Operation Neptune Spear Overview

 Abstract

From the scorching Iraqi deserts to the freezing nights of Abbottabad, Pakistan, the U.S. Special Forces have, over the years, managed to subdue global terrorism. A case in point in this regard is Operation Neptune Spear, which witnessed the demise of Osama bin Laden in 2011 – an event that significantly dented the operations of the Al-Qaeda terrorist outfit. In light of these facts, this research paper provides vital insights into Operation Neptune Spear, which is a term that refers to the Abbottabad assault on bin Laden. In this regard, the essay comprises four key sections: the introduction, the conceptual background of Operation Neptune Spear, key events, and the conclusion.

Operation Neptune Spear

May 2, 2011 witnessed a significant event in the U.S. history and, by extension, the entire globe: Osama bin Laden's demise at the hands of the U.S. forces. As the de facto fanatical architect of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S., bin Laden became a high-priority target of the country's counterterrorism units, with such elite forces as the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team Six, who are specialists in highly classified military missions, shouldering the mandate of infiltrating bin Laden's lair in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and either capture or kill the then infamous leader and founder of Al-Qaeda, which is a militant Islamist organization. In this regard, a myriad of views exist regarding how the U.S. intelligence could have captured bin Laden; however, as facts indicate, Operation Neptune Spear (ONS), was the most effective approach to apprehend the then world's most infamous terrorist.

Overview of the Assault

Firstly, fathoming the contextual background of ONS is indispensable to understanding how the U.S. SEAL Team Six traced and dispatched bin Laden. Following the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden became the primary target of the U.S. for several years (Bowden, 2012). Indeed, Govern (2012) indicates that from December 2001 onward, in the course of the post-September 11 major combat effort, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) and CIA operatives reportedly narrowed their combined U.S.-Afghan-Coalitional unconventional warfare pursuit of bin Laden (p. 351). The terrorist, however, could not be traced between 2001 and 2011.

The presidency of the 44th leader of the free world was, however, keen to counter the activities of global terrorism. To this end, Obama fast-tracked bin Laden's search. In particular, before Obama's inauguration in 2009, he second-guessed Senator John McCain's foreign policy, who opposed invading Al-Qaeda elements in Pakistan, by holding that the U.S. government should not hesitate to either apprehend or kill the terrorist under consideration regardless of whether the Pakistani government supports this notion (Govern, 2012). In essence, Obama's stance was that dispatching bin Laden should be the utmost priority of the American government (Govern, 2012). In this way, the Al-Qaeda operations would be significantly crippled.

It was not surprising, therefore, that Obama augmented the U.S. military forces in Afghanistan after he assumed the U.S. presidency. By August 2010, the U.S. secured a breakthrough in the search for bin Laden after CIA paramilitary operatives in Pakistan located Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, who was Osama's most trusted courier (Bowden, 2012). In particular, the reconnaissance activities of these operatives led them to a secluded, million-dollar residence in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where they surmised that it was bin Laden's hideout. After the CIA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the U.S. Defense Department, and the National Security Agency (NSA) confirmed that bin Laden resided in the cited compound, they began to explore various options for launching a military strike on the target under consideration (Bowden, 2012). Thus, a capture-or-kill campaign commenced.

One must understand, however, that the CIA was the lead agency in gathering intelligence before engaging in Osama's kill-or-capture mission. According to Miller (2011), the cited agency had a safe house in Abbottabad whereby CIA operatives conducted detailed surveillance for several months on bin Laden's compound. The reconnaissance mission in question involved such activities as collecting satellite images of the fugitive's complex and engaging in eavesdropping efforts to record the voices of the building's occupants (Miller, 2011). In this, way, the CIA gathered critical details regarding bin Laden's activities inside his lair.

However, it was not until January 2011 that the U.S. forces tabled a feasible capture-or-kill plan: ONS. Specifically, a year earlier, the U.S. President had instructed Leon Panetta, the then CIA Director, to fast-track ONS (Govern, 2012). Subsequently, Panetta contacted the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command's (USSOCOM's) Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to [expedite the] kill-or-capture mission (Govern, 2012, p. 353). Not long afterward, interagency USSOCOM-CIA presented various options for executing ONS, which included an airstrike or commando raid. Instructively, the Obama administration decided not to inform the Pakistani authorities about this mission because the U.S. feared that the highly-sensitive operation would be compromised should the Pakistani government become privy to its existence (Bowden, 2012). In light of the above insights, therefore, it was critical for the JSOC to execute ONS surreptitiously.

Key Events during the Operation

The American Navy SEAL Team Six was the force that executed ONS. Firstly, one must understand that the JSOC opposed an airstrike because of its inability to confirm whether the pacer [in the complex] was . bin Laden after the B-2 spirit bombers destroyed the compound (Sewing, n.d.). For clarification purposes, the U.S. intelligence had identified a man in the Abbottabad house, who never left the area. The reconnaissance unit, however, could not establish whether he was bin Laden. Thus, the President settled on the SEAL Team assault because this approach would allow DEVGRU to obtain the target's identification effectively.

Following the presidential assent, the Abbottabad raid commenced. Specifically, Sewing (n.d.) notes that on May 1st, at the order of the President and commanded by Vice-Admiral McRaven, two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters left Jalalabad Air Field in the eastern region of Afghanistan carrying 79 SEALs and a dog named Cairo. Although conflicting versions of the assault exist, O'Neill's (2017) firsthand account provides the precise details of the raid as succinctly elaborated below.

In his evocative story, O'Neill (2017), the SEAL Team member who killed bin Laden, chronicles what ensued when his team infiltrated the fugitive's fortress. In particular, the American hero claims that they encountered several people as they breached the building's walls and invaded the first floor. O'Neill (2017), however, notes that bin Laden's precise location was on the house's third floor where he resided with his family. Instructively, O'Neill (2017) claims that it was not his effort that allowed him to kill bin Laden; his team played a critical role in this regard. For instance, as O'Neill (2017) indicates, one of his teammates dispatched Osama's son, which gave him (O'Neill) the space and time to ascend the stairs where he encountered an unarmed bin Laden. Without hesitating, as O'Neill (2017) recounts, he repeatedly shot the terrorist in quick succession, which effectively ended the operation. Afterward, O'Neill's (2017) SEAL Team leader radioed the White House Situation Room and confirmed the demise of bin Laden after establishing his identity (Bowden, 2012). Thus, SEAL Team six executed ONS successfully.

Conclusion

Although the Al-Qaeda militant outfit terrorized the globe for years, the success of Operation Neptune Spear presented a significant blow to their operations. In particular, ONS led to the demise of Osama bin Laden, the then most wanted extremist in the globe. Thus, the modus operandi of ONS is a particularly instructive case because it underlines the significance of conducting comprehensive reconnaissance before combating terrorist groups.

References

1. Bowden, M. (2012). The finish: The killing of Osama bin Laden. New York City: NY: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic.
2. Govern, K. H. (2012). Operation Neptune Spear: Was killing bin Laden a legitimate military objective? (chapter 13). SSRN. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2083584
3. Miller, G. (2011, May 6). CIA spied on bin Laden from safe house. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/cia-spied-on-bin-laden-from-safe-house/2011/05/05/AFXbG31F_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b50a3ccef233
4. O'Neill, R. (2017). The operator: Firing the shots that killed Osama bin Laden and my years as a SEAL team warrior (1st ed.). New York City, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons Publishing Company.
5. Sewing, G. (n.d.). In search of monsters to destroy: Counterterrorism policy and the use of special forces in the Obama administration. Pangaea Journal. Retrieved from https://sites.stedwards.edu/pangaea/in-search-of-monsters-to-destroy-counterterrorism-policy-and-the-use-of-special-forces-in-the-obama-administration/

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