BBC
Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been killed by US forces in Pakistan
President Barack Obama has said.
Bin Laden was killed in a ground operation outside Islamabad based on US intelligence, the first lead for which emerged last August.
Mr Obama said after “a firefight”, US forces took possession of the body.
Bin Laden is believed to be the mastermind of the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 and a number of others.
He was top of the US’ “most wanted” list.
Mr Obama said it was “the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al-Qaeda”.
The US has put its embassies around the world on alert, warning Americans of the possibility of al-Qaeda reprisal attacks for Bin Laden’s killing.
The effort of U.S. forces to find and bring Osama bin Laden to justice for murdering thousands of innocent Americans was years in the making and often marked by dead ends and frustration. However, the tide turned in August when bin Laden’s trusted courier was located in a secure and large compound just 35 miles from the Pakistani capital, The New York Times reported.
Intelligence operatives surmised that such a compound was not designed for a courier, no matter how trusted, and spent weeks monitoring the site in Abbottabad before determining that the al-Qaida leader was the main resident. The trigger was pulled Sunday and he was shot in the head while he tried to resist the assault, the Times reported.
American military and intelligence forces chased bin Laden for nearly a decade after losing him at Tora Bora, in the mountains of Afghanistan. The courier first became known from detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, four years ago, according to the Times.
The years of sleuthing led to the million-dollar mansion in Abbottabad, set on a hilltop and surrounded by 12-foot-high concrete walls topped with barbed wire. The compound was built to hide bin Laden in 2005, the Times reported.
President Barack Obama began a series of meetings in March to plan for the operation, the Times reported. The meetings continued even as the White House worked to deal with a possible government shutdown over the budget. The final meeting took place Friday morning, when the president signed off on the operation before traveling to Alabama to view the devastating tornado damage, according to the Times.
Three other men were killed in the raid – one of Bin Laden’s sons and two couriers – the official said, adding that one woman was also killed when she was used as “a shield” and two other women were injured.
One helicopter was lost due to “technical failure”. The team destroyed it and left in its other aircraft.
One resident, Nasir Khan, told Reuters the helicopters had come under “intense firing” from the ground.
The size and complexity of the structure in Abbottabad had “shocked” US officials.
It had 4m-6m (12ft-18ft) walls, was eight times larger than other homes in the area and was valued at “a million dollars”, though it had no telephone or internet connection.
The US official said that intelligence had been tracking a “trusted courier” of Bin Laden for many years. The courier’s identity was discovered four years ago, his area of operation two years ago and then, last August, his residence in Abbottabad was found, triggering the start of the mission.
Another senior US official said that no intelligence had been shared with any country, including Pakistan, ahead of the raid.
“Only a very small group of people inside our own government knew of this operation in advance,” the official said.
The Abbottabad residence is just a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Military Academy – the country’s equivalent of West Point.
The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Abbottabad says it will undoubtedly be a huge embarrassment to Pakistan that Bin Laden was found not only in the country but also on the doorstep of the military academy.
He says residents in the town were stunned the al-Qaeda leader was living in their midst.
The senior US official warned that the possibility of revenge attacks had now created “a heightened threat to the homeland and to US citizens and facilities abroad”.
But the official added that “the loss of Bin Laden puts the group on a path of decline that will be difficult to reverse”.
He said Bin Laden’s probable successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was “far less charismatic and not as well respected within the organisation”, according to reports from captured al-Qaeda operatives.
However, the root causes of radical Islam – the range of issues that enabled al-Qaeda to recruit disaffected young Muslims to its cause – remain, for the most part, unaddressed, Islamic affairs analyst Roger Hardy told the BBC.
“The death of Bin Laden will strike at the morale of the global jihad, but is unlikely to end it,” he warned.
‘Momentous achievement’
World leaders welcomed the news of Bin Laden’s death.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Bin Laden had “paid for his actions”.
Pakistani PM Yusuf Raza Gilani said the killing was a “great victory” but added that he “didn’t know the details” of the US operation.
ck to play
Barack Obama gives a statement confirming the death of Osama Bin Laden
Former US President George W Bush described the news as a “momentous achievement”.
“The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done,” Mr Bush said in a statement.
But a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban threatened revenge attacks against the “American and Pakistani governments and their security forces”.
In Gaza, which is governed by militant group Hamas, Prime Minister Ismail Haniya condemned the killing of “a Muslim and Arabic warrior”.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says that, to many in the West, Bin Laden became the embodiment of global terrorism, but to others he was a hero, a devout Muslim who fought two world superpowers in the name of jihad.
The son of a wealthy Saudi construction family, Bin Laden grew up in a privileged world. But soon after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan he joined the mujahideen there and fought alongside them with his Arab followers, a group that later formed the nucleus for al-Qaeda.
After declaring war on America in 1998, Bin Laden is widely believed to have been behind the bombings of US embassies in East Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and the attacks on New York and Washington.
Soldiers seen near the house where it is believed Osama bin Laden lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan. (AP)
