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The full story of the assassination of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been revealed for the first time by a member of the elite team that killed the terrorist in the Abottabad raid. The extraordinary assassination has been described in a book, No Easy Day, written by a former US Navy Seal, who was part of the mission, under the pen-name Mark Owen. According to the Daily Mail, Owen said that bin Laden was shot in the head by a ‘point man’ as the Al Qaeda leader peered out through his narrowly-opened bedroom door. Owen, describing the assassination, said that the SEALs, burst into bin Laden’s room, then fired more rounds into his body, as he lay on the floor, and two of his wives were crying standing besides him with their children. According to the book, the fallen man, was wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt, tan trousers and a tan tunic, and had been shot in the right side of his head. Owen and his comrades then examined the body to confirm before reporting over radio that this was bin Laden because he knew the call would be rapidly relayed to Washington where President Barack Obama was listening, the report said. “The man’s face was mangled from at least one bullet wound and covered in blood. A hole in his forehead collapsed the right side of his skull. His chest was torn up from where the bullets had entered his body,” he said, adding: ‘?“I think this is our boy,” Tom said.’ According to the report, the dead man was the correct height and looked like the composite photos the SEALs had been given. They wiped the blood from his face using a blanket from the bed and he looked more familiar, but younger than expected. It seemed that his beard had been dyed. Owen said that he took photos of bin Laden’s full body and then his head. He also asked a comrade ‘Walt’ to collect DNA and blood samples of bin Laden. According to the report, the minute-by-minute account of the top-secret raid has infuriated Pentagon lawyers and Owen is accused of breaching a secrecy commitment that he had signed before leaving duty.

A ‘blow-by-blow’ account of Bin Laden’s assassination