Osama bin Laden. PHOTO: AFP
Former Navy SEAL who claims he killed Osama bin Laden has penned a detailed account of how he took down the al Qaeda leader in his new book.
Robert O'Neill, in his memoir The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Bin Laden, stands by his controversial claim that he was solely responsible for death of the 9/11 mastermind
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O'Neill claims the SEAL team members were climbing the stairs to the compound's second floor when bin Laden's son Khalid appeared holding an AK-47. They were able to lure him by speaking Arabic and then shot him in the face.
A CIA analyst had informed the fighters, "If you find Khalid, Osama's on the next floor."
Once they reached upstairs, the team spread out to search all the rooms. At that point, the compound was inhabited by bin Laden, three of his wives and 17 children.
Once O'Neill reached the third floor with the point man, he saw a shadowy figure and shot at it. As they burst through the curtain, they tackled two women to the ground and laid eyes on America's most wanted enemy who was hiding behind his youngest wife, Amal.
Amal would later be identified as the shadowy figure they had shot at from behind the curtain.
"In less than a second, I aimed above the woman's right shoulder and pulled the trigger twice," O'Neill writes.
"Bin Laden's head split open, and he dropped. I put another bullet in his head. Insurance."
The initial moment was difficult for O'Neill to comprehend -- his mind had gone blank after pulling the trigger and he had to be informed that he had killed his country's most wanted enemy.
“What do we do now?” O’Neill asked. One of his US comrades laughed. “Now we go find the computers,” he responded.
"Yeah, you're right,” said O’Neill. “I'm back." And the soldier replied, "Yeah, you just killed Osama bin Laden."
In the book, O'Neill also claims that bin Laden's face was completely destroyed by the gunfire and had to be pressed back for identification photos.
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O'Neill's statements of the night in Abottabad have gained harsh criticism and most of it center on his breaking the Special Ops code of silence.
He retired from the Navy SEALs in 2012 after being in the public eye because of his role in the bin Laden mission.
This story originally appeared on NY Daily News
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