s.e.a.l.s would rather die than be captured. at the end of the day it was a leap of faith. reporter: friday, april 29, just after 8:20 a.m., the mission begins. the president gives the go. the president, after a long night s sleep, basically came in and immediately told the staff, you ve got the green light. let s go. reporter: as president obama departs for the tornado-ravaged south, the u.s. military s best-kept secret is under way. the troops were ready and in place. the equipment was ready to go. the plan had been practiced again and again and again. reporter: america s most wanted man may finally be in reach. osama bin laden. the architect of 9/11 had eluded the world s most powerful nation for more than a decade. the trail was quite cold. reporter: former cia director michael hayden recalls the early misfires. most of what he had looked more like elvis sightings than intelligence. reporter: the trail caught fire last august when u.s. intelligence
video we are talking about. this is an example of the nighttime helmet cam video and gives you a idea of the quality of the stuff that the military is combing over. this is technology used by the s.e.a.l.s on bin laden s compound. you can see here in the helmet cam video that when it is shot in dark conditions, it is grainy and not a lot of detail it to, but they are going over it bit by bit to piece together all of the things that went on inside of that compound and piece it together. we are going to be getting more on this in a moment from the pentagon correspondent chris lawrence in a moment. also on the bin laden front, claims today of a first attack to avenge the killing of osama bin laden. at least 80 people were killed in twin suicide bombings in northwestern pakistan. the pakistani taliban says that it staged the attacks to avenge bin laden s death, but pakistani police not so sure about that. the target was a pakistani military recruits in these attacks. now, a repor