Commando Dog Deserves Osama Credit, Too

Bomb-sniffing canine dropped in with special ops forces during raid
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted May 4, 2011 5:32 PM CDT
Commando Dog Deserves Osama Credit, Too
A Navy Petty Officer sits with Reno, an explosives detection and attack dog. This is not the specific dog used in the raid.   (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali)

The elite special forces team that took down Osama bin Laden is getting lots of credit, but the Sun reminds us that a four-legged member of the team helped, too. One bomb-sniffing dog, probably a German shepherd or Belgian Malinois, took part in the raid. It likely dropped out of a military chopper onto bin Laden's compound strapped to a human handler and protected with armor, then sniffed for booby-traps in the room-by-room raid.

Dogs have been playing a bigger role in special ops missions overseas, notes the Sun. Some wearing oxygen masks get dropped into hostile environments from planes to seek out insurgents and attack anyone with a weapon. They also have cameras strapped to their heads that beam back live images to troops. See the Dogster blog for a photo of what a special ops "hero dog" looks like. (More Navy SEALs stories.)

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