Mail Online - He had suffered a personal loss in the September 11 attacks and wanted revenge.
So Gary Faulkner set off from his California home to Afghanistan to find and 'decapitate' Osama bin Laden - all by himself.
The construction packed up his kit, which included a 40-inch sword, night vision goggles and a book of Christian works and teachings.
Target: Gary Faulkner, left, went to Afghanistan to kill Osama Bin Laden
He then set forth into the badlands of Afghanistan to hunt down the Al Qaeda leader and do what the entire might of the US military has been unable to do - assassinate him.
Sadly for Faulkner, 40, his one-man war came to an abrupt end when he was picked up in a forest in the Chitral region of the country.
When asked by the Afghan police why he thought he had a chance of tracing bin Laden, he replied, 'God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing him.'
The bizarre case is the first known example of a U.S. citizen being arrested in Pakistan with alleged aspirations of fighting against the region's Islamic militants, instead of siding with them.
Faulkner had arrived in the Chitrali town of Bumburate on June 3 and stayed in a hotel there before beginning his assault.
He was assigned a police guard, as is quite common for foreigners visiting remote parts of Pakistan, and when he checked out without informing police officers began hunting for him.
He had suffered a personal loss in the September 11 attacks and wanted revenge.
One-man mission: Mr Faulkner at Denver International Airport en route to Pakistan
Arrest: Faulkner was found in woods in Chitral, Pakistan, over the border from Bin Laden's rumoured hiding place in Afghanistan
When he was arrested as he crept through a forest, officers found he was carrying a pistol in addition to the other equipment and threatened to shoot anyone who came near him.
He was talked down and arrested and is now being questioned by intelligence officers.
'We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama bin Laden,' said Mumtaz Ahmad Khan, an senior investigator with the Afghan police.
But he said when officers seized the pistol, the sword and night-vision equipment, 'our suspicion grew,' he said.
'He was roaming in the security zone in a suspicious manner. He had a dagger and night vision goggles with him. He is being investigated,' he said.
The officer added that Faulkner told them he was hunting bin Laden because he suffered personal losses in the September 11 attacks, when terrorists flew passenger jets into the World Trade Center.
Picturesque locale: Chitral is a remote region of woods and mountains
It is not clear if he lost a relative or relatives or if the loss in question was financial.
The Pakistani Daily Dawn newspaper said Faulkner acknowledged to police that he wanted to 'decapitate Osama bin Laden'.
He also told them he had visited Pakistan seven times, and this was his third trip to Chitral. It is thought he intended to travel to the eastern Afghan region of Nuristan in the hunt for bin Laden.
The whereabouts of the Al Qaeda leader has vexed the American military since the September 11 attacks and strenuous attempts have been made to track him down.
He is in the FBI's 'Top Ten Most Wanted' list and has an £18million bounty for information leading to his arrest.
In 2001 whilst hiding in the Tora Bora mountain region he escaped an attempt to assassinate him by the U.S. military and is now thought to be somewhere close to the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
U.S. embassy spokesman Richard Snelsire said the Peshawar consulate had been informed of the arrest of a U.S. citizen and added the embassy was seeking access to him.
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