Report: Bin Laden ‘shooter’ booted from SEAL Team Six

The now-retired naval special warfare operator was profiled in a February issue of Esquire magazine, where he claimed to be the SEAL who killed bin Laden during the raid on the al Qaeda leader’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan two years ago. 

{mosads}Referred to only as “The Shooter” in the magazine profile, the former SEAL alleged Defense Department officials had denied him health care and other post-retirement benefits once he left the teams. 

The shooter has allegedly been forced to purchase insurance on the individual market for nearly $500 a month, but it doesn’t cover combat-related treatments such as weekly visits to a chiropractor.

But on Monday, a current SEAL Team 6 operator told CNN the so-called shooter was “thrown off” the team after reports surfaced he was discussing the bin Laden raid — dubbed Operation Neptune Spear — at various bars and restaurants around Virginia Beach, Va., where the SEAL team is headquartered. 

Further, the current SEAL team member claims the shooter was not the one who actually killed bin Laden, saying the account provided in the Esquire profile was false. 

The shooter’s claims of being denied health care caused an uproar among veterans advocacy groups and drew attention to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ handling of U.S. service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. 

DOD spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Warren told reporters in February the alleged shooter did make the conscious decision to leave the service four years short of the 20-year mark, which made him ineligible for Navy pension and associated benefits. 

That said, the SEAL still would be eligible for a number of military assistance programs, despite not staying in the service long enough to receive full retirement benefits, according to Warren. 

His comments came before Monday’s disclosure that the shooter was involuntarily removed from the SEAL team.