How 'Operation Kill bin Laden' Went Down

Senior Administration officials said they had been monitoring the compound since last August, ever since a courier known to be trusted by bin Laden, as well as the courier's brother, began living there. "Everything we saw — the extremely elaborate operational security, the brothers' background and their behavior, and the location and the design of the compound itself — was perfectly consistent with what our experts expected bin Laden's hideout to look like," one official said early Monday. "Our analysts looked at this from every angle, considering carefully who other than bin Laden could be at the compound. We conducted red team exercises and other forms of alternative analysis to check our work. No other candidate fit the bill as well as bin Laden did."