More than a month before U.S. military forces launched a deadly raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound Sunday, President Obama ordered the development of multiple military plans aimed at killing or capturing the notorious fugitive leader of al Qaeda.
Obama’s national security team began drawing up several different options back in March, including plans to bomb the Abbottabad compound located 35 miles north of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, according to administration officials.
“The President ordered the development of multiple possible courses of action in March for getting [bin Laden],” an administration official told TPM. “He did not ‘authorize the bombing of the compound.’”
Obama and his national security team reviewed several options — “more than two” — according to the official, and then refined the plans for the raid over the course of the next several weeks.
Earlier Monday ABC News reported that in March Obama authorized the U.S. to bomb Osama bin Laden’s compound using two B2 stealth bombers but changed his mind when he learned the compound would be reduced to rubble and there would be no DNA proof of bin Laden’s death.
ABC News later modified the story to say Obama “authorized the development of a plan” to bomb the compound.
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