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Osama Bin Laden. A name that once echoed through every news broadcast, airport terminal and every war room across the world. To some, he was a ghost. But to the US government, he was the most wanted man on earth. We're talking about a guy who turned a cave in Afghanistan into the center of global terror. Who outmaneuvered the CIA, dodged drone strikes and vanished into the mountains like a shadow for nearly a decade. He didn't just pull off the deadliest terror attack in modern history. No, he changed the way the world works. Air travel, intelligence, privacy, war. All of it changed on that one fateful day. But the real story, it isn't just about 9 11. It's about the longest manhunt in American history and how the trail that went cold, then hot, then exploded in one night in Abbottabad. This wasn't just a military operation. It's a story of obsession, politics, secrets and revenge. So strap in because today we're diving into the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. 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Crisos, how are you doing? Great. Okay, so I asked people in the last episode. I was like, hey, tell me what you guys do for your jobs. We got tons of people dropping in. I guessed it was mostly like wealth management and like doctors, aerospace, a lot of stuff like that. And Chris says, what would you say? Is that mostly what it was? A lot of factory workers came out all right, That's. I mean shout out to the factory boys, you know what I mean? Forklift certified up in this. We got some construction boys. I got someone said they're the CEO of BlackRock, which is sick as hell. I'm in financial services. Insurance adjuster. I mean, come on, dude. I sit at my 911 operate 911 operator desk and test tower cell towers. Okay, all right. I mean, that comment, choppy 3710. I mean, that comment is insane. Business management consultant. I mean, we just have the greatest folks from across the. Right. Some of them shouldn't be listening. Yeah, I mean, do your job, right? A lot of these guys get back to work and stop listening. But for all the people that, you know, are able to, you know, like, heaven forbid someone's like, oh, I'm a dentist. I'm like, dude, do your job. I don't want dentists listening. Okay, this is not for dentists, but yeah, this is great. I just like seeing. I mean, material recycling. I just like listening to all sorts of different types of people. We got an orthopedic shoemaker in Germany. Let's. We're global. We're out here, sure, when we're in a tent, okay, in the middle of the Adirondacks, but we are global, dude. Everyone camps. Everyone is freaking camping nowadays. I mean, that just warms my heart. So whether you are, you know, a factory worker or a dentist or a. I don't know, maybe you're a cop. Maybe you're an illegal immigrant. I don't care what you are, okay? I just want to say thank you guys all for listening and tuning in and. And being a part of it. But today, I don't want to divert. Okay? There's been a documentary on Netflix that has captivated myself and the world. And today we're diving even deeper on. I mean, maybe one of the most controversial Nepo babies of all time, Osama bin Laden. Let's dive in to the world and the life of Osama Christos. Are you familiar with this guy? Scarred. My fifth grade experience, so, yeah. Really? Where was your. Where was your fifth grade class? I went to school in Queens and the building actually overlooked the World Trade center that morning. The building? What do you mean? The school building? I was on the fifth floor. And you could you have a direct view of the skyline? Whoa, you learned some math that day. Two minus two. What? Christos, that is extremely insensitive. I am personally offended, okay? Thousands of people died, all because of Osama bin Laden. Some other folks, too. But today we're going to dive in to Osama. How he got captured and what the manhunt to get this. I mean, one of these most evil Terrorists of all time and what it actually took to get him, you know, to get justice for all those people. So let's jump in. In order to understand Osama bin Laden and how he becomes America's most wanted man, we got to go all the way back to when he was just a rich kid from Saudi Arabia. If you don't know Osama bin Laden wasn't bor. You know, in some cave plotting against America. You know, I think a lot of times Westerners are like, oh, he was always evil. No, he was just, at one point was just a regular kid. He was born into a massively wealthy family. His dad, Muhammad, owned a massive construction company that basically like built half of Saudi Arabia and, you know, their infrastructure. And he was involved in some of the most respected Saudi projects ever. I mean, we're talking about renovating the Grand Mosque at Mecca and the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. And they weren't just like construction jobs. Like, you have to understand, to Muslim people, Mecca is. I mean, it's like the Mecca, you know, it's like the most important. It's the most important thing, the holy pilgrimage site. There's a whole, you know, we do a whole side channel on that religion camp, shout out to y' all. But in order to get a construction job on, you know, in Medina or doing the Grand Mosque in Mecca, there it comes like a sacred responsibility that makes the bin Laden family incredibly wealthy and respected. So osam was born 1957, one of Muhammad's 54 children from multiple wives. 54 kids. Yeah. I mean, you can understand why this guy wanted to get attention. You know, he got lost in the sauce. And ironically enough, Osam actually stood out, right? He was tall, soft spoken, and he was described as having a quiet intensity that people noticed his father died in, in a plane crash when osama was just 10 years old. Irony. So, yeah, we call that irony. It's the, the definition of. I mean, that's crazy that his dad would die in a pain plane crash. He understands the pain of what that's like and then still creates an attack and sends a bunch of people he knows to go carry it out and die the same way. Don't make him a sympathetic figure. No, it's not sympathetic. It's psychotic. It's like that you would experience pain and be like, yeah, I'm going to subject all these people to the same pain. I mean, that's absolutely mind blowing. But that's what happened. And so as you can imagine, the family fortune, it was so massive that it barely makes a dent in their lifestyle. So growing up, Osama had basically everything handed to him. And, you know, he went to the best schools in Saudi Arabia, drove luxury cars, lived in, like, a palace. And during his teenage years, he was pretty westernized. He wore designer clothes, did martial arts, and was apparently a fan of American TV shows. The guy could easily have just ended up like another, you know, Saudi playboy studying business in Europe or, you know, America, like a bunch of rich kids from the Middle east do. But as a teenager, there were signs that Osama was different. While his brothers were partying and enjoying the high life, he became increasingly religious and started attending Islamic study groups. You know, becoming fascinated with the idea that Muslims were being oppressed around the world. His wealth was estimated to be around $250 million, but yet he still chose to just hang out, you know, with his boys and use that money to help fund what he called holy wars. The transformation really accelerated when he went to King Abdulaziz University in the late 70s. And this is where he encountered professors who really started to lead him down this idea of radicalization and specifically ideas about Western imperialism and the need for Muslims to fight back. One professor in particular, Abdullah Abzam, became like a mentor to him. And Azam preached that it was every Muslim's duty to wage jihad against the enemies of Islam. And this was captivating to young Osama. But in his early 20s, something shifted. He became obsessed with these radical Islamic ideas and this notion that the Muslim world was under attack. The real turning point came in 79, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden saw this as, like, his calling. Here was a chance to fight against what he viewed as this godless communist attack on a sovereign Muslim country. So in the 80s, he packed his bags and headed to Afghanistan to join the fight against the Soviets. Now, here's where things get dangerous in Osama's life. While he's in Afghanistan, Bin Laden meets this Egyptian doctor named Ayman Al Zawahiri. And you can think of Zawahiri as the devil on bin Laden's shoulder. He's the one who convinces him that fighting the Soviets isn't enough. Zawahiri planted the idea that they needed to wage war against all of what they called the enemies of Islam, and that included, you guessed it, America. So by 88, bin Laden had formed Al Qaeda, which literally means the base. And, you know, this wasn't just some local militia. This was something completely new and terrifying. His mission was this global jihad, using his family's, you know, construction fortune to fund the terrorist attacks anywhere in the world. One of the first attacks came in 1993 when terrorists tried to blow up the World Trade center in New York, killing six people and injuring estimates up to the thousands. But what most people didn't know at the time was that Bin Laden's money had helped fund it. He was like this silent partner in the attack, funding it from thousands of miles away. Then in August 1996, bin Laden did something never done before. He issued a public declaration of war against America. Not like against the military or the government, but just all Americans. He published this manifesto saying that killing Americans, anyone in the world was not just acceptable, but it was a religious duty. The scariest part came in 1998 when ABC News reporter John Miller managed to get an interview with Bin Laden inside an Afghan cave. Upon arriving, Miller assumed it would be, you know, like any other interview in a foreign country. He asked a question, they respond in their language and the translator kind of translates and they go back and forth, but this time completely different. Bin Laden informed the crew that there would be no translation until after the interview was complete. And he did this so that the reporter John Miller wasn't able to ask any follow up questions. When answering the question, Osama wasn't ranting or screaming. He was literally just speaking in a measured, professional tone, calling for the mass murder of Americans. Basically, I mean, one of the questions asked by Miller was this. Mr. Bin Laden, you have issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill Americans where they can, when they can. Is that directed at all Americans? Just the American military or just the Americans in Saudi Arabia? Bin Laden responds this. Allah has ordered us to glorify the truth and to defend Muslim land, especially the Arab peninsula, against the unbelievers. He then goes on to explain how after World War II, the Americans grew more unfair towards Muslims. And then he says, you position against Muslims in Palestine is despicable and disgraceful. America has no shame. We believe that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. Nothing could stop you, except perhaps retaliation in kind. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets. And this is what the fatwa says. The fatwa is general and it includes all those who participate or help the occupiers in killing Muslims. And Bin Laden wasn't just talking shit because on August 7, 1998, Al Qaeda simultaneously bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing two hundred and twenty four people and wounding thousands more. These weren't Even military targets. They were diplomatic buildings in the heart of African capitals. Most of the victims weren't even American. They were local workers, guards, and literally just people that were walking by. And this made Clinton furious. Obviously, Bill Clinton is president at the time. And within two weeks, the US Launched Operation Infinite Reach. And this is where the military launched cruise missiles to strike at bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan, where, I mean, we're talking about millions of dollars worth of precision missiles fired at what we thought was bin Laden's exact location. And the missiles hit their targets perfectly, destroying the camps and killing dozens of terrorists. But when the smoke cleared, bin Laden was gone. He escaped. And that escaped proved something terrifying. This wasn't just some guy hiding in a cave. This was someone with a serious injury, intelligence network, advanced warning systems, and the ability to stay one step ahead of the most powerful killing machine ever to exist. So by 1999, bin Laden was still making public appearances, at least on his terms. He granted interviews and released propaganda footage showing Al Qaeda training camps in full swing. And he wasn't hiding in fear. He was just harder to reach. But by the summer of 2001, bin Laden was fully underground. No new tapes, no interviews. And that's when he was planning his biggest attack yet. September 11th. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because your food sucks. That's right. We live in a country where, unfortunately, a lot of the food we eat, even if you try to eat clean, is pesticides and seed oils and who knows what else is in your, you know, your Caesar wrap. And that is why it is important to supplement your food. This is what I do on a daily basis, and I do it with Symbiotica. Yes, I love symbiotica because it is the easiest way for me to supplement my food and get all the nutrients that I need that I should be getting for my food, but unfortunately, I don' because, you know, the world and capitalism or whatever. But with Symbiotica, I'm able to get my magnesium, which I take every single night. That helps me to sleep. I take my colostrum, which is great for my gut health. It helps my skin, and it gives me an immune boost. And the thing that I'm most excited about is mineral shilajit. Shilajit is an ancient mineral resin that literally comes from the Himalayas. It sounds crazy, but it's not. It's right here in this little jar, just a little dab into some warm water. And since I've been taking it, I mean, it's full of like, fulvic acid, you know, trace minerals, all the stuff you should be getting from your food, but you're not. And, and since I've been taking it, I feel sharper. My energy is more consistent and stable. I'm not reaching for the third coffee. Instead, the shilajit keeps me locked in. Another thing I love about Symbiotica is that instead of taking a handful of pills and people look at you like a crazy person, they just, they actually get curious. They see you taking this awesome little liquid gel pack that tastes amazing and they go, oh, what is that? What are you taking right there? And I tell them I'm taking my Symbiotica for my health because I'm trying to live till I'm 180 years old. So if you're interested in reclaiming your health for the summer, feeling better, having more stable energy, and doing it in the tastiest way possible, go to symbiotica.com/camp. Use the promo code camp and you will get 20% off your order and free shipping. If you go to symbiotica.com/camp or click on, you know, the description. You'll see the links right there or even in the bottom of this banner. Now let's get back to the show. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I got to tell you about a dirty little secret. Okay? The insurance industry doesn't want you to know this. Well, basically what the insurance companies do is that they profit by holding onto your money as long as possible. You pay them every. And then eventually when an accident happens, they try to deny or delay your claim so that they can keep their profits going. I mean, it goes even worse when in court. 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So if you are ever injured or dealing with an insurance company that doesn't want to pay up their fair share, you could go check out Morgan and Morgan. That's right. Hiring the wrong law firm can be disastrous. And hiring the right law firm could, you know, be a big, substantial increase to your settlement. And Morgan and Morgan makes it so easy to get started. Their fee is free. Unless they win, there's literally no risk. Unless they win your case, you're not paying a dime. And with Morgan and Morgan, it's never been easier. I'm telling you, you just go to forthepeople.com that's right. F o r the people.com and use the code GAGNON. G a g n o n or dial pound. That's pound 529. That's forthepeople.com GAGNON or dial pound law that's pound 529. And this is a paid advertisement. Now, ladies and gentlemen, let's get back to the show. At New Balance, we believe if you run, you're a runner, however you choose to do it. Because when you're not worried about doing things the right way, you're free to discover your way. And that's what running's all about. Run your way@newbalance.com Running hey there, travelers. Kaley Cuoco here. Sorry to interrupt your music, great artist, BT Dubs, but wouldn't you rather be there to hear it live? With Priceline, you can get out of your dreams and into your dream concert. They've got millions of travel deals to get you to that festival, gig, rave, sound bath, or sonic experience you've been dreaming of. Download the Priceline app today and you can save up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights. So don't just dream about that trip. Book it with Priceline. Go to your happy price, Priceline. By this time, the hijackers were already in the United States, finishing flight training. We actually have an episode with Rod McAleer, who is a retired Air Force major and commercial airline pilot who taught at a Phoenix, Arizona flight School in March 2001. And when he was there, he ended up teaching a student named Hani Honjor, who would later be known as the hijacker of American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. McAleer told us that Honjor's flight skills were so poor, so questionable, that both he and the school reported their concerns to the faa, but unfortunately nothing happened. No investigation, mild follow up, and basically just silence. And then on the morning of September 11, 2001, most Americans were, you know, starting another ordinary Tuesday. People were dropping their kids off at school, grabbing coffee, checking the mail. Normal stuff that we all do without thinking about it. And nobody had any idea they were about to witness the moment that would change everything. At 8:46am, American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. And at first everyone thought it was some kind of like freak accident. Maybe the pilot had a medical emergency or there was a, you know, a weather issue. Maybe there was a good equipment failure. But by 9:03, with cameras already rolling in, millions of people watching on live television, United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the south tower. And in that instant, every single person watching knew that this was not an accident. America was under attack. I mean, think about how that must have felt. I mean, I don't really remember it at all, but one moment you think what is breaking news about a terrible accident? The next moment you're watching your country being attacked in real time. People in offices, schools, homes across America just stood there in shock, trying to process the impossible. And by 9:37am Flight 77 had hit the Pentagon. And shortly after that, Flight 93 crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers bravely fought against the hijackers. In less than two hours, nearly 3,000 people were dead. The Twin Towers had collapsed and America realized it wasn't as safe as we always believed. But here's what most people didn't know at the time. While the rest of the country was trying to figure out what was happening, the CIA already was targeting who was responsible. So deep inside the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, there is an ultra secure bunker called the Vault where intelligence analysts monitor threats around the clock. The moment that the second plane hit, CIA Director George Tennant looked at the scale, the coordination, the targets, and said something that would prove exactly right. This has Bin Laden written all over it. And it wasn't just a lucky guess. Remember, the CIA had been tracking Bin Laden for years. They knew his methods, his obsession with spectacular attacks, and his hatred for American symbols of power. Now, at this point, as most of you probably know, President Bush is at an elementary school speaking to students. But what some people may not know is that he was actually told that the first plane had crashed before he ever entered the classroom. But at the time, no one assumed it was a terrorist attack. So when Chief of Staff Andrew Card told him a second plane hit the second tower. America's under attack. Shit was about to hit the fan. That day, America officially declared war on terror. But for people like Kofer Black, the CIA's counterterrorism director, the war had already been going on for years. It just became America's problem too. Cover. Black was the guy tasked with hunting down the people responsible for 9 11. If you saw him in a grocery store, you'd probably think he was just, you know, some normal dude. But this man spent his entire career tracking terrorists, and 911 just made things extremely personal. When Black got his orders from President Bush, he turned around and gave his own orders to CIA operatives around the world. His exact words were, I don't want bin Laden and his thugs captured. I want them dead. I want to see photos of their heads on spikes. I want bin Laden's head shipped back and a box filled with dry ice. Now, that might sound like something out of an action movie, but he wasn't just, you know, trying to be dramatic. This was a career intelligence officer who just watched 3,000Americans die. And he wanted justice. I mean, rightly or wrongly, he was pissed and he wanted vengeance. More importantly, he wanted to make sure this never happened again. So Black strategy was nearly perfect. Surround Afghanistan with secret CIA bases and hunt bin Laden down from every direction. Picture it like a giant's net, you know, just slowly closing in. He wanted CIA teams all across the region. Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan. Basically every country around Afghanistan's border that ends in Extan. The goal was to get as close as possible to bin Laden and either capture him or kill him. So by October 2001, America had already started bombing the Taliban in Afghanistan. But this wasn't just your typical military invasion with tanks and massive troops, yada yada, the CIA was leading the charge with something much more effective. Cold, hard cash. CIA operatives were literally walking into Afghanistan with duffel bags of money to buy the loyalty of local warlords. Gary Bernstein, one of CIA officers on the ground, admitted that he was carrying around 11 million in a rubber trunk, making payments whenever he needed cooperation. Think about how crazy effective that was. Afghan warlords who had been fighting each other for decades suddenly started working together against the Taliban, all because the CIA was writing them checks. It was like, like a crazy freelance operation. Instead of, like, hiring soldiers, they were just buying entire armies. The Northern alliance, which had been barely surviving against Taliban forces, suddenly had new weapons, new funding, and, you know, some new friends with way bigger bombs. And back at CIA headquarters, they were also deploying something Completely revolutionary armed drones. Before 9 11, these Predator drones were just flying cameras used for surveillance. But after the attacks, the CIA mounted Hellfire missiles on them and turned them into remote control weapons. It was warfare like no one had ever seen before. Deadly accurate, but completely detached from the battlefield. Practically like a video game, but with actual consequences. I mean, you have to, you know, at this point, people are familiar with drone warfare and how it's being used on the, you know, the border of Ukraine and Russia, but at this point, it had never been utilized in this way. I mean, these programs were top secret and state of the art. So within two months, the Taliban was on the run, Kabul had fallen, and Bin Laden was being hunted all over the mountains of Afghanistan. And by November, just a few months after, they had Bin Laden exactly where they wanted him. Trapped in a mountain fortress with nowhere to run. And what happened next would haunt everyone involved. Just a month later, in December of 2001, again at this point just three months after the attacks in New York, Gary Bernsten got a call that he'd been waiting for. Intelligence confirmed that Bin Laden was hiding in the Tora Bora caves. This was their chance to end it all once and for all. This is it. What happened in those mountains would become one of the biggest regrets in the war on terror. So in November, the Taliban was collapsing faster than anyone expected, and Kabul had completely fallen. And suddenly there were reports about this massive convoy leaving the capital. We're talking about 200 pickup trucks loaded with fighters heading southeast towards the Pakistan border. Local sources were telling the CIA that bin Laden himself was in that convoy, along with, you know, thousands of his most loyal Al Qaeda fighters. Gary Bernstein had been hunting bin Laden for years, and this was the moment that, that he'd been preparing for. The guy, you know, he's like a detective who's been cracking the same case, just going after it nonstop, studying every clue, every detail. So Bernstein immediately put together a team and headed into some of the most dangerous territory on Earth. The convoy was heading towards Tora Bora, which literally means black cave in the local language. And that name, I mean, could not have been more fitting. This wasn't just some random hiding spot. This was a massive complex, a cave complex built into the White Mountains near the Pakistan border. And here's the crazy part. During the 80s war against the Soviets, the CIA had actually helped the Mujahideen by giving them supplies, which in turn they used to extend and reinforce these caves. So America sort of, I guess, accidentally created the perfect fortress that Bin Laden was Now using to hide from America. Bernstein's team set up in a schoolhouse in the foothills, using basically this, you know, old school as the base of their operations. And this was the command center in the middle of nowhere. The breakthrough came when they found a radio that belonged to one of the Al Qaeda members. Bin Laden's fighters were using radios to communicate everything. So when they found this radio, they listened to it, waiting to hear anything that would lead to Bin Laden's location. But then the unexpected happened. Bin Laden himself came over the radio and was essentially telling his fighters that he was sorry for all of the deaths. It was like eavesdropping on a phone call, except these calls were revealing the location of of the world's most wanted man. The intelligence was clear. Bin Laden was definitely in Tora Bora with hundreds of his most hardcore fighters. Now here's where things get really intense. Bernstein decided to split his team in half. And this is already a small team. So after days of climbing, they reached a position where they could look down into the valley and see the cave complex. But when they got there, they see hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters moving around the caves like ants. The CIA team had laser designators, basically like high tech pointing devices that could mark targets for aircrafts. One of the guys radioed back to Bernstein and said, we have eyes on the target. Request permission to commence attacks. Bernsten, didn't he hesitate. He gave the order, light em up. What happened next was something out of a movie. I mean for 56 hours straight, the most powerful air force in the world pounded these caves relentlessly. We're talking about B52 bombers dropping bomb after bomb, fighter jets making precision strikes, even these things called blue 82 daisy cutter bombs, each one weighing 15,000 pounds. I mean these bombs are so big that they can actually create mushroom clouds. They'll almost look like, like small tactical nukes. Despite the constant danger, the bombing campaign was working and the caves were getting destroyed. Al Qaeda fighters were dying. And intelligence suggested that Bin Laden had nowhere to go, that he was trapped. This was it. This, you know, they finally had him cornered. But then came the decision that everyone involved still regrets. These mountains have countless escape routes leading into Pakistan. And he needed boots on the ground to seal them off. So he sent an urgent request to his superior. Send army Rangers to block the escape routes. These soldiers who could have been dropped into the mountains within hours. But the Pentagon said no. Their excuse was, you know, they were worried about risking American lives and what they saw as this dangerous mountain warfare. And they thought the Afghan Fighters they were paying could handle it instead. And this was a massive mistake. The Afghan fighters weren't loyal to America. They were loyal to whoever was paying them the most money. Some of them were probably making money from both sides, while others were related to some of the people fighting for al Qaeda. So December 17, 2001, the cave complex finally fell. Afghan fighters moved in and found about 60 al Qaeda prisoners who just looked exhausted and defeated. And they searched every cave, every tunnel, every hiding spot that they could find. But Bin Laden was gone. Somehow, while the most powerful military in the world was dropping bombs on his head for two and a half days straight, Osama slipped away. The Pakistan border was only a few miles away and nobody was guarding it. So he most likely literally just walked to freedom while American planes were circling overhead. Gary Bernstein later said, those might be the most haunting words in the war on terror. We could have ended it all there. Think about that. If the Pentagon had just sent those rangers, if they had sealed the escape routes, the entire history of terrorism and this war would have been completely different. Instead of a Decade Long Manhunt, 9, 11, would have been answered with swift justice just a few months later. But that's not what happened. Bin Laden escaped and the manhunt had to start all over again from scratch. Except now he knew exactly how America hunted him. And he was going to be much more careful. For the next several years, bin Laden seemed to vanish into thin air. But the CIA never stopped looking. And during this time, they discovered something terrifying. Al Qaeda was getting stronger, not weaker. After Tora Bora, it was like Bin Laden had disappeared off the face of the earth. No confirmed sightings, no reliable intelligence, nothing. For months, people in the intelligence community started to wonder if maybe he had died in those caves after all. But then in 2002, new video messages started appearing in Al Jazeera and other Middle Eastern news networks. There he was, Bin Laden, very much alive, sitting in front of a camera, talking about recent events that proved these recordings were fresh. What made it even worse was that these weren't just propaganda videos. They were proof that Al Qaeda was spreading like a virus. While America was focused on Afghanistan and then later Iraq, bin Laden's organization was setting up shop everywhere. Europe, Southeast Asia, North Africa. It was a madhouse. Every time you hit one location, three more would pop up somewhere else. Then in March 2004, Al Qaeda terrorists bombed commuter trains in Madrid during rush hour, killing 191 people and wounding over 1800. These weren't soldiers, government nothing. These were just regular people. Trying to get to work. And then a year later, they hit the London subway system, killing 52 people and injuring 700 more. The message was clear. Al Qaeda could strike anywhere at any time. And the U.S. government put $25 million on bin Laden's head. The largest reward in history. But even with the massive incentive, no one was talking. Meanwhile, the CIA was building what they called the Enhanced Interrogation Program. Now, let's be honest about what this is, right? It's torture. Just, you know, it was some legal jargon around it. The agency opened a detention center in Guantanamo Bay and started capturing high level Al Qaeda operatives whenever they could find them. Guantanamo Bay was deliberately chosen by US Officials as the site for detaining suspected terrorists because of its unique legal status. Although it's controlled by the US Military, it's located in the southeastern tip of Cuba, technically outside of official US sovereign territory. And this legal gray area means some torture is going to happen. Literally. I mean, it means that the detainees wouldn't be granted the full protections of the U.S. constitution or typical oversight from American courts. And this allowed interrogators to use enhanced techniques that would have been illegal on US soil. These may or may not include waterboarding where a prisoner is made to feel like they're drowning, sleep deprivation for days on, and stress positions where detainees were forced to hold painful postures for extended periods, exposure to extreme temperature, loud continuous noise or music to induce psychological breakdown, forced nudity, humiliation. Some prisoners were subjected to mock executions, beatings, and solitary confinement for months or even years. One of their biggest catches was a guy named Abu Zubaydah who was basically Al Qaeda's chief recruiter and logistics coordinator. Think of him as like the HR for terrorists or something. He knew everyone, knew how the organization worked. He knew where the money came from. Under interrogation, he started giving up names and details about Al Qaeda's structure. One of the most important things he revealed was a codename. Mokhtar. Zubaydah said that this was, you know, the man behind 9 11, this guy. Mokhtar, the code name kept popping up. Other detainees, like Ramzi bin Al Shib, also referenced Mokhtar. And CIA analysts eventually connected the dots. Mokhtar was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, ksm, a longtime jihadist who had been on the US radar for nearly a decade. He was actually the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, the man behind the 1993 World Trade center bombing. And it was widely believed that KSM had helped fund and coordinate that attack. Tracking him down was not easy. KSM was a ghost. He moved frequently, used safe houses across Pakistan and stayed surrounded by people loyal enough to take a bullet before giving him up. But after months of surveillance, interrogations, and tip offs, especially following the capture of Abu Zubaydah and Bin al Shib, the CIA finally got a break. In early 2003, Pakistani intelligence traced him to a house just outside of Islamabad. And then on March 1, 2003, a joint operation between the CIA and Pakistan's ISI raided the house and found KSM hiding with his family. And they took him alive. KSM was bin Laden's chief operating officer. He was tough, but not tough enough for Guantanamo. I mean, no one is. He held out for a while, but eventually, under these enhanced interrogation techniques, he started to talk. And when he talked, it was like getting inside, you know, the brain of how Al Qaeda actually worked. He confessed to planning 9 11, claiming to have personally proposed the idea to bin Laden in 1996, and also admitted to dozens of other plots, such as the Bojinga plot, which was a failed plot that involved blowing up 12 US bound commercial airliners over the Pacific that would have killed over 4,000 people and an attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II during his visit to the Philippines. He also orchestrated the shoe bomber Richard Reid to bring down a US plane using explosives hidden in his shoes. The CIA was gathering massive amounts of intelligence from these interrogations. And they were learning about Al Qaeda's financial network and their communication methods and even their recruiting techniques. But here is the frustrating part. Despite all this intelligence, Bin Laden himself was completely hidden. It was like they could capture everyone around him, but not him. Every lead went nowhere. Every potential source turned out to be unreliable. And every promising intelligence report led to empty caves or abandoned safe houses. Then, in 2009, something happened that showed just how dangerous this hunt had become. A man named Humaam Khalil Abu Mulal Al Bilawi approached the Jordanian government, claiming he could help the CIA by giving them inside information about Al Qaeda's leadership. And this guy was perfect. He was a doctor, he spoke multiple languages. He claimed to have access to Bin Laden's inner circle. He said that he could provide real time intelligence about where the Al Qaeda leadership was hiding. Al Balawi passed several tests, provided some legitimate intelligence, and ultimately convinced the agency that he was the real deal. So the CIA arranged a secret meeting at a remote base in Afghanistan called Camp Chapman. This wasn't some casual coffee shop meeting. This was maybe their most heavily secured facility where they brought their most valuable assets for debriefing. Multiple CIA officers were there, including some of their most experienced counterterrorism experts. Up until this point, no one in the CIA had physically met Al Balawi until he pulled into the compound. The CIA had one major issue. How do you greet a person who's supposed to be giving you critical intelligence on the most wanted man in the world? Do you just let him in the gates with open arms and make him feel welcome and at ease? Do you detain him and search him and risk the possibility of him being offended or scared off? Well, they chose the former. They didn't search him. And when Al Balawi arrived at the base, he was waved past without a second thought. He then arrived at the site within the base where the meeting was to be held. But something seemed off. And little did the CIA know, Al Bilawi had been a double agent the entire time, working for Al Qaeda while pretending to help America. He then gets out of his car, and as CIA officers get close, he detonates a suicide bomb that he had hidden under his clothes. Seven CIA officers died in the explosion, resulting in one of the deadliest attacks on the CIA and the Agency's history. What's up, people? Quick announcement. If you are a fan of Camp Gagnon, or Religion Camp, I have great news, because we are dropping History Camp. That's right. This is the channel. We're going to be exploring the most interesting, fascinating, controversial topics from all time throughout all history. Right? You probably know about Benjamin Franklin, I don't know, Thomas Jefferson, Nikola Tesla, Interesting figures from history and you probably learned about in school, and they were pretty boring, but not here. Now, as you know, I was raised by a conspiracy theorist. So I'm going to be diving deep into all of the interesting, strange, occult, and secretive societal relationships that all of these famous, influential men from our shared past have. So if you're interested, please go ahead and subscribe to the YouTube channel. It will be pinned in the description as well as the comments. And if you're on Spotify, this doesn't really apply to you, but these episodes will be dropping as well. Just go ahead and give us a high rating because it really helps the show. Now, let's get back to it. What's up, guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because I'm sitting here in my beautiful tent, as you can see, every week, day in, day out, and people always ask, they say, mark, how do I have a tent like that? I want to. I want to sit in a beautiful tent and invite a lover, a friend, you know, someone that I appreciate and adore. I want to give them a good time inside my tent. Well, it's easy thanks to the good folks over@bluechew.com. that's right. Bluechew is the original OG brand offering chewable tablets. And what do these tablets do? Oh, I'm glad you asked. They are gonna give you the just in a stronger, harder and longer lasting sexual performance. That's right. They're gonna help you pitch a tent any place, anywhere. And the best part, it's all done online. That means you don't have to go to a doctor's office and you know, talk to them, be like, oh, you know, I'm feeling some type of way. Look, this is not for people that are, you know, lacking necessarily. This is for people that wanna have the best experience of their life. Whether it's Valentine's Day, birthday, a funeral, who knows, whenever you need it. You never know when you could use bluechew. And we have a special deal for the listeners of this program. That's right. Try your first month of Bluechew. For free. That's right. Completely free. Mark, is it gonna work for me? Is this, hey, it's free. Why not just try it? Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Bluechew for sponsoring this podcast. All right, now let's get after it and let's get back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. From streaming to shopping, prime helps you get more out of your passions. So whether you're a fan of true crime or prefer a nail biting novel from time to time, with services like prime video, Amazon music and fast free delivery, prime makes it easy to get more out of whatever you're into or getting into. Visit Amazon.comprime to learn more more. This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this, adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't. From swimming lessons to piano classes, us parents invest in so many things to enrich our kids lives. But are we investing in their future financial success? With Greenlight, you can teach your kids financial literacy skills like earning, saving and investing. And this investment costs less than that. After school treatment, start prioritizing their financial education and future. Today with a risk free trial@greenlight.com Spotify greenlight.com Spotify In 2009, it felt like the CIA was further from finding Bin Laden than ever. They had captured dozens of Al Qaeda operatives, disrupted countless plots and spent billions of dollars on the hunt. But their primary target remained a ghost. But hidden in all that intelligence was one crucial detail that would finally break this case wide open. After years of interrogations, CAA analysts started noticing something. Multiple detainees mentioned a man by the name of the courier. No one had a real name, just vague references. But the courier kept coming up. Always described as close to bin Laden and completely off the grid. When they asked KSM about this courier, he brushed it off, said that the guy wasn't important. And that raised a massive red flag. KSM had been willing to talk about plenty of other people, so why downplay this one? The CIA figured that if KSM was lying, that the courier may actually be the key. And their suspicions were basically confirmed when they overheard KSM telling other inmates not to talk about the courier. But tracking him down wouldn't be so easy. The name was vague and they didn't have really much else. But then in 2004, Hassan Ghul told the CIA that Abu Ahmed Al Kuwaiti was a courier for bin Laden and a close associate of ksm. So a light bulb went off and they began connecting the dots. But here is the problem. Abu Ahmed Al Kuwaiti was just a nickname, basically meaning Abu Ahmed the Kuwaiti guy. It was like trying to find someone called John from Chicago in a city of millions of people. So by this point, the agency had created a special task force dedicated to finding bin Laden. But this wasn't just another counterterrorism unit. This was an all star team of the CIA's best analysts working on nothing but this one case. They studied every single video that Bin Laden had ever released, going through them frame by frame, looking for clues. They analyzed his appearance to track his health, studied the backgrounds to guess his location, even examined the lighting to figure out what time of day the videos were filmed, what birds were in the background. Anything that could give them an idea of where he was located. They were looking for anything. Reflection his glasses, even the way his beard was trimmed. It was like a forensic science got applied to terrorism. Using every detail to build a picture of where he might be hiding. And of course, nothing came of it. Then in 2007, a major breakthrough. The CIA connects the name Abu Ahmed Al Kuwaiti to a real identity. Ibrahim Said Ahmed, a Pakistani man born in Kuwait with ties to key Al Qaeda figures. The CIA was then able to get a phone number suspected to belong to the courier and began tracking that number. In mid-2010, this courier made a critical mistake. He used a cell phone to call someone. And that single call allowed the CIA to triangulate his location. He was tracked as he drove to a large compound in Abbottabad. It had no phone lines, no Internet, high walls, barbed wire, and it was far too secure for a simple courier to be walking in and out of. And that is when analysts began to suspect that they had just found the main bin laden courier. The CIA started to watch this compound 247 using satellite surveillance. And they noticed multiple families seemed to be living there. The courier's family, another family that might belong to the courier's brother, and then a third family that lived on the third floor of the main house. And this is where it gets crazy. The analyst noticed that someone from that third floor would just come out into the garden every day and walk around for exercise. They called this person the Pacer because he would just walk back and forth, back and forth like he was in a prison yard. But the PACER never left the compound. The other families would leave. The two other families would go, but that third family never left. And this Pacer would just go back and forth. And in months of surveillance, they never saw him go to the market, visit neighbors, or do any of the normal things you would expect people to do. It was like he was hiding in his own prison. The CIA became obsessed with figuring out who this PACER was. They studied satellite photos, measured the shadows, and used sophisticated computer programs to estimate his height and build. Based on the length of his shadow, they calculated that the man, the pacer, was about 6ft 5 inches tall. And do you know what height Osama bin Laden was estimated to have been is? 6ft 5 inches. By September 2010, the CIA was convinced that they had found their target. Everything fit the trusted courier, the secure compound, this mysterious third family that never leaves, and a tall man, the exact height of Osama bin Laden. Pace in the garden but never leaving. But here's the thing. They couldn't be 100% certain. They had never gotten a clear photo of the Pacer's face. This could have just been a regular old shut in that never leaves. They couldn't intercept his communications because there were none. And they couldn't just knock on the door and ask. The CIA was asking the President to authorize a military raid based on what was essentially a guess. So now the President, Barack Obama, has a choice to make. But there was another issue. The mission would violate Pakistani airspace and could destroy America's relationship with a nuclear armed ally. The Pentagon knew they needed to be ready. So they put together the ultimate team for the job. Seal Team 6. These weren't just regular Navy seals. They're the absolute elite. The guys who get called in when the Pentagon needs something impossible done quietly. Once the team was chosen, the CIA knew they needed to be absolutely prepared for every possible scenario. So they did something that sounds like it's out of a spy movie. They built an exact replica of the Abbottabad compound at a secret location in North Carolina. We're talking about a full scale model. But there was a catch. The inside layout was completely unknown. They never got a picture of the inside. It's completely walled off. But lucky for the SEALs, the training compound was modular. So the inside was a new setting every time the seals went through the course. Think about that. A wall one day with a kitchen and a bedroom, all of a sudden it switched around and now it's a living room and a bathroom. And so constantly they're getting new, new, new. Every single building that they go into, it's the same layout, but the inside is completely different. So for weeks, the SEALs are practicing this mission over and over on the replica compound. They ran through every scenario. What if Bin Laden's not there? What if doesn't surrender? What if the Pakistani government or military shows up in the middle of the night and do their own raid? What if the helicopter crashes? And they rehearsed each possibility until they could execute the mission in their sleep. But even with all that preparation, the decision to decide whether to actually launch the mission was tearing apart the White House. From March through April, the debate raged among Obama's advisors. Some wanted to just bomb the compound with a drone strike, just take it out. It'd be safer, cleaner, and it wouldn't risk American lives. Others argued that the intelligence wasn't strong enough to justify any action at all. What if they're wrong? What if the US government just does a raid and kills a bunch of innocent Pakistani families based on a guess? Defense Secretary Robert Gates and even Joe Biden were against the raid. They thought it was too risky and could damage America's relationship with Pakistan permanently. Urging Obama not to act until we had more information. After weeks of debate, Obama made the call. In a meeting with his national security team, he looked around the room and said, it's a go. So finally, on May 1, 2011, at around 11pm local time, two modified Black Hawk helicopters took off from a base in Afghanistan and headed towards Pakistan. And these weren't ordinary helicopters. They were never before seen. Stealth aircraft designed to be nearly invisible to radar. One of the craziest parts about this mission comes from a guy named Soheb Athar who was live tweeting what he thought was Just unusual helicopter activity and a loud bang. He posted things like, helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1am is a rare event. He had no idea that he was accidentally providing real time commentary on one of the most important military operations in history. The plan was for both helicopters to hover over the compound while seals fast roped down the rooftop. But as the first helicopter approached, something went wrong. One of the helicopters started to lose lift and crash landed inside the compound walls. Thankfully, the team had prepared for this exact scenario, but not for this crowd of citizens who were curious as to what that massive explosion was. I mean, imagine this town of Abbottabad is just another regular town in Pakistan. Just, you know, it could be Toledo, Ohio. And imagine in the middle of the night, you hear a giant explosion, you go, what's going on? So now people are gathering outside of the compound, causing one of the members to stand outside and distract them, telling them that it was a military exercise. The second helicopter lands outside the compound walls and the SEALs begin to search for an entrance. They believed that something had happened, maybe that the first helicopter had gotten shot down. So they decided to land farther and safer away and try to breach it from the outside. They set a breach on what they thought was a door. But once the breach blew up, nothing happened. And they realized it was a fake door. Some of the team started to think that they had completely screwed up. They crashed one helicopter, they're outside the compound, they breached the wrong door, but then they realized, no, this is exactly the right place. I mean, what normal guy puts a fake door on his compound? And that means Osama bin Laden is definitely inside. And once inside, they clear the compound room by room. On the first floor, there was a courier and his wife. When entering the room, the wife of the courier jumped in front of him trying to protect him. So the SEALs shot both the wife and the courier. They then go upstairs and begin breaching locked doors. The front man then sees Khalid bin Laden, bin Laden's son. He jumps behind a banister trying to hide. The frontman then begins speaking to Khalid by saying compeer, compeer in two different languages, trying to confuse him. And it was successful. Khalid popped his head around the corner and he got shot and killed. Now they've moved up to the third floor and they're losing men going to each different room. It's just Robert o' Neill at this point as the second man, meaning that he's basically the back for the first man and there's only two of them. When they arrive at the top of the stairs, the frontman notices shadows moving around behind a curtain and tells Robert that they may have a suicide bomber in front of them, so they need to act fast. They then burst through the curtains and the front man tackles a suspected bomber, planning on taking the blast away from Robert. When Robert turns his head, he doesn't see an explosion. He sees Osama bin Laden standing two feet in front of him. So he pulls up his gun, takes the shot, and it was over. The hunt for Osama was finished, but the mission wasn't done. I mean, they're now still inside a compound with a mob of people outside and potentially more suicide bombers inside the house. The team had to get out and they had to take Osama's body with him. The radio call that went out was a simple but historic forgotten country. Geronimo. Geronimo. Geronimo, Ikea or Ekia. In military talk, that basically just means enemy killed in action. And Geronimo is the code name for Osama bin laden. After nearly 10 years of hunting, Osama bin Laden was dead. But the seals had to confirm beyond a doubt that they had killed the right person. They took photographs, measured the body, collected DNA samples. They also gathered every piece of intelligence they could fit in the compound. Hard drives, documents, videos, anything that might reveal Al Qaeda's future plans. The damaged helicopter that had crashed couldn't fly back to Afghanistan, so SEALs had to destroy it with explosives to prevent Pakistan from getting access to the stealth technology. Then they loaded Bin Laden's body and all the intelligence into the remaining helicopter and headed back to base. But one last issue occurred on the way home. The Pakistani military had been alerted due to all of the commotion, so they sent out fighter jets to assess the situation. But the US Military had already left the compound. So the Pakistani military followed the helicopter all the way to the border before turning around. Upon arriving, they confirmed Bin Laden's DNA within hours. After a decade of false leads and near misses, they had finally gotten their man. But what do you do with the dead body of the world's most wanted man? Well, following Islamic law, Bin Laden's body was buried within 24 hours. The US military wanted to make sure that there would be no grave site so that it wouldn't become a shrine for other Al Qaeda members of the world or other terrorists. So they decided to drop his body into the ocean. A religious ceremony was performed on the USS Carl Vinson, and then the weighted body was lowered into the North Arabian Sea. That night, President Obama addressed the nation from the White House. He said, quote, tonight I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children. The reaction is immediate. People gathered outside the White House and Times Square cheering for the families of the 911 victims. Bin Laden's death brought a sense of justice that many had thought was never going to come. It couldn't bring back their loved ones, but it proved that America would never stop hunting those responsible for that terrible day. The manhunt for Osama bin Laden was finally over, but its impact would be felt forever. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how the United States government tracked down the most wanted man in the world. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of Camp. My name is Mark Gagdam. We do these episodes twice a week. We also have Religion Camp and Soon to be Dropping History Camp. Come see me on the road. Go check out the merch at Camp Goods. Also at Religion Camp, we have all sorts of awesome merch tour dates up on my website and I would love to see you guys out to a show. Thank you guys so much. We'll see you next time. Peace. If you've made it to the end of this episode, that's because you rock with us. And for that, we rock with you. You are sophisticated. You enjoy honest, true communication. A highbrowed type of person that understands this. History is not just dates and names. It is a tapestry of human triumph and tragedy. From the day Nostradamus made his first prophecy to the morning Paul Revere took his midnight ride from ancient oracles to modern revolutionaries. That is why I need you. If you have not already, please sign up for Today in History. Our free newsletter, Today in History brings you the stories that matter, the moments that changed everything, and the secrets hidden in time. Join thousands of history enthusiasts who get their daily journey through time. Don't let another day of history pass you by. Take the conversation to your inbox. Sign up now through the QR code or link in the description Today in History because history's stories shape tomorrow's world. Thank you for watching the episode. We'll see you next time.