Obama had decided to go with a DEVGRU assault, with McRaven choosing the night.

NEWYORKER: Getting Bin Laden

On April 18th, the DEVGRU squad flew to Nevada for another week of rehearsals.

NEWYORKER: Getting Bin Laden

In October, 2010, a DEVGRU team attempted to rescue Linda Norgrove, a Scottish aid worker who had been kidnapped in eastern Afghanistan by the Taliban.

NEWYORKER: Getting Bin Laden

Eighteen minutes had elapsed since the DEVGRU team landed.

NEWYORKER: Getting Bin Laden

Brian, James, and Mark selected a team of two dozen SEALs from Red Squadron and told them to report to a densely forested site in North Carolina for a training exercise on April 10th. (Red Squadron is one of four squadrons in DEVGRU, which has about three hundred operators in all.) None of the SEALs, besides James and Mark, were aware of the C.

NEWYORKER: Getting Bin Laden