Journal Article

U.S. special operations personnel raid compound in Pakistan, kill Osama bin Laden

Crook, John R

2011

Overview

In early May 2010, a team of U.S. Navy SEALs and other U.S. special operations personnel staged a nighttime raid on a residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where they located and killed Osama bin Laden. In the initial hours following the attack, officials gave varying accounts of details of the event and of the circumstances of bin Laden's death. Initial reports that he was armed and using a woman as a shield when he was shot were subsequently determined not to be correct. The shifting narratives led the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to call for \"a full disclosure of the accurate facts.\" The UN Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions and human rights and counterterrorism followed with their own call for \"the United States of America [to] disclose the supporting facts to allow an assessment in terms of international human rights law standards. For instance it will be particularly important to know if the planning of the mission allowed an effort to capture Bin Laden.\"

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Subject: Al Qaeda / Bin Laden, Osama / Bin Laden, Osama, 1957-2011 / Casualties / Covert operations / Death & dying / Fatalities / HUMAN RIGHTS / Interest groups / INTERNATIONAL LAW / International law and human rights / International relations-US / International security / Laden, Osama bin / Law and legislation / Military personnel / Navy / Pakistan / Prevention / Questioning / Raids / Raids (Military science) / SOVEREIGNTY / Special operations (Military science) / TERRORISM / Training assistance / Transnational terrorism / U.S.A