MONSTER HUNT The shocking military gaffe that let Bin Laden escape just months after 9/11 as CIA boss admits ‘we could have ended it’

“We got reporting that people in Bin Laden’s network were calling their mothers and telling them goodbye and stuff like that. Something very serious was about to happen

So America gave them an opportunity to turn him over, which they refused.

Just four days after 9/11, President Bush decided to go to war and put the CIA and its counterterrorism boss, Cofer Black, in charge of hunting him down.

‘Operation Jawbreaker’ sent small teams of CIA agents behind enemy lines to work with their Afghan allies, the Northern Alliance, who were already fighting the Taliban.

And Cofer Black’s instructions were clear – he wanted Bin Laden’s head on a stick to present to President Bush.

By December, the Americans and the Northern Alliance had taken control of all the major Afghan cities – but Bin Laden had got away.

American intelligence located his whereabouts in the mountainous stronghold of Tora Bora, and a team was sent up to find him.

They needed military reinforcements, but they were denied. The decision was made to bomb anyway, despite CIA protestations that they needed support.

The mountain cave was hit for 56 hours with some of the heaviest bombing since World War Two – but there was no proof Bin Laden was dead and fears grew that escape routes had not been sealed off.

Then, six months later, the Americans’ worst fears were realised – film footage emerged proving Bin Laden was alive.

Cofer Black says: “We could have ended it and moved on. It would have given some closure to the survivors in New York.

“This was the best chance we ever had and I am sorry we didn’t take it.”

Hunt for the henchmen

As Bin Laden released another propaganda video, the hunt for him and his henchmen intensified.

The Al Qaeda founder was at the top; after him was his deputy Al Zawahiri. Next in command were a handful of lieutenants who were also very close to Bin Laden.

These were Abu Zubaydah, who was suspected to be Bin Laden’s chief operations operative, and a mysterious figure known only as Mukhtar.

In December 2001, three months after 9/11, a flight attendant on an American airliner thwarted another terror attack when he discovered a passenger with a bomb in his shoes.

The investigators felt they were at a dead end, but then they managed to capture Abu Zubaydah in a raid in Pakistan.

Unbelievably, he cooperated with the FBI and named the mysterious Mukhtar as a man they had been tracking for years – Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM.

But that was nothing compared to what happened next.

Mastermind unmasked

Zubaydah revealed KSM was not just one of Bin Laden’s closest accomplices, but the chief planner behind the September 11 attacks.

FBI Special Agent Ali Sofan says: “He was the architect, the visionary, the mastermind of 9/11.”

He had been the man behind the first attack on the World Trade Centre back in 1993, but considered it a failure when he failed to topple the towers.

So he found his way to Afghanistan and Al Qaeda and pitched an idea to Osama Bin Laden to target not only the World Trade Centre, but also the Capitol Building and the Pentagon.

After 9/11, KSM went into hiding, but intelligence revealed he was in Pakistan.

In March 2003, they raided his villa in Rawalpindi, and he was captured. But what became clear was that Bin Laden was still very much in charge – and there were real concerns about additional attacks.

In the months that followed came the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 193 people, then the 7/7 bombings in London that left 52 dead.

Cindy Storer says: “There was attack after attack, we knew there could be another attack at any time, anywhere.”

KSM provided information about Al Qaeda as an organisation. But there was one thing he wouldn’t talk about – Bin Laden.

The hunt for Bin Laden stalled. But the terror plots continued – another was uncovered to blow up the New York subway, another to blow up 15 airliners over the US.

Bin Laden was looking for his next 9/11.

Monster hunt

In September 2007, six years after 9/11, Bin Laden released a new videotape proving he was alive and still plotting against the US. But the trail on him had gone cold.

Barack Obama was sworn in as US President, and he told the CIA their number one task was to find Bin Laden.

The CIA analysed every video Bin Laden put out, and the focus was on how he was getting them to the news – there must be a trusted courier.

An Al Qaeda operative arrested in Africa named the courier as Abu Ahmed.

But he proved elusive until the summer of 2010, when they were able to track his phone to Pakistan.

They managed to follow him to a large house in Abbottabad. It was a bigger compound than any other in the area, boasting 18ft tall walls topped with barbed wire. It was clear that someone of high value was located there.

The CIA started immediate surveillance of the compound, but it had no phones or internet, and all their rubbish was burned.

They started to track the women and children who were seen coming and going, and they discovered that there were two families living in the compound – those of Abu Ahmed and his brother.

But then satellite footage revealed that there was a third family living in the house that never left the compound.

There was a man who would come outside every day and walk in the garden, but the walls and security meant it was impossible to get a clear image of his face.

Without exact proof that Bin Laden was there, it was difficult for the President to make a decision to take action against the compound.

If this was a botched operation, his reputation would be in tatters. But he asked the CIA to prepare to go into the compound.