Inside the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan | 60 Minutes Archive
In a Nutshell
Mark Owen, a SEAL Team 6 operator, provides the first detailed account of the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, describing how his helicopter crashed into the Abbottabad compound yet the team still completed the mission in 38 minutes. The operation was a "kill or capture" mission that succeeded through rapid adaptation after the crash, precise room-clearing that eliminated bin Laden on the third floor, and extensive intelligence collection. The raid's success hinged on the skill of Army helicopter pilots who executed an emergency landing, the team's ability to improvise when plans failed, and years of CIA intelligence that correctly identified bin Laden's location despite having zero knowledge of the compound's interior layout.
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Mark Owen is not his real name. It is the name he used to write a new book about the assault on Bin Laden's compound called No Easy Day. Owen was on the helicopter that crashed into the compound. He was the second man in Bin Laden's bedroom, and he took the pictures of the body that the world has never seen. Owen received a silver star for valor and a purple heart for a wound suffered in the raid. Despite all that, Owen told in his only interview that No Easy Day is not about him. He says it's a tribute to the hundreds of Americans who gathered intelligence, planned, and trained in the 10-year pursuit of the world's most wanted man. Seal Team 6, he told, just took care of the last 40 minutes.
The mission was absolutely not a kill only mission. It was made very clear throughout training that if given the opportunity, this is not an assassination. The team would capture him alive if feasible. That was the preferred thing. The team was not there to assassinate somebody. They weren't sent in to murder him. This was kill or capture.
When Owen first joined the Navy, he had read about the SEALs in junior high school and set his sights. Chief Petty Officer Owen was in the Navy 14 years. He had done 13 combat deployments since 9/11 in Afghanistan, Iraq, all over. There are several SEAL teams, but Owen rose to the very top, a unit called the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, SEAL Team 6. SEAL Team 6 is made up of a number of squadrons.
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