The assault was the culmination of a 10-year international manhunt for the head of the terrorist al Qaeda group that planned, practiced, and executed history’s worst attack on the U.S. homeland.

Reports said the assignment for the special operators was to capture or kill the Saudi national, who had lived for years in an imposing, highly secure housing compound in Abbottabad, 130 miles from Pakistan’s capital.

As luck would have it, the SEALs happened to take along a body bag. Bin Laden’s remains were zipped up and flown to a  U.S. carrier. Obama said the corpse was cleansed according to Islamic tradition, placed in a weighted wrapping, and deposited in an undisclosed deep-sea location to avoid creating a pilgrimage site.

Obama refused to declassify photos as proof of death, possibly because bin Laden was shot in the face as well as in the chest. Such concerns did not prevent the release of photo evidence of Che Guevara's bullet-riddled body in the CIA's successful 1967 termination of the South American revolutionary.

The welcomed adventure in ruthless revenge and illegal justice for bin Laden was a delight for Americans and a colossal embarrassment for Pakistan, which had received in excess of $32 billion in U.S. aid this century. That included $2 billion annually in military assistance.

What is not so widely known is that bin Laden’s identity and precise location for the risky raid was confirmed by a Pakistani country doctor, a CIA asset in the area. He arranged to get DNA evidence from the family compound, possibly without even knowing the target’s exact identity.

The man’s name is Dr. Shakil Afridi. 

Days after the SEAL raid, he was arrested on trumped-up charges and has been in solitary prison confinement ever since, reportedly enduring torture, as well. 

Of course, Afridi was not charged with helping foreigners reveal Pakistan’s complicit treachery in hiding the widely condemned mass murderer. The doctor received a 33-year sentence for alleged corruption of tribal health funds.

The ensuing absolute absence of any official gratitude by the United States fits an unfortunate enduring pattern of disregard toward help from foreigners. 

In Joe Biden’s hasty, chaotic, and lethal exit from Afghanistan in 2021, he abandoned to the Taliban, along with their detailed personnel files, thousands of Afghan allies promised safe passage during that 20-year war for their translator skills and bravery, for instance, spotting IEDs. 

The Taliban has been systematically tracking down and executing them. That official U.S. disdain for loyalty shamefully repeated a similar U.S. betrayal of South Vietnamese allies in 1975.

Biden, the only Obama aide to oppose the SEAL raid, even abandoned thousands of U.S. green card holders caught there by the sudden withdrawal.

I am, frankly, writing this post in the hope that a confident, determined, and tough new president named Donald Trump will repeat his successful extraction of prisoners from abroad and firmly assert his nation’s interest in rescuing from false imprisonment the final crucial link to bringing bin Laden to justice. 

And now, on behalf of a grateful American nation, President Trump will finally accomplish what other presidents have failed to do: bring about the long-overdue release and resettlement of Dr. Afridi, his wife, and family. And some generous form of belated compensation.

This might be a job for Ric Grenell, the respected former ambassador, Director of National Intelligence, and currently Trump’s Special Envoy for Presidential Missions. Already this term, Grenell has returned prisoners held abroad and is considering a promising run for California governor.

During the raid, the SEALs obtained a treasure trove of intelligence, including terrorist names and locations, from bin Laden’s files and laptop. 

Unfortunately, Obama aides boasted about this to White House media. They immediately reported this. So, by the time special operators reached the locations of bin Laden’s terrorist agents, they had already fled.

This resulted in an enraged then-Defense Secy. Robert Gates striding into the Obama press office and famously shouting, “Shut the f*** up!”

Dr. Afridi was in his late 40s when arrested by Pakistan’s notorious intelligence services, which had arranged and been covering the al Qaeda leader’s presence. Afridi was the top government medic in the Khyber tribal region. 

The doctor established a hepatitis B vaccination program, which enabled his female assistants to collect family blood samples from local residents, including those inside bin Laden’s family compound.

The housing compound, with its unusually intense security precautions, had come under suspicion and months-long local, drone, and satellite surveillance. That was because of frequent visits by a known bin Laden messenger, who felt the need to travel 120 miles away before using a cellphone.

Afridi has had several so-called court appearances, some closed, but never for a connection to the raid. One trial was for treason and then for donating to a now-extinct local group the central government had labeled terrorists. Afridi’s family says the $6,000 payment was actually ransom for his kidnapping.

Unfortunately, in 2012, an embassy official admitted publicly that Afridi had worked for U.S. intelligence.

The doctor now is confined in solitary confinement in a five-by-seven-foot cell, where he exercises by pacing and doing pushups. No books are allowed except the Koran. Afridi can shave twice a week with a guard on hand.

His family can visit twice a month, separated from him by a steel grate. They cannot discuss politics or his prison life, nor are they allowed to converse in their native Pashto.

Husain Haqqani, who was Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington at the time, said:

Instead of coming clean on bin Laden's presence in Pakistan, the authorities have made Dr. Afridi a scapegoat. He is being kept in prison now only to teach every Pakistani a lesson not to cooperate with a western intelligence agency. 

When U.S. and NATO allies invaded Afghanistan soon after 9/11, bin Laden and his entourage fled east toward Pakistan into the rugged Bora Bora mountain area pocked by deep caves. 

The CIA was able to track them through a cellphone. Hours after the N.Y. Times reported that, the phone went silent.

In a recent interview, Marine Gen. James Mattis, now retired, said he had heavily armed units and aircraft positioned to block the terrorist leader’s path to freedom. But the Pentagon opted to send in Afghan troops, who arrived noisily on donkeys.

Bin Laden escaped, of course, and that began the decade-long manhunt that Dr. Afridi enabled the CIA and SEALs to terminate with prejudice. 

But now, it’s that same doctor who helped the U.S. whose freedom is blocked by a duplicitous ally. And up until the dawn of this new activist presidency, Washington has merely requested his release.