Osama bin Laden dead: code Geronimo

The code name Geronimo had apparently been chosen for bin Laden because, like the Native American chief, he had managed to evade capture for years

Osama bin Laden dead: code title Geronimo

As President Barack Obama and his team sat on tenterhooks from the Scenario Space, the CIA director Leon Panetta broke the silence with the memorable words: "We have a visual on Geronimo."

It was the initial confirmation that Osama bin Laden, who had been provided the 19th Century Apache leader's name as being a code phrase, was unquestionably inside compound in Pakistan.

Shortly afterwards, a Navy SEAL halfway internationally sent the message "Geronimo EKIA" - which means enemy killed in action - which was relayed to a jubilant Scenario Place.

The code name Geronimo had apparently been chosen for bin Laden because, such as the Native American chief, he had managed to evade capture for a long time and was apparently capable to vanish into thin air.

In Geronimo's circumstance his potential to remain around the run gave rise to legends that he was able to stroll without leaving any tracks, and that he could survive becoming shot.

Extra than a century prior to bin Laden escaped from the caves of Tora Bora, Geronimo was explained to have pulled off an identical evasion in New Mexico.

He and his followers entered a cave which was mentioned to have just one visible entrance, and then disappeared as US troops waited at the front.

Far more than five,000 soldiers have been employed to hunt Geronimo as well as a tiny band of followers. Unlike bin Laden he at some point surrendered in 1886.

He went on to embrace Christianity and to come to be a celebrity, appearing in the World's Fair in St Louis in 1904, and on the inaugural parade for President Theodore Roosevelt the subsequent yr.