Osama unarmed when shot: Inside the daring mission
UPDATE It took US special forces nine months and 30 minutes to find and kill bin Laden. News.com.au traces the daring mission.
UPDATE: We now know Osama bin Laden was unarmed when he was shot dead. Read the full story of the US mission to get the al-Qaeda terror chief below.
August 2010 Osama bin Laden's courier has a telephone conversation with someone being monitored by US intelligence.
The CIA locates the courier in Pakistan and puts him under surveillance.
The courier unwittingly leads them to a large compound near a military academy in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, 56km northeast of the capital Islamabad.
Inside is a $1 million three-storey house surrounded by 6m walls topped with barbed wire. There are two electrified security gates. Tellingly, no telephone or internet lines run from the compound and rubbish is burned before being taken out for disposal.
Intelligence officials believe it bears all the hallmarks of a hideout built especially for Bin Laden but there is no way to be sure.
Despite the uncertainty, they realise the compound offers them the best chance of getting their target. They decide not to share the information with anyone.
February 2011 Officials are convinced Bin Laden and his family are living in the compound.
Options, however, are limited. The compound is in a residential neighbourhood in another country.
If the President orders an air strike and Bin Laden is not in the compound, it would be a huge diplomatic problem. Even if he is right, obliterating the compound might make it impossible to confirm Bin Laden's death.
According to counter-terrorism chief John Brennan, Barack Obama makes the "gutsiest calls of any president in recent memory".
March 2011 Obama taps two dozen members of the Navy's elite SEAL Team Six to carry out a raid on the compound.
The SEALS are told: "We think we found Osama bin Laden, and your job is to kill him." They cheer.
The mission is to be led by the CIA. The 30-strong team carries out multiple rehearsals at a training replica of the Pakistani compound.
Officials described the reaction of the special operators when they were told a number of weeks ago that they had been chosen to train for the mission.
Obama begins convening top-secret meetings with his senior security staff.
Sunday May 3 Four Nighthawk helicopters carrying the team leave Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. They enter Pakistani airspace using sophisticated technology intended to evade that country's radar systems. Two choppers are to be used in the raid, two will hold back as a back-up. The raid is planned to last 30 minutes.
The troops conduct final weapons checks and prepare their night-vision goggles.
12.30am local time (5.30am AEST) The helicopters lower into the compound, dropping the Navy SEALS behind the walls.
Obama monitors the raid from the White House Special Operations room - via a camera fixed to the helmet of one of the SEALS.
One of the helicopters develops a mechanical problem. The pilot is forced to make a controlled landing inside the compound.
The team methodically cleared the compound moving from room to room in an operation lasting nearly 40 minutes.
In addition to the Bin Laden family, two other families resided in the compound: one on the first floor of the Bin Laden building and another in a second building. Of the 22 or so people in the room, 17 or so of them were non-combatants.
The SEALs split into two: one team entering the Bin Laden house on the first floor and working its way up to the third floor where the al-Qaeda chief was, while the other team cleared the second building.
On the first floor of Bin Laden's building, two al-Qaeda couriers were killed along with a woman who was killed in cross-fire.
12.54am The last stand takes place inside one of the bedrooms and lasts only seconds.
Bin Laden and his family were found on the second and third floor of the building. There was concern that bin Laden would oppose the capture operation and indeed he resisted, but he was unarmed.
The SEALS demand Bin Laden surrender. He refuses.
In the room with Bin Laden, a woman - reportedly his wife - rushed the US assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed.
12:55am Bin Laden is shot dead in the head just above the left eye. The bullet blows away part of his skull.
The SEALS yell the code-word "Geronimo!" on killing their target.
Bin Laden's body is immediately identifiable.
Obama says: "We got him."
Four other people are killed in the gunfight, including Bin Laden's son, two of his most trusted aides and the woman thought to be his wife. None of the SEALS are hurt.
Two of Bin Laden's other wives and four children, as well as other women and children living in the compound, are safely evacuated and are in the care of Pakistan officials.
Footage of the building's interior later broadcast by ABC shows a bloody bed and blood-soaked rug, with shattered glass on the floor and overturned furniture.
Before they leave, SEALS seize hard drives and disks from the house. The CIA describes it as "the mother lode of intelligence".
1.08am The pilot of the downed chopper is unable to get it airborne again. SEALS blow it up and leave in one of the reserves.
They are forced to carry Bin Laden's body out on foot to the other chopper for evacuation.
Pakistan scrambles its jets to engage the unknown foreign invasion team.
The US does not tell the Pakistanis about the raid until after the choppers leave Pakistani airspace. Only then are the jets called back to base.
Bin Laden's body is flown to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.
11.30pm EST (1.30pm AEST) Obama announces to the world that Bin Laden is dead. He is scooped by the internet about an hour beforehand.
1.10am Preparations are begun for Bin Laden's burial at sea.
Under Islamic tradition Muslims need to be buried within 24 hours. US officials later claim that transferring the body to another country for burial would have taken too long.
Muslims normally bury their dead in permanent graves on land and accept burial at sea only in cases where the body cannot be preserved intact aboard ship until it reaches shore.
The body is wrapped in a white sheet according to Islamic custom and placed in a weighted bag.
A military officer reads a prepared religious statement which is translated into Arabic.
2.00am EST The body is placed on a prepared flat board and eased into the sea.
As if to reinforce the 54-year-old's bloody demise, the FBI stamps "Deceased" across his picture on its Ten Most Wanted list.
- with Agence-France Press