The killing of Osama Bin Laden

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2021

⏱️ 50 minutes

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Summary

It is 10 years since the al-Qaeda leader was killed. We look at the US special forces operation that finally tracked him down to a city in northern Pakistan, the 1979 siege of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, one of the events that shaped his world view; we talk to a Western-based journalist who met him, hear from a survivor of the attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998 and hear about the hunt for the al-Qaeda leader in the mountains of Afghanistan after 9/11.

(Photo: Osama Bin Laden. Credit:AFP/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson, bringing
0:05.6	the past to life with those who were there.
0:08.5	This week Osama bin Laden, marking 10 years since the Al-Qaeda leader was killed. I'm joined as ever by members of the
0:15.2	wonderful witness history team on the World Service, Rebecca Kespi and Alex Last.
0:19.7	Hello team.
0:20.7	Hello. And we're also very pleased to have two journalists from the BBC's Arabic service this week as
0:26.6	we have a programme focusing on Osama bin Laden to mark 10 years since his death.
0:32.2	So welcome to Rafi Jaburi,
0:34.0	the Arabic Service Washington correspondent
0:36.0	and an expert on counter-terrorism.
0:37.7	And to producer Elie Melky, gentlemen,
0:40.0	welcome and thanks for joining us.
0:41.2	Hello Max.
0:42.0	As I say, this week we're plundering the BBC's rich archive of material on the Al-Qaeda leader,
0:47.5	Osama bin Laden, who was killed a decade ago by US Special Forces in Pakistan. That was in May 2011. So Alex and Rebecca, before we get
0:56.7	stuck into this, what have you got for us, Alex?
0:58.7	Yes, Max, I'll bring you the story of a remarkable man, a survivor of one of Al-Qaeda's first major attacks, which was
1:05.2	a devastating bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, which killed hundreds of people,
1:10.0	almost all of whom were in fact Kenyan. And Max a couple of years ago I spoke to the CIA commander who was actually chasing
1:18.0	a summer bin Laden immediately after the 9-11 attacks on the USA and he's been telling me about the huge battle that they had in the
1:26.2	white mountains in Afghanistan where they lost bin Laden he managed to get away in the
1:31.5	caves of Torabora.
	...

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