A former special forces' soldier, Rob O'Neill, has told the Washington Post that he killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011. He made similar claims last year under a pseudonym - but some dispute his version of events, reports GHN based on DW.
Rob O'Neill, formerly a member of the US Navy's elite SEAL Team 6, claimed in Thursday's Washington Post newspaper that he fired the fatal shots against al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. US news agency the Associated Press reported that one current and one former SEAL, both speaking on condition of anonymity, supported O'Neill's account.
O'Neill told the paper that he decided to go public for fear that his identity would be released by the SOFREP website operated by former SEALs, however SOFREP said it released O'Neill's identity in protest at him revealing his role in the mission.
The 38-year-old also spoke at length about his role, calling this a spontaneous decision, in a private meeting with families of 9/11 victims ahead of the recent opening of the National Sept. 11 Memorial Museum. O'Neill donated the shirt he wore during the operation, which is now on display there.
He first revealed himself last year in an interview with Esquire magazine, which at the time identified him only as "The Shooter." In that piece, O'Neill depicts himself as the sole shooter, out of three SEALs present, to hit his mark in the third-floor bedroom of Bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan. O'Neill said that the "point man" at the head of his group was the first to fire at Bin Laden, as he poked his head out into the hallway, but that those shots missed. He then said that the point man intercepted and smothered two women pushed out into the hallway, while he moved into the bedroom and shot the al Qaeda leader.
"There was bin Laden standing there," he told Esquire in May 2013. "He had his hands on a woman's shoulders, pushing her ahead, not exactly towards me but by me, in the direction of the hallway commotion. It was his youngest wife, Amal.