A CIA analyst has lifted the lid on the role of female intelligence officers hunting for Osama bin Laden.
Susan Hasler worked at the CIA for 21 years and says although women were instrumental in tracking down the terrorist, they are still invisible.
Mrs Hasler, who joined the agency in 1983, says it was women in the 1990s that first recognised the threat from Al Qaeda by piecing together intelligence.
Vital role: Zero Dark Thirty, starring Jessica Chastain in the lead role (pictured). Susan Hasler worked at the CIA for 21 years and says women were instrumental in hunting down the Osama Bin Laden
As a result she said she was bitterly disappointed in May 2011 following the U.S operation to kill Bin Laden after he was tracked to a compound in Pakistan.
'I watched talking heads on every network hold forth on the takedown. Almost without exception, they were men. I felt like my female colleagues had been erased from the picture,' she explained.
A female agent was given much of the credit for refusing to give up in the 10 year manhunt and her story was told in Oscar-nominated film Zero Dark Thirty.
The role of women in intelligence gathering has also been in the spotlight due to hit television series Homeland which features Carrie Mathison, a neurotic spy played by Clare Danes.
The role of women in intelligence gathering has featured strongly on screen recently. The main character in hit American television series Homeland is a female called Carrie Mathison played by Clare Danes, pictured
Caught: Osama bin Laden was killed in May 2011 after a U.S led attack on his compound in Pakistan
Mrs Hasler, who resigned in 2004 and now lives in Singers Glen, Virginia told CNN that women are good counterterrorism analysts because they do not allow their ego to complicate their role.
She said the amount of data to analyse is too vast for one person to comprehend and women are willing to admit what they do not know and ask for help.
'When it comes to ego suppression, women are just better at it than men. They've had more practice. I ran across one man who never admitted to any gaps in knowledge.
'Whenever someone would try to tell him something, he would blithely say, "I knew that."
Mrs Hasler says the attributes of successful intelligence officers are persistence, tenacity, patience and dedication - all assets the women who tracked bin Laden displayed.
She told CNN that to progress in the agency analysts need to work on accounts that attraction the attention of policymakers.
But because Al Qaeda was not a hot account in the 1990s and women were dedicated to seeing their intelligence gathering mission through, their careers may have been affected.
She told the news website that after 9/11 - when nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks Al Qeda terrorist attacks - one women's dedication went above and beyond the call of duty.
The analyst was working 18-hour days despite suffering from severe back pain.
When she did eventually seek medical attention she found out she had a broken vertebra, but she went straight back to the office and continued her gruelling hours.
In March a women was promoted to acting head of the CIA's spy unit for the first time.
The long time CIA veteran leading the National Clandestine Service on an acting basis cannot be publicly named because she is still a covert officer.
Tense: The moment President Barack Obama and his team watched the mission to find Bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House on May 1, 2011
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320172/We-special-genius-job-Female-CIA-veteran-invisible-army-women-hunting-terrorists.html#ixzz2SWwyHHeL
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