The Hunt For Osama Bin Laden

Chronicles the final months of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Holy War, Inc., this is the definitive account of the decade-long manhunt for the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden. Al Qaeda expert and CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen paints a multidimensional picture of the hunt for Osama bin Laden over the past decade, including the operation that killed him. Other key elements of the book will include: - A careful account of Obama's decision-making process as the raid was planned - The fascinating story of a group of women CIA analysts who never gave up assembling the tiniest clues about bin Laden's whereabouts - The untold and action-packed history of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the SEALs - An analysis of what the death of bin Laden means for Al Qaeda and for Obama's legacy Just as Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler was the definitive account of the death of the Nazi dictator, Manhunt is the authoritative, immersive account of the death of the man who organized the largest mass murder in American history.

From Mark Bowden, the preeminent chronicler of our military and special forces, comesThe Finish, a gripping account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. With access to key sources, Bowden takes us inside the rooms where decisions were made and on the ground where the action unfolded. After masterminding the attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden managed to vanish. Over the next ten years, as Bowden shows, America found that its war with al Qaeda--a scattered group of individuals who were almost impossible to track--demanded an innovative approach. Step by step, Bowden describes the development of a new tactical strategy to fight this war--the fusion of intel from various agencies and on-the-ground special ops. After thousands of special forces missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the right weapon to go after bin Laden had finally evolved. By Spring 2011, intelligence pointed to a compound in Abbottabad; it was estimated that there was a 50/50 chance that Osama was there. Bowden shows how three strategies were mooted: a drone strike, a precision bombing, or an assault by Navy SEALs. In the end, the President had to make the final decision. It was time for the finish.

Describes the campaigns of American Green Berets in Afghanistan in the period following the September 11 terrorist attacks as they overcame Taliban and Al-Quaeda forces and sent them fleeing.

The gripping account of the decade-long hunt for the world's most wanted man. It was only a week before 9/11 that Peter Bergen turned in the manuscript of Holy War, Inc., the story of Osama bin Laden--whom Bergen had once interviewed in a mud hut in Afghanistan--and his declaration of war on America. The book became a New York Times bestseller and the essential portrait of the most formidable terrorist enterprise of our time. Now, in Manhunt, Bergen picks up the thread with this taut yet panoramic account of the pursuit and killing of bin Laden. Here are riveting new details of bin Laden’s flight after the crushing defeat of the Taliban to Tora Bora, where American forces came startlingly close to capturing him, and of the fugitive leader’s attempts to find a secure hiding place. As the only journalist to gain access to bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound before the Pakistani government demolished it, Bergen paints a vivid picture of bin Laden’s grim, Spartan life in hiding and his struggle to maintain control of al-Qaeda even as American drones systematically picked off his key lieutenants. Half a world away, CIA analysts haunted by the intelligence failures that led to 9/11 and the WMD fiasco pored over the tiniest of clues before homing in on the man they called "the Kuwaiti"--who led them to a peculiar building with twelve-foot-high walls and security cameras less than a mile from a Pakistani military academy. This was the courier who would unwittingly steer them to bin Laden, now a prisoner of his own making but still plotting to devastate the United States. Bergen takes us inside the Situation Room, where President Obama considers the COAs (courses of action) presented by his war council and receives conflicting advice from his top advisors before deciding to risk the raid that would change history--and then inside the Joint Special Operations Command, whose "secret warriors," the SEALs, would execute Operation Neptune Spear. From the moment two Black Hawks take off from Afghanistan until bin Laden utters his last words, Manhunt reads like a thriller. Based on exhaustive research and unprecedented access to White House officials, CIA analysts, Pakistani intelligence, and the military, this is the definitive account of ten years in pursuit of bin Laden and of the twilight of al-Qaeda.

This is the compelling graphic retelling of the hunt for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden; from the initial order by President George W. Bush to the final fight between bin Laden and the U.S. Navy SEALs.

Looks at America's search for Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, from his addition to the FBI's list of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives in 1999 to the intensive global manhunt still underway in 2004.

The long and secret effort to track down Osama bin Laden has been called the biggest, costliest manhunt in history. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post, this reconstruction- compiled from reporting from more than two-dozen Washington Post correspondents and staffers from over more than 15 years- traces the hunt from its beginnings in 1997, during the Clinton administration. THE HUNT FOR BIN LADEN is a behind-the-scenes narrative that reveals the fourteen-year, billion-dollar effort that brought the hunt to a swift and conclusive end, including: The numerous times CIA agents had bin Laden in their crosshairs prior to 9/11, only to have missions canceled at the last moment. Vivid details of bin Laden’s behavior in the wake of the attacks on September 11th. The myriad of ways he evaded detection in his years on the lam, including his narrow escape from the caves and tunnels of Tora Bora. How the war in Iraq drained resources and diverted the spotlight from the hunt, turning the mission to kill or capture bin Laden into a back-burner operation and political liability for the Bush administration. It wasn't until the Iraq war began to wind down that the search gained its endgame momentum, the Post shows, reclassified as a highest priority again by a new president. How increasingly punishing drone attacks, interrogations of captured al Qaeda operatives, and an ever-expanding network of informants finally began to yield a trail that led to bin Laden’s courier, a cell phone interception, and ultimately, bin Laden.