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For more than a decade, one question has continued to fuel debate, conspiracy theories, and endless online speculation: What really happened to Osama bin Laden’s body after the raid that ended his life?
One former Navy SEAL has never shied away from discussing his role in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Years after the historic mission, his latest remarks are once again fueling debate about one of its most controversial unanswered questions.
More than 15 years after Osama bin Laden’s death, public fascination with the mission that brought down the al-Qaeda leader remains as strong as ever. Interest in the operation surged again last year following the release of Netflix’s American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden, which explored the aftermath of 9/11 and the years-long effort to track down the world’s most wanted terrorist.
Bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011, during Operation Neptune Spear, when members of SEAL Team Six stormed a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
While the raid itself has been extensively documented, questions surrounding what happened afterward have never fully gone away.
The man who says he pulled the trigger
The U.S. government has never officially identified the person who fired the fatal shot that killed bin Laden.
However, retired Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill has repeatedly claimed that he was the one who ended the terrorist leader’s life. O’Neill, who appears prominently in the Netflix documentary, is one of several former SEALs who have publicly discussed the mission.
Another former SEAL, Matt Bissonnette, also shared his account of the operation in his 2012 book No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden.
Speaking in the documentary, O’Neill described the moment he says he came face-to-face with bin Laden.