Officials: Al-Qaida planned attack on trains

Only 1 in house shot at SEALs, US says

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The Americans who raided Osama bin Laden’s lair met far less resistance than the Obama administration described in the aftermath. The commandos encountered gunshots from only one man, whom they quickly killed, before sweeping the house and shooting others, who were unarmed, a senior defense official said in the latest account.

In Thursday’s revised telling, the Navy SEALs mounted a precision, floor-by-floor operation to find the al-Qaida leader and his protectors — but without the prolonged and intense firefight that officials had described for several days.

By any measure, the raid was fraught with risk, sensationally bold and a historic success. U.S. officials said some of the first information gleaned from the scene indicated that last year al-Qaida was considering attacking U.S. trains on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The officials said they had no recent intelligence indicating such a plot was active.

The compound raid netted a man who had been on the run for nearly a decade after his terrorist organization pulled off the devastating attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Even so, in the administration’s haste to satisfy the world’s hunger for details and eager to make the most of the moment, officials told a tale tarnished by discrepancies and apparent exaggeration.

Whether that matters to most Americans, gratified if not joyful that bin Laden is dead, is an open question. Republican House Speaker John Boehner, for one, shrugged off the backtracking to focus on the big picture: “I had a conversation with the president, and the president outlined to me the series of actions that occurred on Sunday evening. I have no doubt that Osama bin Laden is dead.”

President Barack Obama’s visit to New York’s ground zero Thursday was a somber and understated event, and he avoided mentioning bin Laden by name. A day earlier, he said the government would not release images of bin Laden’s body, a decision taken in part to avoid the perception that America was crowing about killing him.

“We don’t need to spike the football,” Obama said. He plans to go to Fort Campbell, Ky., today to meet aviators from the mission.

The senior defense official spoke to The Associated Press anonymously because he was not authorized to speak on the record. He said the sole bin Laden shooter in the Pakistan compound was killed in the early minutes of the commando operation, the latest of the details becoming clearer now that the Navy SEAL assault team has fully briefed officials.

As the raiders moved into the compound from helicopters, they were fired on by bin Laden’s courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, who was in the guesthouse, the official said. The SEALs returned fire, and the courier was killed, along with a woman with him. The official said she was hit in the crossfire.

The Americans were never fired on again as they encountered and killed a man on the first floor of the main building and then bin Laden’s son on a staircase, before arriving at bin Laden’s room, the official said, revising an earlier account that the son was in the room with his father. Officials have said bin Laden was killed, shot in the chest and then the head, after he appeared to be lunging for a weapon.

White House and Defense Department and CIA officials through the week have offered varying and foggy versions of the operation, though the dominant focus was on a firefight that officials said consumed most of the 40 minutes on the ground after midnight Monday morning in Pakistan, Sunday in Washington.

“There were many other people who were armed ... in the compound,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday when asked if bin Laden was armed. “There was a firefight.”

“We expected a great deal of resistance and were met with a great deal of resistance,” he said.

“For most of the period there, there was a firefight,” a senior defense official told Pentagon reporters in a briefing Monday.

White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan originally suggested bin Laden was among those who was armed.

The success of the bin Laden raid gave the White House a spectacular story to offer without any need to dress it up.

The revelation on Thursday that the raid scooped up valuable intelligence was another positive note. A Homeland Security intelligence warning sent to law-enforcement officials around the country said that as of February 2010, al-Qaida was considering tampering with an unspecified U.S. rail track so that a train would fall off at a valley or a bridge.

The warning, marked for official use only, was obtained by The Associated Press.