Robert O’Neill’s first hint of a mission to capture Osama Bin Laden came through an unusual cover story that immediately raised his suspicions.
In early 2011, a top-secret operation involving just SEAL Team Six, where O’Neill served, was in the works. This was no mere training exercise, yet crucial details were conspicuously absent.
“They came up with some strange tale about communication cables,” O’Neill recalled. “It sounded off. Then they told us, ‘We found something in a house, nestled in a bowl within a mountain range. Your task is to retrieve it and bring it back to us.’ That’s how it all began.”
When they inquired about the mysterious object, the response was cryptic: “We can’t tell you.” Questions about the mountain range, the country, and the infiltration plan were met with the same secrecy. Even when they asked about air support, the answer was, “None.” It was all quite baffling.
After being instructed to spend a day at home with their families, the team pieced it together independently—they were likely targeting Bin Laden.
Subsequently, they were whisked away to a clandestine location in North Carolina. There, the head of SEAL Team Six introduced them to a woman named ‘Maya,’ the CIA analyst credited with tracking down Bin Laden. Maya would later be immortalized by Jessica Chastain in the film Zero Dark Thirty.
Osama bin Laden, the world’s most-wanted terrorist, was shot dead in the daring Operation Neptune Spear raid by US Navy SEALS 15 years ago
Fifteen years after he shot bin Laden, O’Neill remembers it like it was yesterday.
‘I’ll never forget it,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘She said, ‘The reason you guys are here is this is as close as we’ve ever been to Osama bin Laden.’
‘It was an honor they picked us. The initial reaction was “Cool, just gonna go right now? We’re good.”‘
It wasn’t absolutely certain but intelligence pointed to Bin Laden being located inside a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
SEAL Team Six flew out west to another secret base and trained for the mission, becoming acquainted with stealth Black Hawk helicopters that so ‘supersecret’ even President Barack Obama didn’t know about them. It was the beginning of Operation Neptune Spear.
‘All of these variables added up to this being a one-way mission,’ O’Neill, who was 35 at the time, said. ‘So it was time to get your wills right, make sure your life insurance is squared away.’
Robert O’Neill spent 16 years in the Navy after growing up in Butte, Montana, and rose to become one of the most-decorated SEALs ever, with 400 combat operations under his belt
Jessica Chastain portrays CIA analyst ‘Maya’ in the movie Zero Dark Thirty
This film image released by National Geographic Channels shows actors portraying members of SEAL Team Six during the raid
Late on May 1, 23 members of SEAL Team Six, accompanied by one interpreter and one Belgian Malinois sniffer dog called Cairo, set out from a US base at Jalalabad, Afghanistan on the two stealth Black Hawks.
They were ‘Dash 1’ and ‘Dash 2’ and O’Neill was on the latter, siting in a trifold hunting chair.
‘There was a real human element to it. This was a one-way mission. Off to my left on the floor was Cairo, our Belgian Malinois. Cairo was the best dog. One guy fell asleep right next to me, headphones on sleeping.’
About 10 minutes out, as he looked through the window, a quote delivered by President George W. Bush on 9/11 popped into his head.
It was from Bush’s address to the nation after Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda killed 2,977 innocent people that day.
‘Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. And freedom itself will be defended.’
O’Neill said: ‘I thought what an honor, wow, this is the team, we’re gonna kill him.
‘I was just taking mental notes, just realizing that this is it, so whatever the afterlife is, bring these memories with you.’
On the way in the tail of Dash One hit a perimeter wall and snapped off as it tried to land inside Bin Laden’s compound.
Cairo, the Belgian Malinois war dog who was on the mission
The wreckage of the US military helicopter that crashed at the compound
A model of the Abbottabad, Pakistan compound where Osama bin Laden was killed
Dash 2 landed outside and, from there, they went to breach an entrance at the northeast corner of the compound. But it was a fake door and when they blew it up there was a wall behind it. The existence of a fake door suggested they were in the right place.
They then headed to the carport where vehicles came and went and the team from the crashed helicopter let them in.
When he got to a guest house one of his friends had just shot two people – Bin Laden’s courier, and his wife.
‘I got to the house right as my buddy had just engaged them,’ he said. Then they moved on to the main house.
‘Maya had told us there will be a stairwell somewhere in the house, and that means up,’ he said. ‘One of my friends was at the door working through a breaching problem. I watched him and I was thinking of our training together in San Diego in the 90s. I remember, every Wednesday night we used to go to a place called Hot Tuna for drinks, but didn’t drink too much, because Thursday, we’d do explosive breaching. I was just like, I am so proud of you right now, let’s go.’
Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 am on September 11, 2001 in New York City
President Obama and his team as they received updates on the mission in the White House
An assault rifle that was found next to the body of Osama bin Laden, a brick from the compound, an Al Qaeda training manual, and shoes worn by a Navy SEAL at the CIA museum
Maya had told them they would run into Bin Laden’s son Khalid, that he would be armed, and his father’s last line of defense.
‘She said ‘If you can ace him, you get a shot at the big guy.” She referred to Bin Laden as the big guy,’ said O’Neill.
Khalid was behind a railing on the stairwell and the point man whispered his name until his head popped up.
‘He got blasted, and then we went around him,’ said O’Neill.
When they reached the second floor, some of the team fanned out to search rooms, while O’Neill followed the point man to the third floor.
There was a curtain and the point man saw two figures who could be suicide bombers, so he jumped on them.
Later, when he was asked why, his response immediately was, “I never want the guy behind me to die.” That man, no one knows who he is and he should have Medal of Honor, no doubt about it,’ said O’Neill.
That left O’Neill face to face with Bin Laden, about three feet away, and the terror leader had his hands on the shoulders of his wife Amal.
‘I was surprised at how skinny he was,’ O’Neill said. ‘If I had to describe him in my mind’s eye right now, 15 years later, wit would be that he seemed confused, and that’s got to be just because we’re very, very quiet.
‘Knowing the suicide bombers might be coming, Bin Laden had less than a second to convince me not to kill him, and he did not do that.
‘It seemed like he might be maneuvering. So I shot him twice, and shot him again.’
Bin Laden was hit near the left eye and part of his skull was blown off.
A section of a room in the interior of the Bin Laden’s compound after the raid
President Barack Obama announces that the United States has killed the world’s most-wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden in 2011
Robert O’Neill, far right, in the Oval Office in April 2026 with from left: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, President Donald Trump, Joe Rogan, W Bryan Hubbard, CEO of Americans for Ibogaine, retired Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell and US Representative Morgan Luttrell
With the terror leader down, O’Neill moved a two-year-old boy who was in the room.
‘I remember thinking, this poor kid has nothing to do with this and I moved him to the bed.’
Others then came into the room and saw the scene.
O’Neill recalled: ‘One of the guys saw me and said “Are you good?” I said, “What do we do now?” And he said, “Now we find the computers.”‘
‘My initial thought was, holy s*** we should live, I can see my kids again. Let’s get our s*** together, be professional now, chop, chop, lets go. I was finding so much (computer) stuff, though, it was hard to walk away from.’
It proved an intelligence gold mine including five computers, 10 hard drives, 100 thumb drives, DVDs, mobile phones and paper documents.
O’Neill and the point man carried Bin Laden downstairs in a body bag and then were lifted out on a Chinook support helicopter.
Eighty-five minutes later the pilot announced they were clear of Pakistani airspace.
‘Gentlemen, for the first time in your life, you’re going to be happy to hear this,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Afghanistan.’
