Osama Bin Laden could absolutely have been captured alive- Navy admiral who masterminded mission which killed him

 Osama bin Laden was killed in the operation (Image: Reuters)

Osama Bin Laden could "absolutely" have been captured alive, according to the top Navy SEAL who led the mission which killed him.

The hunt for the Al-Qaeda leader took almost a decade and cost hundreds of millions of pounds.

Navy admiral William McRaven masterminded the operation which tracked down the architect of the 9/11 terror attacks to a high-security compound in Pakistan in May 2011.

In a Newsnight interview on Monday evening, McRaven said the extremely tricky mission went "pretty much as we planned with one exception. As you know, we lost a helicopter on the compound in Abbottabad," McRaven said.

"But, having said that, you always plan for the worst-case scenario so we had a Plan A and a Plan B and a Plan C and a Plan D. Plan A went a little askew so we immediately jumped into Plan B, but we got our man."

 Admiral McRaven

Asked by host Evan Davis if there was ever any chance that Bin Laden could have been captured alive, McRaven replied: "Absolutely. I think a lot of people feel that this was a 'kill only' mission and that was not the case. The strict rules of engagement said that if he is clearly not a threat, then you have to capture him, you can't just kill him.

"But, conversely, I made sure the guys knew that if they felt that there was at all a threat, that they had to make the right decision and they have to do that in a split second.

 Bin Laden was tracked down to a high-security compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan (Image: Reuters)

So you're coming up to the third floor, moving around, you have night vision goggles on, a lot of things are happening - clearly they made the right decision."

Among the Navy SEALS who entered the compound was Robert O’Neill, who became known as the man who killed Bin Laden.

 The mission was watched by President Obama, Hillary Clinton and other US Government officials in the Situation Room inside the White House (Image: Getty Images)

In his book, The Operator, O'Neill told how he came face to face with the most wanted man on the planet.