Fifteen years ago today, on May 2, 2011, a team of United States Navy SEALs stormed into a seemingly ordinary compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and shot dead Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda. Operation Neptune Spear lasted for under 40 minutes, but brought to an end a decade-long manhunt for the world’s most wanted terrorist, and the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, and beyond.As the world marks the 15th anniversary of the raid, the operation remains a landmark moment in modern military history. Analysts have noted that it demonstrated the United States’ capacity to project power with precision and to integrate intelligence and special operations at the highest level. However, the questions it raised about sovereignty, US-Pakistan relations, and the long-term trajectory of the war on terror continue to resonate today. We recall.Who was Osama bin Laden to the US?Long before he became the architect of the 9/11 terror attacks — and the defining face of America’s war on terror — Osama bin Laden was, in fact, a US collaborator.Born in 1957 to a wealthy construction company executive in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden was once a valued partner of Washington, working alongside American operatives to expel Soviet forces from Afghanistan in the 1980s.Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote for The Guardian in 2005: “Bin Laden was a product of a monumental miscalculation by Western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, literally “the database”, was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians”.That partnership unravelled in the 1990s. Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, bin Laden lobbied the Saudis to let him deal with Saddam’s forces, but the king invited the Americans instead. As more than 500,000 American troops arrived in the Gulf, bin Laden grew increasingly vocal in his opposition to non-Muslim forces being stationed in the Holy Land.Also Read | What is the 1914 Komagata Maru incident that Diljit Dosanjh spoke about?By 1992-93, bin Laden and his al-Qaeda had begun training anti-American militants in Somalia, backing the Islamic Revolution in Sudan, and orchestrating terrorist attacks targeting Americans, including the bombing of the World Trade Centre in New York in 1993. By 1996, he was already among the most wanted men on the planet and sought shelter with the Taliban in Afghanistan.Story continues below this ad Mary Jo White, the United States Attorney in Manhattan, announcing the indictment of Osama bin Laden (on display) and Muhammad Atef in connection with the bombing of two United States Embassies in Africa in August 1998. (The New York Times)His name became widely known, however, after the bombings of US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 220 people in 1998. The World Trade Centre attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people, took place three years later.A decade-long manhuntAlmost immediately after the September 11 attacks, the US government identified Osama bin Laden as the perpetrator. Peter Bergen, in Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Osama bin Laden (2012), wrote that CIA director George Tenet, upon meeting US President George Bush on the afternoon of September 11, said that the attacks “looked, smelled, and tasted like bin Laden.”Yet his precise location remained a mystery. The Bush administration immediately demanded that he be handed over to the Americans, but to no avail. In October 2001, the US launched its invasion of Afghanistan. American forces would remain there until 2021 — and while they swiftly dislodged the Taliban from Kabul, the group reclaimed power almost as soon as US troops withdrew.The invasion, however, brought Washington no closer to bin Laden. It would take years of covert operations, enhanced interrogation at Guantanamo Bay, painstaking surveillance work, and a measure of luck to finally locate the al-Qaeda chief.Story continues below this adIn 2007, the CIA learned the name of bin Laden’s most trusted courier. The agency spent another two years narrowing his location to northern Pakistan, and nearly a year more pinpointing the exact property — a seemingly innocuous compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad, a two-hour drive from Islamabad. The compound in which bin Laden was hiding. (Wikimedia Commons)Looking at the large, secluded and secured compound, analysts concluded that it must be sheltering a high-value target, and by late 2010, they believed with some certainty that it was bin Laden.Operation Neptune SpearDespite this information, an operation to kill bin Laden would not be easy. Abbottabad sits at the very heart of Pakistan’s military establishment. The compound lay in a quiet suburb largely populated by retired Pakistani military personnel, with the Pakistan Military Academy just 1.3 km away from the compound, accessible by a straight road. The city also had a military airport.Suspecting that the Pakistani establishment might be involved in protecting bin Laden, the Americans opted to conduct a covert operation, deep inside the territory of an ostensible ally, in the middle of the night on May 1/2.Story continues below this adNewsletterFollow our daily newsletter so you never miss anything important. On Wednesday, we answer readers' questions.SubscribeOn the night of May 1, four helicopters carrying 79 Americans left from the US-controlled Jalalabad air base in Afghanistan. The team arrived at the Abbottabad compound at approximately 1 am local time on May 2. One helicopter’s tail hit the compound wall and crashed, upending the original plan. Rather than a team of SEALs rappelling down onto the roof of bin Laden’s house, all the fighters would mount a ground assault.After a brief firefight that killed bin Laden’s courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti and his wife, the commandos entered the main building, killing al-Kuwaiti’s brother, and bin Laden’s son Khalid as he lunged towards them. Finally, on the third floor of the building, the SEALs found and shot dead Osama bin Laden. His body was recovered and the team departed rapidly — Pakistani forces reached the compound mere minutes after the last helicopter lifted off.Bin Laden was buried in the Arabian Sea less than 12 hours after the operation concluded.