On May 2, 2011, the night President Obama informed the world that Osama bin Laden had been killed by a team of Navy SEALs in Pakistan, thousands of Americans poured into the streets in front of the White House and in New York’s Times Square, chanting, “USA, USA, USA!”

The families of people killed on 9/11 spoke of bin Laden’s death bringing closure. But the Al Qaeda leader’s demise breathed new life into Washington’s global “war on terror.” The elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), once shrouded in secrecy, became a household name overnight. The Disney Corporation tried to trademark the term “SEAL Team Six,” and Zero Dark Thirty, a high-profile Hollywood film, was hastily rewritten to focus on the operation; the filmmakers were even given access to sensitive material.

While the battle over leaks concerning the operation—as well as the various contradictory stories on how bin Laden was killed—raged in the media, the White House was deeply immersed in planning more lethal operations against so-called “High Value Targets.” Chief among these was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen of Yemeni descent born in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Three days after Obama’s news conference on bin Laden, the president’s counterterrorism team presented him with an urgent intelligence update on Awlaki. Along with signals intercepts by JSOC and the CIA and “vital details of Awlaki’s whereabouts” from Yemeni intelligence, the White House now had what it believed was its best shot to date at killing the radical cleric, whose fiery speeches denouncing the United States—and praising attacks on Americans—had placed him in the cross-hairs of the US counterterrorism apparatus.

US military aircraft were at the ready. Obama gave the green light. JSOC would run the operation. A Special Ops Dragon Spear aircraft mounted with short-range Griffin missiles blasted into Yemeni airspace, backed by Marine Harrier jets and Predator drones, and headed toward Shabwah Province. A Global Hawk surveillance aircraft would hover above to relay a live feed back to the mission planners.

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