Compound was just 100 yards from Pakistani military academy

HELICOPTERS descended out of darkness on the most important counter-terrorism mission in US history. It was an operation so secret that only a select few US officials knew what was about to happen.

The location was a fortified compound in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad. The target was Osama bin Laden.

He was hiding in a two-storey house 100 yards from a Pakistani military academy when four helicopters carrying US anti- terror forces swooped in the early morning hours.