Osama bin Laden dead; US president says justice is done
WASHINGTON : Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden was killed on Sunday in a firefight with US forces deep inside Pakistan, President Barack Obama said, declaring "justice has been done" a decade after the September 11 attacks.
However, the US president warned that Al-Qaeda will try to attack the US.
The death of the reviled US enemy sparked jubilation across the United States, with a huge crowd gathering outside the White House just before midnight, chanting "USA, USA" as Obama made a dramatic nationwide address to Americans.
"Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children," Obama said.
Obama said in the historic address from the White House that he had directed the US armed forces to launch an attack against a compound in Pakistan on Sunday acting on a lead that first emerged last August.
"A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties.
"After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."
He said Osama's death "marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat Al-Qaeda. Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort."
"There's no doubt that Al-Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad," he warned.
"We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to Al-Qaeda's terror, justice has been done."
Pakistani intelligence officials also confirmed Osama's death.
"Yes I can confirm that he was killed in a highly sensitive intelligence operation," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The official said he was unable to immediately confirm where, how or when Osama was killed.
Asked whether Pakistani intelligence participated in the operation he only said: "It was a highly sensitive intelligence operation."
US armed forces have been hunting the Saudi terror kingpin for years, an effort that was redoubled following the attacks by hijacked airliners on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon which killed 3,000 people in 2001.
But Osama always managed to evade US armed forces and a massive manhunt, and was most often thought to be hiding out in Pakistan and Afghanistan border areas.
The death of Osama will raise huge questions about the future shape of Al-Qaeda and also have steep implications for US security and foreign policy 10 years into a global anti-terror campaign.
It will also provoke fears that the United States and its allies will face retaliation from supporters of Osama and other Islamic extremist groups.
The death of Osama will also cast a new complexion on the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan, where 100,000 troops are still in the country battling the Taliban and Al Qaeda after a decade of war.
Former president George W Bush first said he wanted Osama "dead or alive" in the weeks after the September 11 attacks.
But the Al-Qaeda leader frequently taunted Bush, and after he took office in 2009, Obama, with taped messages.
Osama was top of America's most wanted list, and was blamed by Washington for masterminding a string of other attacks, including the attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Africa in 1998.
Chants of "USA, USA" rang out from a huge and quickly building crowd outside the White House as the news of Osama's death sent an electric charge through Washington.
People cheered, waved the US flag and sang the US national anthem.
Despite the decade that has elapsed since the September 11 attacks, the event, one of the most traumatic in US history, still stirs raw emotions, and his demise will be celebrated across the United States.
In the Upstream restaurant in the old market area of Omaha, Nebraska, owners switched TV channels from the evening's sports games as news of Osama's death trickled in.
Patrons cheered and called friends to tell them of the news.
"We are going to be able to remember sitting here, you are going to remember where you where," said Vaughn Wickham from Spirit Lake, Iowa.
The US dollar rose against the euro and the yen when it emerged that Obama would announce the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, nearly 10 years after the September 11 attacks.
The dollar rose against the euro, which fetched 1.4764 dollars from 1.4864 in earlier trade. The dollar was at 81.66 yen from 81.19 earlier.
