Book recounting OBL raid put on sale

WASHINGTON:

A former US Navy SEAL’s book ‘No Easy Day’, which was officially put on sale to the public on Tuesday, reveals a failed mission in 2007 to find former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and an insider’s look at the mission that led to the al Qaeda leader’s death.

Penned under the pseudonym Mark Owen, American channel Fox News last month revealed that the author was Matt Bissonnette, a member of the elite Navy SEAL Team 6, which carried out the raid on Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad on May 2, 2011. ‘No Easy Day’ was put on sale, after its publisher pushed the release date forward by one week and is already on the bestseller’s list.

The memoir, co-written with journalist Kevin Maurer, details how in 2007, Owen was on a mission to find Bin Laden, after a source gave the CIA intelligence that he was in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Pentagon Press Secretary George Little vehemently stressed that US believes ‘No Easy Day’ contains classified information.

Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, Little said that they had concerns about the material in the book. Describing it as a “no-brainer,”

Little added that the book should have been submitted for pre-publication review to the Pentagon. “Regrettably, there were disclosures that were problematic.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2012.