When the compound in Abbottabad was stormed by the Navy Seals in the middle of the night, Osama Bin Laden’s first reaction was to tell his family to stay calm and recite the kalima.
Putting together the account of the events of the night Osama Bin Laden was killed, the commission has spoken to the family of OBL as well as having been provided intelligence reports, allowing it to gather details of what happened.
The Seals Team, which left Jalalabad at 11 at night and reached Abbottabad in half an hour, stormed the compound from multiple points, the commission has found out.
Dawn has learnt that the commission has reported that the Navy Seals stormed the annexe and blew up the iron gates. It has also been told that some of the troops landed on the roof of the house.
As the annexe was stormed first, Kuwaiti was the first to be killed while his wife was injured.
According to the source, the commission has learnt that all the floors of the main house were attacked simultaneously.
This led to the deaths of Ibrar (the second of the Kuwaiti brothers) and his wife.
In the meantime, the elder wives’ children including OBL’s son Khalid ran upstairs to their father.
Khalid was then sent downstairs by his father to help Ibrar and was killed by the Seals on the staircase.
When the Seals reached Laden’s room, he is said to have a weapon in his hand and was searching for a grenade on a shelf — he was shot as he turned around, the source has told Dawn. It was at this point that Amal and OBL’s daughter Summaya rushed at the men to stop them, leading to Amal’s bullet injury. Summaya and Kuwaiti’s wife were asked to identify OBL after which the rest of the inhabitants of the house were told by the Seals that Laden had been killed.
The commission has been told that the wives told the Americans that there were valuables in the house, including 25 gold biscuits (around 10 tolas each) which were taken away along with documents, weapons and the hard drives of six computers.
The commission report, Dawn has learnt, says that four helicopters were used in the operation; that they entered Pakistan airspace “between Ghursal and Shilman”.
Most intriguingly, the source says that the commission also found that there was “evidence of ground support to the Seals” without providing any more detail.