Finally: Navy Seals Kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Helicopters carrying an elite Navy SEAL strike team descended Sunday out of darkness on the most important counterterrorism mission in U.S. history--to kill Osama bin Laden.

Among other things, it was a long overdue mission to avenge the September 11, 2001 death of 58-year-old civilian pentagon worker Don Simmons--from Du Quoin-- and the nearly 3,000 who died in attacks on the Pentagon, World Trade Center and the failed attack on the White House itself.

It was an operation so secret, only a select few U.S. officials knew what was about to happen. The location was a fortified compound in an affluent Pakistani town two hours outside Islamabad.

The most wanted man in the world was shot in the head--the attack fully photographed and the body identified through forensic evidence already in U.S. possession. Reports early today said bin Laden's body was photographed as evidence and finally buried at sea so that it would never become an al-Qaida rallying point.

No Americans were lost in the firefight. Other members of bin Laden's family were killed.

For Du Quoin, the terrorist's death brought closure for members of Don Simmons' family. I interviewed Don's brother, Gary, at the time and he had a sister, as well. Gary was a track maintainer for the Du Quoin State Fair.

Don was a civilian employee at the Pentagon, as was his wife, Peggy. She was not injured in the attack when the American Airlines 757 hit the American military command center. It took almost two days to extinguish the fires and locate the 150 employees who were missing.

Don was only two years away from retirement. His immediate supervisor survived the attack when he stepped out of the office and headed down the hall to the restroom. Don and Peggy resided in Washington D.C. with a son.

Intelligence officials discovered the compound in August 2010 while monitoring an al-Qaida courier. The CIA had been hunting that courier for years, ever since detainees told interrogators that the courier was so trusted by bin Laden that he might very well be living with the al-Qaida leader. Nestled in an affluent neighborhood, the compound was surrounded by walls as high as 18 feet, topped with barbed wire. Two security gates guarded the only way in. A third-floor terrace was shielded by a seven-foot privacy wall. No phone lines or Internet cables ran to the property. The residents burned their garbage rather than put it out for collection. Intelligence officials now believe the million-dollar compound was built five years ago to protect bin Laden. On April 29, President Obama approved an operation to kill bin Laden. To execute it, Obama tapped a small contingent of the Navy's elite SEAL Team Six and put them under the command of CIA Director Leon Panetta whose analysts monitored the compound from afar.

Panetta was directly in charge of the team, a U.S. official said, and his conference room was transformed into a command center.

Details of exactly how the raid unfolded remain murky. But the al-Qaida courier, his brother and one of bin Laden's sons were killed. No Americans were injured. Senior administration officials will only say that bin Laden "resisted." And then the man behind the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil died from an American bullet to his head.