U.S. Planned for Fight with Pakistanis in bin Laden Raid

Senior U.S. officials confirmed that the Navy SEAL team had been authorized to return fire if fired upon by Pakistani police or soldiers.

New details on the breadth of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden have emerged, with the most notable being that U.S. President Barack Obama wanted the Navy SEAL team to be big enough to fight its way out of the Abbottabad compound against police and Pakistani soldiers should the operation have gone awry. Obama appears to have been willing to risk an armed confrontation with Pakistan, a U.S. ally, to get bin Laden, and didn't trust Pakistani officials enough to let them know of the mission ahead of time. The operation also had a contingent of lawyers and interrogators waiting on a ship in the Arabian Sea should bin Laden have been taken alive.