US government has not officially named it.
Bin Laden was found on the third floor and killed about nine minutes after the helicopters arrived. The code word “Geronimo” signalled that the team had found its objective. According to the White House, bin Laden was not armed. Two al-Qaeda couriers and a woman caught in crossfire were also killed; bin Laden’s wife was shot in the leg and survived. No Americans were harmed.
Under 40 minutes on the ground
The team stayed on the compound for under 40 minutes. Before leaving, it destroyed the crashed helicopter; a backup helicopter carried out the remaining operators and a large quantity of material for intelligence analysis. In 2017 the CIA released nearly 470,000 further files recovered in the raid.
At 11:35 p.m. Eastern time on 1 May, President Obama announced in a televised address from the White House that bin Laden had been killed. His identity was confirmed using DNA, and the body was buried at sea from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea in the early hours of 2 May.
The raid is known as Operation Neptune Spear — a nod to the trident on the SEAL insignia.
Where every SEAL starts
Whatever unit the operators served in that night, every Navy SEAL begins the same way: with the Physical Screening Test. Candidates swim 500 yards, then do push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups, and finish with a 1.5-mile run, in that order and with set rest periods.
The US Navy’s published minimums are a 12:30 swim, 50 push-ups and 50 sit-ups in two minutes each, 10 pull-ups and a 10:30 run. The higher “Elevated” standard is 9:30 / 75 / 75 / 15 / 9:30. Passing the PST only opens the door: enlisted candidates then face about 56 weeks of initial training, including Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) school, parachute training and SEAL Qualification Training. Enlisted applicants must be under 29.