Bin Laden Raid Book From US Commando Due In September

A bin Laden raid book is due out next month, chronicling the mission that killed the al Qaeda leader through the eyes of a former US Navy Seal who participated in the raid.

The book is due out on the on the anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, ABC News reported.

The in Laden raid book, titled No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden, was written by a former SEAL who the book’s publisher said was “one of the first men through the door on the third floor of the terrorist leader’s hideout.”

“While written in the first person, my experiences are universal,” said the author, who writes under the pseudonym Mark Owen. “It is time to set the record straight about one of the most important missions in U.S. military history. No Easy Day is the story of ‘the guys,’ the human toll we pay, and the sacrifices we make to do this dirty job.”

The bin Laden raid book is published by Dutton, a division of Penguin Group. The author has changed the name of the other SEALs on the raid and says he will donate a majority of the proceeds to charities that help fallen Navy SEALS, ABC News reported.

Osama bin Laden was killed in early May 2011 during a raid by America’s famous SEAL Team Six. SEALs completed the mission in a gated home in a suburban Abbottabad, Pakistan neighborhood despite losing one of two Blackhawk helicopters early in the raid.

Penguin officials did not say whether they sought government approval for the bin Laden raid book, but Rear Adm. John Kirby, a Navy spokesman, told the New York Times that no support was given for the book.

“The author did not seek Navy support/approval for this book,” Kirby wrote in an email. “We have no record of any request from an author associated with that book company.”

The bin Laden raid book could come at a highly charged time politically, the New York Times reported. A move about the raid directed by Kathryn Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty, has been pushed back from October to December after Republicans said it would highlight one of President Obama’s signature achievements close to the 2012 election.

No Easy Day is part of a crop of bin Laden raid books by other members of Navy SEALS, the New York Times reported. Last year, Chuck Pfarrer, a former SEAL commander, wrote SEAL Target Geronimo, which used interviews with members of the Navy SEALs to detail the bin Laden raid.

Publishers have high hopes for the latest bin Laden raid book. They have planned a planned print run of 300,000 copies in hardcover.