DONALD Trump reportedly sent top US commandos on a secret mission into North Korea.
US President Donald Trump approved a plan to plant an electronic listening device inside North Korea during high-stakes nuclear talks back in 2019, according to the New York Times.
AlamyMultiple civilians were shot dead in a top secret Navy SEAL spy mission gone wrong, according to a bombshell report[/caption]
AFPDonald Trump and Kim Jong-un held crunch nuclear talks in Vietnam in February – just months after the botched spy mission[/caption]
AlamyThe SEALS had planned to covertly enter North Korea by swimming to shore but ran into a fishing boat[/caption]
US special forces – the legendary SEAL Team 6 – were deployed out to the hermit kingdom in order to try and gain some vital intelligence on Kim’s team.
It involved top commandos, mini subs, and a daring swoop by one of the US’s massive nuclear-powered submarines.
But the mission reportedly went wrong – and ended with its objective failed, and multiple dead North Korean fishermen.
It was a task worthy of a James Bond movie – with the opening scene of Pierce Brosnan’s Die Another Day featuring 007 infiltrating North Korea from the sea.
SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron – the same top unit that found and killed Osama bin Laden – were picked for the mission.
The SEALs spent months preparing as they were routinely warned any slight error could prove catastrophic.
Any wrong move would be likely be enough to ruin any nuclear negotiations between Trump and Kim.
And in the worst case scenario potentially push Washington and Pyongyang towards the brink of a conflict.
On a winter’s night in 2019, the brave squadron started the mission as they used a nuclear-powered submarine, nearly two football fields long, to enter the waters off North Korea.
They then deployed a small team of SEALs in two mini-subs to motor silently to a rocky and deserted shore over a two-hour period.
During the mission’s preparation phase, the SEALs had decided on the location as they believed it was a deserted area which would make it easy to move closer to the drop off spot.
Officials has studied the area for months and picked what they believed was consistently the quietest time to go.
The plan was supposed to see eight SEALs swim to a target, install the listening device and then slip back into the sea undetected.
As the team stepped foot on land, donning black wet suits, night-vision goggles and untraceable weapons loaded with untraceable ammunition, they soon noticed a major issue.
The SEAL 6 troops were met by the sight of an incoming vessel, according to the reports uncovered today.
The North Korean boat appeared out of the dark as flashlights from the front of the hull illuminated over the water.
Talking from the boat was also heard as one of the passengers reportedly splashed the water.
A split second decision from the team saw them open fire almost without hesitation out of fear they had been spotted.
Everyone on the boat, said to be up to three people – were dead within seconds.
Thinking they had been compromised, the SEALs quickly retreated back into the sea.
WikipediaMembers of the SEALs using a mini sub[/caption]
AlamyOn a winter’s night in 2019, the brave squadron started the mission as they used a nuclear-powered submarine to enter the waters off North Korea[/caption]
AP:Associated PressThe operation was never publicly acknowledged by either the US or North Korea and the details remain classified to this day[/caption]
Officials familiar with the mission said the SEALs pulled the bodies out of the vessel and pierced their lungs so they would sink to the sea surface and never be found.
The men killed were civilians diving for shellfish, people with knowledge of the operation claimed.
The listening device was never planted as the team returned to the US unharmed.
The operation was never publicly acknowledged by either the US or North Korea and the details remain classified to this day.
Details of the mission were reported on based on interviews with two dozen people.
These Included civilian government officials, members of the first Trump administration and current and former military personnel with knowledge of the mission.
All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the mission’s classified status.
Several people reportedly came forward after learning the Trump administration didn’t notify key members of Congress who oversee intelligence operations at any point.
They said they were “concerned that Special Operations failures are often hidden by government secrecy”, the NYT report claims.
The White House did not reply when asked about the failed mission.
But is is believed that officials found that the killing of the civilians was justified under the rules of engagement.
The mission only failed due to a series of unfortunate occurrences that could not have been foreseen or avoided, the report added.
It was later revealed that the SEALs had pulled off a similar covert operation in 2005 by using a mini submarine to enter and leave North Korea undetected.
The 2005 operation was carried out during the presidency of George W. Bush and was also kept confidential, according to people familiar with the mission.
The nuclear summit between Trump and Kim, held in Vietnam, did end up going as planned in February 2019.
Talks quickly ended with no deal made as North Korea resumed nuke missile tests much to Washington’s fury.
AP:Associated PressSEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron – the same unit that found and killed Osama bin Laden – were picked for the mission[/caption]
Military gaffe that let Bin Laden escape just months after 9/11
By Amanda Killelea
HE was the most wanted terrorist in history.
But it took the American intelligence services almost 10 years to hunt down Osama Bin Laden after the 9/11 terror attacks shocked the world.
Now, a new Netflix documentary, American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden, charts the nerve-wracking, decade-long global missions to capture the world’s most notorious criminal.
It also examines the costly errors that meant the Al Qaeda leader could have been brought to justice far sooner, with a senior CIA boss candidly admitting they “could have ended it” just months after the atrocity.
From the moment the World Trade Centre fell, US intelligence officers were focused on working out who was responsible.
The CIA immediately got to work trawling the flight manifests – the documents that detailed everyone who was on the hijacked planes that hit the two towers – as the terrorists would be on there too.
Gina Bennett, a CIA counter-terrorism analyst, says: “There was a name on a manifest that was suspected of being a pretty major Al Qaeda operative.
“For years that was the terrorist group that we knew was determined to attack the United States. That name, that moment, there was just no way that was a coincidence. We knew immediately this was Osama bin Laden.”
Gina was part of a crack CIA team, mainly women, who had been focusing on Bin Laden since the Nineties.
Her colleague Cindy Storer says: “We knew that Bin Laden was operating training camps and safe houses against the Soviet Union.
“When the war was over, we discovered he turned those camps into training camps for Islamic militants to go out and attack other countries. We knew they had terrorist capabilities.
“So we didn’t know to what extent they were going to come directly after the US.”