How the CIA Found Osama bin Laden

(soft, suspenseful music) Just four days before the 2004 United States presidential election, a newly released tape appears in the news. The election between George Bush and John Kerry was dominated by foreign policy decisions following the 9/11 attacks. - Key members and associates of Al-Qaeda have been brought in-- - Nation to destroy, capture and kill Osama bin Laden and all terrorists. - This tape, published by "Al Jazeera", now shows a recovered Osama bin Laden claiming responsibility for the attacks much more directly than before. The staging of this recording, in which bin Laden attempts to appear as a legitimate figure by directly addressing the nation he attacked, is a painful reminder that the most wanted man on the planet should feel somewhat safe wherever he is. (suspense music) (wind blowing) At the same time, at CIA headquarters in Virginia, where a special unit was tasked with finding Bin Laden, almost all leads had gone cold at that point, a situation that It was even more frustrating, considering that almost three years ago they believed they were close to catching him. (thoughtful music) At the end of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Al Qaeda fighters had been pushed into the eastern part of the country.

Here they barricaded themselves in the caves of Tora Bora, and American intelligence agencies suspected that Bin Laden was among them. With American support, local Afghan tribes fought on the ground and heavy airstrikes were carried out, but by the time the battle was won, bin Laden had already fled. After the fighting ended, only about 20 people were arrested and the CIA was left empty-handed, having missed what could have been a unique opportunity to capture the Al Qaeda leader. (thoughtful music) But at least one of the people arrested here would eventually open a lead for investigators to follow. (soft violin music) Before his capture, investigators did not know Mohammed al-Qahtani.

He himself denied any connection to Al Qaeda and said he was in Afghanistan to develop his interest in falconry. But when investigators took his fingerprints, they

found

a match in his system. (Plane engine roars) They discovered that just weeks before the 9/11 attacks, he had attempted to enter the United States. Carrying $2,800 in cash and traveling on a one-way ticket, the customs agent became suspicious of al-Qahtani and denied him entry into the country, fearing that he might be attempting to immigrate illegally. (soft violin music) Investigators also knew that a call was made that same day from the Orlando airport to an Al Qaeda phone number in the United Arab Emirates.

This number had been monitored, and the fact that Qahtani was at the airport at the same time made investigators rush to establish some kind of connection between these events. (thoughtful music) FBI agents waded through reams of airport surveillance footage, searching for more clues, and finally they got it. They were able to identify a car that, at the time, was rented by Mohamed Atta. (intense violin music) Atta was the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks and piloted American Airlines Flight 11 that crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It was gathered that Atta was waiting at the airport to pick up Qahtani.

Qahtani is widely believed to have been one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which is the flight that failed to reach the attacker's intended destination because it crashed in Pennsylvania while passengers were trying to regain control. With that knowledge, Qahtani was interrogated, and was one of several Al Qaeda captives who in the months and years that followed made it possible for investigators to gain a better idea of ​​the group's inner workings. (suspense music) Abu Zubaydah, a logistician for the group, was arrested in March 2002 and provided the CIA with information that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was Al Qaeda's operational commander, had planned the attacks against the United States.

A year later, he too was arrested. And Qahtani revealed that in July 2001, in preparation for the attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed introduced him to a person previously unknown to the CIA, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, who trained Qahtani in operational security. (suspense music) All of this helped investigators better understand the structure of Al Qaeda, with less trained agents, a layer of command and planning, and Bin Laden as a leader, but they still had no idea of ​​his whereabouts. The CIA was mapping relationships to understand who was in close contact with him and how they communicated from his hideout. The private network of Bin Laden and his relatives was also examined, however, there was no contact between Bin Laden and his relatives who could be located.

What the CIA knew was that Bin Laden was still sending messages. In the following years, new audio tapes surfaced and it emerged that he was communicating with members of al Qaeda's leadership. The CIA's strategy, therefore, was to look for the network of messengers, people who transport information. (intense violin music) (woman gasping) - Big and tasty. - A drink! - War with Iran. - I'm running for governor. (the woman laughs) - It exploded in the sky. - Our congratulations for. - A historic victory. - In mid-January 2004, Kurdish security forces arrested a man named Hassan Ghul. He carried a letter addressed to Bin Laden.

Ghul was handed over to the Americans, who interrogated him and received crucial information indicating that a key person in finding Bin Laden had already been on the agency's radar. Hassan Ghul claimed that it is Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti who acts as Bin Laden's personal messenger. As the focus of the investigation shifts to Kuwait, investigators receive conflicting information about his role within Al Qaeda. While Hasan Ghul describes a more important role and that the Kuwaiti was familiar with both Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his successor Abu Faraj al-Libbi, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, on the other hand, denies an important role of the Kuwaiti and claims that this person has He has long since retired and is inactive. (suspense music) In May 2005, Abu Faraj al-Libbi himself was also arrested in Pakistan, and he too vehemently denied a larger role for Kuwaitis. (suspense violin music) Investigators were also questioning a guide named Hambali, the former leader of al-Qaeda's affiliate group in Southeast Asia.

He claimed that Kuwait did play a role, as he was the one who ran a safe house in Karachi around the time the Taliban fled Afghanistan. If anything, the numerous contradictory statements about the role of the Kuwaitis made it even more interesting. The problem was that apart from his name, not much was known about him, and even the name itself is not uniquely identifiable, as it is not his real name, but an alias that translates to Ahmed's father. Kuwait. (somber music) While important information was obtained for the interrogation of the prisoners, the techniques used were highly controversial.

Many of the prisoners were subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. That means abusive treatment that includes torture, such as waterboarding. A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report that examined individual interrogations concluded that these techniques were ineffective and did not help obtain information about bin Laden. Furthermore, the question remains whether the display of the CIA's actions, apparently free from the rule of law, does not in itself harm the country's national security. It's a speech beyond the scope of this video, but with researchers deadlocked once again, the following information won't come from his own work. (intense violin music) - And other sides. - Peace and stability. - Full access to Blockbuster and Netflix.

Basically, they work the same way. (people applauding) - The latest cyber drug of choice is called Twitter. - The war that should never have been fought. - Launch of the iPhone. - In 2007, the CIA received the information it was looking for: the Kuwaiti's true identity. It does not come from our own investigation, but from a foreign intelligence service, about which nothing is known. The information reveals that the Kuwaiti's real name is Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed, a Pakistani whose family had only moved to Kuwait. But although they have waited two years to obtain the name, it will be more years before they can locate it. (somber piano music) - President-elect. - For the victory! (dramatic music) - For bankruptcy. ♪ Intuition of the game of love ♪ (people applauding) - I'll let you finish. -Michael Jackson has died. - Rescue efforts begin. - This guy is great, as good as we've seen. (people cheering) (dramatic violin music)-In June 2010, the Kuwaiti man and his brother changed the way they communicate with their mobile phones, a fact that made it possible to determine the geolocation of the calls made.

The NSA had received phone numbers suspected of being related to Kuwait from a third country, which were now intercepted. Among the countless conversations monitored, one man stood out because he fit the Kuwaiti profile. He spoke a mix of Arabic and Pashto, the language spoken in northwest Pakistan, and in a conversation with a friend in the Persian Gulf, the man dodged a question about his whereabouts, replying cryptically that he is with the people he is with. was before. Additionally, investigators acknowledged that this individual goes to great lengths to avoid being tracked. His mobile phone was switched off most of the time and it appears that he only put the battery into it when he was around the city of Peshawar.

As it became increasingly certain that he was a Kuwaiti, efforts began to track him on the ground. In August 2010, a Pakistani CIA agent managed to identify him in his car in Peshawar. From there they secretly followed him to his house. (intense dramatic music) (soft, suspenseful music) The big house surprised the investigators. The agents had assumed that now that they had identified Kuwaiti, they would be watching him until he approached bin Laden's hideout. (low, suspenseful music) But when you look at the huge complex that the Kuwaitis live in, the researchers thought that maybe they were already there, that the Kuwaitis could be living under the same roof as bin Laden. (screams singing) (suspenseful music) Although Washington was not entirely safe at the time, bin Laden was located, and a search for a man who has had the highest priority since the 9/11 attacks reaches its final stage .

The task now no longer fell to intelligence agents, but to a team of special units who knew very little about what to expect when attacking this complex. (Helicopter drone) (suspense music) On May 1, 2011 at 11:00 p.m. local time, two Black Hawk helicopters equipped with secret stealth technology take off from Jalalabad Airfield and head toward bin Laden's compound. The mission is complicated by the fact that the US government had decided not to inform Pakistan of the operation, meaning the Navy Seals had to avoid detection, which seems especially challenging considering that Bin Laden's compound is located right next to a Pakistani army. academy. (thoughtful music) The story of how this raid unfolded is truly fascinating, so I have produced another full video on this operation, creating detailed models of the mission plan and plotting how it unfolded during that night.

But unfortunately, due to the violent nature of this topic, if I were to upload this video to YouTube, they would surely demonetize it and put an age restriction on it. (intense violin music) Fortunately, I was still able to make the video, thanks to the power of Nebula, where you can watch it right now. (intense violin music) Since the mission does not go as planned, a live video is transmitted to the White House, where the president and his top security advisors are following the operation. This is just one of the tons of exclusive videos that are only available on Nebula.

I also created a video about the construction of the Twin Towers and another that tells the story of flight MH17 that was shot down over Ukraine, and you also have access to all the other cool Nebula stuff. Because what's really special about Nebula is that it's a creator-owned platform, created by me and other YouTubers and podcasters, and because it's a subscription service, we can work on bigger, higher-budget productions than we ever could. work on YouTube. - Players, welcome to the show. - The most sophisticated flying machine. - The Bush administration decided to focus on attacking Afghanistan. - Oh boy. - If you sign up using my link on the screen right now, you'll get a discount of $10 a year, which means it'll cost you just $3.33 each month.

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