超级军网Getting Bin Laden - 击毙本拉登实录
来源：百度文库 编辑：超级军网 时间：2024/04/29 11:35:35
Getting Bin Laden - What happened that night in Abbottabad.
击毙本拉登实录 - 阿伯塔巴德之夜【文章转自：http://article.yeeyan.org/view/222579/227189
】
by Nicholas Schmidle
Shortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black
Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern
Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama
bin Laden. Inside the aircraft were twenty-three Navy SEALs from Team Six,
which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group,
or DEVGRU. A Pakistani-American translator, whom I will call Ahmed, and a
dog named Cairo—a Belgian Malinois—were also aboard. It was a moonless
evening, and the helicopters’ pilots, wearing night-vision goggles, flew
without lights over mountains that straddle the border with Pakistan.
Radio communications were kept to a minimum, and an eerie calm settled
inside the aircraft.
五月一日晚十一点刚过不久，两架MH-60黑鹰直升机从阿富汗东部的Jalalabad空军基
地起飞，这两架飞机担负着前往巴基斯坦击毙本拉登的秘密任务。机舱里共有26位来
自海军海豹突击队6队的队员。海豹突击队6队的正式名称是海军特战发展群或DEVGRU
。另外机舱里还有一个被我称为Ahmed的巴基斯坦语翻译和一条名叫Cairo的比利时玛
利诺犬。这是个没有月亮的晚上，戴着夜视镜的直升机飞行员驾驶着没有开灯的飞机
在坐落在巴基斯坦边境的群山上空飞行。无线电通讯被保持到最低限度，机舱内弥漫
着一种奇异可怖的寂静。
Fifteen minutes later, the helicopters ducked into an alpine valley
and slipped, undetected, into Pakistani airspace. For more than sixty
years, Pakistan’s military has maintained a state of high alert against
its eastern neighbor, India. Because of this obsession, Pakistan’s
“principal air defenses are all pointing east,” Shuja Nawaz, an expert
on the Pakistani Army and the author of “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its
Army, and the Wars Within,” told me. Senior defense and Administration
officials concur with this assessment, but a Pakistani senior military
official, whom I reached at his office, in Rawalpindi, disagreed. “No one
leaves their borders unattended,” he said. Though he declined to
elaborate on the location or orientation of Pakistan’s radars—“It’s
not where the radars are or aren’t”—he said that the American
infiltration was the result of “technological gaps we have vis-à-vis the
U.S.” The Black Hawks, each of which had two pilots and a crewman from
the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, or the Night Stalkers, had
been modified to mask heat, noise, and movement; the copters’ exteriors
had sharp, flat angles and were covered with radar-dampening “skin.”
十五分钟后，直升机下降入一个高山河谷，在没有被发现的情况下潜入了巴基斯坦领
空。巴基斯坦在超过六十年的时间里一直对其东部邻居印度保持了高度警惕的状态，
因为这个原因，巴基斯坦的“主要防空力量都是指向东面的”，这是名叫苏加 纳瓦
斯的巴基斯坦部队专家告诉我的，他是《双剑交锋：巴基斯坦与军队以及内部战争》
的作者。高级防务和行政官员对此评估表示同意。但一位我曾到过其办公室的拉瓦尔
品第官员并不同意这一点。“没有人会对其边境不加关注，”他声称。尽管他拒绝提
供巴基斯坦雷达的位置或方位的详细信息——“不是雷达在不在某个地方”——他表
示美国的渗入是”我们同美国面对时的技术差距”所产生的结果。两架黑鹰除了飞行
员外还各配置了一个机组成员，这些人都来自绰号为“夜行者”的第160特种作战航
空团。这两架黑鹰都做了修改以屏蔽热量、噪音和飞行动作；飞机有着尖锐、扁平的
角，并且覆盖了雷达屏蔽“皮肤”。
The SEALs’ destination was a house in the small city of Abbottabad,
which is about a hundred and twenty miles across the Pakistan border.
Situated north of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, Abbottabad is in the
foothills of the Pir Panjal Range, and is popular in the summertime with
families seeking relief from the blistering heat farther south. Founded in
1853 by a British major named James Abbott, the city became the home of a
prestigious military academy after the creation of Pakistan, in 1947.
According to information gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency, bin
Laden was holed up on the third floor of a house in a one-acre compound
just off Kakul Road in Bilal Town, a middle-class neighborhood less than a
mile from the entrance to the academy. If all went according to plan, the
SEALs would drop from the helicopters into the compound, overpower bin
Laden’s guards, shoot and kill him at close range, and then take the
corpse back to Afghanistan.
这些海豹队员的目的地是阿伯塔巴德这座小城市中的一处房子，这座城市坐落在巴基
斯坦首都伊斯兰堡北面，距离巴基斯坦边境约120英里；在夏天的时候这里是一些家
庭躲避南方炎热的放松之地。这座城市在1835年被一位名叫James Abbott的英国陆军
少校建立，1947年巴基斯坦建国后这座城市成为了一所著名军事学院的所在地。据
CIA的搜集的情报，本拉登就躲藏在Bilal镇Kakul 路边一个一英亩大院子中房子的三
层，这个中产阶级庭院距军事学院入口还不到一英里的距离。如果一切按照计划发展
的话，海豹队员将在庭院中降落，压制本拉登的保镖并在近距离击毙本拉登，然后将
其尸体带回阿富汗。
The helicopters traversed Mohmand, one of Pakistan’s seven tribal
areas, skirted the north of Peshawar, and continued due east. The
commander of DEVGRU’s Red Squadron, whom I will call James, sat on the
floor, squeezed among ten other SEALs, Ahmed, and Cairo. (The names of all
the covert operators mentioned in this story have been changed.) James, a
broad-chested man in his late thirties, does not have the lithe swimmer’s
frame that one might expect of a SEAL—he is built more like a discus
thrower. That night, he wore a shirt and trousers in Desert Digital
Camouflage, and carried a silenced Sig Sauer P226 pistol, along with extra
ammunition; a CamelBak, for hydration; and gel shots, for endurance. He
held a short-barrel, silenced M4 rifle. (Others SEALs had chosen the
Heckler & Koch MP7.) A “blowout kit,” for treating field trauma, was
tucked into the small of James’s back. Stuffed into one of his pockets
was a laminated gridded map of the compound. In another pocket was a
booklet with photographs and physical descriptions of the people suspected
of being inside. He wore a noise-cancelling headset, which blocked out
nearly everything besides his heartbeat.
直升机穿过Mohmand继续向正东飞行，Mohmand位于Peshawar北部边缘，它是巴基斯坦
七个部落区域之一。被我称为James的DEVGRU Red Squadron指挥官坐在地板上，和其
他10个海豹队员、Ahmed和Cairo挤在一起。（本文中所有秘密行动人员的姓名均已被
更改。）宽胸脯的James大约年近四十了，他并没有一般人想象中海豹队员应该有的
游泳者的柔软体态，他的体型看起来更像是一个掷铁饼运动员。那天晚上，他穿着沙
漠数码迷彩衬衫和裤子，拿了把消声的Sig Sauer P226手枪，还带了些额外的弹药；
另外还有一个驼峰水袋和一些用于增加持久力的能量胶。他拿了把短枪管的消声M4步
枪。（其他海豹队员选择的是赫克勒-科赫MP7。）James背包里塞着用来处理战场创
伤的“止血器件”，兜里揣着一份透明薄膜覆盖的庭院方格坐标地图，另一个兜里则
是印着被怀疑在屋里的人的照片和体态描述的小册子。他戴着副抗噪耳机，这东西几
乎阻挡了除了他心跳外的所有声音。
During the ninety-minute helicopter flight, James and his teammates
rehearsed the operation in their heads. Since the autumn of 2001, they had
rotated through Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and the Horn of Africa, at a
brutal pace. At least three of the SEALs had participated in the sniper
operation off the coast of Somalia, in April, 2009, that freed Richard
Phillips, the captain of the Maersk Alabama, and left three pirates dead.
In October, 2010, a DEVGRU team attempted to rescue Linda Norgrove, a
Scottish aid worker who had been kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan by the
Taliban. During a raid of a Taliban hideout, a SEAL tossed a grenade at an
insurgent, not realizing that Norgrove was nearby. She died from the
blast. The mistake haunted the SEALs who had been involved; three of them
were subsequently expelled from DEVGRU.
在90分钟的直升机航程中，James和队友在头脑中排练了这次行动。自2001年秋，他
们在阿富汗，伊拉克，也门和非洲之角及其迅猛地来回辗转。这些海豹队员们至少其
中有三人2009年四月在索马里海岸外参与了解救阿拉巴马号货船船长理查德·菲利普
斯的狙击行动，行动中击毙了三个海盗。2010年10月，一个DEVGRU 小队试图营救
Linda Norgrove，这位苏格兰援助工作者被塔利班在阿富汗东部被绑架。在对塔利班
藏匿地的一次突袭中，一个海豹队员在没有发现Norgrove在附近的情况下向一个反抗
军成员投掷了一枚手榴弹。Norgrove因这个手榴弹的爆炸而丧生。这个过失困扰着涉
及此事的海豹队员，其中三个人相继被DEVGRU开除。
The Abbottabad raid was not DEVGRU’s maiden venture into Pakistan,
either. The team had surreptitiously entered the country on ten to twelve
previous occasions, according to a special-operations officer who is
deeply familiar with the bin Laden raid. Most of those missions were
forays into North and South Waziristan, where many military and
intelligence analysts had thought that bin Laden and other Al Qaeda
leaders were hiding. (Only one such operation—the September, 2008, raid
of Angoor Ada, a village in South Waziristan—has been widely reported.)
Abbottabad was, by far, the farthest that DEVGRU had ventured into
Pakistani territory. It also represented the team’s first serious attempt
since late 2001 at killing “Crankshaft”—the target name that the Joint
Special Operations Command, or JSOC, had given bin Laden. Since escaping
that winter during a battle in the Tora Bora region of eastern
Afghanistan, bin Laden had defied American efforts to trace him. Indeed,
it remains unclear how he ended up living in Abbottabad.
这次目标为Abbottabad的突袭也不是DEVGRU在巴基斯坦的初次行动。根据一位对搜捕
本拉登行动非常熟悉的特别行动官员称，该小队在此之前已在10到12次行动中秘密进
入该国。这些行动之中有许多在Waziristan北部和南部地区的突袭行动，许多军事和
情报分析人士此前认为本拉登和其他基地领导人躲藏在此地。（迄今只有2008年9月
份的一次突袭Angoor Ada的行动被广泛报道，Angoor Ada是Waziristan南部的村庄。
）Abbottabad是迄今为止DEVGRU进入巴基斯坦最深入的地方。这也是自2001年末该小
队首次对击毙“Crankshaft”的认真尝试，Crankshaft这个名字是联合特种作战司令
部（JSOC）给本拉登的代号。自从那年冬天在阿富汗东部Tora Bora地区的战斗中逃
脱之后，本拉登已挫败了美国追踪其行踪的努力。而现今仍不清楚他是如何脱离并生
活在Abbottabad的。
Forty-five minutes after the Black Hawks departed, four MH-47 Chinooks
launched from the same runway in Jalalabad. Two of them flew to the
border, staying on the Afghan side; the other two proceeded into Pakistan.
Deploying four Chinooks was a last-minute decision made after President
Barack Obama said he wanted to feel assured that the Americans could
“fight their way out of Pakistan.” Twenty-five additional SEALs from
DEVGRU, pulled from a squadron stationed in Afghanistan, sat in the
Chinooks that remained at the border; this “quick-reaction force” would
be called into action only if the mission went seriously wrong. The third
and fourth Chinooks were each outfitted with a pair of M134 Miniguns. They
followed the Black Hawks’ initial flight path but landed at a
predetermined point on a dry riverbed in a wide, unpopulated valley in
northwest Pakistan. The nearest house was half a mile away. On the ground,
the copters’ rotors were kept whirring while operatives monitored the
surrounding hills for encroaching Pakistani helicopters or fighter jets.
One of the Chinooks was carrying fuel bladders, in case the other aircraft
needed to refill their tanks.
黑鹰起飞45分钟后，四架MH-47支奴干从Jalalabad相同跑道起飞。其中两架飞往边境
并停在了阿富汗一侧；其余两架继续前行进入了巴基斯坦。在奥巴马总统表示他想确
保美国能“从巴基斯坦打出来出路”后，而后才临时决定派遣这四架支奴干。停在边
境的支奴干中有25名来自驻扎在阿富汗的连队中调出的DEVGRU海豹队员；如行动出现
严重失误，这支“快速反应力量”将立即被投入行动。第三和第四架支奴干均配备了
两门M134加特林机枪。他们使用了黑鹰的出事航线但降落在巴基斯坦西北部一处宽阔
的无人居住山谷的干河床上，这个地点是预先指定的。最近的房子在半英里外。在停
机地的直升机的转翼持续转动，行动人员在监控着周围的山峦是否出现巴基斯坦直升
机或战斗机。其中一架支奴干直升机携带了油箱以供其他飞机加油之需。
Meanwhile, the two Black Hawks were quickly approaching Abbottabad
from the northwest, hiding behind the mountains on the northernmost edge
of the city. Then the pilots banked right and went south along a ridge
that marks Abbottabad’s eastern perimeter. When those hills tapered off,
the pilots curled right again, toward the city center, and made their
final approach.
同时，两架黑鹰躲在该市最北边缘的山脉后面，从西北快速接近Abbottabad。飞行员
然后右转并沿标示着Abbottabad东部视野的一道山脊向南飞行。当这些山峦消失之后
，飞行员再次右转，向城市中心进行最后的接近。
During the next four minutes, the interior of the Black Hawks rustled
alive with the metallic cough of rounds being chambered. Mark, a master
chief petty officer and the ranking noncommissioned officer on the
operation, crouched on one knee beside the open door of the lead
helicopter. He and the eleven other SEALs on “helo one,” who were
wearing gloves and had on night-vision goggles, were preparing to fast-
rope into bin Laden’s yard. They waited for the crew chief to give the
signal to throw the rope. But, as the pilot passed over the compound,
pulled into a high hover, and began lowering the aircraft, he felt the
Black Hawk getting away from him. He sensed that they were going to crash.
在接下来的四分钟内，黑鹰机舱内部充满了枪膛里子弹上膛的机械声响。一级军士长
、此次任务未授衔负责人Mark单膝跪在领头直升机打开的门侧。“1号机上”，他和
其他11个海豹戴着手套和夜视镜，正预备通过速降绳降落到本拉登的庭院里。他们等
待着乘务长发出抛下绳索的信号。但当飞行员飞越庭院的时候进入了较高的悬停并开
始将飞机降落的时候，他感觉黑鹰正离开他。他意识到他们正在坠落。
One month before the 2008 Presidential election, Obama, then a senator
from Illinois, squared off in a debate against John McCain in an arena at
Belmont University, in Nashville. A woman in the audience asked Obama if
he would be willing to pursue Al Qaeda leaders inside Pakistan, even if
that meant invading an ally nation. He replied, “If we have Osama bin
Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable, or unwilling,
to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them
out. We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our
biggest national-security priority.” McCain, who often criticized Obama
for his na?veté on foreign-policy matters, characterized the promise as
foolish, saying, “I’m not going to telegraph my punches.”
在2008年总统大选前一个月，奥巴马以及后来一个伊利诺斯州参议员在纳什维尔贝尔
盟大学的会场上对John McCain摆下了争论姿态。一位女性观众问奥巴马他是否会在
巴基斯坦境内追捕本拉登，即使那意味着对一个盟国的侵略。他回答说：“如果我们
发现了本拉登的行踪而巴基斯坦政府无能为力或不愿作为的话，那就排除他们，我认
为我们不得不做出行动并将其排除在外。我们将杀死本拉登。我们将摧毁基地组织。
这是我们国家防务的最高优先权。”经常指责奥巴马的外交政策幼稚的McCain用愚蠢
来评价这个承诺，他声称，“我不会先把自己的打击行动宣传出来。”
Four months after Obama entered the White House, Leon Panetta, the
director of the C.I.A., briefed the President on the agency’s latest
programs and initiatives for tracking bin Laden. Obama was unimpressed. In
June, 2009, he drafted a memo instructing Panetta to create a “detailed
operation plan” for finding the Al Qaeda leader and to “ensure that we
have expended every effort.” Most notably, the President intensified the
C.I.A.’s classified drone program; there were more missile strikes inside
Pakistan during Obama’s first year in office than in George W. Bush’s
eight. The terrorists swiftly registered the impact: that July, CBS
reported that a recent Al Qaeda communiqué had referred to “brave
commanders” who had been “snatched away” and to “so many hidden homes
[which] have been levelled.” The document blamed the “very grave”
situation on spies who had “spread throughout the land like locusts.”
Nevertheless, bin Laden’s trail remained cold.
在奥巴马入主白宫四个月后，CIA局长Leon Panetta向他通报了该机构的最新项目和
追踪本拉登的初步行动。奥巴马对此印象平平。2009年6月，他在一份备忘录中命令
Panetta制定一份“具体的行动计划”以搜索基地领导人和“确保我们已竭尽所能”
。最值得注意的是，奥巴马总统强化了CIA机密的无人机项目；在奥巴马执政的头一
年内巴基斯坦的导弹袭击数量比布什执政的八年中发生的都多。恐怖分子很快对行动
的效果做出了回应：7月的时候CBS报道称最近的基地声明涉及了曾被“抓走”的“勇
敢的指挥官”和“许多隐秘家园被夷平”。该文件指责那些“想蝗虫一样遍布这块土
地的探子”导致了“严峻的”形式。但本拉登的踪迹依然未知。
In August, 2010, Panetta returned to the White House with better news.
C.I.A. analysts believed that they had pinpointed bin Laden’s courier, a
man in his early thirties named Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Kuwaiti drove a
white S.U.V. whose spare-tire cover was emblazoned with an image of a
white rhino. The C.I.A. began tracking the vehicle. One day, a satellite
captured images of the S.U.V. pulling into a large concrete compound in
Abbottabad. Agents, determining that Kuwaiti was living there, used aerial surveillance to keep watch on the compound, which consisted of a three-
story main house, a guesthouse, and a few outbuildings. They observed that
residents of the compound burned their trash, instead of putting it out
for collection, and concluded that the compound lacked a phone or an
Internet connection. Kuwaiti and his brother came and went, but another
man, living on the third floor, never left. When this third individual did
venture outside, he stayed behind the compound’s walls. Some analysts
speculated that the third man was bin Laden, and the agency dubbed him the
Pacer.
2010年8月，Panetta返回白宫的时候带去了好消息。CIA分析人士相信他们确认了本
拉登的信使，这个30岁多点的男人名叫Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti。Kuwaiti开着一辆白
色的SUV，车备胎盖上装饰着白色犀牛形象。CIA开始对这辆车进行追踪。一天，卫星
捕捉到了这辆SUV驶入Abbottabad一处很大的水泥院子的图片。断定Kuwaiti就居住在
此的特工们使用空中侦察来监视这座由三层的主房，一座客房和一些外屋组成的院子
。特工们观察到房子的居住者们焚烧垃圾而不是留给垃圾收集处理，他们得出了这座
房子缺少电话或网络的结论。Kuwaiti和他的兄弟进进出出，但三楼的另一个男人却
从不离开。当这第三个人即使偶尔出来也没有出过庭院。一些分析人士推测这第三个
男人就是本拉登，CIA将其称为散步者。
Obama, though excited, was not yet prepared to order military action.
John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, told me that the
President’s advisers began an “interrogation of the data, to see if, by
that interrogation, you’re going to disprove the theory that bin Laden
was there.” The C.I.A. intensified its intelligence-collection efforts,
and, according to a recent report in the Guardian, a physician working for
the agency conducted an immunization drive in Abbottabad, in the hope of
acquiring DNA samples from bin Laden’s children. (No one in the compound
ultimately received any immunizations.)
尽管激动，奥巴马并没有准备命令采取军事行动。奥巴马的反恐顾问John Brennan告
诉我说总统的顾问开始进行“对数据的核实以期通过核实来验证本拉登住地这个信息
是否确实。”CIA加强了其情报搜集措施，据Guardian最近报道，一位为该机构工作
的医生在Abbottabad进行了一次免疫接种活动以期获得本拉登孩子的DNA样本。（庭
院中的人最终没有接受任何的免疫接种。）
In late 2010, Obama ordered Panetta to begin exploring options for a
military strike on the compound. Panetta contacted Vice-Admiral Bill
McRaven, the SEAL in charge of JSOC. Traditionally, the Army has dominated
the special-operations community, but in recent years the SEALs have
become a more prominent presence; McRaven’s boss at the time of the raid,
Eric Olson—the head of Special Operations Command, or SOCOM—is a Navy
admiral who used to be a commander of DEVGRU. In January, 2011, McRaven
asked a JSOC official named Brian, who had previously been a DEVGRU deputy
commander, to present a raid plan. The next month, Brian, who has the
all-American look of a high-school quarterback, moved into an unmarked
office on the first floor of the C.I.A.’s printing plant, in Langley,
Virginia. Brian covered the walls of the office with topographical maps
and satellite images of the Abbottabad compound. He and half a dozen JSOC
officers were formally attached to the Pakistan/Afghanistan department of
the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center, but in practice they operated on
their own. A senior counterterrorism official who visited the JSOC redoubt
described it as an enclave of unusual secrecy and discretion. “Everything
they were working on was closely held,” the official said.
2010年末，奥巴马命令Panetta开始探索一种对此庭院采取军事行动的替代方案。
Panetta与海军中将Bill McRaven进行了接触，而海豹突击队则受JSOC的管理。军队
传统上控制着特种行动群体，但近年来海豹已变得更为显著；在突袭期间McRaven的
上司——特种作战司令部（SOCOM）领导人Eric Olson是一位曾担任DEVGRU指挥官的
海军上将。2011年1月，McRaven要求曾担任DEVGRU副指挥官的JSOC官员Brian递交一
份突袭计划。一个月后，长得像典型美国高校四分卫模样的Brian搬进了位于维吉尼
亚州兰勒的CIA印刷厂一楼一间没有标识的办公室。Brian办公室的墙上挂着
Abbottabad庭院的地形图和卫星图像。他和半打的JSOC官员正式加入了CIA反恐中心
巴基斯坦/阿富汗部门，但在行动上他们独立进行。一位曾参观过JSOC redoubt的高
级反恐官员将其描述为不寻常的具有酌情决定权的秘密飞地。“他们的每一件事都很
秘密，”这位官员表示。
The relationship between special-operations units and the C.I.A. dates
back to the Vietnam War. But the line between the two communities has
increasingly blurred as C.I.A. officers and military personnel have
encountered one another on multiple tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. “These
people grew up together,” a senior Defense Department official told me.
“We are in each other’s systems, we speak each other’s languages.”
(Exemplifying this trend, General David H. Petraeus, the former commanding
general in Iraq and Afghanistan, is now the incoming head of the C.I.A.,
and Panetta has taken over the Department of Defense.) The bin Laden
mission—plotted at C.I.A. headquarters and authorized under C.I.A. legal
statutes but conducted by Navy DEVGRU operators—brought the co?peration
between the agency and the Pentagon to an even higher level. John Radsan,
a former assistant general counsel at the C.I.A., said that the Abbottabad
raid amounted to “a complete incorporation of JSOC into a C.I.A.
operation.”
特种行动单位和CIA的关系可以追溯到越南战争时期。但当CIA和军事人员在伊拉克和
阿富汗的多重化任务中碰头模糊了两个团体之间的区别。“这些人在一起长大。”一
位国防部高级官员告诉我。“我们在彼此的体系中，我们讲彼此的语言。”（为了例
示这种趋势，伊拉克和阿富汗前司令官David H. Petraeus将军现在是CIA的新领导人
，而Panetta则接管了国防部）此次本拉登任务在CIA总部进行策划并由CIA法规进行
授权，海军DEVGRU人员则负责执行，这将CIA和五角大楼的合作提升到了一个更高的
等级。CIA前助理总顾问John Radsan称Abbottabad突袭把“JSOC彻底地纳入了CIA的
行动中”。
On March 14th, Obama called his national-security advisers into the
White House Situation Room and reviewed a spreadsheet listing possible
courses of action against the Abbottabad compound. Most were variations of
either a JSOC raid or an airstrike. Some versions included co?perating
with the Pakistani military; some did not. Obama decided against informing
or working with Pakistan. “There was a real lack of confidence that the
Pakistanis could keep this secret for more than a nanosecond,” a senior
adviser to the President told me. At the end of the meeting, Obama
instructed McRaven to proceed with planning the raid.
3月14日，奥巴马在白宫特情室传见了国家安全顾问并检查了列有针对Abbottabad庭
院的所能采取的军事行动的电子表格。其中大多数是使用JSOC突袭或空袭的不同版本
。一些行动则将与巴基斯坦军事力量的合作包括在内；一些则没有。奥巴马决定不通
知巴基斯坦也不同其合作。“很难相信巴基斯坦能将这个秘密保持超过一纳秒，”一
个总统的高级顾问这样告诉我。在这次会议的结束时，奥巴马命令McRaven继续策划
这次突袭。Brian invited James, the commander of DEVGRU’s Red Squadron, and
Mark, the master chief petty officer, to join him at C.I.A. headquarters.
They spent the next two and a half weeks considering ways to get inside
bin Laden’s house. One option entailed flying helicopters to a spot
outside Abbottabad and letting the team sneak into the city on foot. The
risk of detection was high, however, and the SEALs would be tired by a
long run to the compound. The planners had contemplated tunnelling in—or,
at least, the possibility that bin Laden might tunnel out. But images
provided by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency showed that there
was standing water in the vicinity, suggesting that the compound sat in a
flood basin. The water table was probably just below the surface, making
tunnels highly unlikely. Eventually, the planners agreed that it made the
most sense to fly directly into the compound. “Special operations is
about doing what’s not expected, and probably the least expected thing
here was that a helicopter would come in, drop guys on the roof, and land
in the yard,” the special-operations officer said.
Brian邀请了DEVGRU Red Squadron的指挥官James以及一级士官长Mark来和他一起在
CIA总部进行工作。他们在下两个半周内考虑了进入本拉登住宅的各种方法。一个选
项是把直升机停在Abbottabad外并让队员们步行潜入这座城市。这种做法很容易被发
现，而且队员们可能因前往目的庭院的长途行走而疲倦。这些策划者们曾设想到挖隧
道进入——或者至少说考虑到本拉登利用隧道逃脱的可能性。但国家地理空间情报局
的图像显示在邻近地区有积水存在，这表明庭院坐落在洪泛区之中。地下水位可能仅
在地面之下，这使得隧道变得十分不可行。策划者最终认为直接飞进庭院是最合理的
方法。“特种作战就是要出其不意，这里最出其不意的事情可能就是一架直升机飞进
来把作战人员投放在屋顶上并降落到庭院里，”这位特种作战官员表示。
On March 29th, McRaven brought the plan to Obama. The President’s
military advisers were divided. Some supported a raid, some an airstrike,
and others wanted to hold off until the intelligence improved. Robert
Gates, the Secretary of Defense, was one of the most outspoken opponents
of a helicopter assault. Gates reminded his colleagues that he had been in
the Situation Room of the Carter White House when military officials
presented Eagle Claw—the 1980 Delta Force operation that aimed at
rescuing American hostages in Tehran but resulted in a disastrous
collision in the Iranian desert, killing eight American soldiers. “They
said that was a pretty good idea, too,” Gates warned. He and General
James Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, favored an
airstrike by B-2 Spirit bombers. That option would avoid the risk of
having American boots on the ground in Pakistan. But the Air Force then
calculated that a payload of thirty-two smart bombs, each weighing two
thousand pounds, would be required to penetrate thirty feet below ground,
insuring that any bunkers would collapse. “That much ordnance going off
would be the equivalent of an earthquake,” Cartwright told me. The
prospect of flattening a Pakistani city made Obama pause. He shelved the
B-2 option and directed McRaven to start rehearsing the raid.
3月39日，McRaven将此计划递交给奥巴马。总统的军事顾问们对此意见不一。一些人
支持这个突袭，一些人支持空袭，其他的则建议推迟到情报更完善之后。国防部长
Robert Gates是用直升机袭击的最坦率反对意见之一。Gates 提醒其同事在卡特总统
时期军事官员提交鹰爪计划的时候他就在特情室，鹰爪计划是20世纪80年代三角洲部
队旨在营救位于德黑兰的美国人质的行动，但那次行动在伊朗沙漠中产生了一次灾难
性的冲突，8名美国士兵因此而丧生。“他们也说那是个很不错的主意，” Gates警
告说。他和参谋长联系会议副主席James Cartwright将军倾向于使用B-2隐形轰炸机
进行空袭。这个选择可能会避免掉美国士兵直接踏入巴基斯坦的风险。但空军的计算
表明，为了确保摧毁地下工事，共需要32枚激光制导炸弹的有效负荷来对地下30英尺
的深度进行穿透。一枚激光制导炸弹的重量为2000磅。“那么多军火爆炸的效果可能
就等量于一次地震了。” Cartwright告诉我。夷平一座巴基斯坦城市的后果让奥巴
马踌躇了。他搁置了B-2计划并指示McRaven开始排练突袭。
3Brian, James, and Mark selected a team of two dozen SEALs from Red
Squadron and told them to report to a densely forested site in North
Carolina for a training exercise on April 10th. (Red Squadron is one of
four squadrons in DEVGRU, which has about three hundred operators in all.)
None of the SEALs, besides James and Mark, were aware of the C.I.A.
intelligence on bin Laden’s compound until a lieutenant commander walked
into an office at the site. He found a two-star Army general from JSOC
headquarters seated at a conference table with Brian, James, Mark, and
several analysts from the C.I.A. This obviously wasn’t a training
exercise. The lieutenant commander was promptly “read in.” A replica of
the compound had been built at the site, with walls and chain-link fencing
marking the layout of the compound. The team spent the next five days
practicing maneuvers.
Brian, James, 和Mark从Red Squadron选择了24名海豹队员组成了一支队伍并告诉他
们4月10号前往北卡罗莱纳的一个森林浓密的地方报道参加训练。(Red Squadron 是
DEVGRU四个连队中的一个，一共约有300人。)除了James and Mark之外，其他海豹队
员并不知道关于本拉登住宅的CIA情报，直到一个海军少校走进了该地的一个办公室
。在这里他发现了一个来自JSOC总部的两星将军和Brian, James, Mark以及一些来自
CIA的分析人士坐在会议桌边。这明显不是训练。这个海军少校迅速地调整了状态。
在此地，本拉登的庭院被复制了一个，墙和链围标示这这个庭院的布局。这个小队用
了接下来5天的时间进行演习。
On April 18th, the DEVGRU squad flew to Nevada for another week of
rehearsals. The practice site was a large government-owned stretch of
desert with an elevation equivalent to the area surrounding Abbottabad. An
extant building served as bin Laden’s house. Aircrews plotted out a path
that paralleled the flight from Jalalabad to Abbottabad. Each night after
sundown, drills commenced. Twelve SEALs, including Mark, boarded helo one.
Eleven SEALs, Ahmed, and Cairo boarded helo two. The pilots flew in the
dark, arrived at the simulated compound, and settled into a hover while
the SEALs fast-roped down. Not everyone on the team was accustomed to
helicopter assaults. Ahmed had been pulled from a desk job for the mission
and had never descended a fast rope. He quickly learned the technique.
4月18日，DEVGRU小队飞往内华达进行另外一周的训练。此训练地点是一片很大
的国有沙漠，其海拔与Abbottabad周边地区相同。当地一所房子被用来扮演成本拉登
的房子。机组成员绘制出从Jalalabad到Abbottabad航线的相似路线。训练在每个日
落后的夜晚进行。包括Mark在内的12名海豹队员登上“1号机”。Ahmed和Cairo和11
名海豹队员乘坐“2号机”。飞行员在黑暗条件下飞行并到达模拟环境，在海豹队员
用速降绳降落的时候飞机处于悬停状态。并不是队伍中的所有人都习惯直升机突袭。
Ahmed是被从办公室中抽调出来参加这次任务的，他以前从未使用过速降绳。他很快
地学会了这种技术。
The assault plan was now honed. Helo one was to hover over the yard,
drop two fast ropes, and let all twelve SEALs slide down into the yard.
Helo two would fly to the northeast corner of the compound and let out
Ahmed, Cairo, and four SEALs, who would monitor the perimeter of the
building. The copter would then hover over the house, and James and the
remaining six SEALs would shimmy down to the roof. As long as everything
was cordial, Ahmed would hold curious neighbors at bay. The SEALs and the
dog could assist more aggressively, if needed. Then, if bin Laden was
proving difficult to find, Cairo could be sent into the house to search
for false walls or hidden doors. “This wasn’t a hard op,” the special-
operations officer told me. “It would be like hitting a target in McLean
”—the upscale Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C.
这项突袭计划正在被磨合。“1号机”按计划将悬停在庭院上空并垂下两根速降绳，
12名海豹队员顺着绳子降落在庭院中。2号机将飞往庭院的东北角，Ahmed, Cairo和
四名海豹队员从机舱中出来。他们将对庭院的周边进行监控。然后这架飞机将在房子
上空悬停，James和剩下的6个海豹队员将降落到房顶。如果一切顺利的话，Ahmed将
阻止好奇的邻居接近。如果需要的话，这些海豹队员将提供更有进攻性的协助。然后
，如很难找到本拉登的话，Cairo将被放进房子里搜寻假墙和暗门。“这个行动并不
困难，”该特种作战官员告诉我。“这就像打击位于McLean的目标差不多”。McLean
是华盛顿特区的弗吉尼亚高档郊区。
A planeload of guests arrived on the night of April 21st. Admiral Mike
Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, along with Olson and McRaven,
sat with C.I.A. personnel in a hangar as Brian, James, Mark, and the
pilots presented a brief on the raid, which had been named Operation
Neptune’s Spear. Despite JSOC’s lead role in Neptune’s Spear, the
mission officially remained a C.I.A. covert operation. The covert approach
allowed the White House to hide its involvement, if necessary. As the
counterterrorism official put it recently, “If you land and everybody is
out on a milk run, then you get the hell out and no one knows.” After
describing the operation, the briefers fielded questions: What if a mob
surrounded the compound? Were the SEALs prepared to shoot civilians?
Olson, who received the Silver Star for valor during the 1993 “Black Hawk
Down” episode, in Mogadishu, Somalia, worried that it could be
politically catastrophic if a U.S. helicopter were shot down inside
Pakistani territory. After an hour or so of questioning, the senior
officers and intelligence analysts returned to Washington. Two days later,
the SEALs flew back to Dam Neck, their base in Virginia.
4月21日晚，一飞机的人来到了这里。参谋长联系会议主席、海军上将Mike Mullen，
Olson和McRaven同CIA的人一起坐在一个飞机库里，他们听取了Brian, James, Mark
和飞行员的简要汇报。这次突袭行动代号为“三叉戟”。JSOC在三叉戟行动中担任主
角，但这次行动在官方层面依然是CIA的秘密行动。如果必要的话，这个秘密措施可
以隐蔽掉白宫的参与。如反恐官员最近表示的那样，“如果降落并发现这不过像一趟
啥事没有的勤务飞行，然后就可以偷偷撤回来，没有人会知道。”在描述了此次行动
之后，汇报者提出了问题：“如果庭院被人群包围怎么办？海豹队员是否要做好向平
民射击的准备？”因在1993年索马里摩加迪沙“黑鹰坠落”事件中表现英勇而获得银
星勋章的Olson担心如果美国直升机在巴基斯坦境内被击落的话可能会带来灾难性的
政治后果。在大约1个小时的问答之后，高级官员和情报分析人士返回华盛顿。两天
后，这些海豹队员飞回了位于他们弗吉尼亚的Dam Neck基地。
On the night of Tuesday, April 26th, the SEAL team boarded a Boeing
C-17 Globemaster at Naval Air Station Oceana, a few miles from Dam Neck.
After a refuelling stop at Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, the C-17
continued to Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul. The SEALs spent a night in
Bagram and moved to Jalalabad on Wednesday.
4月26日，星期二，晚上，海豹小组在距Dam Neck数英里外的海军航空站Oceana登上
了一架波音C-17环球霸王运输机。在德国Ramstein空军基地进行了加油暂停之后，这
架C-17继续飞往位于喀布尔北部的Bagram空军基地。这些海豹队员在Bagram停了一夜
然后周三的时候抵达Jalalabad。
That day in Washington, Panetta convened more than a dozen senior
C.I.A. officials and analysts for a final preparatory meeting. Panetta
asked the participants, one by one, to declare how confident they were
that bin Laden was inside the Abbottabad compound. The counterterrorism
official told me that the percentages “ranged from forty per cent to
ninety or ninety-five per cent,” and added, “This was a circumstantial
case.”
在华盛顿，Panetta当天召集了超过12名CIA高级官员和分析人士来进行最终的筹备会
议。Panetta逐一要求与会者陈述其如何确信本拉登就在Abbottabad那个庭院中。反
恐官员告诉我其百分比“范围为从40%到90%或95%，”并补充说，“这种情况很不常
见”。
Panetta was mindful of the analysts’ doubts, but he believed that the
intelligence was better than anything that the C.I.A. had gathered on bin
Laden since his flight from Tora Bora. Late on Thursday afternoon, Panetta
and the rest of the national-security team met with the President. For the
next few nights, there would be virtually no moonlight over Abbottabad—
the ideal condition for a raid. After that, it would be another month
until the lunar cycle was in its darkest phase. Several analysts from the
National Counterterrorism Center were invited to critique the C.I.A.’s
analysis; their confidence in the intelligence ranged between forty and
sixty per cent. The center’s director, Michael Leiter, said that it would
be preferable to wait for stronger confirmation of bin Laden’s presence
in Abbottabad. Yet, as Ben Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser, put
it to me recently, the longer things dragged on, the greater the risk of a
leak, “which would have upended the thing.” Obama adjourned the meeting
just after 7 P.M. and said that he would sleep on it.
Panetta注意到了分析人士的疑虑，但他相信这个情报要好于自从Tora Bora后CIA搜
集到有关本拉登的所有信息。星期四下午较晚的时候，Panetta和其他国家防务小组
的人员同总统进行了会面。后继的天里，Abbottabad晚上实际上都没有月亮，这是进
行突袭的理想条件。在此之后，要等上一个月的时间月亮才会重新处于其最黯淡的运
行周期状态中。一些国家反恐中心的分析人士受邀对CIA分析进行评价；他们对此情
报的信任百分度在40到60之间。该中心领导人Michael Leiter称最好等到本拉登在
Abbottabad这个信息被更有效地确认之后再进行行动。但当副国家安全顾问Ben
Rhodes最近这样告诉我，事情拖得越久，泄露的风险越大，“这可能会把这事给弄坏
了”。下午7点后奥巴马停止了这次会议，表示他将明天再进行处理。
The next morning, the President met in the Map Room with Tom Donilon,
his national-security adviser, Denis McDonough, a deputy adviser, and
Brennan. Obama had decided to go with a DEVGRU assault, with McRaven
choosing the night. It was too late for a Friday attack, and on Saturday
there was excessive cloud cover. On Saturday afternoon, McRaven and Obama
spoke on the phone, and McRaven said that the raid would occur on Sunday
night. “Godspeed to you and your forces,” Obama told him. “Please pass
on to them my personal thanks for their service and the message that I
personally will be following this mission very closely.”
第二天早上，总统在地图室会见了其国防顾问Tom Donilon、副顾问Denis McDonough
和Brennan。奥巴马决定采用DEVGRU突袭的计划，并同McRaven选择了夜间突袭的日期
。如果是周五的话那就太晚了，而且当地周六会有大量云层覆盖。在周六下午，
McRaven和奥巴马通了电话，McRaven称这次突袭将在周日晚上进行。“祝你们一帆风
顺，”奥巴马说，“请向他们转达我个人对他们的服务的感谢和我个人将会密切关注
这次任务。”
On the morning of Sunday, May 1st, White House officials cancelled
scheduled visits, ordered sandwich platters from Costco, and transformed
the Situation Room into a war room. At eleven o’clock, Obama’s top
advisers began gathering around a large conference table. A video link
connected them to Panetta, at C.I.A. headquarters, and McRaven, in
Afghanistan. (There were at least two other command centers, one inside
the Pentagon and one inside the American Embassy in Islamabad.)
5月1日（周日）早上，白宫官员取消了预定的访问并从Costco订了三明治拼盘，他们
把特请室布置了一个作战室。11点钟，奥巴马的首席顾问们开始汇聚在一张大会议桌
前。通过视频他与CIA总部的Panetta和阿富汗的McRaven进行了连接。（当时至少还
有另外两个指挥中心，一个在五角大楼，另一个伊斯兰堡的美国大使馆。）
Getting Bin Laden - What happened that night in Abbottabad.
击毙本拉登实录 - 阿伯塔巴德之夜【文章转自：http://article.yeeyan.org/view/222579/227189
】
by Nicholas Schmidle
Shortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black
Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern
Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama
bin Laden. Inside the aircraft were twenty-three Navy SEALs from Team Six,
which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group,
or DEVGRU. A Pakistani-American translator, whom I will call Ahmed, and a
dog named Cairo—a Belgian Malinois—were also aboard. It was a moonless
evening, and the helicopters’ pilots, wearing night-vision goggles, flew
without lights over mountains that straddle the border with Pakistan.
Radio communications were kept to a minimum, and an eerie calm settled
inside the aircraft.
五月一日晚十一点刚过不久，两架MH-60黑鹰直升机从阿富汗东部的Jalalabad空军基
地起飞，这两架飞机担负着前往巴基斯坦击毙本拉登的秘密任务。机舱里共有26位来
自海军海豹突击队6队的队员。海豹突击队6队的正式名称是海军特战发展群或DEVGRU
。另外机舱里还有一个被我称为Ahmed的巴基斯坦语翻译和一条名叫Cairo的比利时玛
利诺犬。这是个没有月亮的晚上，戴着夜视镜的直升机飞行员驾驶着没有开灯的飞机
在坐落在巴基斯坦边境的群山上空飞行。无线电通讯被保持到最低限度，机舱内弥漫
着一种奇异可怖的寂静。
Fifteen minutes later, the helicopters ducked into an alpine valley
and slipped, undetected, into Pakistani airspace. For more than sixty
years, Pakistan’s military has maintained a state of high alert against
its eastern neighbor, India. Because of this obsession, Pakistan’s
“principal air defenses are all pointing east,” Shuja Nawaz, an expert
on the Pakistani Army and the author of “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its
Army, and the Wars Within,” told me. Senior defense and Administration
officials concur with this assessment, but a Pakistani senior military
official, whom I reached at his office, in Rawalpindi, disagreed. “No one
leaves their borders unattended,” he said. Though he declined to
elaborate on the location or orientation of Pakistan’s radars—“It’s
not where the radars are or aren’t”—he said that the American
infiltration was the result of “technological gaps we have vis-à-vis the
U.S.” The Black Hawks, each of which had two pilots and a crewman from
the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, or the Night Stalkers, had
been modified to mask heat, noise, and movement; the copters’ exteriors
had sharp, flat angles and were covered with radar-dampening “skin.”
十五分钟后，直升机下降入一个高山河谷，在没有被发现的情况下潜入了巴基斯坦领
空。巴基斯坦在超过六十年的时间里一直对其东部邻居印度保持了高度警惕的状态，
因为这个原因，巴基斯坦的“主要防空力量都是指向东面的”，这是名叫苏加 纳瓦
斯的巴基斯坦部队专家告诉我的，他是《双剑交锋：巴基斯坦与军队以及内部战争》
的作者。高级防务和行政官员对此评估表示同意。但一位我曾到过其办公室的拉瓦尔
品第官员并不同意这一点。“没有人会对其边境不加关注，”他声称。尽管他拒绝提
供巴基斯坦雷达的位置或方位的详细信息——“不是雷达在不在某个地方”——他表
示美国的渗入是”我们同美国面对时的技术差距”所产生的结果。两架黑鹰除了飞行
员外还各配置了一个机组成员，这些人都来自绰号为“夜行者”的第160特种作战航
空团。这两架黑鹰都做了修改以屏蔽热量、噪音和飞行动作；飞机有着尖锐、扁平的
角，并且覆盖了雷达屏蔽“皮肤”。
The SEALs’ destination was a house in the small city of Abbottabad,
which is about a hundred and twenty miles across the Pakistan border.
Situated north of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, Abbottabad is in the
foothills of the Pir Panjal Range, and is popular in the summertime with
families seeking relief from the blistering heat farther south. Founded in
1853 by a British major named James Abbott, the city became the home of a
prestigious military academy after the creation of Pakistan, in 1947.
According to information gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency, bin
Laden was holed up on the third floor of a house in a one-acre compound
just off Kakul Road in Bilal Town, a middle-class neighborhood less than a
mile from the entrance to the academy. If all went according to plan, the
SEALs would drop from the helicopters into the compound, overpower bin
Laden’s guards, shoot and kill him at close range, and then take the
corpse back to Afghanistan.
这些海豹队员的目的地是阿伯塔巴德这座小城市中的一处房子，这座城市坐落在巴基
斯坦首都伊斯兰堡北面，距离巴基斯坦边境约120英里；在夏天的时候这里是一些家
庭躲避南方炎热的放松之地。这座城市在1835年被一位名叫James Abbott的英国陆军
少校建立，1947年巴基斯坦建国后这座城市成为了一所著名军事学院的所在地。据
CIA的搜集的情报，本拉登就躲藏在Bilal镇Kakul 路边一个一英亩大院子中房子的三
层，这个中产阶级庭院距军事学院入口还不到一英里的距离。如果一切按照计划发展
的话，海豹队员将在庭院中降落，压制本拉登的保镖并在近距离击毙本拉登，然后将
其尸体带回阿富汗。
The helicopters traversed Mohmand, one of Pakistan’s seven tribal
areas, skirted the north of Peshawar, and continued due east. The
commander of DEVGRU’s Red Squadron, whom I will call James, sat on the
floor, squeezed among ten other SEALs, Ahmed, and Cairo. (The names of all
the covert operators mentioned in this story have been changed.) James, a
broad-chested man in his late thirties, does not have the lithe swimmer’s
frame that one might expect of a SEAL—he is built more like a discus
thrower. That night, he wore a shirt and trousers in Desert Digital
Camouflage, and carried a silenced Sig Sauer P226 pistol, along with extra
ammunition; a CamelBak, for hydration; and gel shots, for endurance. He
held a short-barrel, silenced M4 rifle. (Others SEALs had chosen the
Heckler & Koch MP7.) A “blowout kit,” for treating field trauma, was
tucked into the small of James’s back. Stuffed into one of his pockets
was a laminated gridded map of the compound. In another pocket was a
booklet with photographs and physical descriptions of the people suspected
of being inside. He wore a noise-cancelling headset, which blocked out
nearly everything besides his heartbeat.
直升机穿过Mohmand继续向正东飞行，Mohmand位于Peshawar北部边缘，它是巴基斯坦
七个部落区域之一。被我称为James的DEVGRU Red Squadron指挥官坐在地板上，和其
他10个海豹队员、Ahmed和Cairo挤在一起。（本文中所有秘密行动人员的姓名均已被
更改。）宽胸脯的James大约年近四十了，他并没有一般人想象中海豹队员应该有的
游泳者的柔软体态，他的体型看起来更像是一个掷铁饼运动员。那天晚上，他穿着沙
漠数码迷彩衬衫和裤子，拿了把消声的Sig Sauer P226手枪，还带了些额外的弹药；
另外还有一个驼峰水袋和一些用于增加持久力的能量胶。他拿了把短枪管的消声M4步
枪。（其他海豹队员选择的是赫克勒-科赫MP7。）James背包里塞着用来处理战场创
伤的“止血器件”，兜里揣着一份透明薄膜覆盖的庭院方格坐标地图，另一个兜里则
是印着被怀疑在屋里的人的照片和体态描述的小册子。他戴着副抗噪耳机，这东西几
乎阻挡了除了他心跳外的所有声音。
During the ninety-minute helicopter flight, James and his teammates
rehearsed the operation in their heads. Since the autumn of 2001, they had
rotated through Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and the Horn of Africa, at a
brutal pace. At least three of the SEALs had participated in the sniper
operation off the coast of Somalia, in April, 2009, that freed Richard
Phillips, the captain of the Maersk Alabama, and left three pirates dead.
In October, 2010, a DEVGRU team attempted to rescue Linda Norgrove, a
Scottish aid worker who had been kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan by the
Taliban. During a raid of a Taliban hideout, a SEAL tossed a grenade at an
insurgent, not realizing that Norgrove was nearby. She died from the
blast. The mistake haunted the SEALs who had been involved; three of them
were subsequently expelled from DEVGRU.
在90分钟的直升机航程中，James和队友在头脑中排练了这次行动。自2001年秋，他
们在阿富汗，伊拉克，也门和非洲之角及其迅猛地来回辗转。这些海豹队员们至少其
中有三人2009年四月在索马里海岸外参与了解救阿拉巴马号货船船长理查德·菲利普
斯的狙击行动，行动中击毙了三个海盗。2010年10月，一个DEVGRU 小队试图营救
Linda Norgrove，这位苏格兰援助工作者被塔利班在阿富汗东部被绑架。在对塔利班
藏匿地的一次突袭中，一个海豹队员在没有发现Norgrove在附近的情况下向一个反抗
军成员投掷了一枚手榴弹。Norgrove因这个手榴弹的爆炸而丧生。这个过失困扰着涉
及此事的海豹队员，其中三个人相继被DEVGRU开除。
The Abbottabad raid was not DEVGRU’s maiden venture into Pakistan,
either. The team had surreptitiously entered the country on ten to twelve
previous occasions, according to a special-operations officer who is
deeply familiar with the bin Laden raid. Most of those missions were
forays into North and South Waziristan, where many military and
intelligence analysts had thought that bin Laden and other Al Qaeda
leaders were hiding. (Only one such operation—the September, 2008, raid
of Angoor Ada, a village in South Waziristan—has been widely reported.)
Abbottabad was, by far, the farthest that DEVGRU had ventured into
Pakistani territory. It also represented the team’s first serious attempt
since late 2001 at killing “Crankshaft”—the target name that the Joint
Special Operations Command, or JSOC, had given bin Laden. Since escaping
that winter during a battle in the Tora Bora region of eastern
Afghanistan, bin Laden had defied American efforts to trace him. Indeed,
it remains unclear how he ended up living in Abbottabad.
这次目标为Abbottabad的突袭也不是DEVGRU在巴基斯坦的初次行动。根据一位对搜捕
本拉登行动非常熟悉的特别行动官员称，该小队在此之前已在10到12次行动中秘密进
入该国。这些行动之中有许多在Waziristan北部和南部地区的突袭行动，许多军事和
情报分析人士此前认为本拉登和其他基地领导人躲藏在此地。（迄今只有2008年9月
份的一次突袭Angoor Ada的行动被广泛报道，Angoor Ada是Waziristan南部的村庄。
）Abbottabad是迄今为止DEVGRU进入巴基斯坦最深入的地方。这也是自2001年末该小
队首次对击毙“Crankshaft”的认真尝试，Crankshaft这个名字是联合特种作战司令
部（JSOC）给本拉登的代号。自从那年冬天在阿富汗东部Tora Bora地区的战斗中逃
脱之后，本拉登已挫败了美国追踪其行踪的努力。而现今仍不清楚他是如何脱离并生
活在Abbottabad的。
Forty-five minutes after the Black Hawks departed, four MH-47 Chinooks
launched from the same runway in Jalalabad. Two of them flew to the
border, staying on the Afghan side; the other two proceeded into Pakistan.
Deploying four Chinooks was a last-minute decision made after President
Barack Obama said he wanted to feel assured that the Americans could
“fight their way out of Pakistan.” Twenty-five additional SEALs from
DEVGRU, pulled from a squadron stationed in Afghanistan, sat in the
Chinooks that remained at the border; this “quick-reaction force” would
be called into action only if the mission went seriously wrong. The third
and fourth Chinooks were each outfitted with a pair of M134 Miniguns. They
followed the Black Hawks’ initial flight path but landed at a
predetermined point on a dry riverbed in a wide, unpopulated valley in
northwest Pakistan. The nearest house was half a mile away. On the ground,
the copters’ rotors were kept whirring while operatives monitored the
surrounding hills for encroaching Pakistani helicopters or fighter jets.
One of the Chinooks was carrying fuel bladders, in case the other aircraft
needed to refill their tanks.
黑鹰起飞45分钟后，四架MH-47支奴干从Jalalabad相同跑道起飞。其中两架飞往边境
并停在了阿富汗一侧；其余两架继续前行进入了巴基斯坦。在奥巴马总统表示他想确
保美国能“从巴基斯坦打出来出路”后，而后才临时决定派遣这四架支奴干。停在边
境的支奴干中有25名来自驻扎在阿富汗的连队中调出的DEVGRU海豹队员；如行动出现
严重失误，这支“快速反应力量”将立即被投入行动。第三和第四架支奴干均配备了
两门M134加特林机枪。他们使用了黑鹰的出事航线但降落在巴基斯坦西北部一处宽阔
的无人居住山谷的干河床上，这个地点是预先指定的。最近的房子在半英里外。在停
机地的直升机的转翼持续转动，行动人员在监控着周围的山峦是否出现巴基斯坦直升
机或战斗机。其中一架支奴干直升机携带了油箱以供其他飞机加油之需。
Meanwhile, the two Black Hawks were quickly approaching Abbottabad
from the northwest, hiding behind the mountains on the northernmost edge
of the city. Then the pilots banked right and went south along a ridge
that marks Abbottabad’s eastern perimeter. When those hills tapered off,
the pilots curled right again, toward the city center, and made their
final approach.
同时，两架黑鹰躲在该市最北边缘的山脉后面，从西北快速接近Abbottabad。飞行员
然后右转并沿标示着Abbottabad东部视野的一道山脊向南飞行。当这些山峦消失之后
，飞行员再次右转，向城市中心进行最后的接近。
During the next four minutes, the interior of the Black Hawks rustled
alive with the metallic cough of rounds being chambered. Mark, a master
chief petty officer and the ranking noncommissioned officer on the
operation, crouched on one knee beside the open door of the lead
helicopter. He and the eleven other SEALs on “helo one,” who were
wearing gloves and had on night-vision goggles, were preparing to fast-
rope into bin Laden’s yard. They waited for the crew chief to give the
signal to throw the rope. But, as the pilot passed over the compound,
pulled into a high hover, and began lowering the aircraft, he felt the
Black Hawk getting away from him. He sensed that they were going to crash.
在接下来的四分钟内，黑鹰机舱内部充满了枪膛里子弹上膛的机械声响。一级军士长
、此次任务未授衔负责人Mark单膝跪在领头直升机打开的门侧。“1号机上”，他和
其他11个海豹戴着手套和夜视镜，正预备通过速降绳降落到本拉登的庭院里。他们等
待着乘务长发出抛下绳索的信号。但当飞行员飞越庭院的时候进入了较高的悬停并开
始将飞机降落的时候，他感觉黑鹰正离开他。他意识到他们正在坠落。
One month before the 2008 Presidential election, Obama, then a senator
from Illinois, squared off in a debate against John McCain in an arena at
Belmont University, in Nashville. A woman in the audience asked Obama if
he would be willing to pursue Al Qaeda leaders inside Pakistan, even if
that meant invading an ally nation. He replied, “If we have Osama bin
Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable, or unwilling,
to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them
out. We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our
biggest national-security priority.” McCain, who often criticized Obama
for his na?veté on foreign-policy matters, characterized the promise as
foolish, saying, “I’m not going to telegraph my punches.”
在2008年总统大选前一个月，奥巴马以及后来一个伊利诺斯州参议员在纳什维尔贝尔
盟大学的会场上对John McCain摆下了争论姿态。一位女性观众问奥巴马他是否会在
巴基斯坦境内追捕本拉登，即使那意味着对一个盟国的侵略。他回答说：“如果我们
发现了本拉登的行踪而巴基斯坦政府无能为力或不愿作为的话，那就排除他们，我认
为我们不得不做出行动并将其排除在外。我们将杀死本拉登。我们将摧毁基地组织。
这是我们国家防务的最高优先权。”经常指责奥巴马的外交政策幼稚的McCain用愚蠢
来评价这个承诺，他声称，“我不会先把自己的打击行动宣传出来。”
Four months after Obama entered the White House, Leon Panetta, the
director of the C.I.A., briefed the President on the agency’s latest
programs and initiatives for tracking bin Laden. Obama was unimpressed. In
June, 2009, he drafted a memo instructing Panetta to create a “detailed
operation plan” for finding the Al Qaeda leader and to “ensure that we
have expended every effort.” Most notably, the President intensified the
C.I.A.’s classified drone program; there were more missile strikes inside
Pakistan during Obama’s first year in office than in George W. Bush’s
eight. The terrorists swiftly registered the impact: that July, CBS
reported that a recent Al Qaeda communiqué had referred to “brave
commanders” who had been “snatched away” and to “so many hidden homes
[which] have been levelled.” The document blamed the “very grave”
situation on spies who had “spread throughout the land like locusts.”
Nevertheless, bin Laden’s trail remained cold.
在奥巴马入主白宫四个月后，CIA局长Leon Panetta向他通报了该机构的最新项目和
追踪本拉登的初步行动。奥巴马对此印象平平。2009年6月，他在一份备忘录中命令
Panetta制定一份“具体的行动计划”以搜索基地领导人和“确保我们已竭尽所能”
。最值得注意的是，奥巴马总统强化了CIA机密的无人机项目；在奥巴马执政的头一
年内巴基斯坦的导弹袭击数量比布什执政的八年中发生的都多。恐怖分子很快对行动
的效果做出了回应：7月的时候CBS报道称最近的基地声明涉及了曾被“抓走”的“勇
敢的指挥官”和“许多隐秘家园被夷平”。该文件指责那些“想蝗虫一样遍布这块土
地的探子”导致了“严峻的”形式。但本拉登的踪迹依然未知。
In August, 2010, Panetta returned to the White House with better news.
C.I.A. analysts believed that they had pinpointed bin Laden’s courier, a
man in his early thirties named Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Kuwaiti drove a
white S.U.V. whose spare-tire cover was emblazoned with an image of a
white rhino. The C.I.A. began tracking the vehicle. One day, a satellite
captured images of the S.U.V. pulling into a large concrete compound in
Abbottabad. Agents, determining that Kuwaiti was living there, used aerial surveillance to keep watch on the compound, which consisted of a three-
story main house, a guesthouse, and a few outbuildings. They observed that
residents of the compound burned their trash, instead of putting it out
for collection, and concluded that the compound lacked a phone or an
Internet connection. Kuwaiti and his brother came and went, but another
man, living on the third floor, never left. When this third individual did
venture outside, he stayed behind the compound’s walls. Some analysts
speculated that the third man was bin Laden, and the agency dubbed him the
Pacer.
2010年8月，Panetta返回白宫的时候带去了好消息。CIA分析人士相信他们确认了本
拉登的信使，这个30岁多点的男人名叫Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti。Kuwaiti开着一辆白
色的SUV，车备胎盖上装饰着白色犀牛形象。CIA开始对这辆车进行追踪。一天，卫星
捕捉到了这辆SUV驶入Abbottabad一处很大的水泥院子的图片。断定Kuwaiti就居住在
此的特工们使用空中侦察来监视这座由三层的主房，一座客房和一些外屋组成的院子
。特工们观察到房子的居住者们焚烧垃圾而不是留给垃圾收集处理，他们得出了这座
房子缺少电话或网络的结论。Kuwaiti和他的兄弟进进出出，但三楼的另一个男人却
从不离开。当这第三个人即使偶尔出来也没有出过庭院。一些分析人士推测这第三个
男人就是本拉登，CIA将其称为散步者。
Obama, though excited, was not yet prepared to order military action.
John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, told me that the
President’s advisers began an “interrogation of the data, to see if, by
that interrogation, you’re going to disprove the theory that bin Laden
was there.” The C.I.A. intensified its intelligence-collection efforts,
and, according to a recent report in the Guardian, a physician working for
the agency conducted an immunization drive in Abbottabad, in the hope of
acquiring DNA samples from bin Laden’s children. (No one in the compound
ultimately received any immunizations.)
尽管激动，奥巴马并没有准备命令采取军事行动。奥巴马的反恐顾问John Brennan告
诉我说总统的顾问开始进行“对数据的核实以期通过核实来验证本拉登住地这个信息
是否确实。”CIA加强了其情报搜集措施，据Guardian最近报道，一位为该机构工作
的医生在Abbottabad进行了一次免疫接种活动以期获得本拉登孩子的DNA样本。（庭
院中的人最终没有接受任何的免疫接种。）
In late 2010, Obama ordered Panetta to begin exploring options for a
military strike on the compound. Panetta contacted Vice-Admiral Bill
McRaven, the SEAL in charge of JSOC. Traditionally, the Army has dominated
the special-operations community, but in recent years the SEALs have
become a more prominent presence; McRaven’s boss at the time of the raid,
Eric Olson—the head of Special Operations Command, or SOCOM—is a Navy
admiral who used to be a commander of DEVGRU. In January, 2011, McRaven
asked a JSOC official named Brian, who had previously been a DEVGRU deputy
commander, to present a raid plan. The next month, Brian, who has the
all-American look of a high-school quarterback, moved into an unmarked
office on the first floor of the C.I.A.’s printing plant, in Langley,
Virginia. Brian covered the walls of the office with topographical maps
and satellite images of the Abbottabad compound. He and half a dozen JSOC
officers were formally attached to the Pakistan/Afghanistan department of
the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center, but in practice they operated on
their own. A senior counterterrorism official who visited the JSOC redoubt
described it as an enclave of unusual secrecy and discretion. “Everything
they were working on was closely held,” the official said.
2010年末，奥巴马命令Panetta开始探索一种对此庭院采取军事行动的替代方案。
Panetta与海军中将Bill McRaven进行了接触，而海豹突击队则受JSOC的管理。军队
传统上控制着特种行动群体，但近年来海豹已变得更为显著；在突袭期间McRaven的
上司——特种作战司令部（SOCOM）领导人Eric Olson是一位曾担任DEVGRU指挥官的
海军上将。2011年1月，McRaven要求曾担任DEVGRU副指挥官的JSOC官员Brian递交一
份突袭计划。一个月后，长得像典型美国高校四分卫模样的Brian搬进了位于维吉尼
亚州兰勒的CIA印刷厂一楼一间没有标识的办公室。Brian办公室的墙上挂着
Abbottabad庭院的地形图和卫星图像。他和半打的JSOC官员正式加入了CIA反恐中心
巴基斯坦/阿富汗部门，但在行动上他们独立进行。一位曾参观过JSOC redoubt的高
级反恐官员将其描述为不寻常的具有酌情决定权的秘密飞地。“他们的每一件事都很
秘密，”这位官员表示。
The relationship between special-operations units and the C.I.A. dates
back to the Vietnam War. But the line between the two communities has
increasingly blurred as C.I.A. officers and military personnel have
encountered one another on multiple tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. “These
people grew up together,” a senior Defense Department official told me.
“We are in each other’s systems, we speak each other’s languages.”
(Exemplifying this trend, General David H. Petraeus, the former commanding
general in Iraq and Afghanistan, is now the incoming head of the C.I.A.,
and Panetta has taken over the Department of Defense.) The bin Laden
mission—plotted at C.I.A. headquarters and authorized under C.I.A. legal
statutes but conducted by Navy DEVGRU operators—brought the co?peration
between the agency and the Pentagon to an even higher level. John Radsan,
a former assistant general counsel at the C.I.A., said that the Abbottabad
raid amounted to “a complete incorporation of JSOC into a C.I.A.
operation.”
特种行动单位和CIA的关系可以追溯到越南战争时期。但当CIA和军事人员在伊拉克和
阿富汗的多重化任务中碰头模糊了两个团体之间的区别。“这些人在一起长大。”一
位国防部高级官员告诉我。“我们在彼此的体系中，我们讲彼此的语言。”（为了例
示这种趋势，伊拉克和阿富汗前司令官David H. Petraeus将军现在是CIA的新领导人
，而Panetta则接管了国防部）此次本拉登任务在CIA总部进行策划并由CIA法规进行
授权，海军DEVGRU人员则负责执行，这将CIA和五角大楼的合作提升到了一个更高的
等级。CIA前助理总顾问John Radsan称Abbottabad突袭把“JSOC彻底地纳入了CIA的
行动中”。
On March 14th, Obama called his national-security advisers into the
White House Situation Room and reviewed a spreadsheet listing possible
courses of action against the Abbottabad compound. Most were variations of
either a JSOC raid or an airstrike. Some versions included co?perating
with the Pakistani military; some did not. Obama decided against informing
or working with Pakistan. “There was a real lack of confidence that the
Pakistanis could keep this secret for more than a nanosecond,” a senior
adviser to the President told me. At the end of the meeting, Obama
instructed McRaven to proceed with planning the raid.
3月14日，奥巴马在白宫特情室传见了国家安全顾问并检查了列有针对Abbottabad庭
院的所能采取的军事行动的电子表格。其中大多数是使用JSOC突袭或空袭的不同版本
。一些行动则将与巴基斯坦军事力量的合作包括在内；一些则没有。奥巴马决定不通
知巴基斯坦也不同其合作。“很难相信巴基斯坦能将这个秘密保持超过一纳秒，”一
个总统的高级顾问这样告诉我。在这次会议的结束时，奥巴马命令McRaven继续策划
这次突袭。Brian invited James, the commander of DEVGRU’s Red Squadron, and
Mark, the master chief petty officer, to join him at C.I.A. headquarters.
They spent the next two and a half weeks considering ways to get inside
bin Laden’s house. One option entailed flying helicopters to a spot
outside Abbottabad and letting the team sneak into the city on foot. The
risk of detection was high, however, and the SEALs would be tired by a
long run to the compound. The planners had contemplated tunnelling in—or,
at least, the possibility that bin Laden might tunnel out. But images
provided by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency showed that there
was standing water in the vicinity, suggesting that the compound sat in a
flood basin. The water table was probably just below the surface, making
tunnels highly unlikely. Eventually, the planners agreed that it made the
most sense to fly directly into the compound. “Special operations is
about doing what’s not expected, and probably the least expected thing
here was that a helicopter would come in, drop guys on the roof, and land
in the yard,” the special-operations officer said.
Brian邀请了DEVGRU Red Squadron的指挥官James以及一级士官长Mark来和他一起在
CIA总部进行工作。他们在下两个半周内考虑了进入本拉登住宅的各种方法。一个选
项是把直升机停在Abbottabad外并让队员们步行潜入这座城市。这种做法很容易被发
现，而且队员们可能因前往目的庭院的长途行走而疲倦。这些策划者们曾设想到挖隧
道进入——或者至少说考虑到本拉登利用隧道逃脱的可能性。但国家地理空间情报局
的图像显示在邻近地区有积水存在，这表明庭院坐落在洪泛区之中。地下水位可能仅
在地面之下，这使得隧道变得十分不可行。策划者最终认为直接飞进庭院是最合理的
方法。“特种作战就是要出其不意，这里最出其不意的事情可能就是一架直升机飞进
来把作战人员投放在屋顶上并降落到庭院里，”这位特种作战官员表示。
On March 29th, McRaven brought the plan to Obama. The President’s
military advisers were divided. Some supported a raid, some an airstrike,
and others wanted to hold off until the intelligence improved. Robert
Gates, the Secretary of Defense, was one of the most outspoken opponents
of a helicopter assault. Gates reminded his colleagues that he had been in
the Situation Room of the Carter White House when military officials
presented Eagle Claw—the 1980 Delta Force operation that aimed at
rescuing American hostages in Tehran but resulted in a disastrous
collision in the Iranian desert, killing eight American soldiers. “They
said that was a pretty good idea, too,” Gates warned. He and General
James Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, favored an
airstrike by B-2 Spirit bombers. That option would avoid the risk of
having American boots on the ground in Pakistan. But the Air Force then
calculated that a payload of thirty-two smart bombs, each weighing two
thousand pounds, would be required to penetrate thirty feet below ground,
insuring that any bunkers would collapse. “That much ordnance going off
would be the equivalent of an earthquake,” Cartwright told me. The
prospect of flattening a Pakistani city made Obama pause. He shelved the
B-2 option and directed McRaven to start rehearsing the raid.
3月39日，McRaven将此计划递交给奥巴马。总统的军事顾问们对此意见不一。一些人
支持这个突袭，一些人支持空袭，其他的则建议推迟到情报更完善之后。国防部长
Robert Gates是用直升机袭击的最坦率反对意见之一。Gates 提醒其同事在卡特总统
时期军事官员提交鹰爪计划的时候他就在特情室，鹰爪计划是20世纪80年代三角洲部
队旨在营救位于德黑兰的美国人质的行动，但那次行动在伊朗沙漠中产生了一次灾难
性的冲突，8名美国士兵因此而丧生。“他们也说那是个很不错的主意，” Gates警
告说。他和参谋长联系会议副主席James Cartwright将军倾向于使用B-2隐形轰炸机
进行空袭。这个选择可能会避免掉美国士兵直接踏入巴基斯坦的风险。但空军的计算
表明，为了确保摧毁地下工事，共需要32枚激光制导炸弹的有效负荷来对地下30英尺
的深度进行穿透。一枚激光制导炸弹的重量为2000磅。“那么多军火爆炸的效果可能
就等量于一次地震了。” Cartwright告诉我。夷平一座巴基斯坦城市的后果让奥巴
马踌躇了。他搁置了B-2计划并指示McRaven开始排练突袭。
3Brian, James, and Mark selected a team of two dozen SEALs from Red
Squadron and told them to report to a densely forested site in North
Carolina for a training exercise on April 10th. (Red Squadron is one of
four squadrons in DEVGRU, which has about three hundred operators in all.)
None of the SEALs, besides James and Mark, were aware of the C.I.A.
intelligence on bin Laden’s compound until a lieutenant commander walked
into an office at the site. He found a two-star Army general from JSOC
headquarters seated at a conference table with Brian, James, Mark, and
several analysts from the C.I.A. This obviously wasn’t a training
exercise. The lieutenant commander was promptly “read in.” A replica of
the compound had been built at the site, with walls and chain-link fencing
marking the layout of the compound. The team spent the next five days
practicing maneuvers.
Brian, James, 和Mark从Red Squadron选择了24名海豹队员组成了一支队伍并告诉他
们4月10号前往北卡罗莱纳的一个森林浓密的地方报道参加训练。(Red Squadron 是
DEVGRU四个连队中的一个，一共约有300人。)除了James and Mark之外，其他海豹队
员并不知道关于本拉登住宅的CIA情报，直到一个海军少校走进了该地的一个办公室
。在这里他发现了一个来自JSOC总部的两星将军和Brian, James, Mark以及一些来自
CIA的分析人士坐在会议桌边。这明显不是训练。这个海军少校迅速地调整了状态。
在此地，本拉登的庭院被复制了一个，墙和链围标示这这个庭院的布局。这个小队用
了接下来5天的时间进行演习。
On April 18th, the DEVGRU squad flew to Nevada for another week of
rehearsals. The practice site was a large government-owned stretch of
desert with an elevation equivalent to the area surrounding Abbottabad. An
extant building served as bin Laden’s house. Aircrews plotted out a path
that paralleled the flight from Jalalabad to Abbottabad. Each night after
sundown, drills commenced. Twelve SEALs, including Mark, boarded helo one.
Eleven SEALs, Ahmed, and Cairo boarded helo two. The pilots flew in the
dark, arrived at the simulated compound, and settled into a hover while
the SEALs fast-roped down. Not everyone on the team was accustomed to
helicopter assaults. Ahmed had been pulled from a desk job for the mission
and had never descended a fast rope. He quickly learned the technique.
4月18日，DEVGRU小队飞往内华达进行另外一周的训练。此训练地点是一片很大
的国有沙漠，其海拔与Abbottabad周边地区相同。当地一所房子被用来扮演成本拉登
的房子。机组成员绘制出从Jalalabad到Abbottabad航线的相似路线。训练在每个日
落后的夜晚进行。包括Mark在内的12名海豹队员登上“1号机”。Ahmed和Cairo和11
名海豹队员乘坐“2号机”。飞行员在黑暗条件下飞行并到达模拟环境，在海豹队员
用速降绳降落的时候飞机处于悬停状态。并不是队伍中的所有人都习惯直升机突袭。
Ahmed是被从办公室中抽调出来参加这次任务的，他以前从未使用过速降绳。他很快
地学会了这种技术。
The assault plan was now honed. Helo one was to hover over the yard,
drop two fast ropes, and let all twelve SEALs slide down into the yard.
Helo two would fly to the northeast corner of the compound and let out
Ahmed, Cairo, and four SEALs, who would monitor the perimeter of the
building. The copter would then hover over the house, and James and the
remaining six SEALs would shimmy down to the roof. As long as everything
was cordial, Ahmed would hold curious neighbors at bay. The SEALs and the
dog could assist more aggressively, if needed. Then, if bin Laden was
proving difficult to find, Cairo could be sent into the house to search
for false walls or hidden doors. “This wasn’t a hard op,” the special-
operations officer told me. “It would be like hitting a target in McLean
”—the upscale Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C.
这项突袭计划正在被磨合。“1号机”按计划将悬停在庭院上空并垂下两根速降绳，
12名海豹队员顺着绳子降落在庭院中。2号机将飞往庭院的东北角，Ahmed, Cairo和
四名海豹队员从机舱中出来。他们将对庭院的周边进行监控。然后这架飞机将在房子
上空悬停，James和剩下的6个海豹队员将降落到房顶。如果一切顺利的话，Ahmed将
阻止好奇的邻居接近。如果需要的话，这些海豹队员将提供更有进攻性的协助。然后
，如很难找到本拉登的话，Cairo将被放进房子里搜寻假墙和暗门。“这个行动并不
困难，”该特种作战官员告诉我。“这就像打击位于McLean的目标差不多”。McLean
是华盛顿特区的弗吉尼亚高档郊区。
A planeload of guests arrived on the night of April 21st. Admiral Mike
Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, along with Olson and McRaven,
sat with C.I.A. personnel in a hangar as Brian, James, Mark, and the
pilots presented a brief on the raid, which had been named Operation
Neptune’s Spear. Despite JSOC’s lead role in Neptune’s Spear, the
mission officially remained a C.I.A. covert operation. The covert approach
allowed the White House to hide its involvement, if necessary. As the
counterterrorism official put it recently, “If you land and everybody is
out on a milk run, then you get the hell out and no one knows.” After
describing the operation, the briefers fielded questions: What if a mob
surrounded the compound? Were the SEALs prepared to shoot civilians?
Olson, who received the Silver Star for valor during the 1993 “Black Hawk
Down” episode, in Mogadishu, Somalia, worried that it could be
politically catastrophic if a U.S. helicopter were shot down inside
Pakistani territory. After an hour or so of questioning, the senior
officers and intelligence analysts returned to Washington. Two days later,
the SEALs flew back to Dam Neck, their base in Virginia.
4月21日晚，一飞机的人来到了这里。参谋长联系会议主席、海军上将Mike Mullen，
Olson和McRaven同CIA的人一起坐在一个飞机库里，他们听取了Brian, James, Mark
和飞行员的简要汇报。这次突袭行动代号为“三叉戟”。JSOC在三叉戟行动中担任主
角，但这次行动在官方层面依然是CIA的秘密行动。如果必要的话，这个秘密措施可
以隐蔽掉白宫的参与。如反恐官员最近表示的那样，“如果降落并发现这不过像一趟
啥事没有的勤务飞行，然后就可以偷偷撤回来，没有人会知道。”在描述了此次行动
之后，汇报者提出了问题：“如果庭院被人群包围怎么办？海豹队员是否要做好向平
民射击的准备？”因在1993年索马里摩加迪沙“黑鹰坠落”事件中表现英勇而获得银
星勋章的Olson担心如果美国直升机在巴基斯坦境内被击落的话可能会带来灾难性的
政治后果。在大约1个小时的问答之后，高级官员和情报分析人士返回华盛顿。两天
后，这些海豹队员飞回了位于他们弗吉尼亚的Dam Neck基地。
On the night of Tuesday, April 26th, the SEAL team boarded a Boeing
C-17 Globemaster at Naval Air Station Oceana, a few miles from Dam Neck.
After a refuelling stop at Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, the C-17
continued to Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul. The SEALs spent a night in
Bagram and moved to Jalalabad on Wednesday.
4月26日，星期二，晚上，海豹小组在距Dam Neck数英里外的海军航空站Oceana登上
了一架波音C-17环球霸王运输机。在德国Ramstein空军基地进行了加油暂停之后，这
架C-17继续飞往位于喀布尔北部的Bagram空军基地。这些海豹队员在Bagram停了一夜
然后周三的时候抵达Jalalabad。
That day in Washington, Panetta convened more than a dozen senior
C.I.A. officials and analysts for a final preparatory meeting. Panetta
asked the participants, one by one, to declare how confident they were
that bin Laden was inside the Abbottabad compound. The counterterrorism
official told me that the percentages “ranged from forty per cent to
ninety or ninety-five per cent,” and added, “This was a circumstantial
case.”
在华盛顿，Panetta当天召集了超过12名CIA高级官员和分析人士来进行最终的筹备会
议。Panetta逐一要求与会者陈述其如何确信本拉登就在Abbottabad那个庭院中。反
恐官员告诉我其百分比“范围为从40%到90%或95%，”并补充说，“这种情况很不常
见”。
Panetta was mindful of the analysts’ doubts, but he believed that the
intelligence was better than anything that the C.I.A. had gathered on bin
Laden since his flight from Tora Bora. Late on Thursday afternoon, Panetta
and the rest of the national-security team met with the President. For the
next few nights, there would be virtually no moonlight over Abbottabad—
the ideal condition for a raid. After that, it would be another month
until the lunar cycle was in its darkest phase. Several analysts from the
National Counterterrorism Center were invited to critique the C.I.A.’s
analysis; their confidence in the intelligence ranged between forty and
sixty per cent. The center’s director, Michael Leiter, said that it would
be preferable to wait for stronger confirmation of bin Laden’s presence
in Abbottabad. Yet, as Ben Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser, put
it to me recently, the longer things dragged on, the greater the risk of a
leak, “which would have upended the thing.” Obama adjourned the meeting
just after 7 P.M. and said that he would sleep on it.
Panetta注意到了分析人士的疑虑，但他相信这个情报要好于自从Tora Bora后CIA搜
集到有关本拉登的所有信息。星期四下午较晚的时候，Panetta和其他国家防务小组
的人员同总统进行了会面。后继的天里，Abbottabad晚上实际上都没有月亮，这是进
行突袭的理想条件。在此之后，要等上一个月的时间月亮才会重新处于其最黯淡的运
行周期状态中。一些国家反恐中心的分析人士受邀对CIA分析进行评价；他们对此情
报的信任百分度在40到60之间。该中心领导人Michael Leiter称最好等到本拉登在
Abbottabad这个信息被更有效地确认之后再进行行动。但当副国家安全顾问Ben
Rhodes最近这样告诉我，事情拖得越久，泄露的风险越大，“这可能会把这事给弄坏
了”。下午7点后奥巴马停止了这次会议，表示他将明天再进行处理。
The next morning, the President met in the Map Room with Tom Donilon,
his national-security adviser, Denis McDonough, a deputy adviser, and
Brennan. Obama had decided to go with a DEVGRU assault, with McRaven
choosing the night. It was too late for a Friday attack, and on Saturday
there was excessive cloud cover. On Saturday afternoon, McRaven and Obama
spoke on the phone, and McRaven said that the raid would occur on Sunday
night. “Godspeed to you and your forces,” Obama told him. “Please pass
on to them my personal thanks for their service and the message that I
personally will be following this mission very closely.”
第二天早上，总统在地图室会见了其国防顾问Tom Donilon、副顾问Denis McDonough
和Brennan。奥巴马决定采用DEVGRU突袭的计划，并同McRaven选择了夜间突袭的日期
。如果是周五的话那就太晚了，而且当地周六会有大量云层覆盖。在周六下午，
McRaven和奥巴马通了电话，McRaven称这次突袭将在周日晚上进行。“祝你们一帆风
顺，”奥巴马说，“请向他们转达我个人对他们的服务的感谢和我个人将会密切关注
这次任务。”
On the morning of Sunday, May 1st, White House officials cancelled
scheduled visits, ordered sandwich platters from Costco, and transformed
the Situation Room into a war room. At eleven o’clock, Obama’s top
advisers began gathering around a large conference table. A video link
connected them to Panetta, at C.I.A. headquarters, and McRaven, in
Afghanistan. (There were at least two other command centers, one inside
the Pentagon and one inside the American Embassy in Islamabad.)
5月1日（周日）早上，白宫官员取消了预定的访问并从Costco订了三明治拼盘，他们
把特请室布置了一个作战室。11点钟，奥巴马的首席顾问们开始汇聚在一张大会议桌
前。通过视频他与CIA总部的Panetta和阿富汗的McRaven进行了连接。（当时至少还
有另外两个指挥中心，一个在五角大楼，另一个伊斯兰堡的美国大使馆。）
击毙本拉登实录 - 阿伯塔巴德之夜【文章转自：http://article.yeeyan.org/view/222579/227189
】
by Nicholas Schmidle
Shortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black
Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern
Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama
bin Laden. Inside the aircraft were twenty-three Navy SEALs from Team Six,
which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group,
or DEVGRU. A Pakistani-American translator, whom I will call Ahmed, and a
dog named Cairo—a Belgian Malinois—were also aboard. It was a moonless
evening, and the helicopters’ pilots, wearing night-vision goggles, flew
without lights over mountains that straddle the border with Pakistan.
Radio communications were kept to a minimum, and an eerie calm settled
inside the aircraft.
五月一日晚十一点刚过不久，两架MH-60黑鹰直升机从阿富汗东部的Jalalabad空军基
地起飞，这两架飞机担负着前往巴基斯坦击毙本拉登的秘密任务。机舱里共有26位来
自海军海豹突击队6队的队员。海豹突击队6队的正式名称是海军特战发展群或DEVGRU
。另外机舱里还有一个被我称为Ahmed的巴基斯坦语翻译和一条名叫Cairo的比利时玛
利诺犬。这是个没有月亮的晚上，戴着夜视镜的直升机飞行员驾驶着没有开灯的飞机
在坐落在巴基斯坦边境的群山上空飞行。无线电通讯被保持到最低限度，机舱内弥漫
着一种奇异可怖的寂静。
Fifteen minutes later, the helicopters ducked into an alpine valley
and slipped, undetected, into Pakistani airspace. For more than sixty
years, Pakistan’s military has maintained a state of high alert against
its eastern neighbor, India. Because of this obsession, Pakistan’s
“principal air defenses are all pointing east,” Shuja Nawaz, an expert
on the Pakistani Army and the author of “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its
Army, and the Wars Within,” told me. Senior defense and Administration
officials concur with this assessment, but a Pakistani senior military
official, whom I reached at his office, in Rawalpindi, disagreed. “No one
leaves their borders unattended,” he said. Though he declined to
elaborate on the location or orientation of Pakistan’s radars—“It’s
not where the radars are or aren’t”—he said that the American
infiltration was the result of “technological gaps we have vis-à-vis the
U.S.” The Black Hawks, each of which had two pilots and a crewman from
the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, or the Night Stalkers, had
been modified to mask heat, noise, and movement; the copters’ exteriors
had sharp, flat angles and were covered with radar-dampening “skin.”
十五分钟后，直升机下降入一个高山河谷，在没有被发现的情况下潜入了巴基斯坦领
空。巴基斯坦在超过六十年的时间里一直对其东部邻居印度保持了高度警惕的状态，
因为这个原因，巴基斯坦的“主要防空力量都是指向东面的”，这是名叫苏加 纳瓦
斯的巴基斯坦部队专家告诉我的，他是《双剑交锋：巴基斯坦与军队以及内部战争》
的作者。高级防务和行政官员对此评估表示同意。但一位我曾到过其办公室的拉瓦尔
品第官员并不同意这一点。“没有人会对其边境不加关注，”他声称。尽管他拒绝提
供巴基斯坦雷达的位置或方位的详细信息——“不是雷达在不在某个地方”——他表
示美国的渗入是”我们同美国面对时的技术差距”所产生的结果。两架黑鹰除了飞行
员外还各配置了一个机组成员，这些人都来自绰号为“夜行者”的第160特种作战航
空团。这两架黑鹰都做了修改以屏蔽热量、噪音和飞行动作；飞机有着尖锐、扁平的
角，并且覆盖了雷达屏蔽“皮肤”。
The SEALs’ destination was a house in the small city of Abbottabad,
which is about a hundred and twenty miles across the Pakistan border.
Situated north of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, Abbottabad is in the
foothills of the Pir Panjal Range, and is popular in the summertime with
families seeking relief from the blistering heat farther south. Founded in
1853 by a British major named James Abbott, the city became the home of a
prestigious military academy after the creation of Pakistan, in 1947.
According to information gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency, bin
Laden was holed up on the third floor of a house in a one-acre compound
just off Kakul Road in Bilal Town, a middle-class neighborhood less than a
mile from the entrance to the academy. If all went according to plan, the
SEALs would drop from the helicopters into the compound, overpower bin
Laden’s guards, shoot and kill him at close range, and then take the
corpse back to Afghanistan.
这些海豹队员的目的地是阿伯塔巴德这座小城市中的一处房子，这座城市坐落在巴基
斯坦首都伊斯兰堡北面，距离巴基斯坦边境约120英里；在夏天的时候这里是一些家
庭躲避南方炎热的放松之地。这座城市在1835年被一位名叫James Abbott的英国陆军
少校建立，1947年巴基斯坦建国后这座城市成为了一所著名军事学院的所在地。据
CIA的搜集的情报，本拉登就躲藏在Bilal镇Kakul 路边一个一英亩大院子中房子的三
层，这个中产阶级庭院距军事学院入口还不到一英里的距离。如果一切按照计划发展
的话，海豹队员将在庭院中降落，压制本拉登的保镖并在近距离击毙本拉登，然后将
其尸体带回阿富汗。
The helicopters traversed Mohmand, one of Pakistan’s seven tribal
areas, skirted the north of Peshawar, and continued due east. The
commander of DEVGRU’s Red Squadron, whom I will call James, sat on the
floor, squeezed among ten other SEALs, Ahmed, and Cairo. (The names of all
the covert operators mentioned in this story have been changed.) James, a
broad-chested man in his late thirties, does not have the lithe swimmer’s
frame that one might expect of a SEAL—he is built more like a discus
thrower. That night, he wore a shirt and trousers in Desert Digital
Camouflage, and carried a silenced Sig Sauer P226 pistol, along with extra
ammunition; a CamelBak, for hydration; and gel shots, for endurance. He
held a short-barrel, silenced M4 rifle. (Others SEALs had chosen the
Heckler & Koch MP7.) A “blowout kit,” for treating field trauma, was
tucked into the small of James’s back. Stuffed into one of his pockets
was a laminated gridded map of the compound. In another pocket was a
booklet with photographs and physical descriptions of the people suspected
of being inside. He wore a noise-cancelling headset, which blocked out
nearly everything besides his heartbeat.
直升机穿过Mohmand继续向正东飞行，Mohmand位于Peshawar北部边缘，它是巴基斯坦
七个部落区域之一。被我称为James的DEVGRU Red Squadron指挥官坐在地板上，和其
他10个海豹队员、Ahmed和Cairo挤在一起。（本文中所有秘密行动人员的姓名均已被
更改。）宽胸脯的James大约年近四十了，他并没有一般人想象中海豹队员应该有的
游泳者的柔软体态，他的体型看起来更像是一个掷铁饼运动员。那天晚上，他穿着沙
漠数码迷彩衬衫和裤子，拿了把消声的Sig Sauer P226手枪，还带了些额外的弹药；
另外还有一个驼峰水袋和一些用于增加持久力的能量胶。他拿了把短枪管的消声M4步
枪。（其他海豹队员选择的是赫克勒-科赫MP7。）James背包里塞着用来处理战场创
伤的“止血器件”，兜里揣着一份透明薄膜覆盖的庭院方格坐标地图，另一个兜里则
是印着被怀疑在屋里的人的照片和体态描述的小册子。他戴着副抗噪耳机，这东西几
乎阻挡了除了他心跳外的所有声音。
During the ninety-minute helicopter flight, James and his teammates
rehearsed the operation in their heads. Since the autumn of 2001, they had
rotated through Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and the Horn of Africa, at a
brutal pace. At least three of the SEALs had participated in the sniper
operation off the coast of Somalia, in April, 2009, that freed Richard
Phillips, the captain of the Maersk Alabama, and left three pirates dead.
In October, 2010, a DEVGRU team attempted to rescue Linda Norgrove, a
Scottish aid worker who had been kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan by the
Taliban. During a raid of a Taliban hideout, a SEAL tossed a grenade at an
insurgent, not realizing that Norgrove was nearby. She died from the
blast. The mistake haunted the SEALs who had been involved; three of them
were subsequently expelled from DEVGRU.
在90分钟的直升机航程中，James和队友在头脑中排练了这次行动。自2001年秋，他
们在阿富汗，伊拉克，也门和非洲之角及其迅猛地来回辗转。这些海豹队员们至少其
中有三人2009年四月在索马里海岸外参与了解救阿拉巴马号货船船长理查德·菲利普
斯的狙击行动，行动中击毙了三个海盗。2010年10月，一个DEVGRU 小队试图营救
Linda Norgrove，这位苏格兰援助工作者被塔利班在阿富汗东部被绑架。在对塔利班
藏匿地的一次突袭中，一个海豹队员在没有发现Norgrove在附近的情况下向一个反抗
军成员投掷了一枚手榴弹。Norgrove因这个手榴弹的爆炸而丧生。这个过失困扰着涉
及此事的海豹队员，其中三个人相继被DEVGRU开除。
The Abbottabad raid was not DEVGRU’s maiden venture into Pakistan,
either. The team had surreptitiously entered the country on ten to twelve
previous occasions, according to a special-operations officer who is
deeply familiar with the bin Laden raid. Most of those missions were
forays into North and South Waziristan, where many military and
intelligence analysts had thought that bin Laden and other Al Qaeda
leaders were hiding. (Only one such operation—the September, 2008, raid
of Angoor Ada, a village in South Waziristan—has been widely reported.)
Abbottabad was, by far, the farthest that DEVGRU had ventured into
Pakistani territory. It also represented the team’s first serious attempt
since late 2001 at killing “Crankshaft”—the target name that the Joint
Special Operations Command, or JSOC, had given bin Laden. Since escaping
that winter during a battle in the Tora Bora region of eastern
Afghanistan, bin Laden had defied American efforts to trace him. Indeed,
it remains unclear how he ended up living in Abbottabad.
这次目标为Abbottabad的突袭也不是DEVGRU在巴基斯坦的初次行动。根据一位对搜捕
本拉登行动非常熟悉的特别行动官员称，该小队在此之前已在10到12次行动中秘密进
入该国。这些行动之中有许多在Waziristan北部和南部地区的突袭行动，许多军事和
情报分析人士此前认为本拉登和其他基地领导人躲藏在此地。（迄今只有2008年9月
份的一次突袭Angoor Ada的行动被广泛报道，Angoor Ada是Waziristan南部的村庄。
）Abbottabad是迄今为止DEVGRU进入巴基斯坦最深入的地方。这也是自2001年末该小
队首次对击毙“Crankshaft”的认真尝试，Crankshaft这个名字是联合特种作战司令
部（JSOC）给本拉登的代号。自从那年冬天在阿富汗东部Tora Bora地区的战斗中逃
脱之后，本拉登已挫败了美国追踪其行踪的努力。而现今仍不清楚他是如何脱离并生
活在Abbottabad的。
Forty-five minutes after the Black Hawks departed, four MH-47 Chinooks
launched from the same runway in Jalalabad. Two of them flew to the
border, staying on the Afghan side; the other two proceeded into Pakistan.
Deploying four Chinooks was a last-minute decision made after President
Barack Obama said he wanted to feel assured that the Americans could
“fight their way out of Pakistan.” Twenty-five additional SEALs from
DEVGRU, pulled from a squadron stationed in Afghanistan, sat in the
Chinooks that remained at the border; this “quick-reaction force” would
be called into action only if the mission went seriously wrong. The third
and fourth Chinooks were each outfitted with a pair of M134 Miniguns. They
followed the Black Hawks’ initial flight path but landed at a
predetermined point on a dry riverbed in a wide, unpopulated valley in
northwest Pakistan. The nearest house was half a mile away. On the ground,
the copters’ rotors were kept whirring while operatives monitored the
surrounding hills for encroaching Pakistani helicopters or fighter jets.
One of the Chinooks was carrying fuel bladders, in case the other aircraft
needed to refill their tanks.
黑鹰起飞45分钟后，四架MH-47支奴干从Jalalabad相同跑道起飞。其中两架飞往边境
并停在了阿富汗一侧；其余两架继续前行进入了巴基斯坦。在奥巴马总统表示他想确
保美国能“从巴基斯坦打出来出路”后，而后才临时决定派遣这四架支奴干。停在边
境的支奴干中有25名来自驻扎在阿富汗的连队中调出的DEVGRU海豹队员；如行动出现
严重失误，这支“快速反应力量”将立即被投入行动。第三和第四架支奴干均配备了
两门M134加特林机枪。他们使用了黑鹰的出事航线但降落在巴基斯坦西北部一处宽阔
的无人居住山谷的干河床上，这个地点是预先指定的。最近的房子在半英里外。在停
机地的直升机的转翼持续转动，行动人员在监控着周围的山峦是否出现巴基斯坦直升
机或战斗机。其中一架支奴干直升机携带了油箱以供其他飞机加油之需。
Meanwhile, the two Black Hawks were quickly approaching Abbottabad
from the northwest, hiding behind the mountains on the northernmost edge
of the city. Then the pilots banked right and went south along a ridge
that marks Abbottabad’s eastern perimeter. When those hills tapered off,
the pilots curled right again, toward the city center, and made their
final approach.
同时，两架黑鹰躲在该市最北边缘的山脉后面，从西北快速接近Abbottabad。飞行员
然后右转并沿标示着Abbottabad东部视野的一道山脊向南飞行。当这些山峦消失之后
，飞行员再次右转，向城市中心进行最后的接近。
During the next four minutes, the interior of the Black Hawks rustled
alive with the metallic cough of rounds being chambered. Mark, a master
chief petty officer and the ranking noncommissioned officer on the
operation, crouched on one knee beside the open door of the lead
helicopter. He and the eleven other SEALs on “helo one,” who were
wearing gloves and had on night-vision goggles, were preparing to fast-
rope into bin Laden’s yard. They waited for the crew chief to give the
signal to throw the rope. But, as the pilot passed over the compound,
pulled into a high hover, and began lowering the aircraft, he felt the
Black Hawk getting away from him. He sensed that they were going to crash.
在接下来的四分钟内，黑鹰机舱内部充满了枪膛里子弹上膛的机械声响。一级军士长
、此次任务未授衔负责人Mark单膝跪在领头直升机打开的门侧。“1号机上”，他和
其他11个海豹戴着手套和夜视镜，正预备通过速降绳降落到本拉登的庭院里。他们等
待着乘务长发出抛下绳索的信号。但当飞行员飞越庭院的时候进入了较高的悬停并开
始将飞机降落的时候，他感觉黑鹰正离开他。他意识到他们正在坠落。
One month before the 2008 Presidential election, Obama, then a senator
from Illinois, squared off in a debate against John McCain in an arena at
Belmont University, in Nashville. A woman in the audience asked Obama if
he would be willing to pursue Al Qaeda leaders inside Pakistan, even if
that meant invading an ally nation. He replied, “If we have Osama bin
Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable, or unwilling,
to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them
out. We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our
biggest national-security priority.” McCain, who often criticized Obama
for his na?veté on foreign-policy matters, characterized the promise as
foolish, saying, “I’m not going to telegraph my punches.”
在2008年总统大选前一个月，奥巴马以及后来一个伊利诺斯州参议员在纳什维尔贝尔
盟大学的会场上对John McCain摆下了争论姿态。一位女性观众问奥巴马他是否会在
巴基斯坦境内追捕本拉登，即使那意味着对一个盟国的侵略。他回答说：“如果我们
发现了本拉登的行踪而巴基斯坦政府无能为力或不愿作为的话，那就排除他们，我认
为我们不得不做出行动并将其排除在外。我们将杀死本拉登。我们将摧毁基地组织。
这是我们国家防务的最高优先权。”经常指责奥巴马的外交政策幼稚的McCain用愚蠢
来评价这个承诺，他声称，“我不会先把自己的打击行动宣传出来。”
Four months after Obama entered the White House, Leon Panetta, the
director of the C.I.A., briefed the President on the agency’s latest
programs and initiatives for tracking bin Laden. Obama was unimpressed. In
June, 2009, he drafted a memo instructing Panetta to create a “detailed
operation plan” for finding the Al Qaeda leader and to “ensure that we
have expended every effort.” Most notably, the President intensified the
C.I.A.’s classified drone program; there were more missile strikes inside
Pakistan during Obama’s first year in office than in George W. Bush’s
eight. The terrorists swiftly registered the impact: that July, CBS
reported that a recent Al Qaeda communiqué had referred to “brave
commanders” who had been “snatched away” and to “so many hidden homes
[which] have been levelled.” The document blamed the “very grave”
situation on spies who had “spread throughout the land like locusts.”
Nevertheless, bin Laden’s trail remained cold.
在奥巴马入主白宫四个月后，CIA局长Leon Panetta向他通报了该机构的最新项目和
追踪本拉登的初步行动。奥巴马对此印象平平。2009年6月，他在一份备忘录中命令
Panetta制定一份“具体的行动计划”以搜索基地领导人和“确保我们已竭尽所能”
。最值得注意的是，奥巴马总统强化了CIA机密的无人机项目；在奥巴马执政的头一
年内巴基斯坦的导弹袭击数量比布什执政的八年中发生的都多。恐怖分子很快对行动
的效果做出了回应：7月的时候CBS报道称最近的基地声明涉及了曾被“抓走”的“勇
敢的指挥官”和“许多隐秘家园被夷平”。该文件指责那些“想蝗虫一样遍布这块土
地的探子”导致了“严峻的”形式。但本拉登的踪迹依然未知。
In August, 2010, Panetta returned to the White House with better news.
C.I.A. analysts believed that they had pinpointed bin Laden’s courier, a
man in his early thirties named Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Kuwaiti drove a
white S.U.V. whose spare-tire cover was emblazoned with an image of a
white rhino. The C.I.A. began tracking the vehicle. One day, a satellite
captured images of the S.U.V. pulling into a large concrete compound in
Abbottabad. Agents, determining that Kuwaiti was living there, used aerial surveillance to keep watch on the compound, which consisted of a three-
story main house, a guesthouse, and a few outbuildings. They observed that
residents of the compound burned their trash, instead of putting it out
for collection, and concluded that the compound lacked a phone or an
Internet connection. Kuwaiti and his brother came and went, but another
man, living on the third floor, never left. When this third individual did
venture outside, he stayed behind the compound’s walls. Some analysts
speculated that the third man was bin Laden, and the agency dubbed him the
Pacer.
2010年8月，Panetta返回白宫的时候带去了好消息。CIA分析人士相信他们确认了本
拉登的信使，这个30岁多点的男人名叫Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti。Kuwaiti开着一辆白
色的SUV，车备胎盖上装饰着白色犀牛形象。CIA开始对这辆车进行追踪。一天，卫星
捕捉到了这辆SUV驶入Abbottabad一处很大的水泥院子的图片。断定Kuwaiti就居住在
此的特工们使用空中侦察来监视这座由三层的主房，一座客房和一些外屋组成的院子
。特工们观察到房子的居住者们焚烧垃圾而不是留给垃圾收集处理，他们得出了这座
房子缺少电话或网络的结论。Kuwaiti和他的兄弟进进出出，但三楼的另一个男人却
从不离开。当这第三个人即使偶尔出来也没有出过庭院。一些分析人士推测这第三个
男人就是本拉登，CIA将其称为散步者。
Obama, though excited, was not yet prepared to order military action.
John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, told me that the
President’s advisers began an “interrogation of the data, to see if, by
that interrogation, you’re going to disprove the theory that bin Laden
was there.” The C.I.A. intensified its intelligence-collection efforts,
and, according to a recent report in the Guardian, a physician working for
the agency conducted an immunization drive in Abbottabad, in the hope of
acquiring DNA samples from bin Laden’s children. (No one in the compound
ultimately received any immunizations.)
尽管激动，奥巴马并没有准备命令采取军事行动。奥巴马的反恐顾问John Brennan告
诉我说总统的顾问开始进行“对数据的核实以期通过核实来验证本拉登住地这个信息
是否确实。”CIA加强了其情报搜集措施，据Guardian最近报道，一位为该机构工作
的医生在Abbottabad进行了一次免疫接种活动以期获得本拉登孩子的DNA样本。（庭
院中的人最终没有接受任何的免疫接种。）
In late 2010, Obama ordered Panetta to begin exploring options for a
military strike on the compound. Panetta contacted Vice-Admiral Bill
McRaven, the SEAL in charge of JSOC. Traditionally, the Army has dominated
the special-operations community, but in recent years the SEALs have
become a more prominent presence; McRaven’s boss at the time of the raid,
Eric Olson—the head of Special Operations Command, or SOCOM—is a Navy
admiral who used to be a commander of DEVGRU. In January, 2011, McRaven
asked a JSOC official named Brian, who had previously been a DEVGRU deputy
commander, to present a raid plan. The next month, Brian, who has the
all-American look of a high-school quarterback, moved into an unmarked
office on the first floor of the C.I.A.’s printing plant, in Langley,
Virginia. Brian covered the walls of the office with topographical maps
and satellite images of the Abbottabad compound. He and half a dozen JSOC
officers were formally attached to the Pakistan/Afghanistan department of
the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center, but in practice they operated on
their own. A senior counterterrorism official who visited the JSOC redoubt
described it as an enclave of unusual secrecy and discretion. “Everything
they were working on was closely held,” the official said.
2010年末，奥巴马命令Panetta开始探索一种对此庭院采取军事行动的替代方案。
Panetta与海军中将Bill McRaven进行了接触，而海豹突击队则受JSOC的管理。军队
传统上控制着特种行动群体，但近年来海豹已变得更为显著；在突袭期间McRaven的
上司——特种作战司令部（SOCOM）领导人Eric Olson是一位曾担任DEVGRU指挥官的
海军上将。2011年1月，McRaven要求曾担任DEVGRU副指挥官的JSOC官员Brian递交一
份突袭计划。一个月后，长得像典型美国高校四分卫模样的Brian搬进了位于维吉尼
亚州兰勒的CIA印刷厂一楼一间没有标识的办公室。Brian办公室的墙上挂着
Abbottabad庭院的地形图和卫星图像。他和半打的JSOC官员正式加入了CIA反恐中心
巴基斯坦/阿富汗部门，但在行动上他们独立进行。一位曾参观过JSOC redoubt的高
级反恐官员将其描述为不寻常的具有酌情决定权的秘密飞地。“他们的每一件事都很
秘密，”这位官员表示。
The relationship between special-operations units and the C.I.A. dates
back to the Vietnam War. But the line between the two communities has
increasingly blurred as C.I.A. officers and military personnel have
encountered one another on multiple tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. “These
people grew up together,” a senior Defense Department official told me.
“We are in each other’s systems, we speak each other’s languages.”
(Exemplifying this trend, General David H. Petraeus, the former commanding
general in Iraq and Afghanistan, is now the incoming head of the C.I.A.,
and Panetta has taken over the Department of Defense.) The bin Laden
mission—plotted at C.I.A. headquarters and authorized under C.I.A. legal
statutes but conducted by Navy DEVGRU operators—brought the co?peration
between the agency and the Pentagon to an even higher level. John Radsan,
a former assistant general counsel at the C.I.A., said that the Abbottabad
raid amounted to “a complete incorporation of JSOC into a C.I.A.
operation.”
特种行动单位和CIA的关系可以追溯到越南战争时期。但当CIA和军事人员在伊拉克和
阿富汗的多重化任务中碰头模糊了两个团体之间的区别。“这些人在一起长大。”一
位国防部高级官员告诉我。“我们在彼此的体系中，我们讲彼此的语言。”（为了例
示这种趋势，伊拉克和阿富汗前司令官David H. Petraeus将军现在是CIA的新领导人
，而Panetta则接管了国防部）此次本拉登任务在CIA总部进行策划并由CIA法规进行
授权，海军DEVGRU人员则负责执行，这将CIA和五角大楼的合作提升到了一个更高的
等级。CIA前助理总顾问John Radsan称Abbottabad突袭把“JSOC彻底地纳入了CIA的
行动中”。
On March 14th, Obama called his national-security advisers into the
White House Situation Room and reviewed a spreadsheet listing possible
courses of action against the Abbottabad compound. Most were variations of
either a JSOC raid or an airstrike. Some versions included co?perating
with the Pakistani military; some did not. Obama decided against informing
or working with Pakistan. “There was a real lack of confidence that the
Pakistanis could keep this secret for more than a nanosecond,” a senior
adviser to the President told me. At the end of the meeting, Obama
instructed McRaven to proceed with planning the raid.
3月14日，奥巴马在白宫特情室传见了国家安全顾问并检查了列有针对Abbottabad庭
院的所能采取的军事行动的电子表格。其中大多数是使用JSOC突袭或空袭的不同版本
。一些行动则将与巴基斯坦军事力量的合作包括在内；一些则没有。奥巴马决定不通
知巴基斯坦也不同其合作。“很难相信巴基斯坦能将这个秘密保持超过一纳秒，”一
个总统的高级顾问这样告诉我。在这次会议的结束时，奥巴马命令McRaven继续策划
这次突袭。Brian invited James, the commander of DEVGRU’s Red Squadron, and
Mark, the master chief petty officer, to join him at C.I.A. headquarters.
They spent the next two and a half weeks considering ways to get inside
bin Laden’s house. One option entailed flying helicopters to a spot
outside Abbottabad and letting the team sneak into the city on foot. The
risk of detection was high, however, and the SEALs would be tired by a
long run to the compound. The planners had contemplated tunnelling in—or,
at least, the possibility that bin Laden might tunnel out. But images
provided by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency showed that there
was standing water in the vicinity, suggesting that the compound sat in a
flood basin. The water table was probably just below the surface, making
tunnels highly unlikely. Eventually, the planners agreed that it made the
most sense to fly directly into the compound. “Special operations is
about doing what’s not expected, and probably the least expected thing
here was that a helicopter would come in, drop guys on the roof, and land
in the yard,” the special-operations officer said.
Brian邀请了DEVGRU Red Squadron的指挥官James以及一级士官长Mark来和他一起在
CIA总部进行工作。他们在下两个半周内考虑了进入本拉登住宅的各种方法。一个选
项是把直升机停在Abbottabad外并让队员们步行潜入这座城市。这种做法很容易被发
现，而且队员们可能因前往目的庭院的长途行走而疲倦。这些策划者们曾设想到挖隧
道进入——或者至少说考虑到本拉登利用隧道逃脱的可能性。但国家地理空间情报局
的图像显示在邻近地区有积水存在，这表明庭院坐落在洪泛区之中。地下水位可能仅
在地面之下，这使得隧道变得十分不可行。策划者最终认为直接飞进庭院是最合理的
方法。“特种作战就是要出其不意，这里最出其不意的事情可能就是一架直升机飞进
来把作战人员投放在屋顶上并降落到庭院里，”这位特种作战官员表示。
On March 29th, McRaven brought the plan to Obama. The President’s
military advisers were divided. Some supported a raid, some an airstrike,
and others wanted to hold off until the intelligence improved. Robert
Gates, the Secretary of Defense, was one of the most outspoken opponents
of a helicopter assault. Gates reminded his colleagues that he had been in
the Situation Room of the Carter White House when military officials
presented Eagle Claw—the 1980 Delta Force operation that aimed at
rescuing American hostages in Tehran but resulted in a disastrous
collision in the Iranian desert, killing eight American soldiers. “They
said that was a pretty good idea, too,” Gates warned. He and General
James Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, favored an
airstrike by B-2 Spirit bombers. That option would avoid the risk of
having American boots on the ground in Pakistan. But the Air Force then
calculated that a payload of thirty-two smart bombs, each weighing two
thousand pounds, would be required to penetrate thirty feet below ground,
insuring that any bunkers would collapse. “That much ordnance going off
would be the equivalent of an earthquake,” Cartwright told me. The
prospect of flattening a Pakistani city made Obama pause. He shelved the
B-2 option and directed McRaven to start rehearsing the raid.
3月39日，McRaven将此计划递交给奥巴马。总统的军事顾问们对此意见不一。一些人
支持这个突袭，一些人支持空袭，其他的则建议推迟到情报更完善之后。国防部长
Robert Gates是用直升机袭击的最坦率反对意见之一。Gates 提醒其同事在卡特总统
时期军事官员提交鹰爪计划的时候他就在特情室，鹰爪计划是20世纪80年代三角洲部
队旨在营救位于德黑兰的美国人质的行动，但那次行动在伊朗沙漠中产生了一次灾难
性的冲突，8名美国士兵因此而丧生。“他们也说那是个很不错的主意，” Gates警
告说。他和参谋长联系会议副主席James Cartwright将军倾向于使用B-2隐形轰炸机
进行空袭。这个选择可能会避免掉美国士兵直接踏入巴基斯坦的风险。但空军的计算
表明，为了确保摧毁地下工事，共需要32枚激光制导炸弹的有效负荷来对地下30英尺
的深度进行穿透。一枚激光制导炸弹的重量为2000磅。“那么多军火爆炸的效果可能
就等量于一次地震了。” Cartwright告诉我。夷平一座巴基斯坦城市的后果让奥巴
马踌躇了。他搁置了B-2计划并指示McRaven开始排练突袭。
3Brian, James, and Mark selected a team of two dozen SEALs from Red
Squadron and told them to report to a densely forested site in North
Carolina for a training exercise on April 10th. (Red Squadron is one of
four squadrons in DEVGRU, which has about three hundred operators in all.)
None of the SEALs, besides James and Mark, were aware of the C.I.A.
intelligence on bin Laden’s compound until a lieutenant commander walked
into an office at the site. He found a two-star Army general from JSOC
headquarters seated at a conference table with Brian, James, Mark, and
several analysts from the C.I.A. This obviously wasn’t a training
exercise. The lieutenant commander was promptly “read in.” A replica of
the compound had been built at the site, with walls and chain-link fencing
marking the layout of the compound. The team spent the next five days
practicing maneuvers.
Brian, James, 和Mark从Red Squadron选择了24名海豹队员组成了一支队伍并告诉他
们4月10号前往北卡罗莱纳的一个森林浓密的地方报道参加训练。(Red Squadron 是
DEVGRU四个连队中的一个，一共约有300人。)除了James and Mark之外，其他海豹队
员并不知道关于本拉登住宅的CIA情报，直到一个海军少校走进了该地的一个办公室
。在这里他发现了一个来自JSOC总部的两星将军和Brian, James, Mark以及一些来自
CIA的分析人士坐在会议桌边。这明显不是训练。这个海军少校迅速地调整了状态。
在此地，本拉登的庭院被复制了一个，墙和链围标示这这个庭院的布局。这个小队用
了接下来5天的时间进行演习。
On April 18th, the DEVGRU squad flew to Nevada for another week of
rehearsals. The practice site was a large government-owned stretch of
desert with an elevation equivalent to the area surrounding Abbottabad. An
extant building served as bin Laden’s house. Aircrews plotted out a path
that paralleled the flight from Jalalabad to Abbottabad. Each night after
sundown, drills commenced. Twelve SEALs, including Mark, boarded helo one.
Eleven SEALs, Ahmed, and Cairo boarded helo two. The pilots flew in the
dark, arrived at the simulated compound, and settled into a hover while
the SEALs fast-roped down. Not everyone on the team was accustomed to
helicopter assaults. Ahmed had been pulled from a desk job for the mission
and had never descended a fast rope. He quickly learned the technique.
4月18日，DEVGRU小队飞往内华达进行另外一周的训练。此训练地点是一片很大
的国有沙漠，其海拔与Abbottabad周边地区相同。当地一所房子被用来扮演成本拉登
的房子。机组成员绘制出从Jalalabad到Abbottabad航线的相似路线。训练在每个日
落后的夜晚进行。包括Mark在内的12名海豹队员登上“1号机”。Ahmed和Cairo和11
名海豹队员乘坐“2号机”。飞行员在黑暗条件下飞行并到达模拟环境，在海豹队员
用速降绳降落的时候飞机处于悬停状态。并不是队伍中的所有人都习惯直升机突袭。
Ahmed是被从办公室中抽调出来参加这次任务的，他以前从未使用过速降绳。他很快
地学会了这种技术。
The assault plan was now honed. Helo one was to hover over the yard,
drop two fast ropes, and let all twelve SEALs slide down into the yard.
Helo two would fly to the northeast corner of the compound and let out
Ahmed, Cairo, and four SEALs, who would monitor the perimeter of the
building. The copter would then hover over the house, and James and the
remaining six SEALs would shimmy down to the roof. As long as everything
was cordial, Ahmed would hold curious neighbors at bay. The SEALs and the
dog could assist more aggressively, if needed. Then, if bin Laden was
proving difficult to find, Cairo could be sent into the house to search
for false walls or hidden doors. “This wasn’t a hard op,” the special-
operations officer told me. “It would be like hitting a target in McLean
”—the upscale Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C.
这项突袭计划正在被磨合。“1号机”按计划将悬停在庭院上空并垂下两根速降绳，
12名海豹队员顺着绳子降落在庭院中。2号机将飞往庭院的东北角，Ahmed, Cairo和
四名海豹队员从机舱中出来。他们将对庭院的周边进行监控。然后这架飞机将在房子
上空悬停，James和剩下的6个海豹队员将降落到房顶。如果一切顺利的话，Ahmed将
阻止好奇的邻居接近。如果需要的话，这些海豹队员将提供更有进攻性的协助。然后
，如很难找到本拉登的话，Cairo将被放进房子里搜寻假墙和暗门。“这个行动并不
困难，”该特种作战官员告诉我。“这就像打击位于McLean的目标差不多”。McLean
是华盛顿特区的弗吉尼亚高档郊区。
A planeload of guests arrived on the night of April 21st. Admiral Mike
Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, along with Olson and McRaven,
sat with C.I.A. personnel in a hangar as Brian, James, Mark, and the
pilots presented a brief on the raid, which had been named Operation
Neptune’s Spear. Despite JSOC’s lead role in Neptune’s Spear, the
mission officially remained a C.I.A. covert operation. The covert approach
allowed the White House to hide its involvement, if necessary. As the
counterterrorism official put it recently, “If you land and everybody is
out on a milk run, then you get the hell out and no one knows.” After
describing the operation, the briefers fielded questions: What if a mob
surrounded the compound? Were the SEALs prepared to shoot civilians?
Olson, who received the Silver Star for valor during the 1993 “Black Hawk
Down” episode, in Mogadishu, Somalia, worried that it could be
politically catastrophic if a U.S. helicopter were shot down inside
Pakistani territory. After an hour or so of questioning, the senior
officers and intelligence analysts returned to Washington. Two days later,
the SEALs flew back to Dam Neck, their base in Virginia.
4月21日晚，一飞机的人来到了这里。参谋长联系会议主席、海军上将Mike Mullen，
Olson和McRaven同CIA的人一起坐在一个飞机库里，他们听取了Brian, James, Mark
和飞行员的简要汇报。这次突袭行动代号为“三叉戟”。JSOC在三叉戟行动中担任主
角，但这次行动在官方层面依然是CIA的秘密行动。如果必要的话，这个秘密措施可
以隐蔽掉白宫的参与。如反恐官员最近表示的那样，“如果降落并发现这不过像一趟
啥事没有的勤务飞行，然后就可以偷偷撤回来，没有人会知道。”在描述了此次行动
之后，汇报者提出了问题：“如果庭院被人群包围怎么办？海豹队员是否要做好向平
民射击的准备？”因在1993年索马里摩加迪沙“黑鹰坠落”事件中表现英勇而获得银
星勋章的Olson担心如果美国直升机在巴基斯坦境内被击落的话可能会带来灾难性的
政治后果。在大约1个小时的问答之后，高级官员和情报分析人士返回华盛顿。两天
后，这些海豹队员飞回了位于他们弗吉尼亚的Dam Neck基地。
On the night of Tuesday, April 26th, the SEAL team boarded a Boeing
C-17 Globemaster at Naval Air Station Oceana, a few miles from Dam Neck.
After a refuelling stop at Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, the C-17
continued to Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul. The SEALs spent a night in
Bagram and moved to Jalalabad on Wednesday.
4月26日，星期二，晚上，海豹小组在距Dam Neck数英里外的海军航空站Oceana登上
了一架波音C-17环球霸王运输机。在德国Ramstein空军基地进行了加油暂停之后，这
架C-17继续飞往位于喀布尔北部的Bagram空军基地。这些海豹队员在Bagram停了一夜
然后周三的时候抵达Jalalabad。
That day in Washington, Panetta convened more than a dozen senior
C.I.A. officials and analysts for a final preparatory meeting. Panetta
asked the participants, one by one, to declare how confident they were
that bin Laden was inside the Abbottabad compound. The counterterrorism
official told me that the percentages “ranged from forty per cent to
ninety or ninety-five per cent,” and added, “This was a circumstantial
case.”
在华盛顿，Panetta当天召集了超过12名CIA高级官员和分析人士来进行最终的筹备会
议。Panetta逐一要求与会者陈述其如何确信本拉登就在Abbottabad那个庭院中。反
恐官员告诉我其百分比“范围为从40%到90%或95%，”并补充说，“这种情况很不常
见”。
Panetta was mindful of the analysts’ doubts, but he believed that the
intelligence was better than anything that the C.I.A. had gathered on bin
Laden since his flight from Tora Bora. Late on Thursday afternoon, Panetta
and the rest of the national-security team met with the President. For the
next few nights, there would be virtually no moonlight over Abbottabad—
the ideal condition for a raid. After that, it would be another month
until the lunar cycle was in its darkest phase. Several analysts from the
National Counterterrorism Center were invited to critique the C.I.A.’s
analysis; their confidence in the intelligence ranged between forty and
sixty per cent. The center’s director, Michael Leiter, said that it would
be preferable to wait for stronger confirmation of bin Laden’s presence
in Abbottabad. Yet, as Ben Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser, put
it to me recently, the longer things dragged on, the greater the risk of a
leak, “which would have upended the thing.” Obama adjourned the meeting
just after 7 P.M. and said that he would sleep on it.
Panetta注意到了分析人士的疑虑，但他相信这个情报要好于自从Tora Bora后CIA搜
集到有关本拉登的所有信息。星期四下午较晚的时候，Panetta和其他国家防务小组
的人员同总统进行了会面。后继的天里，Abbottabad晚上实际上都没有月亮，这是进
行突袭的理想条件。在此之后，要等上一个月的时间月亮才会重新处于其最黯淡的运
行周期状态中。一些国家反恐中心的分析人士受邀对CIA分析进行评价；他们对此情
报的信任百分度在40到60之间。该中心领导人Michael Leiter称最好等到本拉登在
Abbottabad这个信息被更有效地确认之后再进行行动。但当副国家安全顾问Ben
Rhodes最近这样告诉我，事情拖得越久，泄露的风险越大，“这可能会把这事给弄坏
了”。下午7点后奥巴马停止了这次会议，表示他将明天再进行处理。
The next morning, the President met in the Map Room with Tom Donilon,
his national-security adviser, Denis McDonough, a deputy adviser, and
Brennan. Obama had decided to go with a DEVGRU assault, with McRaven
choosing the night. It was too late for a Friday attack, and on Saturday
there was excessive cloud cover. On Saturday afternoon, McRaven and Obama
spoke on the phone, and McRaven said that the raid would occur on Sunday
night. “Godspeed to you and your forces,” Obama told him. “Please pass
on to them my personal thanks for their service and the message that I
personally will be following this mission very closely.”
第二天早上，总统在地图室会见了其国防顾问Tom Donilon、副顾问Denis McDonough
和Brennan。奥巴马决定采用DEVGRU突袭的计划，并同McRaven选择了夜间突袭的日期
。如果是周五的话那就太晚了，而且当地周六会有大量云层覆盖。在周六下午，
McRaven和奥巴马通了电话，McRaven称这次突袭将在周日晚上进行。“祝你们一帆风
顺，”奥巴马说，“请向他们转达我个人对他们的服务的感谢和我个人将会密切关注
这次任务。”
On the morning of Sunday, May 1st, White House officials cancelled
scheduled visits, ordered sandwich platters from Costco, and transformed
the Situation Room into a war room. At eleven o’clock, Obama’s top
advisers began gathering around a large conference table. A video link
connected them to Panetta, at C.I.A. headquarters, and McRaven, in
Afghanistan. (There were at least two other command centers, one inside
the Pentagon and one inside the American Embassy in Islamabad.)
5月1日（周日）早上，白宫官员取消了预定的访问并从Costco订了三明治拼盘，他们
把特请室布置了一个作战室。11点钟，奥巴马的首席顾问们开始汇聚在一张大会议桌
前。通过视频他与CIA总部的Panetta和阿富汗的McRaven进行了连接。（当时至少还
有另外两个指挥中心，一个在五角大楼，另一个伊斯兰堡的美国大使馆。）
Getting Bin Laden - What happened that night in Abbottabad.
击毙本拉登实录 - 阿伯塔巴德之夜【文章转自：http://article.yeeyan.org/view/222579/227189
】
by Nicholas Schmidle
Shortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black
Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern
Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama
bin Laden. Inside the aircraft were twenty-three Navy SEALs from Team Six,
which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group,
or DEVGRU. A Pakistani-American translator, whom I will call Ahmed, and a
dog named Cairo—a Belgian Malinois—were also aboard. It was a moonless
evening, and the helicopters’ pilots, wearing night-vision goggles, flew
without lights over mountains that straddle the border with Pakistan.
Radio communications were kept to a minimum, and an eerie calm settled
inside the aircraft.
五月一日晚十一点刚过不久，两架MH-60黑鹰直升机从阿富汗东部的Jalalabad空军基
地起飞，这两架飞机担负着前往巴基斯坦击毙本拉登的秘密任务。机舱里共有26位来
自海军海豹突击队6队的队员。海豹突击队6队的正式名称是海军特战发展群或DEVGRU
。另外机舱里还有一个被我称为Ahmed的巴基斯坦语翻译和一条名叫Cairo的比利时玛
利诺犬。这是个没有月亮的晚上，戴着夜视镜的直升机飞行员驾驶着没有开灯的飞机
在坐落在巴基斯坦边境的群山上空飞行。无线电通讯被保持到最低限度，机舱内弥漫
着一种奇异可怖的寂静。
Fifteen minutes later, the helicopters ducked into an alpine valley
and slipped, undetected, into Pakistani airspace. For more than sixty
years, Pakistan’s military has maintained a state of high alert against
its eastern neighbor, India. Because of this obsession, Pakistan’s
“principal air defenses are all pointing east,” Shuja Nawaz, an expert
on the Pakistani Army and the author of “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its
Army, and the Wars Within,” told me. Senior defense and Administration
officials concur with this assessment, but a Pakistani senior military
official, whom I reached at his office, in Rawalpindi, disagreed. “No one
leaves their borders unattended,” he said. Though he declined to
elaborate on the location or orientation of Pakistan’s radars—“It’s
not where the radars are or aren’t”—he said that the American
infiltration was the result of “technological gaps we have vis-à-vis the
U.S.” The Black Hawks, each of which had two pilots and a crewman from
the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, or the Night Stalkers, had
been modified to mask heat, noise, and movement; the copters’ exteriors
had sharp, flat angles and were covered with radar-dampening “skin.”
十五分钟后，直升机下降入一个高山河谷，在没有被发现的情况下潜入了巴基斯坦领
空。巴基斯坦在超过六十年的时间里一直对其东部邻居印度保持了高度警惕的状态，
因为这个原因，巴基斯坦的“主要防空力量都是指向东面的”，这是名叫苏加 纳瓦
斯的巴基斯坦部队专家告诉我的，他是《双剑交锋：巴基斯坦与军队以及内部战争》
的作者。高级防务和行政官员对此评估表示同意。但一位我曾到过其办公室的拉瓦尔
品第官员并不同意这一点。“没有人会对其边境不加关注，”他声称。尽管他拒绝提
供巴基斯坦雷达的位置或方位的详细信息——“不是雷达在不在某个地方”——他表
示美国的渗入是”我们同美国面对时的技术差距”所产生的结果。两架黑鹰除了飞行
员外还各配置了一个机组成员，这些人都来自绰号为“夜行者”的第160特种作战航
空团。这两架黑鹰都做了修改以屏蔽热量、噪音和飞行动作；飞机有着尖锐、扁平的
角，并且覆盖了雷达屏蔽“皮肤”。
The SEALs’ destination was a house in the small city of Abbottabad,
which is about a hundred and twenty miles across the Pakistan border.
Situated north of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, Abbottabad is in the
foothills of the Pir Panjal Range, and is popular in the summertime with
families seeking relief from the blistering heat farther south. Founded in
1853 by a British major named James Abbott, the city became the home of a
prestigious military academy after the creation of Pakistan, in 1947.
According to information gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency, bin
Laden was holed up on the third floor of a house in a one-acre compound
just off Kakul Road in Bilal Town, a middle-class neighborhood less than a
mile from the entrance to the academy. If all went according to plan, the
SEALs would drop from the helicopters into the compound, overpower bin
Laden’s guards, shoot and kill him at close range, and then take the
corpse back to Afghanistan.
这些海豹队员的目的地是阿伯塔巴德这座小城市中的一处房子，这座城市坐落在巴基
斯坦首都伊斯兰堡北面，距离巴基斯坦边境约120英里；在夏天的时候这里是一些家
庭躲避南方炎热的放松之地。这座城市在1835年被一位名叫James Abbott的英国陆军
少校建立，1947年巴基斯坦建国后这座城市成为了一所著名军事学院的所在地。据
CIA的搜集的情报，本拉登就躲藏在Bilal镇Kakul 路边一个一英亩大院子中房子的三
层，这个中产阶级庭院距军事学院入口还不到一英里的距离。如果一切按照计划发展
的话，海豹队员将在庭院中降落，压制本拉登的保镖并在近距离击毙本拉登，然后将
其尸体带回阿富汗。
The helicopters traversed Mohmand, one of Pakistan’s seven tribal
areas, skirted the north of Peshawar, and continued due east. The
commander of DEVGRU’s Red Squadron, whom I will call James, sat on the
floor, squeezed among ten other SEALs, Ahmed, and Cairo. (The names of all
the covert operators mentioned in this story have been changed.) James, a
broad-chested man in his late thirties, does not have the lithe swimmer’s
frame that one might expect of a SEAL—he is built more like a discus
thrower. That night, he wore a shirt and trousers in Desert Digital
Camouflage, and carried a silenced Sig Sauer P226 pistol, along with extra
ammunition; a CamelBak, for hydration; and gel shots, for endurance. He
held a short-barrel, silenced M4 rifle. (Others SEALs had chosen the
Heckler & Koch MP7.) A “blowout kit,” for treating field trauma, was
tucked into the small of James’s back. Stuffed into one of his pockets
was a laminated gridded map of the compound. In another pocket was a
booklet with photographs and physical descriptions of the people suspected
of being inside. He wore a noise-cancelling headset, which blocked out
nearly everything besides his heartbeat.
直升机穿过Mohmand继续向正东飞行，Mohmand位于Peshawar北部边缘，它是巴基斯坦
七个部落区域之一。被我称为James的DEVGRU Red Squadron指挥官坐在地板上，和其
他10个海豹队员、Ahmed和Cairo挤在一起。（本文中所有秘密行动人员的姓名均已被
更改。）宽胸脯的James大约年近四十了，他并没有一般人想象中海豹队员应该有的
游泳者的柔软体态，他的体型看起来更像是一个掷铁饼运动员。那天晚上，他穿着沙
漠数码迷彩衬衫和裤子，拿了把消声的Sig Sauer P226手枪，还带了些额外的弹药；
另外还有一个驼峰水袋和一些用于增加持久力的能量胶。他拿了把短枪管的消声M4步
枪。（其他海豹队员选择的是赫克勒-科赫MP7。）James背包里塞着用来处理战场创
伤的“止血器件”，兜里揣着一份透明薄膜覆盖的庭院方格坐标地图，另一个兜里则
是印着被怀疑在屋里的人的照片和体态描述的小册子。他戴着副抗噪耳机，这东西几
乎阻挡了除了他心跳外的所有声音。
During the ninety-minute helicopter flight, James and his teammates
rehearsed the operation in their heads. Since the autumn of 2001, they had
rotated through Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and the Horn of Africa, at a
brutal pace. At least three of the SEALs had participated in the sniper
operation off the coast of Somalia, in April, 2009, that freed Richard
Phillips, the captain of the Maersk Alabama, and left three pirates dead.
In October, 2010, a DEVGRU team attempted to rescue Linda Norgrove, a
Scottish aid worker who had been kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan by the
Taliban. During a raid of a Taliban hideout, a SEAL tossed a grenade at an
insurgent, not realizing that Norgrove was nearby. She died from the
blast. The mistake haunted the SEALs who had been involved; three of them
were subsequently expelled from DEVGRU.
在90分钟的直升机航程中，James和队友在头脑中排练了这次行动。自2001年秋，他
们在阿富汗，伊拉克，也门和非洲之角及其迅猛地来回辗转。这些海豹队员们至少其
中有三人2009年四月在索马里海岸外参与了解救阿拉巴马号货船船长理查德·菲利普
斯的狙击行动，行动中击毙了三个海盗。2010年10月，一个DEVGRU 小队试图营救
Linda Norgrove，这位苏格兰援助工作者被塔利班在阿富汗东部被绑架。在对塔利班
藏匿地的一次突袭中，一个海豹队员在没有发现Norgrove在附近的情况下向一个反抗
军成员投掷了一枚手榴弹。Norgrove因这个手榴弹的爆炸而丧生。这个过失困扰着涉
及此事的海豹队员，其中三个人相继被DEVGRU开除。
The Abbottabad raid was not DEVGRU’s maiden venture into Pakistan,
either. The team had surreptitiously entered the country on ten to twelve
previous occasions, according to a special-operations officer who is
deeply familiar with the bin Laden raid. Most of those missions were
forays into North and South Waziristan, where many military and
intelligence analysts had thought that bin Laden and other Al Qaeda
leaders were hiding. (Only one such operation—the September, 2008, raid
of Angoor Ada, a village in South Waziristan—has been widely reported.)
Abbottabad was, by far, the farthest that DEVGRU had ventured into
Pakistani territory. It also represented the team’s first serious attempt
since late 2001 at killing “Crankshaft”—the target name that the Joint
Special Operations Command, or JSOC, had given bin Laden. Since escaping
that winter during a battle in the Tora Bora region of eastern
Afghanistan, bin Laden had defied American efforts to trace him. Indeed,
it remains unclear how he ended up living in Abbottabad.
这次目标为Abbottabad的突袭也不是DEVGRU在巴基斯坦的初次行动。根据一位对搜捕
本拉登行动非常熟悉的特别行动官员称，该小队在此之前已在10到12次行动中秘密进
入该国。这些行动之中有许多在Waziristan北部和南部地区的突袭行动，许多军事和
情报分析人士此前认为本拉登和其他基地领导人躲藏在此地。（迄今只有2008年9月
份的一次突袭Angoor Ada的行动被广泛报道，Angoor Ada是Waziristan南部的村庄。
）Abbottabad是迄今为止DEVGRU进入巴基斯坦最深入的地方。这也是自2001年末该小
队首次对击毙“Crankshaft”的认真尝试，Crankshaft这个名字是联合特种作战司令
部（JSOC）给本拉登的代号。自从那年冬天在阿富汗东部Tora Bora地区的战斗中逃
脱之后，本拉登已挫败了美国追踪其行踪的努力。而现今仍不清楚他是如何脱离并生
活在Abbottabad的。
Forty-five minutes after the Black Hawks departed, four MH-47 Chinooks
launched from the same runway in Jalalabad. Two of them flew to the
border, staying on the Afghan side; the other two proceeded into Pakistan.
Deploying four Chinooks was a last-minute decision made after President
Barack Obama said he wanted to feel assured that the Americans could
“fight their way out of Pakistan.” Twenty-five additional SEALs from
DEVGRU, pulled from a squadron stationed in Afghanistan, sat in the
Chinooks that remained at the border; this “quick-reaction force” would
be called into action only if the mission went seriously wrong. The third
and fourth Chinooks were each outfitted with a pair of M134 Miniguns. They
followed the Black Hawks’ initial flight path but landed at a
predetermined point on a dry riverbed in a wide, unpopulated valley in
northwest Pakistan. The nearest house was half a mile away. On the ground,
the copters’ rotors were kept whirring while operatives monitored the
surrounding hills for encroaching Pakistani helicopters or fighter jets.
One of the Chinooks was carrying fuel bladders, in case the other aircraft
needed to refill their tanks.
黑鹰起飞45分钟后，四架MH-47支奴干从Jalalabad相同跑道起飞。其中两架飞往边境
并停在了阿富汗一侧；其余两架继续前行进入了巴基斯坦。在奥巴马总统表示他想确
保美国能“从巴基斯坦打出来出路”后，而后才临时决定派遣这四架支奴干。停在边
境的支奴干中有25名来自驻扎在阿富汗的连队中调出的DEVGRU海豹队员；如行动出现
严重失误，这支“快速反应力量”将立即被投入行动。第三和第四架支奴干均配备了
两门M134加特林机枪。他们使用了黑鹰的出事航线但降落在巴基斯坦西北部一处宽阔
的无人居住山谷的干河床上，这个地点是预先指定的。最近的房子在半英里外。在停
机地的直升机的转翼持续转动，行动人员在监控着周围的山峦是否出现巴基斯坦直升
机或战斗机。其中一架支奴干直升机携带了油箱以供其他飞机加油之需。
Meanwhile, the two Black Hawks were quickly approaching Abbottabad
from the northwest, hiding behind the mountains on the northernmost edge
of the city. Then the pilots banked right and went south along a ridge
that marks Abbottabad’s eastern perimeter. When those hills tapered off,
the pilots curled right again, toward the city center, and made their
final approach.
同时，两架黑鹰躲在该市最北边缘的山脉后面，从西北快速接近Abbottabad。飞行员
然后右转并沿标示着Abbottabad东部视野的一道山脊向南飞行。当这些山峦消失之后
，飞行员再次右转，向城市中心进行最后的接近。
During the next four minutes, the interior of the Black Hawks rustled
alive with the metallic cough of rounds being chambered. Mark, a master
chief petty officer and the ranking noncommissioned officer on the
operation, crouched on one knee beside the open door of the lead
helicopter. He and the eleven other SEALs on “helo one,” who were
wearing gloves and had on night-vision goggles, were preparing to fast-
rope into bin Laden’s yard. They waited for the crew chief to give the
signal to throw the rope. But, as the pilot passed over the compound,
pulled into a high hover, and began lowering the aircraft, he felt the
Black Hawk getting away from him. He sensed that they were going to crash.
在接下来的四分钟内，黑鹰机舱内部充满了枪膛里子弹上膛的机械声响。一级军士长
、此次任务未授衔负责人Mark单膝跪在领头直升机打开的门侧。“1号机上”，他和
其他11个海豹戴着手套和夜视镜，正预备通过速降绳降落到本拉登的庭院里。他们等
待着乘务长发出抛下绳索的信号。但当飞行员飞越庭院的时候进入了较高的悬停并开
始将飞机降落的时候，他感觉黑鹰正离开他。他意识到他们正在坠落。
One month before the 2008 Presidential election, Obama, then a senator
from Illinois, squared off in a debate against John McCain in an arena at
Belmont University, in Nashville. A woman in the audience asked Obama if
he would be willing to pursue Al Qaeda leaders inside Pakistan, even if
that meant invading an ally nation. He replied, “If we have Osama bin
Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable, or unwilling,
to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them
out. We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our
biggest national-security priority.” McCain, who often criticized Obama
for his na?veté on foreign-policy matters, characterized the promise as
foolish, saying, “I’m not going to telegraph my punches.”
在2008年总统大选前一个月，奥巴马以及后来一个伊利诺斯州参议员在纳什维尔贝尔
盟大学的会场上对John McCain摆下了争论姿态。一位女性观众问奥巴马他是否会在
巴基斯坦境内追捕本拉登，即使那意味着对一个盟国的侵略。他回答说：“如果我们
发现了本拉登的行踪而巴基斯坦政府无能为力或不愿作为的话，那就排除他们，我认
为我们不得不做出行动并将其排除在外。我们将杀死本拉登。我们将摧毁基地组织。
这是我们国家防务的最高优先权。”经常指责奥巴马的外交政策幼稚的McCain用愚蠢
来评价这个承诺，他声称，“我不会先把自己的打击行动宣传出来。”
Four months after Obama entered the White House, Leon Panetta, the
director of the C.I.A., briefed the President on the agency’s latest
programs and initiatives for tracking bin Laden. Obama was unimpressed. In
June, 2009, he drafted a memo instructing Panetta to create a “detailed
operation plan” for finding the Al Qaeda leader and to “ensure that we
have expended every effort.” Most notably, the President intensified the
C.I.A.’s classified drone program; there were more missile strikes inside
Pakistan during Obama’s first year in office than in George W. Bush’s
eight. The terrorists swiftly registered the impact: that July, CBS
reported that a recent Al Qaeda communiqué had referred to “brave
commanders” who had been “snatched away” and to “so many hidden homes
[which] have been levelled.” The document blamed the “very grave”
situation on spies who had “spread throughout the land like locusts.”
Nevertheless, bin Laden’s trail remained cold.
在奥巴马入主白宫四个月后，CIA局长Leon Panetta向他通报了该机构的最新项目和
追踪本拉登的初步行动。奥巴马对此印象平平。2009年6月，他在一份备忘录中命令
Panetta制定一份“具体的行动计划”以搜索基地领导人和“确保我们已竭尽所能”
。最值得注意的是，奥巴马总统强化了CIA机密的无人机项目；在奥巴马执政的头一
年内巴基斯坦的导弹袭击数量比布什执政的八年中发生的都多。恐怖分子很快对行动
的效果做出了回应：7月的时候CBS报道称最近的基地声明涉及了曾被“抓走”的“勇
敢的指挥官”和“许多隐秘家园被夷平”。该文件指责那些“想蝗虫一样遍布这块土
地的探子”导致了“严峻的”形式。但本拉登的踪迹依然未知。
In August, 2010, Panetta returned to the White House with better news.
C.I.A. analysts believed that they had pinpointed bin Laden’s courier, a
man in his early thirties named Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Kuwaiti drove a
white S.U.V. whose spare-tire cover was emblazoned with an image of a
white rhino. The C.I.A. began tracking the vehicle. One day, a satellite
captured images of the S.U.V. pulling into a large concrete compound in
Abbottabad. Agents, determining that Kuwaiti was living there, used aerial surveillance to keep watch on the compound, which consisted of a three-
story main house, a guesthouse, and a few outbuildings. They observed that
residents of the compound burned their trash, instead of putting it out
for collection, and concluded that the compound lacked a phone or an
Internet connection. Kuwaiti and his brother came and went, but another
man, living on the third floor, never left. When this third individual did
venture outside, he stayed behind the compound’s walls. Some analysts
speculated that the third man was bin Laden, and the agency dubbed him the
Pacer.
2010年8月，Panetta返回白宫的时候带去了好消息。CIA分析人士相信他们确认了本
拉登的信使，这个30岁多点的男人名叫Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti。Kuwaiti开着一辆白
色的SUV，车备胎盖上装饰着白色犀牛形象。CIA开始对这辆车进行追踪。一天，卫星
捕捉到了这辆SUV驶入Abbottabad一处很大的水泥院子的图片。断定Kuwaiti就居住在
此的特工们使用空中侦察来监视这座由三层的主房，一座客房和一些外屋组成的院子
。特工们观察到房子的居住者们焚烧垃圾而不是留给垃圾收集处理，他们得出了这座
房子缺少电话或网络的结论。Kuwaiti和他的兄弟进进出出，但三楼的另一个男人却
从不离开。当这第三个人即使偶尔出来也没有出过庭院。一些分析人士推测这第三个
男人就是本拉登，CIA将其称为散步者。
Obama, though excited, was not yet prepared to order military action.
John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, told me that the
President’s advisers began an “interrogation of the data, to see if, by
that interrogation, you’re going to disprove the theory that bin Laden
was there.” The C.I.A. intensified its intelligence-collection efforts,
and, according to a recent report in the Guardian, a physician working for
the agency conducted an immunization drive in Abbottabad, in the hope of
acquiring DNA samples from bin Laden’s children. (No one in the compound
ultimately received any immunizations.)
尽管激动，奥巴马并没有准备命令采取军事行动。奥巴马的反恐顾问John Brennan告
诉我说总统的顾问开始进行“对数据的核实以期通过核实来验证本拉登住地这个信息
是否确实。”CIA加强了其情报搜集措施，据Guardian最近报道，一位为该机构工作
的医生在Abbottabad进行了一次免疫接种活动以期获得本拉登孩子的DNA样本。（庭
院中的人最终没有接受任何的免疫接种。）
In late 2010, Obama ordered Panetta to begin exploring options for a
military strike on the compound. Panetta contacted Vice-Admiral Bill
McRaven, the SEAL in charge of JSOC. Traditionally, the Army has dominated
the special-operations community, but in recent years the SEALs have
become a more prominent presence; McRaven’s boss at the time of the raid,
Eric Olson—the head of Special Operations Command, or SOCOM—is a Navy
admiral who used to be a commander of DEVGRU. In January, 2011, McRaven
asked a JSOC official named Brian, who had previously been a DEVGRU deputy
commander, to present a raid plan. The next month, Brian, who has the
all-American look of a high-school quarterback, moved into an unmarked
office on the first floor of the C.I.A.’s printing plant, in Langley,
Virginia. Brian covered the walls of the office with topographical maps
and satellite images of the Abbottabad compound. He and half a dozen JSOC
officers were formally attached to the Pakistan/Afghanistan department of
the C.I.A.’s Counterterrorism Center, but in practice they operated on
their own. A senior counterterrorism official who visited the JSOC redoubt
described it as an enclave of unusual secrecy and discretion. “Everything
they were working on was closely held,” the official said.
2010年末，奥巴马命令Panetta开始探索一种对此庭院采取军事行动的替代方案。
Panetta与海军中将Bill McRaven进行了接触，而海豹突击队则受JSOC的管理。军队
传统上控制着特种行动群体，但近年来海豹已变得更为显著；在突袭期间McRaven的
上司——特种作战司令部（SOCOM）领导人Eric Olson是一位曾担任DEVGRU指挥官的
海军上将。2011年1月，McRaven要求曾担任DEVGRU副指挥官的JSOC官员Brian递交一
份突袭计划。一个月后，长得像典型美国高校四分卫模样的Brian搬进了位于维吉尼
亚州兰勒的CIA印刷厂一楼一间没有标识的办公室。Brian办公室的墙上挂着
Abbottabad庭院的地形图和卫星图像。他和半打的JSOC官员正式加入了CIA反恐中心
巴基斯坦/阿富汗部门，但在行动上他们独立进行。一位曾参观过JSOC redoubt的高
级反恐官员将其描述为不寻常的具有酌情决定权的秘密飞地。“他们的每一件事都很
秘密，”这位官员表示。
The relationship between special-operations units and the C.I.A. dates
back to the Vietnam War. But the line between the two communities has
increasingly blurred as C.I.A. officers and military personnel have
encountered one another on multiple tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. “These
people grew up together,” a senior Defense Department official told me.
“We are in each other’s systems, we speak each other’s languages.”
(Exemplifying this trend, General David H. Petraeus, the former commanding
general in Iraq and Afghanistan, is now the incoming head of the C.I.A.,
and Panetta has taken over the Department of Defense.) The bin Laden
mission—plotted at C.I.A. headquarters and authorized under C.I.A. legal
statutes but conducted by Navy DEVGRU operators—brought the co?peration
between the agency and the Pentagon to an even higher level. John Radsan,
a former assistant general counsel at the C.I.A., said that the Abbottabad
raid amounted to “a complete incorporation of JSOC into a C.I.A.
operation.”
特种行动单位和CIA的关系可以追溯到越南战争时期。但当CIA和军事人员在伊拉克和
阿富汗的多重化任务中碰头模糊了两个团体之间的区别。“这些人在一起长大。”一
位国防部高级官员告诉我。“我们在彼此的体系中，我们讲彼此的语言。”（为了例
示这种趋势，伊拉克和阿富汗前司令官David H. Petraeus将军现在是CIA的新领导人
，而Panetta则接管了国防部）此次本拉登任务在CIA总部进行策划并由CIA法规进行
授权，海军DEVGRU人员则负责执行，这将CIA和五角大楼的合作提升到了一个更高的
等级。CIA前助理总顾问John Radsan称Abbottabad突袭把“JSOC彻底地纳入了CIA的
行动中”。
On March 14th, Obama called his national-security advisers into the
White House Situation Room and reviewed a spreadsheet listing possible
courses of action against the Abbottabad compound. Most were variations of
either a JSOC raid or an airstrike. Some versions included co?perating
with the Pakistani military; some did not. Obama decided against informing
or working with Pakistan. “There was a real lack of confidence that the
Pakistanis could keep this secret for more than a nanosecond,” a senior
adviser to the President told me. At the end of the meeting, Obama
instructed McRaven to proceed with planning the raid.
3月14日，奥巴马在白宫特情室传见了国家安全顾问并检查了列有针对Abbottabad庭
院的所能采取的军事行动的电子表格。其中大多数是使用JSOC突袭或空袭的不同版本
。一些行动则将与巴基斯坦军事力量的合作包括在内；一些则没有。奥巴马决定不通
知巴基斯坦也不同其合作。“很难相信巴基斯坦能将这个秘密保持超过一纳秒，”一
个总统的高级顾问这样告诉我。在这次会议的结束时，奥巴马命令McRaven继续策划
这次突袭。Brian invited James, the commander of DEVGRU’s Red Squadron, and
Mark, the master chief petty officer, to join him at C.I.A. headquarters.
They spent the next two and a half weeks considering ways to get inside
bin Laden’s house. One option entailed flying helicopters to a spot
outside Abbottabad and letting the team sneak into the city on foot. The
risk of detection was high, however, and the SEALs would be tired by a
long run to the compound. The planners had contemplated tunnelling in—or,
at least, the possibility that bin Laden might tunnel out. But images
provided by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency showed that there
was standing water in the vicinity, suggesting that the compound sat in a
flood basin. The water table was probably just below the surface, making
tunnels highly unlikely. Eventually, the planners agreed that it made the
most sense to fly directly into the compound. “Special operations is
about doing what’s not expected, and probably the least expected thing
here was that a helicopter would come in, drop guys on the roof, and land
in the yard,” the special-operations officer said.
Brian邀请了DEVGRU Red Squadron的指挥官James以及一级士官长Mark来和他一起在
CIA总部进行工作。他们在下两个半周内考虑了进入本拉登住宅的各种方法。一个选
项是把直升机停在Abbottabad外并让队员们步行潜入这座城市。这种做法很容易被发
现，而且队员们可能因前往目的庭院的长途行走而疲倦。这些策划者们曾设想到挖隧
道进入——或者至少说考虑到本拉登利用隧道逃脱的可能性。但国家地理空间情报局
的图像显示在邻近地区有积水存在，这表明庭院坐落在洪泛区之中。地下水位可能仅
在地面之下，这使得隧道变得十分不可行。策划者最终认为直接飞进庭院是最合理的
方法。“特种作战就是要出其不意，这里最出其不意的事情可能就是一架直升机飞进
来把作战人员投放在屋顶上并降落到庭院里，”这位特种作战官员表示。
On March 29th, McRaven brought the plan to Obama. The President’s
military advisers were divided. Some supported a raid, some an airstrike,
and others wanted to hold off until the intelligence improved. Robert
Gates, the Secretary of Defense, was one of the most outspoken opponents
of a helicopter assault. Gates reminded his colleagues that he had been in
the Situation Room of the Carter White House when military officials
presented Eagle Claw—the 1980 Delta Force operation that aimed at
rescuing American hostages in Tehran but resulted in a disastrous
collision in the Iranian desert, killing eight American soldiers. “They
said that was a pretty good idea, too,” Gates warned. He and General
James Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, favored an
airstrike by B-2 Spirit bombers. That option would avoid the risk of
having American boots on the ground in Pakistan. But the Air Force then
calculated that a payload of thirty-two smart bombs, each weighing two
thousand pounds, would be required to penetrate thirty feet below ground,
insuring that any bunkers would collapse. “That much ordnance going off
would be the equivalent of an earthquake,” Cartwright told me. The
prospect of flattening a Pakistani city made Obama pause. He shelved the
B-2 option and directed McRaven to start rehearsing the raid.
3月39日，McRaven将此计划递交给奥巴马。总统的军事顾问们对此意见不一。一些人
支持这个突袭，一些人支持空袭，其他的则建议推迟到情报更完善之后。国防部长
Robert Gates是用直升机袭击的最坦率反对意见之一。Gates 提醒其同事在卡特总统
时期军事官员提交鹰爪计划的时候他就在特情室，鹰爪计划是20世纪80年代三角洲部
队旨在营救位于德黑兰的美国人质的行动，但那次行动在伊朗沙漠中产生了一次灾难
性的冲突，8名美国士兵因此而丧生。“他们也说那是个很不错的主意，” Gates警
告说。他和参谋长联系会议副主席James Cartwright将军倾向于使用B-2隐形轰炸机
进行空袭。这个选择可能会避免掉美国士兵直接踏入巴基斯坦的风险。但空军的计算
表明，为了确保摧毁地下工事，共需要32枚激光制导炸弹的有效负荷来对地下30英尺
的深度进行穿透。一枚激光制导炸弹的重量为2000磅。“那么多军火爆炸的效果可能
就等量于一次地震了。” Cartwright告诉我。夷平一座巴基斯坦城市的后果让奥巴
马踌躇了。他搁置了B-2计划并指示McRaven开始排练突袭。
3Brian, James, and Mark selected a team of two dozen SEALs from Red
Squadron and told them to report to a densely forested site in North
Carolina for a training exercise on April 10th. (Red Squadron is one of
four squadrons in DEVGRU, which has about three hundred operators in all.)
None of the SEALs, besides James and Mark, were aware of the C.I.A.
intelligence on bin Laden’s compound until a lieutenant commander walked
into an office at the site. He found a two-star Army general from JSOC
headquarters seated at a conference table with Brian, James, Mark, and
several analysts from the C.I.A. This obviously wasn’t a training
exercise. The lieutenant commander was promptly “read in.” A replica of
the compound had been built at the site, with walls and chain-link fencing
marking the layout of the compound. The team spent the next five days
practicing maneuvers.
Brian, James, 和Mark从Red Squadron选择了24名海豹队员组成了一支队伍并告诉他
们4月10号前往北卡罗莱纳的一个森林浓密的地方报道参加训练。(Red Squadron 是
DEVGRU四个连队中的一个，一共约有300人。)除了James and Mark之外，其他海豹队
员并不知道关于本拉登住宅的CIA情报，直到一个海军少校走进了该地的一个办公室
。在这里他发现了一个来自JSOC总部的两星将军和Brian, James, Mark以及一些来自
CIA的分析人士坐在会议桌边。这明显不是训练。这个海军少校迅速地调整了状态。
在此地，本拉登的庭院被复制了一个，墙和链围标示这这个庭院的布局。这个小队用
了接下来5天的时间进行演习。
On April 18th, the DEVGRU squad flew to Nevada for another week of
rehearsals. The practice site was a large government-owned stretch of
desert with an elevation equivalent to the area surrounding Abbottabad. An
extant building served as bin Laden’s house. Aircrews plotted out a path
that paralleled the flight from Jalalabad to Abbottabad. Each night after
sundown, drills commenced. Twelve SEALs, including Mark, boarded helo one.
Eleven SEALs, Ahmed, and Cairo boarded helo two. The pilots flew in the
dark, arrived at the simulated compound, and settled into a hover while
the SEALs fast-roped down. Not everyone on the team was accustomed to
helicopter assaults. Ahmed had been pulled from a desk job for the mission
and had never descended a fast rope. He quickly learned the technique.
4月18日，DEVGRU小队飞往内华达进行另外一周的训练。此训练地点是一片很大
的国有沙漠，其海拔与Abbottabad周边地区相同。当地一所房子被用来扮演成本拉登
的房子。机组成员绘制出从Jalalabad到Abbottabad航线的相似路线。训练在每个日
落后的夜晚进行。包括Mark在内的12名海豹队员登上“1号机”。Ahmed和Cairo和11
名海豹队员乘坐“2号机”。飞行员在黑暗条件下飞行并到达模拟环境，在海豹队员
用速降绳降落的时候飞机处于悬停状态。并不是队伍中的所有人都习惯直升机突袭。
Ahmed是被从办公室中抽调出来参加这次任务的，他以前从未使用过速降绳。他很快
地学会了这种技术。
The assault plan was now honed. Helo one was to hover over the yard,
drop two fast ropes, and let all twelve SEALs slide down into the yard.
Helo two would fly to the northeast corner of the compound and let out
Ahmed, Cairo, and four SEALs, who would monitor the perimeter of the
building. The copter would then hover over the house, and James and the
remaining six SEALs would shimmy down to the roof. As long as everything
was cordial, Ahmed would hold curious neighbors at bay. The SEALs and the
dog could assist more aggressively, if needed. Then, if bin Laden was
proving difficult to find, Cairo could be sent into the house to search
for false walls or hidden doors. “This wasn’t a hard op,” the special-
operations officer told me. “It would be like hitting a target in McLean
”—the upscale Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C.
这项突袭计划正在被磨合。“1号机”按计划将悬停在庭院上空并垂下两根速降绳，
12名海豹队员顺着绳子降落在庭院中。2号机将飞往庭院的东北角，Ahmed, Cairo和
四名海豹队员从机舱中出来。他们将对庭院的周边进行监控。然后这架飞机将在房子
上空悬停，James和剩下的6个海豹队员将降落到房顶。如果一切顺利的话，Ahmed将
阻止好奇的邻居接近。如果需要的话，这些海豹队员将提供更有进攻性的协助。然后
，如很难找到本拉登的话，Cairo将被放进房子里搜寻假墙和暗门。“这个行动并不
困难，”该特种作战官员告诉我。“这就像打击位于McLean的目标差不多”。McLean
是华盛顿特区的弗吉尼亚高档郊区。
A planeload of guests arrived on the night of April 21st. Admiral Mike
Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, along with Olson and McRaven,
sat with C.I.A. personnel in a hangar as Brian, James, Mark, and the
pilots presented a brief on the raid, which had been named Operation
Neptune’s Spear. Despite JSOC’s lead role in Neptune’s Spear, the
mission officially remained a C.I.A. covert operation. The covert approach
allowed the White House to hide its involvement, if necessary. As the
counterterrorism official put it recently, “If you land and everybody is
out on a milk run, then you get the hell out and no one knows.” After
describing the operation, the briefers fielded questions: What if a mob
surrounded the compound? Were the SEALs prepared to shoot civilians?
Olson, who received the Silver Star for valor during the 1993 “Black Hawk
Down” episode, in Mogadishu, Somalia, worried that it could be
politically catastrophic if a U.S. helicopter were shot down inside
Pakistani territory. After an hour or so of questioning, the senior
officers and intelligence analysts returned to Washington. Two days later,
the SEALs flew back to Dam Neck, their base in Virginia.
4月21日晚，一飞机的人来到了这里。参谋长联系会议主席、海军上将Mike Mullen，
Olson和McRaven同CIA的人一起坐在一个飞机库里，他们听取了Brian, James, Mark
和飞行员的简要汇报。这次突袭行动代号为“三叉戟”。JSOC在三叉戟行动中担任主
角，但这次行动在官方层面依然是CIA的秘密行动。如果必要的话，这个秘密措施可
以隐蔽掉白宫的参与。如反恐官员最近表示的那样，“如果降落并发现这不过像一趟
啥事没有的勤务飞行，然后就可以偷偷撤回来，没有人会知道。”在描述了此次行动
之后，汇报者提出了问题：“如果庭院被人群包围怎么办？海豹队员是否要做好向平
民射击的准备？”因在1993年索马里摩加迪沙“黑鹰坠落”事件中表现英勇而获得银
星勋章的Olson担心如果美国直升机在巴基斯坦境内被击落的话可能会带来灾难性的
政治后果。在大约1个小时的问答之后，高级官员和情报分析人士返回华盛顿。两天
后，这些海豹队员飞回了位于他们弗吉尼亚的Dam Neck基地。
On the night of Tuesday, April 26th, the SEAL team boarded a Boeing
C-17 Globemaster at Naval Air Station Oceana, a few miles from Dam Neck.
After a refuelling stop at Ramstein Air Base, in Germany, the C-17
continued to Bagram Airfield, north of Kabul. The SEALs spent a night in
Bagram and moved to Jalalabad on Wednesday.
4月26日，星期二，晚上，海豹小组在距Dam Neck数英里外的海军航空站Oceana登上
了一架波音C-17环球霸王运输机。在德国Ramstein空军基地进行了加油暂停之后，这
架C-17继续飞往位于喀布尔北部的Bagram空军基地。这些海豹队员在Bagram停了一夜
然后周三的时候抵达Jalalabad。
That day in Washington, Panetta convened more than a dozen senior
C.I.A. officials and analysts for a final preparatory meeting. Panetta
asked the participants, one by one, to declare how confident they were
that bin Laden was inside the Abbottabad compound. The counterterrorism
official told me that the percentages “ranged from forty per cent to
ninety or ninety-five per cent,” and added, “This was a circumstantial
case.”
在华盛顿，Panetta当天召集了超过12名CIA高级官员和分析人士来进行最终的筹备会
议。Panetta逐一要求与会者陈述其如何确信本拉登就在Abbottabad那个庭院中。反
恐官员告诉我其百分比“范围为从40%到90%或95%，”并补充说，“这种情况很不常
见”。
Panetta was mindful of the analysts’ doubts, but he believed that the
intelligence was better than anything that the C.I.A. had gathered on bin
Laden since his flight from Tora Bora. Late on Thursday afternoon, Panetta
and the rest of the national-security team met with the President. For the
next few nights, there would be virtually no moonlight over Abbottabad—
the ideal condition for a raid. After that, it would be another month
until the lunar cycle was in its darkest phase. Several analysts from the
National Counterterrorism Center were invited to critique the C.I.A.’s
analysis; their confidence in the intelligence ranged between forty and
sixty per cent. The center’s director, Michael Leiter, said that it would
be preferable to wait for stronger confirmation of bin Laden’s presence
in Abbottabad. Yet, as Ben Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser, put
it to me recently, the longer things dragged on, the greater the risk of a
leak, “which would have upended the thing.” Obama adjourned the meeting
just after 7 P.M. and said that he would sleep on it.
Panetta注意到了分析人士的疑虑，但他相信这个情报要好于自从Tora Bora后CIA搜
集到有关本拉登的所有信息。星期四下午较晚的时候，Panetta和其他国家防务小组
的人员同总统进行了会面。后继的天里，Abbottabad晚上实际上都没有月亮，这是进
行突袭的理想条件。在此之后，要等上一个月的时间月亮才会重新处于其最黯淡的运
行周期状态中。一些国家反恐中心的分析人士受邀对CIA分析进行评价；他们对此情
报的信任百分度在40到60之间。该中心领导人Michael Leiter称最好等到本拉登在
Abbottabad这个信息被更有效地确认之后再进行行动。但当副国家安全顾问Ben
Rhodes最近这样告诉我，事情拖得越久，泄露的风险越大，“这可能会把这事给弄坏
了”。下午7点后奥巴马停止了这次会议，表示他将明天再进行处理。
The next morning, the President met in the Map Room with Tom Donilon,
his national-security adviser, Denis McDonough, a deputy adviser, and
Brennan. Obama had decided to go with a DEVGRU assault, with McRaven
choosing the night. It was too late for a Friday attack, and on Saturday
there was excessive cloud cover. On Saturday afternoon, McRaven and Obama
spoke on the phone, and McRaven said that the raid would occur on Sunday
night. “Godspeed to you and your forces,” Obama told him. “Please pass
on to them my personal thanks for their service and the message that I
personally will be following this mission very closely.”
第二天早上，总统在地图室会见了其国防顾问Tom Donilon、副顾问Denis McDonough
和Brennan。奥巴马决定采用DEVGRU突袭的计划，并同McRaven选择了夜间突袭的日期
。如果是周五的话那就太晚了，而且当地周六会有大量云层覆盖。在周六下午，
McRaven和奥巴马通了电话，McRaven称这次突袭将在周日晚上进行。“祝你们一帆风
顺，”奥巴马说，“请向他们转达我个人对他们的服务的感谢和我个人将会密切关注
这次任务。”
On the morning of Sunday, May 1st, White House officials cancelled
scheduled visits, ordered sandwich platters from Costco, and transformed
the Situation Room into a war room. At eleven o’clock, Obama’s top
advisers began gathering around a large conference table. A video link
connected them to Panetta, at C.I.A. headquarters, and McRaven, in
Afghanistan. (There were at least two other command centers, one inside
the Pentagon and one inside the American Embassy in Islamabad.)
5月1日（周日）早上，白宫官员取消了预定的访问并从Costco订了三明治拼盘，他们
把特请室布置了一个作战室。11点钟，奥巴马的首席顾问们开始汇聚在一张大会议桌
前。通过视频他与CIA总部的Panetta和阿富汗的McRaven进行了连接。（当时至少还
有另外两个指挥中心，一个在五角大楼，另一个伊斯兰堡的美国大使馆。）
Getting Bin Laden - 击毙本拉登实录(2) Brigadier General Marshall Webb, an assistant commander of JSOC, took a
seat at the end of a lacquered table in a small adjoining office and
turned on his laptop. He opened multiple chat windows that kept him, and
the White House, connected with the other command teams. The office where
Webb sat had the only video feed in the White House showing real-time
footage of the target, which was being shot by an unarmed RQ 170 drone
flying more than fifteen thousand feet above Abbottabad. The JSOC
planners, determined to keep the operation as secret as possible, had
decided against using additional fighters or bombers. “It just wasn’t
worth it,” the special-operations officer told me. The SEALs were on
their own.
JSOC助理指挥官、陆战队准将Marshall Webb坐在毗邻小办公室的一张上漆桌子尾部
，他打开了自己的笔记本。他打开了多人通话窗口将他、白宫和其他指挥小组进行连
接。Webb的办公室的视频给白宫提供了对目标的实时影像，这个影像是由一架没有携
带武器的RQ170无人机在Abbottabad上空超过150000英尺的高度进行拍摄的。JSOC策
划者决定尽可能地保持此次行动的机密性，他们决定不使用额外的战斗机或轰炸机。
“只是不值得这么做，”特种作战官员告诉我。海豹队员们是独立地执行任务。
Obama returned to the White House at two o’clock, after playing nine
holes of golf at Andrews Air Force Base. The Black Hawks departed from
Jalalabad thirty minutes later. Just before four o’clock, Panetta
announced to the group in the Situation Room that the helicopters were
approaching Abbottabad. Obama stood up. “I need to watch this,” he said,
stepping across the hall into the small office and taking a seat alongside
Webb. Vice-President Joseph Biden, Secretary Gates, and Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton followed him, as did anyone else who could fit into the
office. On the office’s modestly sized LCD screen, helo one—grainy and
black-and-white—appeared above the compound, then promptly ran into
trouble.
在安德鲁斯空军基地打了九洞高尔夫之后，2点钟的时候奥巴马返回了白宫。黑鹰在
30分钟后从Jalalabad启程。4点钟前，Panetta向特情室的人群宣布直升机正接近
Abbottabad。奥巴马站了起来。“我需要对此进行观察，”他说，从大厅走到了小办
公室内并和Webb坐在了一起。副总统Joseph Biden，国防部长Gates和国务卿希拉里
跟在他后面，可以进入这个办公室的其他人也这么干了。在这间办公室尺寸有限的
LCD显示屏上，呈现黑白色颗粒状形象的一号机出现在庭院上空，然后迅速陷入麻烦
之中。
When the helicopter began getting away from the pilot, he pulled back
on the cyclic, which controls the pitch of the rotor blades, only to find
the aircraft unresponsive. The high walls of the compound and the warm
temperatures had caused the Black Hawk to descend inside its own rotor
wash—a hazardous aerodynamic situation known as “settling with power.”
In North Carolina, this potential problem had not become apparent, because
the chain-link fencing used in rehearsals had allowed air to flow freely.
A former helicopter pilot with extensive special-operations experience
said of the pilot’s situation, “It’s pretty spooky—I’ve been in it
myself. The only way to get out of it is to push the cyclic forward and
fly out of this vertical silo you’re dropping through. That solution
requires altitude. If you’re settling with power at two thousand feet,
you’ve got plenty of time to recover. If you’re settling with power at
fifty feet, you’re going to hit the ground.”
当直升机开始与飞行员脱离的时候，他向后扳用来控制转翼叶片变矩的操纵杆，但直
升机毫无反应。庭院的高墙和较高的温度导致这架黑鹰在其自身的旋翼洗流中下坠。
旋翼洗流是一种“具有动力的下坠”，这是种很危险的空气动力学状态。在北卡罗莱
纳，这种潜在的问题并不是非常明显，因为训练中使用的链围可以容许空气自由流动
。一位具有丰富特种作战经验的前直升机飞行员在谈论这个飞行员此时情况的时候表
示，“这相当的怪异，我也经历过这种情况。摆脱它的唯一途径就是向前推操纵杆从
这个掉进去的筒状区域中飞出去。这种解决方案需要高度。如果在两千英尺的空中发
生动力状态下坠的话，你有足够的时间来调整恢复。但如果在50英尺高的地方遭遇了
这种状况，那你就要撞地了。”
The pilot scrapped the plan to fast-rope and focussed on getting the
aircraft down. He aimed for an animal pen in the western section of the
compound. The SEALs on board braced themselves as the tail rotor swung
around, scraping the security wall. The pilot jammed the nose forward to
drive it into the dirt and prevent his aircraft from rolling onto its
side. Cows, chickens, and rabbits scurried. With the Black Hawk pitched at
a forty-five-degree angle astride the wall, the crew sent a distress call
to the idling Chinooks.
这位飞行员放弃了使用速降绳的计划并专注于把飞机降落下来。他选择了庭院西部的
畜栏。在尾翼四散擦挂围墙的时候，机上的海豹队员调整了状态。飞行员向前推机头
来使其落进泥土，这样就可以阻止直升机向一侧倾覆。畜栏里的牛、鸡，和兔子纷纷
逃散。这架黑鹰45度倾斜着靠在墙上，机组成员向待命的支奴干发出了遇难信号。
James and the SEALs in helo two watched all this while hovering over
the compound’s northeast corner. The second pilot, unsure whether his
colleagues were taking fire or experiencing mechanical problems, ditched
his plan to hover over the roof. Instead, he landed in a grassy field
across the street from the house.
庭院东北角悬停的2号机中的James和海豹队员们目睹了整个过程。2号机飞行员不确
定他的同事是被击中还出现机械故障，他改变了在屋顶悬停的计划把飞机降落在和屋
子隔了条路的草地上。
No American was yet inside the residential part of the compound. Mark
and his team were inside a downed helicopter at one corner, while James
and his team were at the opposite end. The teams had barely been on target
for a minute, and the mission was already veering off course.
到现在为止还没有美国人进入房屋区。Mark和他的队伍停在角落里出故障的直升机里
，而James和他的队伍则在相对的角落里。这支队伍毫无遮蔽地充当了一分钟的靶子
。这次行动已经偏离了原有规划。
“Eternity is defined as the time between when you see something go
awry and that first voice report,” the special-operations officer said.
The officials in Washington viewed the aerial footage and waited anxiously
to hear a military communication. The senior adviser to the President
compared the experience to watching “the climax of a movie.”
“永恒就是当你看到事情出错与第一个声音发出报道之间的一段时间，”特战官员称
。华盛顿官员观察到了空中影像并焦急地等待听到军事通信。总统的高级顾问将这种
体验比作了观看“电影的高潮部分”。
After a few minutes, the twelve SEALs inside helo one recovered their
bearings and calmly relayed on the radio that they were proceeding with
the raid. They had conducted so many operations over the past nine years
that few things caught them off guard. In the months after the raid, the
media have frequently suggested that the Abbottabad operation was as
challenging as Operation Eagle Claw and the “Black Hawk Down” incident,
but the senior Defense Department official told me that “this was not one
of three missions. This was one of almost two thousand missions that have
been conducted over the last couple of years, night after night.” He
likened the routine of evening raids to “mowing the lawn.” On the night
of May 1st alone, special-operations forces based in Afghanistan conducted
twelve other missions; according to the official, those operations
captured or killed between fifteen and twenty targets. “Most of the
missions take off and go left,” he said. “This one took off and went
right.”
几分钟后，1号机内的12名海豹队员恢复了正常并冷静地在无线电中报告他们正继续
进行突袭。九年内他们进行了许多行动，很少有事情能让他们猝不及防的。在突袭后
的数月里，媒体经常暗示Abbottabad行动与鹰爪行动、黑鹰坠落事件一样具有挑战性
，但国防部高级官员告诉我说“这次并不同于那两次的行动。这是数年中夜间执行的
近两千次行动之一。”他把这次夜间突袭行动比作了“收割草坪”。仅在5月1日晚，
驻在阿富汗的特战部队就执行了12次其他的行动；根据官员称，这些行动捕获或击毙
了15到20个目标。“这些任务中大多数执行后就被遗忘，”他说。“而这个则被变得
引人注目了。”Minutes after hitting the ground, Mark and the other team members
began streaming out the side doors of helo one. Mud sucked at their boots
as they ran alongside a ten-foot-high wall that enclosed the animal pen. A
three-man demolition unit hustled ahead to the pen’s closed metal gate,
reached into bags containing explosives, and placed C-4 charges on the
hinges. After a loud bang, the door fell open. The nine other SEALs rushed
forward, ending up in an alleylike driveway with their backs to the house
’s main entrance. They moved down the alley, silenced rifles pressed
against their shoulders. Mark hung toward the rear as he established radio
communications with the other team. At the end of the driveway, the
Americans blew through yet another locked gate and stepped into a
courtyard facing the guesthouse, where Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, bin Laden’s
courier, lived with his wife and four children.
在撞击地面后的数分钟内，Mark和其他队员开始涌出1号机的侧门。当他们沿着一堵
围着畜栏的10英尺高的墙奔跑的时候泥吸附着他们的靴子。一个三人爆破组急促地冲
向畜栏锁着的金属门，他们从装着炸药的袋子里取出C4并安放在门的铰链上。一声巨
响后门被炸开了。其他9个海豹队员冲上前去，来到了一条仿佛甬道般的行车道上，
他们的背部对着房子的主入口。他们沿着这条路前进，消声步枪顶在肩膀上。Mark在
后面与另一支队伍建立了无线电通讯。在这条行车道的末端，这些美国士兵炸开了另
一道锁着的门并进入了朝着客房的庭院，本拉登的信使Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti和他的
妻子、四个孩子住在这里。
Three SEALs in front broke off to clear the guesthouse as the
remaining nine blasted through another gate and entered an inner
courtyard, which faced the main house. When the smaller unit rounded the
corner to face the doors of the guesthouse, they spotted Kuwaiti running
inside to warn his wife and children. The Americans’ night-vision goggles
cast the scene in pixellated shades of emerald green. Kuwaiti, wearing a
white shalwar kameez, had grabbed a weapon and was coming back outside
when the SEALs opened fire and killed him.
前面的3个海豹队员停下来对客房进行清除，其他的9个人炸开了另一道门进入了朝着
主房的内部院子。当这个小队伍绕过角落面对着客房门的时候，他们发现Kuwaiti正
跑进去给其妻子和孩子发出警报。美国士兵的夜视镜上翡翠绿的pixellated shades
（应该是一种镜片名称，未查证）投射出了现场的景象。穿着白色shalwar kameez的
Kuwaiti又拿着武器往回冲了出来，海豹队员们开火并将其击毙。
The nine other SEALs, including Mark, formed three-man units for
clearing the inner courtyard. The Americans suspected that several more
men were in the house: Kuwaiti’s thirty-three-year-old brother, Abrar;
bin Laden’s sons Hamza and Khalid; and bin Laden himself. One SEAL unit
had no sooner trod on the paved patio at the house’s front entrance when
Abrar—a stocky, mustachioed man in a cream-colored shalwar kameez—
appeared with an AK-47. He was shot in the chest and killed, as was his
wife, Bushra, who was standing, unarmed, beside him.
包括Mark在内的其他9名海豹队员组成了三人小组进行内院的清除。美国人怀疑在这
个房子里有其他的人：Kuwaiti的兄弟——30岁的Abrar，本拉登的两个儿子Hamza和
Khalid，以及本拉登自己。一个海豹小组刚登上房子前门铺设的天井，矮壮而留着大
胡须的Abrar出现了。他穿着米色的shalwar kameez，拿了把AK-47。他胸部中弹而被
击毙，同时还有他的妻子Bushra。她站在Abrar身边，没有携带武器。
Outside the compound’s walls, Ahmed, the translator, patrolled the
dirt road in front of bin Laden’s house, as if he were a plainclothes
Pakistani police officer. He looked the part, wearing a shalwar kameez
atop a flak jacket. He, the dog Cairo, and four SEALs were responsible for
closing off the perimeter of the house while James and six other SEALs—
the contingent that was supposed to have dropped onto the roof—moved
inside. For the team patrolling the perimeter, the first fifteen minutes
passed without incident. Neighbors undoubtedly heard the low-flying
helicopters, the sound of one crashing, and the sporadic explosions and
gunfire that ensued, but nobody came outside. One local took note of the
tumult in a Twitter post: “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1 AM
(is a rare event).”
庭院的墙外，翻译Ahmed在本拉登房子前的泥土路上巡逻着，仿佛是一个巴基斯坦便
衣警官。他穿的很符合角色，一身shalwar kameez,上面套了件防弹背心。当James和
其他6个海豹队员冲进去的时候（这只队伍本来计划要降落到屋顶上），Ahmed，狗
Cairo和四个海豹队员负责封闭房子的周围。这支队伍在房子周围巡逻着，最初的十
五分钟没有任何意外发生。邻居们无疑都听到了低空飞过的直升飞机，其中一架坠落
的声音和不时的爆炸与相继的枪声。但没有人出来。一个本地人注意到了喧闹声并在
Twitter帖子中写道：“直升飞机在Abbottabad上空悬停，时间是半夜一点钟（很少
见的事情）。
Eventually, a few curious Pakistanis approached to inquire about the
commotion on the other side of the wall. “Go back to your houses,” Ahmed
said, in Pashto, as Cairo stood watch. “There is a security operation
under way.” The locals went home, none of them suspecting that they had
talked to an American. When journalists descended on Bilal Town in the
coming days, one resident told a reporter, “I saw soldiers emerging from
the helicopters and advancing toward the house. Some of them instructed us
in chaste Pashto to turn off the lights and stay inside.”
最后终于有些好奇的巴基斯坦人靠近并询问他们墙另一边的喧嚣情况。“回到你自己
的房子里去，” Ahmed用普什图语说，而Cairo站在那里看守着。“那里正在进行保
安行动。”本地人回家了，没人怀疑与他们交谈的是一个美国人。当接下来数天里记
者来到Bilal镇的时候，一个当地人告诉一个记者，“我看到士兵从直升机里涌出来
并朝那房子前进。其中一个人用简洁的普什图语命令我们关掉灯光并且不要外出。
Meanwhile, James, the squadron commander, had breached one wall,
crossed a section of the yard covered with trellises, breached a second
wall, and joined up with the SEALs from helo one, who were entering the
ground floor of the house. What happened next is not precisely clear. “I
can tell you that there was a time period of almost twenty to twenty-five
minutes where we really didn’t know just exactly what was going on,”
Panetta said later, on “PBS NewsHour.”
而在同时，小队指挥官James已经破坏了一堵墙，穿过院子中搭着棚架的部分后又破
坏了另一堵墙。他们与正进入房子底楼的1号机的海豹队员们会合了。接下来发生事
情的不是十分清楚。“我可以告诉你有几乎20到25分钟的时间我们确实不知道究竟发
生了什么，” Panetta稍后在PBS NewsHour中表示。
Until this moment, the operation had been monitored by dozens of
defense, intelligence, and Administration officials watching the drone’s
video feed. The SEALs were not wearing helmet cams, contrary to a widely
cited report by CBS. None of them had any previous knowledge of the house
’s floor plan, and they were further jostled by the awareness that they
were possibly minutes away from ending the costliest manhunt in American
history; as a result, some of their recollections—on which this account
is based—may be imprecise and, thus, subject to dispute.
直到这个时候，通过无人机发回的视频，数十个国防、情报和行政官员一直监控着
此次行动。与一篇广为引用的CBS报道相反，海豹队员们并没有戴头盔摄像头。他们
都不清楚这座房子的底层布局，而且他们都被距离结束美国历史上最为昂贵搜捕可能
仅数分钟之遥的想法所激动，结果他们的回忆因此可能不太精确而导致了争议。（本
文就是建立在他们回忆的基础上的。）
As Abrar’s children ran for cover, the SEALs began clearing the first
floor of the main house, room by room. Though the Americans had thought
that the house might be booby-trapped, the presence of kids at the
compound suggested otherwise. “You can only be hyper-vigilant for so
long,” the special-operations officer said. “Did bin Laden go to sleep
every night thinking, The next night they’re coming? Of course not. Maybe
for the first year or two. But not now.” Nevertheless, security
precautions were in place. A locked metal gate blocked the base of the
staircase leading to the second floor, making the downstairs room feel
like a cage.
在Abrar的孩子们奔跑着寻找遮蔽的时候，海豹队员们开始一间间地清理主房的底层
。尽管美国人之前认为这房子里可能有陷阱，但孩子们在庭院中的情况则表明并非如
此。“你只能在一定时间内保持警觉，”特战官员说。“本拉登每晚睡觉的时候都会
想‘明晚他们会来吗？’肯定不会。可能头一年或两年会是这样。但现在不是如此。
”但保安措施依然到位。一面锁着的金属门挡住了通往二楼的楼梯基座，这让1楼得
房子感觉像是个笼子。
After blasting through the gate with C-4 charges, three SEALs marched
up the stairs. Midway up, they saw bin Laden’s twenty-three-year-old son,
Khalid, craning his neck around the corner. He then appeared at the top of
the staircase with an AK-47. Khalid, who wore a white T-shirt with an
overstretched neckline and had short hair and a clipped beard, fired down
at the Americans. (The counterterrorism official claims that Khalid was
unarmed, though still a threat worth taking seriously. “You have an adult
male, late at night, in the dark, coming down the stairs at you in an Al
Qaeda house—your assumption is that you’re encountering a hostile.”) At
least two of the SEALs shot back and killed Khalid. According to the
booklets that the SEALs carried, up to five adult males were living inside
the compound. Three of them were now dead; the fourth, bin Laden’s son
Hamza, was not on the premises. The final person was bin Laden.
在用C4炸开门之后，3个海豹队员进入楼梯。在中途他们看见了本拉登23岁的儿子
Khalid在拐角伸出脖子。然后他出现在楼梯顶部，拿了把AK-47。Khalid穿了件白色T
恤，脖子里挂了个有些过长的项链，短头发，胡须修剪过。他向下面的美国人开枪射
击。（反恐官员声称overstretched没有携带武器，但依然是个值得认真关注的威胁
。“一个成年男性在深夜黑暗中走下楼梯冲你走来，而且是在基地组织的房子里，你
肯定会认为你遭遇了敌人。”）至少两名海豹队员开枪并击毙了他。根据海豹队员携
带的小册子，这院子里最多有5个成年男性。其中3个现在已经死了；第四个，也就是
本拉登的儿子Hamza不在这房子里。最后一个人就是本拉登。
Before the mission commenced, the SEALs had created a checklist of
code words that had a Native American theme. Each code word represented a
different stage of the mission: leaving Jalalabad, entering Pakistan,
approaching the compound, and so on. “Geronimo” was to signify that bin
Laden had been found.
在行动开始前，海豹队员们建了一个以美国印第安人为主题的密语清单。每一个密语
都代表着这次行动的不同阶段：离开Jalalabad，进入巴基斯坦，接近庭院，等等。
杰罗尼莫代表着本拉登被找到。
Three SEALs shuttled past Khalid’s body and blew open another metal
cage, which obstructed the staircase leading to the third floor. Bounding
up the unlit stairs, they scanned the railed landing. On the top stair,
the lead SEAL swivelled right; with his night-vision goggles, he discerned
that a tall, rangy man with a fist-length beard was peeking out from
behind a bedroom door, ten feet away. The SEAL instantly sensed that it
was Crankshaft. (The counterterrorism official asserts that the SEAL first
saw bin Laden on the landing, and fired but missed.)
3个海豹队员穿梭通过了Khalid的尸体并炸开了另一个金属笼子，这个笼子挡住了通
往3楼的路。沿着没有灯光的楼梯向上，他们扫视了带栏杆的楼梯平台。在楼梯顶部
，领头的海豹队员转向右侧；通过夜视镜他分辨出一个个子很高、四肢很长、留着拳
头长度胡须的男人正从十英尺外一间卧室门内向外窥视。（反恐官员声称海豹队员首
先在平台上看见了本拉登并开枪，但并未射中他。）
The Americans hurried toward the bedroom door. The first SEAL pushed
it open. Two of bin Laden’s wives had placed themselves in front of him.
Amal al-Fatah, bin Laden’s fifth wife, was screaming in Arabic. She
motioned as if she were going to charge; the SEAL lowered his sights and
shot her once, in the calf. Fearing that one or both women were wearing
suicide jackets, he stepped forward, wrapped them in a bear hug, and drove
them aside. He would almost certainly have been killed had they blown
themselves up, but by blanketing them he would have absorbed some of the
blast and potentially saved the two SEALs behind him. In the end, neither
woman was wearing an explosive vest.
美国士兵急促地向卧室冲去。第一个海豹队员推开门。本拉登的两个妻子挡在了他面
前。本拉登的第五个妻子Amal al-Fatah用阿拉伯语尖叫着。她的动作好像是要冲锋
一样；海豹队员降低视线并击中了她的小腿。因为担心这两个女人有人或都穿着自杀
式袭击夹克，他走上前去把她们用毯子紧紧抱在一起并拖到一边。如果她们引起爆炸
的话他肯定会被炸死的，但通过使用毯子他可能会吸收一些爆炸伤害而挽救下身后的
两名海豹队员。结果两个女人都没有穿那种夹克。
A second SEAL stepped into the room and trained the infrared laser of
his M4 on bin Laden’s chest. The Al Qaeda chief, who was wearing a tan
shalwar kameez and a prayer cap on his head, froze; he was unarmed.
“There was never any question of detaining or capturing him—it wasn’t a
split-second decision. No one wanted detainees,” the special-operations
officer told me. (The Administration maintains that had bin Laden
immediately surrendered he could have been taken alive.) Nine years, seven
months, and twenty days after September 11th, an American was a trigger
pull from ending bin Laden’s life. The first round, a 5.56-mm. bullet,
struck bin Laden in the chest. As he fell backward, the SEAL fired a
second round into his head, just above his left eye. On his radio, he
reported, “For God and country—Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.” After a
pause, he added, “Geronimo E.K.I.A.”—“enemy killed in action.”
第二个海豹队员进入房间并将其M4红外激光器指向本拉登的胸部。这个穿着鞣革
shalwar kameez，戴着祈祷帽的基地领导人僵立不动；他没有携带武器。“我们不会
扣押或抓获他，这不是个一霎那的决定。没有人想要的是囚犯，”这个特战官员告诉
我。（行政部门继续称如果本拉登立即投降的话可能会被俘虏。）离911已经9年7个
月零20天了，一个美国人距离结束本拉登生命仅有一个扳机扣动之遥。第一颗5.56MM
的子弹击中了本拉登的胸部。当他向后摔倒的时候，海豹队员的第二颗子弹射入了他
的头部左眼上方的位置。在无线电中，这个海豹队员报告称，“为了上帝和国家——
杰罗尼莫，杰罗尼莫，杰罗尼莫。”在稍停之后，他补充说，“杰罗尼莫E.K.I.A.”
——敌人已在行动中被击毙。”
Hearing this at the White House, Obama pursed his lips, and said
solemnly, to no one in particular, “We got him.”
在白宫听到这些之后，奥巴马撅起嘴唇，很严肃地对大家说，“我们已经逮住他了。
”
Relaxing his hold on bin Laden’s two wives, the first SEAL placed the
women in flex cuffs and led them downstairs. Two of his colleagues,
meanwhile, ran upstairs with a nylon body bag. They unfurled it, knelt
down on either side of bin Laden, and placed the body inside the bag.
Eighteen minutes had elapsed since the DEVGRU team landed. For the next
twenty minutes, the mission shifted to an intelligence-gathering
operation.
在放松了对本拉登的两个妻子的控制之后，第一个海豹队员把这两个女人戴上弹性手
铐并带她们走下楼去。在此同时，他的两个队友拿着个尼龙尸体袋冲上楼。他们把尸
体袋展开，跪在本拉登两侧并把尸体放进袋子。从DEVGRU小队降落后已经过去了18分
钟。接下来的20分钟内，这次行动性质转移成为情报的收集。
Four men scoured the second floor, plastic bags in hand, collecting
flash drives, CDs, DVDs, and computer hardware from the room, which had
served, in part, as bin Laden’s makeshift media studio. In the coming
weeks, a C.I.A.-led task force examined the files and determined that bin
Laden had remained far more involved in the operational activities of Al
Qaeda than many American officials had thought. He had been developing
plans to assassinate Obama and Petraeus, to pull off an extravagant
September 11th anniversary attack, and to attack American trains. The
SEALs also found an archive of digital pornography. “We find it on all
these guys, whether they’re in Somalia, Iraq, or Afghanistan,” the
special-operations officer said. Bin Laden’s gold-threaded robes, worn
during his video addresses, hung behind a curtain in the media room.
四个人对2楼进行了搜索，他们拿着塑料袋在房间中收集闪存驱动，CD和DVD以及计算
机硬件。这些曾部分上充当了本拉登的临时媒体工作室。接下来数周内，一个CIA领
导的特遣组检查了这些文件并确定本拉登在基地组织的具体活动中的涉及要深于许多
美国官员认为的那样。他一直计划暗杀奥巴马和Petraeus以开始一次华丽的911周年
纪念袭击；他还计划袭击美国的火车。海豹队员还发现了一些数码色情读物，“在这
些家伙处都发现了这东西，不论是在索马里、伊拉克或阿富汗，”特战官员称。本拉
登在讲话中穿的黄金丝线袍子挂在媒体室的帘后。
Outside, the Americans corralled the women and children—each of them
bound in flex cuffs—and had them sit against an exterior wall that faced
the second, undamaged Black Hawk. The lone fluent Arabic speaker on the
assault team questioned them. Nearly all the children were under the age
of ten. They seemed to have no idea about the tenant upstairs, other than
that he was “an old guy.” None of the women confirmed that the man was
bin Laden, though one of them kept referring to him as “the sheikh.”
When the rescue Chinook eventually arrived, a medic stepped out and knelt
over the corpse. He injected a needle into bin Laden’s body and extracted
two bone-marrow samples. More DNA was taken with swabs. One of the bone-
marrow samples went into the Black Hawk. The other went into the Chinook,
along with bin Laden’s body.
在外面，美国人抓住了女人和孩子，给他们戴上了弹性手铐并使其靠外墙坐着。那堵
外墙就朝着未损坏的黑鹰。袭击队伍中唯一一个能说流利阿拉伯语的人对他们进行了
询问。几乎所有孩子的年龄都在10岁以下。除了知道是个“老家伙”之外，他们似乎
并不清楚楼上租客的身份。没有女人确认那个男人就是本拉登，尽管他们中有个人一
直地用“酋长”来称呼他。当营救的支奴干最后到达的时候，一个军医走出来跪在尸
体面前。他把一个针管插入本拉登的尸体，取了两个骨髓样本。更多的DNA则是用药
签来取得。一份骨髓样本放在黑鹰上。另一份则和本拉登的尸体一起放在支奴干上。
Next, the SEALs needed to destroy the damaged Black Hawk. The pilot,
armed with a hammer that he kept for such situations, smashed the
instrument panel, the radio, and the other classified fixtures inside the
cockpit. Then the demolition unit took over. They placed explosives near
the avionics system, the communications gear, the engine, and the rotor
head. “You’re not going to hide the fact that it’s a helicopter,” the
special-operations officer said. “But you want to make it unusable.” The
SEALs placed extra C-4 charges under the carriage, rolled thermite
grenades inside the copter’s body, and then backed up. Helo one burst
into flames while the demolition team boarded the Chinook. The women and
children, who were being left behind for the Pakistani authorities, looked
puzzled, scared, and shocked as they watched the SEALs board the
helicopters. Amal, bin Laden’s wife, continued her harangue. Then, as a
giant fire burned inside the compound walls, the Americans flew away.
接下来，海豹需要摧毁损坏了的黑鹰。飞行员拿了一把他留作此用的锤子砸碎了座舱
内仪表盘、无线电和其他机密设备。然后爆破小组接手了此事。航电系统附近、通讯
设备、发动机和旋翼毂处都被放置了炸药。“要隐藏这是架直升机的事实，”特战官
员称。“但你夕阳能让它无法使用。”海豹队员在机舱下部放置了额外的C4炸药，把
铝热剂手榴弹扔进直升机里，然后后退。1号机化为了一团火焰的同时爆破组登上了
支奴干。女人和孩子则留给了巴基斯坦当局处理。当这些人目睹海豹队员登上直升机
的时候看起来既困惑又害怕，还显得震惊。本拉登的妻子Amal继续滔滔不绝地讲话。
当一团大火在庭院墙内爆发的时候，美国人已经飞走了。
In the Situation Room, Obama said, “I’m not going to be happy until
those guys get out safe.” After thirty-eight minutes inside the compound,
the two SEAL teams had to make the long flight back to Afghanistan. The
Black Hawk was low on gas, and needed to rendezvous with the Chinook at
the refuelling point that was near the Afghan border—but still inside
Pakistan. Filling the gas tank took twenty-five minutes. At one point,
Biden, who had been fingering a rosary, turned to Mullen, the Joint Chiefs
chairman. “We should all go to Mass tonight,” he said.
奥巴马在特情室中称，“在这些人安全撤出之前我不会感到高兴的”。在庭院内的38
分钟后，两支海豹队伍必须经过很远的路程回到阿富汗。黑鹰的燃料不足，必须在靠
近阿富汗边境的加油点和支奴干会合，但那里依然在巴基斯坦境内。油箱加满需要25
分钟的时间。在某刻一直握着串珠的Biden对参谋长联席会议主席Mullen说：“我们
今晚应该都去做弥撒。”
The helicopters landed back in Jalalabad around 3 A.M.; McRaven and
the C.I.A. station chief met the team on the tarmac. A pair of SEALs
unloaded the body bag and unzipped it so that McRaven and the C.I.A.
officer could see bin Laden’s corpse with their own eyes. Photographs
were taken of bin Laden’s face and then of his outstretched body. Bin
Laden was believed to be about six feet four, but no one had a tape
measure to confirm the body’s length. So one SEAL, who was six feet tall,
lay beside the corpse: it measured roughly four inches longer than the
American. Minutes later, McRaven appeared on the teleconference screen in
the Situation Room and confirmed that bin Laden’s body was in the bag.
The corpse was sent to Bagram.
下午三点左右，直升机飞回了Jalalabad；McRaven和CIA站领导人在停机坪会见了这
支队伍。两名海豹队员搬下尸体袋，打开以便McRaven和CIA官员能亲眼看到本拉登的
尸体。本拉登的脸部和伸展的身体被拍了照片。本拉登的身高被确信是6英尺4，但没
人曾用卷尺去确认这具尸体的长度。所以一个6英尺高的海豹队员躺在尸体旁边，它
高出这个美国人大约4英寸。几分钟后，McRaven出现在特情室电话会议的屏幕上并确
认了本拉登的尸体就在那个袋子里。这具尸体被送到了Bagram。
All along, the SEALs had planned to dump bin Laden’s corpse into the
sea—a blunt way of ending the bin Laden myth. They had successfully
pulled off a similar scheme before. During a DEVGRU helicopter raid inside
Somalia in September, 2009, SEALs had killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, one
of East Africa’s top Al Qaeda leaders; Nabhan’s corpse was then flown to
a ship in the Indian Ocean, given proper Muslim rites, and thrown
overboard. Before taking that step for bin Laden, however, John Brennan
made a call. Brennan, who had been a C.I.A. station chief in Riyadh,
phoned a former counterpart in Saudi intelligence. Brennan told the man
what had occurred in Abbottabad and informed him of the plan to deposit
bin Laden’s remains at sea. As Brennan knew, bin Laden’s relatives were
still a prominent family in the Kingdom, and Osama had once been a Saudi
citizen. Did the Saudi government have any interest in taking the body? “
Your plan sounds like a good one,” the Saudi replied.
海豹一直计划着将本拉登的尸体投入大海，这是结束本拉登神话的一种生硬方式。他
们之前曾成功地制定了一个相似的方案。2009年9月在索马里，DEVGRU的一次直升机
突袭中，海豹们杀死了东非头号基地领导人之一的Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan；Nabhan
的尸体在被给予了合适的穆斯林礼仪后被空运到印度洋的一艘船上，在那里尸体被抛
入大海中。在对本拉登执行同样做法的之前John Brennan打了一个电话。曾是CIA
Riyadh站领导人的Brennan给一位前沙特的情报同事拨了电话。Brennan告诉这个人
Abbottabad所发生的一切并把将本拉登尸体投入大海的计划告诉了他。如Brennan了
解的那样，本拉登的亲戚在沙特依然是一个很显著的家族，本拉登也曾是一个沙特公
民。沙特政府是否对接收这具尸体感兴趣呢？“你的计划听起来很不错，”沙特回复
。
At dawn, bin Laden was loaded into the belly of a flip-wing V-22
Osprey, accompanied by a JSOC liaison officer and a security detail of
military police. The Osprey flew south, destined for the deck of the
U.S.S. Carl Vinson—a thousand-foot-long nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
sailing in the Arabian Sea, off the Pakistani coast. The Americans, yet
again, were about to traverse Pakistani airspace without permission. Some
officials worried that the Pakistanis, stung by the humiliation of the
unilateral raid in Abbottabad, might restrict the Osprey’s access. The
airplane ultimately landed on the Vinson without incident.
黎明时分，本拉登的尸体被装进一家V-22鱼鹰偏转翼直升机，陪同的是一位JSOC联络
官员和宪兵的安保分队。这架鱼鹰向南飞往U.S.S.卡尔文森的甲板，卡尔文森是一艘
正航行在巴基斯坦海岸外的阿拉伯海上的一千英尺长核动力航母。美国人再次不经允
许就通过了巴基斯坦的领空。一些官员担心因为Abbottabad单方突袭带来的耻辱会使
巴基斯坦限制这架鱼鹰的通过。这架飞机最终在没有发生意外的情况下降落在卡尔文
森上。
Bin Laden’s body was washed, wrapped in a white burial shroud,
weighted, and then slipped inside a bag. The process was done “in strict
conformance with Islamic precepts and practices,” Brennan later told
reporters. The JSOC liaison, the military-police contingent, and several
sailors placed the shrouded body on an open-air elevator, and rode down
with it to the lower level, which functions as a hangar for airplanes.
From a height of between twenty and twenty-five feet above the waves, they
heaved the corpse into the water.
本拉登的尸体被清洗后包在一块白色的裹尸布里，加重后推进了一个袋子里。整个过
程“严格遵从了伊斯兰训诫和习俗，” Brennan后来这样告诉记者。JSOC联络官员和
宪兵分队以及几个水手把裹好的尸体放在一个露天升降机上，然后站在上面下降。这
升降机是作为机库使用的。从水面上方20到25英尺的高度，他们把尸体抛进水中。
Back in Abbottabad, residents of Bilal Town and dozens of journalists
converged on bin Laden’s compound, and the morning light clarified some
of the confusion from the previous night. Black soot from the detonated
Black Hawk charred the wall of the animal pen. Part of the tail hung over
the wall. It was clear that a military raid had taken place there. “I’m
glad no one was hurt in the crash, but, on the other hand, I’m sort of
glad we left the helicopter there,” the special-operations officer said.
“It quiets the conspiracy mongers out there and instantly lends
credibility. You believe everything else instantly, because there’s a
helicopter sitting there.”
在Abbottabad，Bilal镇的居民和成打的记者聚集在本拉登的庭院里，早晨的光线澄
清了前晚的困惑。黑鹰爆炸的黑烟烧焦了畜栏的墙。这架飞机部分尾部靠在墙上。很
清楚，这里曾发生过一次军事突袭。“我很高兴没人在这次坠机中受伤，但从另一方
面来说，我有些高兴我们把那架飞机留在了那里，”特战官员称。“这让那里的阴谋
贩子们安静下来了而且也增添了可信性。因为有一架直升飞机在那里，你会立即相信
一切别的东西。”
After the raid, Pakistan’s political leadership engaged in frantic
damage control. In the Washington Post, President Asif Ali Zardari wrote
that bin Laden “was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now
he is gone,” adding that “a decade of cooperation and partnership
between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama
bin Laden.”
在这次突袭后，巴基斯坦警察领导层汇集在竭力进行损害管制。在《华盛顿邮报》中
，Asif Ali Zardari总统称本拉登“并不在我们猜想的任何地方，而现在他已经死了
，”他补充说“本拉登被巴基斯坦和美国十年的合作和伙伴关系所消灭了。
Pakistani military officials reacted more cynically. They arrested at
least five Pakistanis for helping the C.I.A., including the physician who
ran the immunization drive in Abbottabad. And several Pakistani media
outlets, including the Nation—a jingoistic English-language newspaper
that is considered a mouthpiece for Pakistan’s Inter-Services
Intelligence agency, or I.S.I.—published what they claimed was the name
of the C.I.A.’s station chief in Islamabad. (Shireen Mazari, a former
editor of the Nation, once told me, “Our interests and the Americans’
interests don’t coincide.”) The published name was incorrect, and the
C.I.A. officer opted to stay.
巴基斯坦军事官员的反应则更为愤怒。他们逮捕了至少五个协助CIA的巴基斯坦人，
其中包括在Abbottabad进行免疫接种的医生。巴基斯坦的一些媒体，其中包括Nation
这家被认为是巴基斯坦内务情报机构（ISI）喉舌的持强硬姿态的英文报纸，公开了
他们宣称是CIA伊斯兰堡站领导人的名字。（Nation前编辑Shireen Mazari曾告诉我
，“我们的利益和美国的利益并不一致。”）这个被公开的名字并不准确，而这位
CIA官员选择了留在当地。
The proximity of bin Laden’s house to the Pakistan Military Academy
raised the possibility that the military, or the I.S.I., had helped
protect bin Laden. How could Al Qaeda’s chief live so close to the
academy without at least some officers knowing about it? Suspicion grew
after the Times reported that at least one cell phone recovered from bin
Laden’s house contained contacts for senior militants belonging to
Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, a jihadi group that has had close ties to the
I.S.I. Although American officials have stated that Pakistani officials
must have helped bin Laden hide in Abbottabad, definitive evidence has not
yet been presented.
本拉登房子与巴基斯坦军事学院的邻近产生了这种可能性：军队，或ISI以前是否在
保护本拉登。基地组织的领导人居住的离学院这么近，怎么可能没有至少一些官员知
情？Times报道称从本拉登房子中取得的手机通话记录中至少有一个是与Harakat-
ul-Mujahideen高层激进分子的通话，而Harakat-ul-Mujahideen这个圣战组织则与
ISI有很紧密的联系。从这篇报道发表后怀疑就一直在增加。尽管美国官员一直称巴
基斯坦官员肯定帮助本拉登藏在了Abbottabad，但一直没有提供决定性的证据。
Bin Laden’s death provided the White House with the symbolic victory
it needed to begin phasing troops out of Afghanistan. Seven weeks later,
Obama announced a timetable for withdrawal. Even so, U.S. counterterrorism
activities inside Pakistan—that is, covert operations conducted by the
C.I.A. and JSOC—are not expected to diminish anytime soon. Since May 2nd,
there have been more than twenty drone strikes in North and South
Waziristan, including one that allegedly killed Ilyas Kashmiri, a top Al
Qaeda leader, while he was sipping tea in an apple orchard.
本拉登的死为白宫提供了其需要的象征性胜利，白宫需要这种胜利以将其部队调整撤
出阿富汗。六周后，奥巴马宣布了撤退的时间表。即使如此，美国在巴基斯坦的反恐
行动，也就是由CIA和JSOC主持的秘密行动预计不会立即减少。自从5月2日起，美国
在Waziristan的北部和南部发动了12次无人机攻击，其中一次宣称击毙了基地头号领
导人之一的Ilyas Kashmiri，当时他正在一个苹果园中喝茶。
The success of the bin Laden raid has sparked a conversation inside
military and intelligence circles: Are there other terrorists worth the
risk of another helicopter assault in a Pakistani city? “There are people
out there that, if we could find them, we would go after them,”
Cartwright told me. He mentioned Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new leader of Al
Qaeda, who is believed to be in Pakistan, and Anwar al-Awlaki, the
American-born cleric in Yemen. Cartwright emphasized that “going after
them” didn’t necessarily mean another DEVGRU raid. The special-
operations officer spoke more boldly. He believes that a precedent has
been set for more unilateral raids in the future. “Folks now realize we
can weather it,” he said. The senior adviser to the President said that
“penetrating other countries’ sovereign airspace covertly is something
that’s always available for the right mission and the right gain.”
Brennan told me, “The confidence we have in the capabilities of the U.S.
military is, without a doubt, even stronger after this operation.”
对本拉登突袭的胜利在军事和情报界中引起了一次对话：还有值得使用直升机对巴基
斯坦城市进行袭击的恐怖分子吗？“那里有我们要抓的人，如果能发现他们，我们就
会动手，” Cartwright告诉我。他谈到了基地新领导人Ayman al-Zawahiri，这人被
认为就在巴基斯坦；他也涉及到了出生于美国、现在也门的牧师Anwar al-Awlaki。
Cartwright强调称“动手”并不必然意味着另一次DEVGRU突袭。特战官员的言论则更
为大胆。他相信这是未来发动更多单方突袭的一个先例。“大家现在知道我们能干这
个，”他说。总统的高级顾问称“为正确的任务和收益秘密进入他国领空一直是可行
的。” Brennan告诉我，“我们对美国军事能力的信任在这次行动后无疑会更高。”
On May 6th, Al Qaeda confirmed bin Laden’s death and released a
statement congratulating “the Islamic nation” on “the martyrdom of its
good son Osama.” The authors promised Americans that “their joy will
turn to sorrow and their tears will mix with blood.” That day, President
Obama travelled to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where the 160th is based, to
meet the DEVGRU unit and the pilots who pulled off the raid. The SEALs,
who had returned home from Afghanistan earlier in the week, flew in from
Virginia. Biden, Tom Donilon, and a dozen other national-security advisers
came along.
5月6日，基地确认了本拉登的死讯并发布声明称因“好儿子奥萨马的殉教而对”伊斯
兰民族”表示庆贺。该作者对美国人保证，“他们的喜悦将变成悲伤，他们的眼泪将
混合着鲜血。”那天，奥巴马总统前往肯塔基坎贝尔堡160航空团驻地会见这支发动
突袭的DEVGRU队伍和飞行员。这些当周较早从阿富汗返回家乡的海豹队员们从弗吉尼
亚飞到了此地。Biden，Tom Donilon和一打其他国防顾问也在随行之列。
McRaven greeted Obama on the tarmac. (They had met at the White House
a few days earlier—the President had presented McRaven with a tape
measure.) McRaven led the President and his team into a one-story building
on the other side of the base. They walked into a windowless room with
shabby carpets, fluorescent lights, and three rows of metal folding
chairs. McRaven, Brian, the pilots from the 160th, and James took turns
briefing the President. They had set up a three-dimensional model of bin
Laden’s compound on the floor and, waving a red laser pointer, traced
their maneuvers inside. A satellite image of the compound was displayed on
a wall, along with a map showing the flight routes into and out of
Pakistan. The briefing lasted about thirty-five minutes. Obama wanted to
know how Ahmed had kept locals at bay; he also inquired about the fallen
Black Hawk and whether above-average temperatures in Abbottabad had
contributed to the crash. (The Pentagon is conducting a formal
investigation of the accident.)
McRaven在停机坪向奥巴马致敬。（他们几天前在白宫进行了会面，总统还送给了他
一个卷尺。）McRaven引导总统和其队伍进入基地另一侧的一栋一层建筑中。他们走
进了一个没有窗户、铺着破旧地毯的房间，里面有几盏日光灯和三排金属折叠椅。
McRaven，Brian和来自160航空团的飞行员以及James相继向总统进行了汇报。他们在
地面上摆了一个本拉登院子的三维模型并用一个红色激光指示器标示着他们进入的行
动。墙上展示着一个院子的卫星图像，还有一张显示进出巴基斯坦的航程图。汇报持
续了大约35分钟。奥巴马想知道Ahmed是如何阻止当地人的；他也询问了坠落的黑鹰
以及Abbottabad高于平均值的温度是否也是影响了这次坠机。（五角大楼正进行一次
关于此次事故的正式调查。）
When James, the squadron commander, spoke, he started by citing all
the forward operating bases in eastern Afghanistan that had been named for
SEALs killed in combat. “Everything we have done for the last ten years
prepared us for this,” he told Obama. The President was “in awe of these
guys,” Ben Rhodes, the deputy national-security adviser, who travelled
with Obama, said. “It was an extraordinary base visit,” he added. “They
knew he had staked his Presidency on this. He knew they staked their lives
on it.”
当队伍指挥官James发言的时候，他的发言开始部分列举了以战斗中牺牲的海豹队员
命名的阿富汗东部所有前线战斗基地。“过去十年中我们所作的一切为我们完成这个
行动作了预备，”他这样告诉奥巴马。总统“对这些家伙感到十分敬佩，”随行的副
国家安全顾问Ben Rhodes称。“这次对基地的访问非常的不同寻常，”他补充说。“
他们知道他为此赌上了总统职位。他知道他们为此赌上了生命。”
As James talked about the raid, he mentioned Cairo’s role. “There
was a dog?” Obama interrupted. James nodded and said that Cairo was in an
adjoining room, muzzled, at the request of the Secret Service.
当James谈论这次突袭的时候，他谈到了Cairo的角色。“有一只狗吗？”奥巴马打断
了他的话。James点头，说Cairo在邻近的房间里，应特工的要求戴上了口套。
“I want to meet that dog,” Obama said.
“我想见见那只狗，”奥巴马说。
“If you want to meet the dog, Mr. President, I advise you to bring
treats,” James joked. Obama went over to pet Cairo, but the dog’s muzzle
was left on.
“如果你想见这只狗的话，总统先生，我建议你带上些狗小食，”james开玩笑。奥
巴马去逗Cairo了，但狗的口套没有打开。
Afterward, Obama and his advisers went into a second room, down the
hall, where others involved in the raid—including logisticians, crew
chiefs, and SEAL alternates—had assembled. Obama presented the team with
a Presidential Unit Citation and said, “Our intelligence professionals
did some amazing work. I had fifty-fifty confidence that bin Laden was
there, but I had one-hundred-per-cent confidence in you guys. You are,
literally, the finest small-fighting force that has ever existed in the
world.” The raiding team then presented the President with an American
flag that had been on board the rescue Chinook. Measuring three feet by
five, the flag had been stretched, ironed, and framed. The SEALs and the
pilots had signed it on the back; an inscription on the front read, “From
the Joint Task Force Operation Neptune’s Spear, 01 May 2011: ‘For God
and country. Geronimo.’ ” Obama promised to put the gift “somewhere
private and meaningful to me.” Before the President returned to
Washington, he posed for photographs with each team member and spoke with
many of them, but he left one thing unsaid. He never asked who fired the
kill shot, and the SEALs never volunteered to tell him. ?
稍后，奥巴马和其顾问沿大厅走进第二个房间，这里有其他参与到这次突袭的人，其
中包括后勤人员，机组乘务长和预备海豹队员。这些人都聚集在这里。奥巴马为这支
队伍颁发了总统单位嘉奖并说，“我们的情报专家们做了令人惊奇的工作。我有百分
之五十的信心认为本拉登就在那里，但我对你们这些家伙们有百分之百的信心。你们
完全是世界上现有的最好的小规模战斗力量。”突袭队伍为总统先上了曾插在营救支
奴干上的一面美国国旗。这面尺寸为3*5英尺的旗帜被展开熨烫并用框架固定。海豹
队员和飞行员们在背部签了名；签名顶部写着这样的题字：“2011.5.01，三叉戟联
合特遣部队行动：为了上帝和国家。杰罗尼莫。”奥巴马承诺将把这份礼物放在“对
自己具有意义的私人空间”中。在总统返回华盛顿之前，他同每个队员进行合影并同
其中许多人进行交谈。但他没有说一件事，他并没有问谁射出了杀死本拉登的子弹，
海豹队员们也决不会主动告诉他。
Getting Bin Laden - 击毙本拉登实录(2) Brigadier General Marshall Webb, an assistant commander of JSOC, took a
seat at the end of a lacquered table in a small adjoining office and
turned on his laptop. He opened multiple chat windows that kept him, and
the White House, connected with the other command teams. The office where
Webb sat had the only video feed in the White House showing real-time
footage of the target, which was being shot by an unarmed RQ 170 drone
flying more than fifteen thousand feet above Abbottabad. The JSOC
planners, determined to keep the operation as secret as possible, had
decided against using additional fighters or bombers. “It just wasn’t
worth it,” the special-operations officer told me. The SEALs were on
their own.
JSOC助理指挥官、陆战队准将Marshall Webb坐在毗邻小办公室的一张上漆桌子尾部
，他打开了自己的笔记本。他打开了多人通话窗口将他、白宫和其他指挥小组进行连
接。Webb的办公室的视频给白宫提供了对目标的实时影像，这个影像是由一架没有携
带武器的RQ170无人机在Abbottabad上空超过150000英尺的高度进行拍摄的。JSOC策
划者决定尽可能地保持此次行动的机密性，他们决定不使用额外的战斗机或轰炸机。
“只是不值得这么做，”特种作战官员告诉我。海豹队员们是独立地执行任务。
Obama returned to the White House at two o’clock, after playing nine
holes of golf at Andrews Air Force Base. The Black Hawks departed from
Jalalabad thirty minutes later. Just before four o’clock, Panetta
announced to the group in the Situation Room that the helicopters were
approaching Abbottabad. Obama stood up. “I need to watch this,” he said,
stepping across the hall into the small office and taking a seat alongside
Webb. Vice-President Joseph Biden, Secretary Gates, and Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton followed him, as did anyone else who could fit into the
office. On the office’s modestly sized LCD screen, helo one—grainy and
black-and-white—appeared above the compound, then promptly ran into
trouble.
在安德鲁斯空军基地打了九洞高尔夫之后，2点钟的时候奥巴马返回了白宫。黑鹰在
30分钟后从Jalalabad启程。4点钟前，Panetta向特情室的人群宣布直升机正接近
Abbottabad。奥巴马站了起来。“我需要对此进行观察，”他说，从大厅走到了小办
公室内并和Webb坐在了一起。副总统Joseph Biden，国防部长Gates和国务卿希拉里
跟在他后面，可以进入这个办公室的其他人也这么干了。在这间办公室尺寸有限的
LCD显示屏上，呈现黑白色颗粒状形象的一号机出现在庭院上空，然后迅速陷入麻烦
之中。
When the helicopter began getting away from the pilot, he pulled back
on the cyclic, which controls the pitch of the rotor blades, only to find
the aircraft unresponsive. The high walls of the compound and the warm
temperatures had caused the Black Hawk to descend inside its own rotor
wash—a hazardous aerodynamic situation known as “settling with power.”
In North Carolina, this potential problem had not become apparent, because
the chain-link fencing used in rehearsals had allowed air to flow freely.
A former helicopter pilot with extensive special-operations experience
said of the pilot’s situation, “It’s pretty spooky—I’ve been in it
myself. The only way to get out of it is to push the cyclic forward and
fly out of this vertical silo you’re dropping through. That solution
requires altitude. If you’re settling with power at two thousand feet,
you’ve got plenty of time to recover. If you’re settling with power at
fifty feet, you’re going to hit the ground.”
当直升机开始与飞行员脱离的时候，他向后扳用来控制转翼叶片变矩的操纵杆，但直
升机毫无反应。庭院的高墙和较高的温度导致这架黑鹰在其自身的旋翼洗流中下坠。
旋翼洗流是一种“具有动力的下坠”，这是种很危险的空气动力学状态。在北卡罗莱
纳，这种潜在的问题并不是非常明显，因为训练中使用的链围可以容许空气自由流动
。一位具有丰富特种作战经验的前直升机飞行员在谈论这个飞行员此时情况的时候表
示，“这相当的怪异，我也经历过这种情况。摆脱它的唯一途径就是向前推操纵杆从
这个掉进去的筒状区域中飞出去。这种解决方案需要高度。如果在两千英尺的空中发
生动力状态下坠的话，你有足够的时间来调整恢复。但如果在50英尺高的地方遭遇了
这种状况，那你就要撞地了。”
The pilot scrapped the plan to fast-rope and focussed on getting the
aircraft down. He aimed for an animal pen in the western section of the
compound. The SEALs on board braced themselves as the tail rotor swung
around, scraping the security wall. The pilot jammed the nose forward to
drive it into the dirt and prevent his aircraft from rolling onto its
side. Cows, chickens, and rabbits scurried. With the Black Hawk pitched at
a forty-five-degree angle astride the wall, the crew sent a distress call
to the idling Chinooks.
这位飞行员放弃了使用速降绳的计划并专注于把飞机降落下来。他选择了庭院西部的
畜栏。在尾翼四散擦挂围墙的时候，机上的海豹队员调整了状态。飞行员向前推机头
来使其落进泥土，这样就可以阻止直升机向一侧倾覆。畜栏里的牛、鸡，和兔子纷纷
逃散。这架黑鹰45度倾斜着靠在墙上，机组成员向待命的支奴干发出了遇难信号。
James and the SEALs in helo two watched all this while hovering over
the compound’s northeast corner. The second pilot, unsure whether his
colleagues were taking fire or experiencing mechanical problems, ditched
his plan to hover over the roof. Instead, he landed in a grassy field
across the street from the house.
庭院东北角悬停的2号机中的James和海豹队员们目睹了整个过程。2号机飞行员不确
定他的同事是被击中还出现机械故障，他改变了在屋顶悬停的计划把飞机降落在和屋
子隔了条路的草地上。
No American was yet inside the residential part of the compound. Mark
and his team were inside a downed helicopter at one corner, while James
and his team were at the opposite end. The teams had barely been on target
for a minute, and the mission was already veering off course.
到现在为止还没有美国人进入房屋区。Mark和他的队伍停在角落里出故障的直升机里
，而James和他的队伍则在相对的角落里。这支队伍毫无遮蔽地充当了一分钟的靶子
。这次行动已经偏离了原有规划。
“Eternity is defined as the time between when you see something go
awry and that first voice report,” the special-operations officer said.
The officials in Washington viewed the aerial footage and waited anxiously
to hear a military communication. The senior adviser to the President
compared the experience to watching “the climax of a movie.”
“永恒就是当你看到事情出错与第一个声音发出报道之间的一段时间，”特战官员称
。华盛顿官员观察到了空中影像并焦急地等待听到军事通信。总统的高级顾问将这种
体验比作了观看“电影的高潮部分”。
After a few minutes, the twelve SEALs inside helo one recovered their
bearings and calmly relayed on the radio that they were proceeding with
the raid. They had conducted so many operations over the past nine years
that few things caught them off guard. In the months after the raid, the
media have frequently suggested that the Abbottabad operation was as
challenging as Operation Eagle Claw and the “Black Hawk Down” incident,
but the senior Defense Department official told me that “this was not one
of three missions. This was one of almost two thousand missions that have
been conducted over the last couple of years, night after night.” He
likened the routine of evening raids to “mowing the lawn.” On the night
of May 1st alone, special-operations forces based in Afghanistan conducted
twelve other missions; according to the official, those operations
captured or killed between fifteen and twenty targets. “Most of the
missions take off and go left,” he said. “This one took off and went
right.”
几分钟后，1号机内的12名海豹队员恢复了正常并冷静地在无线电中报告他们正继续
进行突袭。九年内他们进行了许多行动，很少有事情能让他们猝不及防的。在突袭后
的数月里，媒体经常暗示Abbottabad行动与鹰爪行动、黑鹰坠落事件一样具有挑战性
，但国防部高级官员告诉我说“这次并不同于那两次的行动。这是数年中夜间执行的
近两千次行动之一。”他把这次夜间突袭行动比作了“收割草坪”。仅在5月1日晚，
驻在阿富汗的特战部队就执行了12次其他的行动；根据官员称，这些行动捕获或击毙
了15到20个目标。“这些任务中大多数执行后就被遗忘，”他说。“而这个则被变得
引人注目了。”Minutes after hitting the ground, Mark and the other team members
began streaming out the side doors of helo one. Mud sucked at their boots
as they ran alongside a ten-foot-high wall that enclosed the animal pen. A
three-man demolition unit hustled ahead to the pen’s closed metal gate,
reached into bags containing explosives, and placed C-4 charges on the
hinges. After a loud bang, the door fell open. The nine other SEALs rushed
forward, ending up in an alleylike driveway with their backs to the house
’s main entrance. They moved down the alley, silenced rifles pressed
against their shoulders. Mark hung toward the rear as he established radio
communications with the other team. At the end of the driveway, the
Americans blew through yet another locked gate and stepped into a
courtyard facing the guesthouse, where Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, bin Laden’s
courier, lived with his wife and four children.
在撞击地面后的数分钟内，Mark和其他队员开始涌出1号机的侧门。当他们沿着一堵
围着畜栏的10英尺高的墙奔跑的时候泥吸附着他们的靴子。一个三人爆破组急促地冲
向畜栏锁着的金属门，他们从装着炸药的袋子里取出C4并安放在门的铰链上。一声巨
响后门被炸开了。其他9个海豹队员冲上前去，来到了一条仿佛甬道般的行车道上，
他们的背部对着房子的主入口。他们沿着这条路前进，消声步枪顶在肩膀上。Mark在
后面与另一支队伍建立了无线电通讯。在这条行车道的末端，这些美国士兵炸开了另
一道锁着的门并进入了朝着客房的庭院，本拉登的信使Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti和他的
妻子、四个孩子住在这里。
Three SEALs in front broke off to clear the guesthouse as the
remaining nine blasted through another gate and entered an inner
courtyard, which faced the main house. When the smaller unit rounded the
corner to face the doors of the guesthouse, they spotted Kuwaiti running
inside to warn his wife and children. The Americans’ night-vision goggles
cast the scene in pixellated shades of emerald green. Kuwaiti, wearing a
white shalwar kameez, had grabbed a weapon and was coming back outside
when the SEALs opened fire and killed him.
前面的3个海豹队员停下来对客房进行清除，其他的9个人炸开了另一道门进入了朝着
主房的内部院子。当这个小队伍绕过角落面对着客房门的时候，他们发现Kuwaiti正
跑进去给其妻子和孩子发出警报。美国士兵的夜视镜上翡翠绿的pixellated shades
（应该是一种镜片名称，未查证）投射出了现场的景象。穿着白色shalwar kameez的
Kuwaiti又拿着武器往回冲了出来，海豹队员们开火并将其击毙。
The nine other SEALs, including Mark, formed three-man units for
clearing the inner courtyard. The Americans suspected that several more
men were in the house: Kuwaiti’s thirty-three-year-old brother, Abrar;
bin Laden’s sons Hamza and Khalid; and bin Laden himself. One SEAL unit
had no sooner trod on the paved patio at the house’s front entrance when
Abrar—a stocky, mustachioed man in a cream-colored shalwar kameez—
appeared with an AK-47. He was shot in the chest and killed, as was his
wife, Bushra, who was standing, unarmed, beside him.
包括Mark在内的其他9名海豹队员组成了三人小组进行内院的清除。美国人怀疑在这
个房子里有其他的人：Kuwaiti的兄弟——30岁的Abrar，本拉登的两个儿子Hamza和
Khalid，以及本拉登自己。一个海豹小组刚登上房子前门铺设的天井，矮壮而留着大
胡须的Abrar出现了。他穿着米色的shalwar kameez，拿了把AK-47。他胸部中弹而被
击毙，同时还有他的妻子Bushra。她站在Abrar身边，没有携带武器。
Outside the compound’s walls, Ahmed, the translator, patrolled the
dirt road in front of bin Laden’s house, as if he were a plainclothes
Pakistani police officer. He looked the part, wearing a shalwar kameez
atop a flak jacket. He, the dog Cairo, and four SEALs were responsible for
closing off the perimeter of the house while James and six other SEALs—
the contingent that was supposed to have dropped onto the roof—moved
inside. For the team patrolling the perimeter, the first fifteen minutes
passed without incident. Neighbors undoubtedly heard the low-flying
helicopters, the sound of one crashing, and the sporadic explosions and
gunfire that ensued, but nobody came outside. One local took note of the
tumult in a Twitter post: “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1 AM
(is a rare event).”
庭院的墙外，翻译Ahmed在本拉登房子前的泥土路上巡逻着，仿佛是一个巴基斯坦便
衣警官。他穿的很符合角色，一身shalwar kameez,上面套了件防弹背心。当James和
其他6个海豹队员冲进去的时候（这只队伍本来计划要降落到屋顶上），Ahmed，狗
Cairo和四个海豹队员负责封闭房子的周围。这支队伍在房子周围巡逻着，最初的十
五分钟没有任何意外发生。邻居们无疑都听到了低空飞过的直升飞机，其中一架坠落
的声音和不时的爆炸与相继的枪声。但没有人出来。一个本地人注意到了喧闹声并在
Twitter帖子中写道：“直升飞机在Abbottabad上空悬停，时间是半夜一点钟（很少
见的事情）。
Eventually, a few curious Pakistanis approached to inquire about the
commotion on the other side of the wall. “Go back to your houses,” Ahmed
said, in Pashto, as Cairo stood watch. “There is a security operation
under way.” The locals went home, none of them suspecting that they had
talked to an American. When journalists descended on Bilal Town in the
coming days, one resident told a reporter, “I saw soldiers emerging from
the helicopters and advancing toward the house. Some of them instructed us
in chaste Pashto to turn off the lights and stay inside.”
最后终于有些好奇的巴基斯坦人靠近并询问他们墙另一边的喧嚣情况。“回到你自己
的房子里去，” Ahmed用普什图语说，而Cairo站在那里看守着。“那里正在进行保
安行动。”本地人回家了，没人怀疑与他们交谈的是一个美国人。当接下来数天里记
者来到Bilal镇的时候，一个当地人告诉一个记者，“我看到士兵从直升机里涌出来
并朝那房子前进。其中一个人用简洁的普什图语命令我们关掉灯光并且不要外出。
Meanwhile, James, the squadron commander, had breached one wall,
crossed a section of the yard covered with trellises, breached a second
wall, and joined up with the SEALs from helo one, who were entering the
ground floor of the house. What happened next is not precisely clear. “I
can tell you that there was a time period of almost twenty to twenty-five
minutes where we really didn’t know just exactly what was going on,”
Panetta said later, on “PBS NewsHour.”
而在同时，小队指挥官James已经破坏了一堵墙，穿过院子中搭着棚架的部分后又破
坏了另一堵墙。他们与正进入房子底楼的1号机的海豹队员们会合了。接下来发生事
情的不是十分清楚。“我可以告诉你有几乎20到25分钟的时间我们确实不知道究竟发
生了什么，” Panetta稍后在PBS NewsHour中表示。
Until this moment, the operation had been monitored by dozens of
defense, intelligence, and Administration officials watching the drone’s
video feed. The SEALs were not wearing helmet cams, contrary to a widely
cited report by CBS. None of them had any previous knowledge of the house
’s floor plan, and they were further jostled by the awareness that they
were possibly minutes away from ending the costliest manhunt in American
history; as a result, some of their recollections—on which this account
is based—may be imprecise and, thus, subject to dispute.
直到这个时候，通过无人机发回的视频，数十个国防、情报和行政官员一直监控着
此次行动。与一篇广为引用的CBS报道相反，海豹队员们并没有戴头盔摄像头。他们
都不清楚这座房子的底层布局，而且他们都被距离结束美国历史上最为昂贵搜捕可能
仅数分钟之遥的想法所激动，结果他们的回忆因此可能不太精确而导致了争议。（本
文就是建立在他们回忆的基础上的。）
As Abrar’s children ran for cover, the SEALs began clearing the first
floor of the main house, room by room. Though the Americans had thought
that the house might be booby-trapped, the presence of kids at the
compound suggested otherwise. “You can only be hyper-vigilant for so
long,” the special-operations officer said. “Did bin Laden go to sleep
every night thinking, The next night they’re coming? Of course not. Maybe
for the first year or two. But not now.” Nevertheless, security
precautions were in place. A locked metal gate blocked the base of the
staircase leading to the second floor, making the downstairs room feel
like a cage.
在Abrar的孩子们奔跑着寻找遮蔽的时候，海豹队员们开始一间间地清理主房的底层
。尽管美国人之前认为这房子里可能有陷阱，但孩子们在庭院中的情况则表明并非如
此。“你只能在一定时间内保持警觉，”特战官员说。“本拉登每晚睡觉的时候都会
想‘明晚他们会来吗？’肯定不会。可能头一年或两年会是这样。但现在不是如此。
”但保安措施依然到位。一面锁着的金属门挡住了通往二楼的楼梯基座，这让1楼得
房子感觉像是个笼子。
After blasting through the gate with C-4 charges, three SEALs marched
up the stairs. Midway up, they saw bin Laden’s twenty-three-year-old son,
Khalid, craning his neck around the corner. He then appeared at the top of
the staircase with an AK-47. Khalid, who wore a white T-shirt with an
overstretched neckline and had short hair and a clipped beard, fired down
at the Americans. (The counterterrorism official claims that Khalid was
unarmed, though still a threat worth taking seriously. “You have an adult
male, late at night, in the dark, coming down the stairs at you in an Al
Qaeda house—your assumption is that you’re encountering a hostile.”) At
least two of the SEALs shot back and killed Khalid. According to the
booklets that the SEALs carried, up to five adult males were living inside
the compound. Three of them were now dead; the fourth, bin Laden’s son
Hamza, was not on the premises. The final person was bin Laden.
在用C4炸开门之后，3个海豹队员进入楼梯。在中途他们看见了本拉登23岁的儿子
Khalid在拐角伸出脖子。然后他出现在楼梯顶部，拿了把AK-47。Khalid穿了件白色T
恤，脖子里挂了个有些过长的项链，短头发，胡须修剪过。他向下面的美国人开枪射
击。（反恐官员声称overstretched没有携带武器，但依然是个值得认真关注的威胁
。“一个成年男性在深夜黑暗中走下楼梯冲你走来，而且是在基地组织的房子里，你
肯定会认为你遭遇了敌人。”）至少两名海豹队员开枪并击毙了他。根据海豹队员携
带的小册子，这院子里最多有5个成年男性。其中3个现在已经死了；第四个，也就是
本拉登的儿子Hamza不在这房子里。最后一个人就是本拉登。
Before the mission commenced, the SEALs had created a checklist of
code words that had a Native American theme. Each code word represented a
different stage of the mission: leaving Jalalabad, entering Pakistan,
approaching the compound, and so on. “Geronimo” was to signify that bin
Laden had been found.
在行动开始前，海豹队员们建了一个以美国印第安人为主题的密语清单。每一个密语
都代表着这次行动的不同阶段：离开Jalalabad，进入巴基斯坦，接近庭院，等等。
杰罗尼莫代表着本拉登被找到。
Three SEALs shuttled past Khalid’s body and blew open another metal
cage, which obstructed the staircase leading to the third floor. Bounding
up the unlit stairs, they scanned the railed landing. On the top stair,
the lead SEAL swivelled right; with his night-vision goggles, he discerned
that a tall, rangy man with a fist-length beard was peeking out from
behind a bedroom door, ten feet away. The SEAL instantly sensed that it
was Crankshaft. (The counterterrorism official asserts that the SEAL first
saw bin Laden on the landing, and fired but missed.)
3个海豹队员穿梭通过了Khalid的尸体并炸开了另一个金属笼子，这个笼子挡住了通
往3楼的路。沿着没有灯光的楼梯向上，他们扫视了带栏杆的楼梯平台。在楼梯顶部
，领头的海豹队员转向右侧；通过夜视镜他分辨出一个个子很高、四肢很长、留着拳
头长度胡须的男人正从十英尺外一间卧室门内向外窥视。（反恐官员声称海豹队员首
先在平台上看见了本拉登并开枪，但并未射中他。）
The Americans hurried toward the bedroom door. The first SEAL pushed
it open. Two of bin Laden’s wives had placed themselves in front of him.
Amal al-Fatah, bin Laden’s fifth wife, was screaming in Arabic. She
motioned as if she were going to charge; the SEAL lowered his sights and
shot her once, in the calf. Fearing that one or both women were wearing
suicide jackets, he stepped forward, wrapped them in a bear hug, and drove
them aside. He would almost certainly have been killed had they blown
themselves up, but by blanketing them he would have absorbed some of the
blast and potentially saved the two SEALs behind him. In the end, neither
woman was wearing an explosive vest.
美国士兵急促地向卧室冲去。第一个海豹队员推开门。本拉登的两个妻子挡在了他面
前。本拉登的第五个妻子Amal al-Fatah用阿拉伯语尖叫着。她的动作好像是要冲锋
一样；海豹队员降低视线并击中了她的小腿。因为担心这两个女人有人或都穿着自杀
式袭击夹克，他走上前去把她们用毯子紧紧抱在一起并拖到一边。如果她们引起爆炸
的话他肯定会被炸死的，但通过使用毯子他可能会吸收一些爆炸伤害而挽救下身后的
两名海豹队员。结果两个女人都没有穿那种夹克。
A second SEAL stepped into the room and trained the infrared laser of
his M4 on bin Laden’s chest. The Al Qaeda chief, who was wearing a tan
shalwar kameez and a prayer cap on his head, froze; he was unarmed.
“There was never any question of detaining or capturing him—it wasn’t a
split-second decision. No one wanted detainees,” the special-operations
officer told me. (The Administration maintains that had bin Laden
immediately surrendered he could have been taken alive.) Nine years, seven
months, and twenty days after September 11th, an American was a trigger
pull from ending bin Laden’s life. The first round, a 5.56-mm. bullet,
struck bin Laden in the chest. As he fell backward, the SEAL fired a
second round into his head, just above his left eye. On his radio, he
reported, “For God and country—Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.” After a
pause, he added, “Geronimo E.K.I.A.”—“enemy killed in action.”
第二个海豹队员进入房间并将其M4红外激光器指向本拉登的胸部。这个穿着鞣革
shalwar kameez，戴着祈祷帽的基地领导人僵立不动；他没有携带武器。“我们不会
扣押或抓获他，这不是个一霎那的决定。没有人想要的是囚犯，”这个特战官员告诉
我。（行政部门继续称如果本拉登立即投降的话可能会被俘虏。）离911已经9年7个
月零20天了，一个美国人距离结束本拉登生命仅有一个扳机扣动之遥。第一颗5.56MM
的子弹击中了本拉登的胸部。当他向后摔倒的时候，海豹队员的第二颗子弹射入了他
的头部左眼上方的位置。在无线电中，这个海豹队员报告称，“为了上帝和国家——
杰罗尼莫，杰罗尼莫，杰罗尼莫。”在稍停之后，他补充说，“杰罗尼莫E.K.I.A.”
——敌人已在行动中被击毙。”
Hearing this at the White House, Obama pursed his lips, and said
solemnly, to no one in particular, “We got him.”
在白宫听到这些之后，奥巴马撅起嘴唇，很严肃地对大家说，“我们已经逮住他了。
”
Relaxing his hold on bin Laden’s two wives, the first SEAL placed the
women in flex cuffs and led them downstairs. Two of his colleagues,
meanwhile, ran upstairs with a nylon body bag. They unfurled it, knelt
down on either side of bin Laden, and placed the body inside the bag.
Eighteen minutes had elapsed since the DEVGRU team landed. For the next
twenty minutes, the mission shifted to an intelligence-gathering
operation.
在放松了对本拉登的两个妻子的控制之后，第一个海豹队员把这两个女人戴上弹性手
铐并带她们走下楼去。在此同时，他的两个队友拿着个尼龙尸体袋冲上楼。他们把尸
体袋展开，跪在本拉登两侧并把尸体放进袋子。从DEVGRU小队降落后已经过去了18分
钟。接下来的20分钟内，这次行动性质转移成为情报的收集。
Four men scoured the second floor, plastic bags in hand, collecting
flash drives, CDs, DVDs, and computer hardware from the room, which had
served, in part, as bin Laden’s makeshift media studio. In the coming
weeks, a C.I.A.-led task force examined the files and determined that bin
Laden had remained far more involved in the operational activities of Al
Qaeda than many American officials had thought. He had been developing
plans to assassinate Obama and Petraeus, to pull off an extravagant
September 11th anniversary attack, and to attack American trains. The
SEALs also found an archive of digital pornography. “We find it on all
these guys, whether they’re in Somalia, Iraq, or Afghanistan,” the
special-operations officer said. Bin Laden’s gold-threaded robes, worn
during his video addresses, hung behind a curtain in the media room.
四个人对2楼进行了搜索，他们拿着塑料袋在房间中收集闪存驱动，CD和DVD以及计算
机硬件。这些曾部分上充当了本拉登的临时媒体工作室。接下来数周内，一个CIA领
导的特遣组检查了这些文件并确定本拉登在基地组织的具体活动中的涉及要深于许多
美国官员认为的那样。他一直计划暗杀奥巴马和Petraeus以开始一次华丽的911周年
纪念袭击；他还计划袭击美国的火车。海豹队员还发现了一些数码色情读物，“在这
些家伙处都发现了这东西，不论是在索马里、伊拉克或阿富汗，”特战官员称。本拉
登在讲话中穿的黄金丝线袍子挂在媒体室的帘后。
Outside, the Americans corralled the women and children—each of them
bound in flex cuffs—and had them sit against an exterior wall that faced
the second, undamaged Black Hawk. The lone fluent Arabic speaker on the
assault team questioned them. Nearly all the children were under the age
of ten. They seemed to have no idea about the tenant upstairs, other than
that he was “an old guy.” None of the women confirmed that the man was
bin Laden, though one of them kept referring to him as “the sheikh.”
When the rescue Chinook eventually arrived, a medic stepped out and knelt
over the corpse. He injected a needle into bin Laden’s body and extracted
two bone-marrow samples. More DNA was taken with swabs. One of the bone-
marrow samples went into the Black Hawk. The other went into the Chinook,
along with bin Laden’s body.
在外面，美国人抓住了女人和孩子，给他们戴上了弹性手铐并使其靠外墙坐着。那堵
外墙就朝着未损坏的黑鹰。袭击队伍中唯一一个能说流利阿拉伯语的人对他们进行了
询问。几乎所有孩子的年龄都在10岁以下。除了知道是个“老家伙”之外，他们似乎
并不清楚楼上租客的身份。没有女人确认那个男人就是本拉登，尽管他们中有个人一
直地用“酋长”来称呼他。当营救的支奴干最后到达的时候，一个军医走出来跪在尸
体面前。他把一个针管插入本拉登的尸体，取了两个骨髓样本。更多的DNA则是用药
签来取得。一份骨髓样本放在黑鹰上。另一份则和本拉登的尸体一起放在支奴干上。
Next, the SEALs needed to destroy the damaged Black Hawk. The pilot,
armed with a hammer that he kept for such situations, smashed the
instrument panel, the radio, and the other classified fixtures inside the
cockpit. Then the demolition unit took over. They placed explosives near
the avionics system, the communications gear, the engine, and the rotor
head. “You’re not going to hide the fact that it’s a helicopter,” the
special-operations officer said. “But you want to make it unusable.” The
SEALs placed extra C-4 charges under the carriage, rolled thermite
grenades inside the copter’s body, and then backed up. Helo one burst
into flames while the demolition team boarded the Chinook. The women and
children, who were being left behind for the Pakistani authorities, looked
puzzled, scared, and shocked as they watched the SEALs board the
helicopters. Amal, bin Laden’s wife, continued her harangue. Then, as a
giant fire burned inside the compound walls, the Americans flew away.
接下来，海豹需要摧毁损坏了的黑鹰。飞行员拿了一把他留作此用的锤子砸碎了座舱
内仪表盘、无线电和其他机密设备。然后爆破小组接手了此事。航电系统附近、通讯
设备、发动机和旋翼毂处都被放置了炸药。“要隐藏这是架直升机的事实，”特战官
员称。“但你夕阳能让它无法使用。”海豹队员在机舱下部放置了额外的C4炸药，把
铝热剂手榴弹扔进直升机里，然后后退。1号机化为了一团火焰的同时爆破组登上了
支奴干。女人和孩子则留给了巴基斯坦当局处理。当这些人目睹海豹队员登上直升机
的时候看起来既困惑又害怕，还显得震惊。本拉登的妻子Amal继续滔滔不绝地讲话。
当一团大火在庭院墙内爆发的时候，美国人已经飞走了。
In the Situation Room, Obama said, “I’m not going to be happy until
those guys get out safe.” After thirty-eight minutes inside the compound,
the two SEAL teams had to make the long flight back to Afghanistan. The
Black Hawk was low on gas, and needed to rendezvous with the Chinook at
the refuelling point that was near the Afghan border—but still inside
Pakistan. Filling the gas tank took twenty-five minutes. At one point,
Biden, who had been fingering a rosary, turned to Mullen, the Joint Chiefs
chairman. “We should all go to Mass tonight,” he said.
奥巴马在特情室中称，“在这些人安全撤出之前我不会感到高兴的”。在庭院内的38
分钟后，两支海豹队伍必须经过很远的路程回到阿富汗。黑鹰的燃料不足，必须在靠
近阿富汗边境的加油点和支奴干会合，但那里依然在巴基斯坦境内。油箱加满需要25
分钟的时间。在某刻一直握着串珠的Biden对参谋长联席会议主席Mullen说：“我们
今晚应该都去做弥撒。”
The helicopters landed back in Jalalabad around 3 A.M.; McRaven and
the C.I.A. station chief met the team on the tarmac. A pair of SEALs
unloaded the body bag and unzipped it so that McRaven and the C.I.A.
officer could see bin Laden’s corpse with their own eyes. Photographs
were taken of bin Laden’s face and then of his outstretched body. Bin
Laden was believed to be about six feet four, but no one had a tape
measure to confirm the body’s length. So one SEAL, who was six feet tall,
lay beside the corpse: it measured roughly four inches longer than the
American. Minutes later, McRaven appeared on the teleconference screen in
the Situation Room and confirmed that bin Laden’s body was in the bag.
The corpse was sent to Bagram.
下午三点左右，直升机飞回了Jalalabad；McRaven和CIA站领导人在停机坪会见了这
支队伍。两名海豹队员搬下尸体袋，打开以便McRaven和CIA官员能亲眼看到本拉登的
尸体。本拉登的脸部和伸展的身体被拍了照片。本拉登的身高被确信是6英尺4，但没
人曾用卷尺去确认这具尸体的长度。所以一个6英尺高的海豹队员躺在尸体旁边，它
高出这个美国人大约4英寸。几分钟后，McRaven出现在特情室电话会议的屏幕上并确
认了本拉登的尸体就在那个袋子里。这具尸体被送到了Bagram。
All along, the SEALs had planned to dump bin Laden’s corpse into the
sea—a blunt way of ending the bin Laden myth. They had successfully
pulled off a similar scheme before. During a DEVGRU helicopter raid inside
Somalia in September, 2009, SEALs had killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, one
of East Africa’s top Al Qaeda leaders; Nabhan’s corpse was then flown to
a ship in the Indian Ocean, given proper Muslim rites, and thrown
overboard. Before taking that step for bin Laden, however, John Brennan
made a call. Brennan, who had been a C.I.A. station chief in Riyadh,
phoned a former counterpart in Saudi intelligence. Brennan told the man
what had occurred in Abbottabad and informed him of the plan to deposit
bin Laden’s remains at sea. As Brennan knew, bin Laden’s relatives were
still a prominent family in the Kingdom, and Osama had once been a Saudi
citizen. Did the Saudi government have any interest in taking the body? “
Your plan sounds like a good one,” the Saudi replied.
海豹一直计划着将本拉登的尸体投入大海，这是结束本拉登神话的一种生硬方式。他
们之前曾成功地制定了一个相似的方案。2009年9月在索马里，DEVGRU的一次直升机
突袭中，海豹们杀死了东非头号基地领导人之一的Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan；Nabhan
的尸体在被给予了合适的穆斯林礼仪后被空运到印度洋的一艘船上，在那里尸体被抛
入大海中。在对本拉登执行同样做法的之前John Brennan打了一个电话。曾是CIA
Riyadh站领导人的Brennan给一位前沙特的情报同事拨了电话。Brennan告诉这个人
Abbottabad所发生的一切并把将本拉登尸体投入大海的计划告诉了他。如Brennan了
解的那样，本拉登的亲戚在沙特依然是一个很显著的家族，本拉登也曾是一个沙特公
民。沙特政府是否对接收这具尸体感兴趣呢？“你的计划听起来很不错，”沙特回复
。
At dawn, bin Laden was loaded into the belly of a flip-wing V-22
Osprey, accompanied by a JSOC liaison officer and a security detail of
military police. The Osprey flew south, destined for the deck of the
U.S.S. Carl Vinson—a thousand-foot-long nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
sailing in the Arabian Sea, off the Pakistani coast. The Americans, yet
again, were about to traverse Pakistani airspace without permission. Some
officials worried that the Pakistanis, stung by the humiliation of the
unilateral raid in Abbottabad, might restrict the Osprey’s access. The
airplane ultimately landed on the Vinson without incident.
黎明时分，本拉登的尸体被装进一家V-22鱼鹰偏转翼直升机，陪同的是一位JSOC联络
官员和宪兵的安保分队。这架鱼鹰向南飞往U.S.S.卡尔文森的甲板，卡尔文森是一艘
正航行在巴基斯坦海岸外的阿拉伯海上的一千英尺长核动力航母。美国人再次不经允
许就通过了巴基斯坦的领空。一些官员担心因为Abbottabad单方突袭带来的耻辱会使
巴基斯坦限制这架鱼鹰的通过。这架飞机最终在没有发生意外的情况下降落在卡尔文
森上。
Bin Laden’s body was washed, wrapped in a white burial shroud,
weighted, and then slipped inside a bag. The process was done “in strict
conformance with Islamic precepts and practices,” Brennan later told
reporters. The JSOC liaison, the military-police contingent, and several
sailors placed the shrouded body on an open-air elevator, and rode down
with it to the lower level, which functions as a hangar for airplanes.
From a height of between twenty and twenty-five feet above the waves, they
heaved the corpse into the water.
本拉登的尸体被清洗后包在一块白色的裹尸布里，加重后推进了一个袋子里。整个过
程“严格遵从了伊斯兰训诫和习俗，” Brennan后来这样告诉记者。JSOC联络官员和
宪兵分队以及几个水手把裹好的尸体放在一个露天升降机上，然后站在上面下降。这
升降机是作为机库使用的。从水面上方20到25英尺的高度，他们把尸体抛进水中。
Back in Abbottabad, residents of Bilal Town and dozens of journalists
converged on bin Laden’s compound, and the morning light clarified some
of the confusion from the previous night. Black soot from the detonated
Black Hawk charred the wall of the animal pen. Part of the tail hung over
the wall. It was clear that a military raid had taken place there. “I’m
glad no one was hurt in the crash, but, on the other hand, I’m sort of
glad we left the helicopter there,” the special-operations officer said.
“It quiets the conspiracy mongers out there and instantly lends
credibility. You believe everything else instantly, because there’s a
helicopter sitting there.”
在Abbottabad，Bilal镇的居民和成打的记者聚集在本拉登的庭院里，早晨的光线澄
清了前晚的困惑。黑鹰爆炸的黑烟烧焦了畜栏的墙。这架飞机部分尾部靠在墙上。很
清楚，这里曾发生过一次军事突袭。“我很高兴没人在这次坠机中受伤，但从另一方
面来说，我有些高兴我们把那架飞机留在了那里，”特战官员称。“这让那里的阴谋
贩子们安静下来了而且也增添了可信性。因为有一架直升飞机在那里，你会立即相信
一切别的东西。”
After the raid, Pakistan’s political leadership engaged in frantic
damage control. In the Washington Post, President Asif Ali Zardari wrote
that bin Laden “was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now
he is gone,” adding that “a decade of cooperation and partnership
between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama
bin Laden.”
在这次突袭后，巴基斯坦警察领导层汇集在竭力进行损害管制。在《华盛顿邮报》中
，Asif Ali Zardari总统称本拉登“并不在我们猜想的任何地方，而现在他已经死了
，”他补充说“本拉登被巴基斯坦和美国十年的合作和伙伴关系所消灭了。
Pakistani military officials reacted more cynically. They arrested at
least five Pakistanis for helping the C.I.A., including the physician who
ran the immunization drive in Abbottabad. And several Pakistani media
outlets, including the Nation—a jingoistic English-language newspaper
that is considered a mouthpiece for Pakistan’s Inter-Services
Intelligence agency, or I.S.I.—published what they claimed was the name
of the C.I.A.’s station chief in Islamabad. (Shireen Mazari, a former
editor of the Nation, once told me, “Our interests and the Americans’
interests don’t coincide.”) The published name was incorrect, and the
C.I.A. officer opted to stay.
巴基斯坦军事官员的反应则更为愤怒。他们逮捕了至少五个协助CIA的巴基斯坦人，
其中包括在Abbottabad进行免疫接种的医生。巴基斯坦的一些媒体，其中包括Nation
这家被认为是巴基斯坦内务情报机构（ISI）喉舌的持强硬姿态的英文报纸，公开了
他们宣称是CIA伊斯兰堡站领导人的名字。（Nation前编辑Shireen Mazari曾告诉我
，“我们的利益和美国的利益并不一致。”）这个被公开的名字并不准确，而这位
CIA官员选择了留在当地。
The proximity of bin Laden’s house to the Pakistan Military Academy
raised the possibility that the military, or the I.S.I., had helped
protect bin Laden. How could Al Qaeda’s chief live so close to the
academy without at least some officers knowing about it? Suspicion grew
after the Times reported that at least one cell phone recovered from bin
Laden’s house contained contacts for senior militants belonging to
Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, a jihadi group that has had close ties to the
I.S.I. Although American officials have stated that Pakistani officials
must have helped bin Laden hide in Abbottabad, definitive evidence has not
yet been presented.
本拉登房子与巴基斯坦军事学院的邻近产生了这种可能性：军队，或ISI以前是否在
保护本拉登。基地组织的领导人居住的离学院这么近，怎么可能没有至少一些官员知
情？Times报道称从本拉登房子中取得的手机通话记录中至少有一个是与Harakat-
ul-Mujahideen高层激进分子的通话，而Harakat-ul-Mujahideen这个圣战组织则与
ISI有很紧密的联系。从这篇报道发表后怀疑就一直在增加。尽管美国官员一直称巴
基斯坦官员肯定帮助本拉登藏在了Abbottabad，但一直没有提供决定性的证据。
Bin Laden’s death provided the White House with the symbolic victory
it needed to begin phasing troops out of Afghanistan. Seven weeks later,
Obama announced a timetable for withdrawal. Even so, U.S. counterterrorism
activities inside Pakistan—that is, covert operations conducted by the
C.I.A. and JSOC—are not expected to diminish anytime soon. Since May 2nd,
there have been more than twenty drone strikes in North and South
Waziristan, including one that allegedly killed Ilyas Kashmiri, a top Al
Qaeda leader, while he was sipping tea in an apple orchard.
本拉登的死为白宫提供了其需要的象征性胜利，白宫需要这种胜利以将其部队调整撤
出阿富汗。六周后，奥巴马宣布了撤退的时间表。即使如此，美国在巴基斯坦的反恐
行动，也就是由CIA和JSOC主持的秘密行动预计不会立即减少。自从5月2日起，美国
在Waziristan的北部和南部发动了12次无人机攻击，其中一次宣称击毙了基地头号领
导人之一的Ilyas Kashmiri，当时他正在一个苹果园中喝茶。
The success of the bin Laden raid has sparked a conversation inside
military and intelligence circles: Are there other terrorists worth the
risk of another helicopter assault in a Pakistani city? “There are people
out there that, if we could find them, we would go after them,”
Cartwright told me. He mentioned Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new leader of Al
Qaeda, who is believed to be in Pakistan, and Anwar al-Awlaki, the
American-born cleric in Yemen. Cartwright emphasized that “going after
them” didn’t necessarily mean another DEVGRU raid. The special-
operations officer spoke more boldly. He believes that a precedent has
been set for more unilateral raids in the future. “Folks now realize we
can weather it,” he said. The senior adviser to the President said that
“penetrating other countries’ sovereign airspace covertly is something
that’s always available for the right mission and the right gain.”
Brennan told me, “The confidence we have in the capabilities of the U.S.
military is, without a doubt, even stronger after this operation.”
对本拉登突袭的胜利在军事和情报界中引起了一次对话：还有值得使用直升机对巴基
斯坦城市进行袭击的恐怖分子吗？“那里有我们要抓的人，如果能发现他们，我们就
会动手，” Cartwright告诉我。他谈到了基地新领导人Ayman al-Zawahiri，这人被
认为就在巴基斯坦；他也涉及到了出生于美国、现在也门的牧师Anwar al-Awlaki。
Cartwright强调称“动手”并不必然意味着另一次DEVGRU突袭。特战官员的言论则更
为大胆。他相信这是未来发动更多单方突袭的一个先例。“大家现在知道我们能干这
个，”他说。总统的高级顾问称“为正确的任务和收益秘密进入他国领空一直是可行
的。” Brennan告诉我，“我们对美国军事能力的信任在这次行动后无疑会更高。”
On May 6th, Al Qaeda confirmed bin Laden’s death and released a
statement congratulating “the Islamic nation” on “the martyrdom of its
good son Osama.” The authors promised Americans that “their joy will
turn to sorrow and their tears will mix with blood.” That day, President
Obama travelled to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where the 160th is based, to
meet the DEVGRU unit and the pilots who pulled off the raid. The SEALs,
who had returned home from Afghanistan earlier in the week, flew in from
Virginia. Biden, Tom Donilon, and a dozen other national-security advisers
came along.
5月6日，基地确认了本拉登的死讯并发布声明称因“好儿子奥萨马的殉教而对”伊斯
兰民族”表示庆贺。该作者对美国人保证，“他们的喜悦将变成悲伤，他们的眼泪将
混合着鲜血。”那天，奥巴马总统前往肯塔基坎贝尔堡160航空团驻地会见这支发动
突袭的DEVGRU队伍和飞行员。这些当周较早从阿富汗返回家乡的海豹队员们从弗吉尼
亚飞到了此地。Biden，Tom Donilon和一打其他国防顾问也在随行之列。
McRaven greeted Obama on the tarmac. (They had met at the White House
a few days earlier—the President had presented McRaven with a tape
measure.) McRaven led the President and his team into a one-story building
on the other side of the base. They walked into a windowless room with
shabby carpets, fluorescent lights, and three rows of metal folding
chairs. McRaven, Brian, the pilots from the 160th, and James took turns
briefing the President. They had set up a three-dimensional model of bin
Laden’s compound on the floor and, waving a red laser pointer, traced
their maneuvers inside. A satellite image of the compound was displayed on
a wall, along with a map showing the flight routes into and out of
Pakistan. The briefing lasted about thirty-five minutes. Obama wanted to
know how Ahmed had kept locals at bay; he also inquired about the fallen
Black Hawk and whether above-average temperatures in Abbottabad had
contributed to the crash. (The Pentagon is conducting a formal
investigation of the accident.)
McRaven在停机坪向奥巴马致敬。（他们几天前在白宫进行了会面，总统还送给了他
一个卷尺。）McRaven引导总统和其队伍进入基地另一侧的一栋一层建筑中。他们走
进了一个没有窗户、铺着破旧地毯的房间，里面有几盏日光灯和三排金属折叠椅。
McRaven，Brian和来自160航空团的飞行员以及James相继向总统进行了汇报。他们在
地面上摆了一个本拉登院子的三维模型并用一个红色激光指示器标示着他们进入的行
动。墙上展示着一个院子的卫星图像，还有一张显示进出巴基斯坦的航程图。汇报持
续了大约35分钟。奥巴马想知道Ahmed是如何阻止当地人的；他也询问了坠落的黑鹰
以及Abbottabad高于平均值的温度是否也是影响了这次坠机。（五角大楼正进行一次
关于此次事故的正式调查。）
When James, the squadron commander, spoke, he started by citing all
the forward operating bases in eastern Afghanistan that had been named for
SEALs killed in combat. “Everything we have done for the last ten years
prepared us for this,” he told Obama. The President was “in awe of these
guys,” Ben Rhodes, the deputy national-security adviser, who travelled
with Obama, said. “It was an extraordinary base visit,” he added. “They
knew he had staked his Presidency on this. He knew they staked their lives
on it.”
当队伍指挥官James发言的时候，他的发言开始部分列举了以战斗中牺牲的海豹队员
命名的阿富汗东部所有前线战斗基地。“过去十年中我们所作的一切为我们完成这个
行动作了预备，”他这样告诉奥巴马。总统“对这些家伙感到十分敬佩，”随行的副
国家安全顾问Ben Rhodes称。“这次对基地的访问非常的不同寻常，”他补充说。“
他们知道他为此赌上了总统职位。他知道他们为此赌上了生命。”
As James talked about the raid, he mentioned Cairo’s role. “There
was a dog?” Obama interrupted. James nodded and said that Cairo was in an
adjoining room, muzzled, at the request of the Secret Service.
当James谈论这次突袭的时候，他谈到了Cairo的角色。“有一只狗吗？”奥巴马打断
了他的话。James点头，说Cairo在邻近的房间里，应特工的要求戴上了口套。
“I want to meet that dog,” Obama said.
“我想见见那只狗，”奥巴马说。
“If you want to meet the dog, Mr. President, I advise you to bring
treats,” James joked. Obama went over to pet Cairo, but the dog’s muzzle
was left on.
“如果你想见这只狗的话，总统先生，我建议你带上些狗小食，”james开玩笑。奥
巴马去逗Cairo了，但狗的口套没有打开。
Afterward, Obama and his advisers went into a second room, down the
hall, where others involved in the raid—including logisticians, crew
chiefs, and SEAL alternates—had assembled. Obama presented the team with
a Presidential Unit Citation and said, “Our intelligence professionals
did some amazing work. I had fifty-fifty confidence that bin Laden was
there, but I had one-hundred-per-cent confidence in you guys. You are,
literally, the finest small-fighting force that has ever existed in the
world.” The raiding team then presented the President with an American
flag that had been on board the rescue Chinook. Measuring three feet by
five, the flag had been stretched, ironed, and framed. The SEALs and the
pilots had signed it on the back; an inscription on the front read, “From
the Joint Task Force Operation Neptune’s Spear, 01 May 2011: ‘For God
and country. Geronimo.’ ” Obama promised to put the gift “somewhere
private and meaningful to me.” Before the President returned to
Washington, he posed for photographs with each team member and spoke with
many of them, but he left one thing unsaid. He never asked who fired the
kill shot, and the SEALs never volunteered to tell him. ?
稍后，奥巴马和其顾问沿大厅走进第二个房间，这里有其他参与到这次突袭的人，其
中包括后勤人员，机组乘务长和预备海豹队员。这些人都聚集在这里。奥巴马为这支
队伍颁发了总统单位嘉奖并说，“我们的情报专家们做了令人惊奇的工作。我有百分
之五十的信心认为本拉登就在那里，但我对你们这些家伙们有百分之百的信心。你们
完全是世界上现有的最好的小规模战斗力量。”突袭队伍为总统先上了曾插在营救支
奴干上的一面美国国旗。这面尺寸为3*5英尺的旗帜被展开熨烫并用框架固定。海豹
队员和飞行员们在背部签了名；签名顶部写着这样的题字：“2011.5.01，三叉戟联
合特遣部队行动：为了上帝和国家。杰罗尼莫。”奥巴马承诺将把这份礼物放在“对
自己具有意义的私人空间”中。在总统返回华盛顿之前，他同每个队员进行合影并同
其中许多人进行交谈。但他没有说一件事，他并没有问谁射出了杀死本拉登的子弹，
海豹队员们也决不会主动告诉他。
我以为是视频……
这个比较详细，特种作战情报和投送力量非常重要也是我们最欠缺的地方，那种y y 特种部队做多少腹卧撑的人就算了吧，体能只是作战行动的基础，它很重要但是不能神话。
拿破伦说战争中谁都会犯错，胜利属于犯错少的一方。海豹遇到直升机坠落这样的大困难时处置得当，继续完成了任务。唯一不解的是，既然没准备留拉灯的活口，为什么没有消灭掉突袭时遇到的每一个人，这些妻子孩子如果有反抗或者逃走引来游击队怎么办？之前不是因为放走牧羊人而出过事吗？出境的军事行动难道还受本国民法限制吗？
拿破伦说战争中谁都会犯错，胜利属于犯错少的一方。海豹遇到直升机坠落这样的大困难时处置得当，继续完成了任务。唯一不解的是，既然没准备留拉灯的活口，为什么没有消灭掉突袭时遇到的每一个人，这些妻子孩子如果有反抗或者逃走引来游击队怎么办？之前不是因为放走牧羊人而出过事吗？出境的军事行动难道还受本国民法限制吗？
个人仍然坚持认为是美国人卸磨杀驴，拉登是被美国利用了，拉登死后，基地组织彻底沦为美帝的工具，配合美帝在全球反恐，颠覆叙利亚，在也门和其他国家也配合美帝。拉登死的冤枉啊