The killing of Osama bin Laden reportedly included a starring role for the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel -- the stealth unmanned aircraft system (UAS) acknowledged to exist by the US Air Force on 16 months ago.The National Journal's Marc Ambinder got the scoop about 1am this morning, when he tweeted: "US Joint Special Operations Command SMU -- from DEVGRU (Navy SEALs), did the shooting. RQ-170 drone overhead. JSOC spotters on ground."
In confirmed, this would be the first operation directly linked to the secretive RQ-170. Although the USAF has acknowledged its existence, it has never released an official photo. The UAS has been glimpsed only through a series of photos released by spotters around the US airfield at Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Ambinder's tweet also may shed light on the RQ-170's mission, which has never been clarified. It is clearly used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, but its role in the Abbottabad raid suggests it can transmit full motion video in real-time. It also may be the source of the hyper-spectral sensor cited in Ambinder's other reporting.
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