The first words of the Navy seal after he had assassinated Osama Bin Laden were “For God and country – Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo.”
The Seal gave his account of the assault on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in an interview with The New Yorker magazine.
He said: "There was never any question of detaining or capturing him – it wasn't a split-second decision. No one wanted detainees."
His claim is at odds with the White House’s original line that the objective was to take Bin Laden alive providing he was not armed.
The Seal told how he stepped into the terror leader's bedroom and trained the infrared laser of his M4 rifle “on Bin Laden's chest”
"The al Qaeda chief, who was wearing a tan shalwar kameez and a prayer cap on his head, froze; he was unarmed."
The Seal, whose identity will never be revealed, shot Bin Laden once in the chest and above the left eye.
According to his account moments earlier another Seal had entered the room and was confronted by two of Bin Laden's wives. "fearing that one or both of the women were wearing suicide jackets, he stepped forward, wrapped them in a bear hug and drove them aside.”
"He would almost certainly have been killed had they blown themselves up, but … he would have absorbed some of the blast and potentially saved the two Seals behind him." Neither woman was wearing an explosive vest."
It also revealed that the SEALs were not wearing cameras on their helmets, and that Presdient Obama and his colleagues spent an agonising 20 minutes waiting to hear the magic word "Geronimo" from the Seals (Geronimo was the codename for a hit on Bin Laden).
President Obama met the 24-strong assault team shortly afterwards but did not ask which of the Seals pulled the trigger.
