Killing the Killers: The Secret War

By Scott R. Campbell

The reader journeys inside the worldwide war on terror. America went into battle mode as the World Trade Center towers crumbled, the Pentagon burned, and a tiny number of passengers fought frantically to prevent a third jet from carrying out its murderous flight plan. Killing The Killers tells the story of America's long struggle against radicals who plotted and carried out not just the 9/11 atrocities but hundreds of others throughout the globe, finally destroying whole countries in their pursuit for power.

This book encapsulates Bill O'Reilly's book of the same name and is meant to complement it rather than replace it.

Killing The Killers follows the United States' fight against, ISIS, Al Queda and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere, as well as specific targets of these organizations' most renowned commanders. An irresistible narrative emerges of our era's most crucial battle.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scott Campbell
• Release date: May 7, 2022

Book preview

PROLOGUE

In his beige pajamas, the guy with thirty minutes to live sleeps like a baby.

Meanwhile, two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters of the United States Army fly low above Pakistani airspace. The moon is waning into a crescent shape. The helicopter aircraft commander, HAC, is in the left seat, while his copilot is in the right. The first plane, dubbed Chalk One, holds a dozen Navy SEALs on the cabin's hard metal floor behind the pilot. Chalk Two transports 10 SEALs, an American CIA translator from Pakistan, and Cairo, a six-year-old Belgian Malinois dog. Cairo, like the troops, is outfitted with Kevlar body armor and night vision goggles.

Each bird's fuselage is painted black. Heat-suppressing metallurgy and special metallurgy.

The radar profile of the 1960s is minimized because to exhaust systems. Sound is dampened using noise-reducing technology attached to the rotor tips. The pilots improve their aircraft's invisibility by utilizing a method known as nap of the earth, which involves hugging terrain features as low as possible. The fully loaded vehicles go at a deliberate speed of seventy-five mph.

From the darkness, death sullies forth.

On the floor, each member of this elite unit of SEAL (Sea, Air, and Land) commandos is practically immobile. The sixties have crew seats, but the fact that SEALs are too tough for such luxuries is a source of pride. Despite this risky endeavor, several people are sleeping. Crye Precision desert digital camouflage fighting leggings and a matching pullover sweater meant to be worn beneath body armor make up their outfit. Leather gloves, a medical kit, energy bars, and additional ammo are all kept in pockets down each trouser leg.

Every SEAL carries a few hundred dollars in American money in case the operation goes bad and they need to get out of Pakistan.

The pilots are army, while the fighters are navy. This is on purpose. The sixty is flown by all branches of the military, although army pilots are commonly regarded as the finest at infil and exfil—the perilous business of landing a helicopter in a conflict zone and safely withdrawing after the task is complete.

Infiltrate and exfiltrate equate to life and death tonight.

Both Black Hawks took off from a secure airstrip in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, sixty minutes ago. Two bigger CH-47 Chinook helicopters arrived fifteen minutes later to provide help, laden with more fuel for the return flight. The two Bathtubs, as the Chinooks are known for their bathing suits, extended form, will land near the Pakistani border in Afghanistan, where it will await further instructions.

The SEALs are on their way to a private facility in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which is slightly under two hundred miles distant. Because of its huge size, locals refer to it as the Waziristan Palace. The acre-sized complex is enclosed by strong walls varying in height from ten to eighteen feet tall and is located on Kakul Road in a middle-class part of Abbottabad known as Bilal Town.

Each entry is guarded by solid steel gates. Inside, there are many buildings and a wide open courtyard for rearing animals and cultivating vegetables.

Chalk One is supposed to fly low over the courtyard. The FRIES—fast rope insertion/extraction system—will be used by the SEALs on board to enter the facility by sliding down a system of thick ropes tied to a strong point within the chopper. Because fast-roping mimics a fire pole fall, each guy wears leather gloves. They will split out once they are on the ground and start looking for tonight's target.

In the meanwhile, Chalk Two will arrive just outside the compound's perimeter. To provide perimeter protection, Cairo the dog, his SEAL handler, Will Chesney, the CIA translator, and a small sniper crew will disembark. Any incoming force or anybody attempting to flee will be pursued. At this moment, one SEAL team will stay on board Chalk Two before being flown inside the complex and fast-roping onto the flat rooftop of the three-story main house.

After being unloaded, both helicopters will fly to a predetermined area where they will await orders to return and pick up the combatants. The total time spent on the ground will not exceed forty minutes.

There are a few structures to break into, but the main home is the primary target. It is speculated that that the Pacer, as the towering person seen roaming the grounds by satellite cameras is known, resides in this edifice. The SEALs will storm the house in search of this individual. He will be tied and taken aboard a helicopter for a journey to incarceration if he decides to come along calmly.

If the homeowner chooses to fight, he will be killed. The Heckler & Koch HK416 assault rifle, FN Mark 48 machine gun, or H&K MP7 machine pistol that shoots an armor-piercing ammunition are among the weapons used by these SEALs. Each guy also carries a holstered handgun. And no SEAL is ever at ease until he is wielding a long, razor-sharp fixed-blade knife.

Osama bin Laden, the 54-year-old terrorist mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, is the target on this hot, humid night. He is six feet five inches tall and has a lengthy black and gray beard. His full name is Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden. The terrorist was born in Saudi Arabia, the son of a tycoon who died in an aircraft accident when he was just 10 years old. Bin Laden is noted for being thrifty and soft-spoken, yet a stern parent to his estimated twenty-six children from his several spouses.

The terrorist is considered the world's most sought guy. Everywhere he goes, his visage is recognizable. He was raised in a privileged environment and has a profound hate for the United States of America. Bin Laden has abandoned the peaceful precepts of Islam in favor of a life committed to the assassination of American civilians. This has come at a price: he lives on the run, taking tremendous measures to avoid being arrested. Bin Laden, however, commands a large terror network from his faraway refuge. Extremists unite to him, and his anti-Semitic message does not go unnoticed in the jihadi world. Bin Laden is a killer, first and foremost. He has used his vast riches to lead the terrorist group al-Qaeda—the Foundation—in multiple fatal strikes throughout the globe since 1998, in addition to the over three thousand innocent victims murdered on 9/11. Bin Laden, operating from a clandestine haven in Afghanistan, proclaimed a holy war, or jihad, against America in August 1996. Bin Laden has eluded the world's most powerful intelligence services for the last 10 years. Several reported sightings of the guy have resulted in nothing.

This evening it; s going to be a bit different.

Since 2005, the Abbottabad complex has been home to Osama bin Laden, his children, and his several wives, according to the CIA. The identify of a bin Laden courier known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, actual name Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed, was disclosed during interrogation of al-Qaeda captives at the US-run Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. Officials discovered in 2007 that this messenger was living under an identity in Abbottabad, and meticulous surveillance of Anmed's travels led the CIA to assume he was harboring bin Laden. Officials from the US intelligence community wanted to validate their suspicions by acquiring a blood sample from one of the numerous youngsters shown on satellite photographs residing in the facility. The first fascinating photographs of the Pacer were presented in these same images.

In Abbottabad, Pakistan, on Monday, May 2, 2011, a Pakistan army soldier stands on top of the home where al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is said to have resided.

The CIA hired Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi, who is regarded as the best doctor in the adjacent Khyber tribal areas, to establish a vaccination clinic in Abbottabad. He consented since he had previously worked in Pakistan on multiple US-funded immunization initiatives. The target's identity was withheld from Afridi. Any blood samples that could be obtained, unbeknownst to the doctor, would be matched to DNA believed to belong to bin Laden in order to confirm a match.

The mission was accomplished.

The United States military and the CIA devised Operation Neptune Spear after confirming bin Laden's whereabouts.

* A stealth bomber dumping explosives on the facility or a missile launched from a drone were among the options examined. None of these measures, however, would provide proof that Osama bin Laden was alive or dead. As a result, it was decided to send in SEAL troops to carry out the mission.

However, this is a high-stakes tactic. The SEALs have all agreed to enter Pakistan without authorization from the Pakistani government, despite the fact that a Pakistani military headquarters is just two miles away. If they are apprehended alive, each SEAL will be subjected to hours of the most brutal torture before being killed in a filthy detention cell, most likely by beheading. As a result, the TOT (target time) must be as short as feasible.

There are a plethora of potential pitfalls. Each of the two fuel tanks on the UH-60's twin engines holds 1,200 pounds of gasoline. That is enough fuel to fly for 90 minutes. When you add in a 1,200-pound auxiliary tank, heavy stealth equipment, and the combined weight of the crew, these planes are at their technological limit. Simply stated, they may not be able to return home because of a lack of petrol. In this example, going home signifies returning to the United States.

Afghanistan crosses the Hindu Kush, among of the world's most challenging terrain. But for pilots and SEALs alike, years of training have been spent preparing for a situation like this: eliminating a sworn adversary who has murdered over the last two decades not only in America but all over the world.

Osama bin Laden is the world's most important target.

The drop is three minutes away. The pilots are closing in quickly. When the helicopters are just two minutes away, the sound of their rotors will be noticeable to anyone within the complex. The home has been extensively monitored, yet even after months of preparation, there are still unanswered concerns. Nobody knows whether the walls or roofs are booby-trapped, if the inmates will be able to evacuate into the night through an underground escape passage, or how soon the Pakistani military would react to the intrusion. However, there is already some positive news: no activity has been detected elsewhere in the region, indicating that the pilots have safely gone below the radar.

They must now maintain their invisibility cloak.

The darkness is beneficial. Power outages are regular in this Pakistani military town, and Abbottabad is completely dark on this humid night. In both helicopters, all light is turned out.

Last-minute personal equipment inspections are performed by the SEALs. The attack is about to start.

The target's code name is Geronimo.

Amal bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's fourth wife, is at his side while he sleeps. On his windows are bars and drapes with yellow flowers. The complex is surrounded by barbed wire. The unchallenged commander of the al-Qaeda network ate supper before retiring to bed at 11:00 p.m. Osama bin Laden

He eats meat seldom and prefers bread, dates, and honey. The terrorist also refuses to eat with utensils, choosing instead to eat with his right hand, like the prophet Muhammad did.

Hussein Bin Laden, Bin Laden's two-year-old son, also sleeps in the room. The power outage is mostly ignored. These instances have become so common that they are no longer reason for alarm.

Before going to bed, the terrorist, his wife, and their kid prayed together. Osama bin Laden only gets two to three hours of sleep every night. He is a nervous guy who often lies awake in the dark waiting for dawn or takes sleeping medications when he cannot sleep. However, it is a peaceful night. As a result, as her husband sleeps, Amal is awakened by the rotors of incoming helicopters.

President Barack Obama is in the Situation Room, an intelligence command post in the basement of the White House's West Wing. It is just before 4:00 p.m. now. A giant television screen displays a live feed of the operation in Pakistan, which was broadcast by drones capable of flying at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet. The autonomous aircraft is undetectable to the human eye and may stay above the target for many hours at a time.

The civilian CIA and the military's Joint Special Operations Command collaborate on Operation Neptune Spear (JSOC). So, in a seventh-floor conference room at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a similar screening is going place, monitored by agency director Leon Panetta, who has spent almost a year to this perilous undertaking.

At the SEALs' departure base in Jalalabad, he was in direct communication with mission commander Admiral William McRaven.

However, witnessing the president go encourages others to follow him into a military adviser's office. Despite the fact that the space is small, people continue to pack into it, much to Obama's chagrin.

Barack Obama is dressed in a blue windbreaker with the presidential symbol and a white golf shirt. Despite the fact that he knew the procedure would take place tonight, he played golf earlier in the day to avoid disrupting his usual Sunday routine. Being president means that every action you make and every word you say is examined. Obama did not want to provide any hints about tonight's operation. The little area is filled with a large conference table covered with open computers and numerous beverages. Joe Biden, the Vice President, is visibly anxious. He and his counterpart, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, are split on the task. Both men have questioned its plausibility, recalling the 1980 American catastrophe in the Iranian desert, in which eight US personnel were killed and six planes were destroyed during a bungled attempt to rescue American hostages. Jimmy Carter's presidency was irreparably tarnished as a result of this tragedy. There was also the incident in Somalia in 1993, when a Black Hawk chopper was shot down, killing eighteen Americans. Because of a best-selling book and a later Hollywood film, the episode is still vividly remembered by the public.

Failure tonight would be even more disastrous than failures in Iran or Somalia. And it would be President Obama who would bear the brunt of the criticism.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton enters the room wearing a brown jacket and takes a seat next to Secretary Gates. Antony Blinken, who would one day serve as Secretary of State under future President Joe Biden, appears at the doorway. There is not a lot of chatting going on. The atmosphere is dense.

with a sense of tension Everything is proceeding as planned.

Until it does not, that is.

SEALs are poised to fast-rope out the open doors as Chalk One hovers over the Waziristan Palace. The eighteen-foot-high stone compound walls, combined with the hot night air, create a dangerous condition known as vortex ring state, which prevents the helicopter's rotors from producing lift. The tail of the sixty bounces atop the compound wall at the same time. The helicopter is pushed forward and down toward the ground due to a lack of lift. The Black Hawk's tail wheel acts as a pivot point, causing it to tilt sharply to the right. The main rotors in a vegetable garden dig deep into the loose soil. The seat belts, helmets, and harnesses that keep the pilot and copilot firmly in their cockpit seats are strained. The unbelted SEALs in the cabin behind them pitch forward, colliding with one another. They are fighting to stay inside the helicopter. It would be a horrible way to die if you slipped out the open doors and into the spinning blades.

The action moves quickly. The Black Hawk's two engines were immediately turned off by the pilots. Many of the SEALs, who are slightly injured, rush out, guns drawn. The crash was deafeningly loud, and the invaders are bracing themselves for incoming fire from the compound. Outside, Chalk Two lands in a field but immediately takes off when the SEALs and Cairo emerge.

The dog is immediately released from his leash in order to search for potential threats. He has combat experience and understands the difference between a helpless infant and a lethal terrorist.

These operators' original mission was perimeter defense, but now they are trying to blow down the walls and break into the compound, with no idea what happened to their comrades in the crashed helicopter.

For the first time, the invading SEALs have seen bin Laden's safe residence. At a top-secret facility in North Carolina, they rehearsed on a life-size replica. But this is the genuine article.

Osama bin Laden has risen from his slumber. As he crouches on the bedroom floor, a huge, light explosion shakes the home; the sound of a crashing helicopter pierces the night with a roar so loud that a witness subsequently describes it as a noise of magnitude that he has never heard before. Hussein, the baby, cries. Amal attempts to switch on a light, oblivious of the fact that the tower is out.

No, Bin Laden says emphatically. He cries down the stairs to his son Khalid as he opens the bedroom door. Get up! Khalid, dressed in white pajamas and wielding an AK-47 automatic rifle, yells, Americans are coming! The cries of the numerous youngsters that live in the three-story building reverberate up and down the stairway.

Outside, a fresh explosion reverberates throughout the night as SEALs break the outer wall on the compound's north side. Bin Laden's two bodyguards, Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed and Abrar Ahmed, have pledged allegiance to him and are prepared to battle. The guys are Pakistanis who supervised the compound's development but had long anticipated a night like this. They advised