Obama to meet Navy SEALs commandos Friday

Updated at: 0606 PST, Friday, May 06, 2011
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will Friday meet members of the secretive team of elite commandos that carried out the covert operation inside Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden, a US official said.

Obama also met Admiral William McRaven, chairman of Joint Special Operations Command in the Oval Office on Wednesday to thank him for the successful assault on bin Laden's lair in Abbottabad, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The president, who will visit Fort Campbell in Kentucky Friday, "will have the opportunity to privately thank some of the special operators involved in the operation," the official said.

The Navy SEALs team helicoptered across Pakistan and killed bin Laden in the early hours of Monday morning before taking his corpse to a US ship in the Arabian Sea for a burial at sea.

Obama had already been scheduled to visit Fort Campbell to visit troops that have recently returned from Afghanistan, including members of the 101st Airborne Division.

The commandos who swooped on Osama bin Laden's compound reportedly came from a renowned squad known as "Team Six," an elite unit drawn from the already elite ranks of the SEALs. The unit is so secret that the military does not openly acknowledge its existence, but its reputation has taken on near mythic proportions and features in numerous books, films and video games.

The White House and the Central Intelligence Agency have declined to openly confirm that "Team Six" led Monday's assault on bin Laden's residence, though Vice President Joe Biden and the spy agency's chief Leon Panetta hailed the Navy SEALs for carrying out the operation. (AFP)