CIA document over order to ‘capture’ Bin Laden unveiled

A US magazine published a memorandum document from former CIA head and current Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta which states the green light given by President Barack Obama to launch a secret military raid to ‘capture’ Osama Bin Laden that ended with the death of the Al Qaeda leader.

“I’ve received a phone call from Tom Donilon (White House National Security assessor) who said that the president (Obama) has taken a decision over the AC1 (Abbottabad 1 compund). The decision is to proceed with the raid,” Panetta wrote in a memo dated on April 29, 2011.

The document published at Times added that the ex director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assures that the instruction of the White House is to “enter” the compound and “capture” Bin Laden, and ordered to “leave” the place if the leader of Al Qaeda was not there.

US explained that Bin Laden died on May 1, 2011 when he was shot in the head and the chest during the SEALS raid, who entered the compound in Abbottabad, near Islamabad (Pakistan).

The then director of the US secret services wrote that “the operative decisions and the control” of the raid were “in hands” of the Marine William McRaven, commander of the Special Forces.

“Those instructions were transmitted to Admiral McRaven at 10:45 approximately,” Panetta concludes in the hand-written memo that counts with his signature in an official CIA paper that headed with phrase “For the record.”

On Tuesday it will be the first anniversary of Bin Laden’s death, announced on May 1 by President Obama.