Osama bin Laden killed by U.S. forces - May 02, 2011 - HISTORY.com Osama bin Laden killed by U.S. forces Share this: Osama bin Laden killed by U.S. forces Author Osama bin Laden killed by U.S. forces URL Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 2011, Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, is killed by U.S. forces during a raid on his compound hideout in Pakistan. The notorious, 54-year-old leader of Al Qaeda, the terrorist network of Islamic extremists, had been the target of a nearly decade-long international manhunt. The raid began around 1 a.m. local time, when 23 U.S. Navy SEALs in two Black Hawk helicopters descended on the compound in Abbottabad, a tourist and military center north of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. One of the helicopters crash-landed into the compound but no one aboard was hurt. During the raid, which lasted approximately 40 minutes, five people, including bin Laden and one of his adult sons, were killed by U.S. gunfire.

No Americans were injured in the assault. Afterward, bin Laden’s body was flown by helicopter to Afghanistan for official identification, then buried at an undisclosed location in the Arabian Sea less than 24 hours after his death, in accordance with Islamic practice. Just after 11:30 p.m. EST on May 1 (Pakistan’s time zone is 9 hours ahead of Washington, D.C.), President Barack Obama, who monitored the raid in real time via footage shot by a drone flying high above Abbottabad, made a televised address from the White House, announcing bin Laden’s death. “Justice has been done,” the president said. After hearing the news, cheering crowds gathered outside the White House and in New York City’s Times Square and the Ground Zero site. Based on computer files and other evidence the SEALs collected during the raid, it was later determined that bin Laden was making plans to assassinate President Obama and carry out a series of additional attacks against America, including one on the anniversary of September 11, the largest terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil, which left nearly 3,000 people dead. Shortly after the 2001 attack, President George W.

Bush declared bin Laden, who was born into a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia in 1957 and used his multi-million-dollar inheritance to help establish al Qaeda and fund its activities, would be captured dead or alive. In December of that year, American-backed forces came close to capturing bin Laden in a cave complex in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region; however, he escaped and would continue to elude U.S. authorities for years. A break in the hunt for bin Laden came in August 2010, when C.I.A. analysts tracked the terrorist leader’s courier to the Abbottabad compound, located behind tall security walls in a residential neighborhood. (U.S. intelligence officials spent the ensuing months keeping the compound under surveillance; however, they were never certain bin Laden was hiding there until the raid took place.) The U.S. media had long reported bin Laden was believed to be hiding in the remote tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border, so many Americans were surprised to learn the world’s most famous fugitive had likely spent the last five years of his life in a well-populated area less than a mile from an elite Pakistani military academy. After the raid, which the U.S.

reportedly carried out without informing the Pakistani government in advance, some American officials suspected Pakistani authorities of helping to shelter bin Laden in Abbottabad, although there was no concrete evidence to confirm this. Related Videos Osama bin Laden: it took years to find him but just minutes to kill him | World news | The Guardian Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden: it took years to find him but just minutes to kill him Contrary to speculation that Osama bin Laden was in a remote tribal area, he was instead found in an affluent suburb near Islamabad Osama bin Laden in 1998. Photograph: Mazhar Ali Khan/AP Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden: it took years to find him but just minutes to kill him Contrary to speculation that Osama bin Laden was in a remote tribal area, he was instead found in an affluent suburb near Islamabad Monday 2 May 2011 01.55 EDT First published on Monday 2 May 2011 01.55 EDT Close This article is 5 years old The trail that led the CIA to Osama bin Laden began with his most trusted courier. It had taken the CIA years to discover first his name and then the home where he was hiding the al-Qaida leader.

But it took only 40 minutes on Sunday for US special forces to kill both the courier and Bin Laden. Contrary to repeated speculation over the past decade that Bin Laden was living in one of the remote tribal areas of Pakistan or even across the border in Afghanistan, the al-Qaida leader was found in an affluent suburb of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. Senior US administration officials, briefing journalists in a late-night teleconference, said that after 9/11 the CIA chased various leads about Bin Laden's inner circle, in particular his couriers. One of these couriers came in for special attention, mentioned by detainees at Guantánamo Bay by his nom de guerre. He was said to be a protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, and one of the few couriers Bin Laden trusted. Officials said they were initially unable to identify him but finally did so four years ago. They did not disclose his name to reporters on Sunday.

Two years ago, the CIA found the rough location where the courier and his brother lived in Pakistan, and on August last year they narrowed it down to a compound in Abbottabad, an affluent area about 35 miles north of Islamabad that had been founded as a British garrison town in the 1840s and named after its first deputy commissioner, Major James Abbott. They realised immediately this was no normal residence. The walls of the 3,000 sq ft compound were 12-18ft high, topped with barbed wire. There were two security gates, and access to the compound was severely restricted. The main part of the residence was three storeys high but had few windows, and a third-floor terrace was shielded by a privacy wall. Built around five years ago, it was valued at about $1m but had no phone or internet connection. The two brothers had no known source of income, adding to CIA suspicions. The CIA learned too that there was a family living with them, and that the composition of this family matched Bin Laden's. Local suspicions were understood to have been aroused by the fact that the residents of the compound burned their rubbish rather than putting it out for collection.

Salman Riaz, a film actor, said that five months ago he and a crew tried to do some filming next to the house, but were told to stop by two men who came out. "They told me that this is haram (forbidden) in Islam," he said. He did not know that he had stumbled across a bespoke terrorist hideaway "custom-built to hide someone of significance", according to a US official. By September, the CIA had determined there was a "strong possibility" that the hideout was Bin Laden's, and by February, they were confident they had the right location. In March Barack Obama began chairing a series of five national security meetings. At the last of these, on Friday 29 April, while the world's attention was on the royal wedding taking place in London, he gave the order to mount an operation. At that meeting, at 8.20am in the diplomatic room at the White House, Obama met his national security adviser Thomas Donilon, counter-terrorism adviser John O Brennan, and other senior national security aides to go through the detailed plan to attack the compound and sign the formal orders authorising it, the New York Times reported.

"We shared our intelligence on this compound with no other country, including Pakistan," a senior administration official told the paper. Only a tiny handful of people within the administration were aware of the operation. Obama spent part of Sunday on the golf course, the Associated Press reported, but cut short his round to return to the White House for a meeting where he and top national security aides reviewed final preparations for the raid. At around 1.15am local time on Monday, Abbottabad residents became aware that something was happening. "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1am (is a rare event)," tweeted one local, Sohaib Athar ( @ReallyVirtual ); following that some minutes later by: "A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S" In fact there were four US military helicopters, carrying elite troops from Navy Seal Team Six, a top counter-terrorism unit, US officials told the Associated Press, under the direct command of the CIA director, Leon Panetta, whose analysts monitored the compound from his conference room, which was transformed into a command centre. One Pakistani official said the helicopters had taken off from the Ghazi airbase in the north-west of the country.

Fighters on the roof opened fire on the choppers with rocket-propelled grenades as they came close to the building, according witnesses and Pakistani sources, and one of the helicopters crashed due to mechanical problems. Witnesses reported hearing two small blasts followed by a huge explosion. "I heard a thundering sound, followed by heavy firing. Then firing suddenly stopped," said a local resident, Mohammad Haroon Rasheed. "Then more thundering, then a big blast," he said. "In the morning when we went out to see what happened, some helicopter wreckage was lying in an open field." The details of the operation, including the number of US military personnel involved, remain unclear. Senior administration officials will only say that Bin Laden "resisted" during a gun battle. He died from a bullet to the head, they said. Bin Laden was identified by facial recognition, one official said, declining to say whether DNA analysis had also been used. The al-Qaida courier, his brother and one of Bin Laden's sons, whom officials did not name, were also killed. One of Bin Laden's sons, Hamza, is a senior member of al-Qaida.

The officials said one woman died when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, and two other women were injured. Other unidentified males were taken from the scene, a Pakistani official told the Associated Press, while four children and two women were arrested and left in an ambulance, the official said. The operation took 40 minutes in total, after which flames were visible on the roof of the building. Before withdrawing, US forces blew up the helicopter wreckage. "The aircraft was destroyed by the crew, and the assault force and crew members boarded the remaining aircraft to exit the compound," a senior administration source told the New York Times. "All non-combatants were moved safely away from the compound before the detonation." Bin Laden's body was loaded on to one of the helicopters and taken from the scene. US officials later confirmed he had been buried at sea, mindful of the Islamic imperative for a speedy burial. The location was not revealed. "We don't want a bunch of people going to the shrine forever," an official told the Washington Post. It was mid-afternoon at CIA headquarters when Panetta and his team received word that Bin Laden was dead, the Associated Press reported, after which cheers and applause broke out across the conference room.

Informed immediately of the developments, Obama spoke on Sunday night to former presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton. Keith Urbahn, the former chief of staff to Bush's defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, gave the first public indication of the news, tweeting at 10.25pm EST Sunday evening (3.25am BST Monday morning): "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn." Abbottabad: Pakistan town where Osama bin Laden was killed - The Washington Post Abbottabad: Pakistan town where Osama bin Laden was killed The inside track on Washington politics. Be the first to know about new stories from PowerPost. Sign up to follow, and we’ll e-mail you free updates as they’re published. You’ll receive free e-mail news updates each time a new story is published. You’re all set! By Mike McPhate By Mike McPhate May 2, 2011 A view of Abbottabad, Pakistan, from the surrounding hills. The city, founded by British military officer James Abbott in 1853 as a military cantonment and summer retreat, is the headquarters of a brigade of the Pakistan Army’s 2nd Division and home to many retired military officials.

Abbott wrote a poem to the city that reads in part : I adored the place from the first sight And was happy that my coming here was right And eight good years here passed very soon And we leave our perhaps on a sunny noon Oh Abbottabad we are leaving you now To your natural beauty do I bow Perhaps your winds sound will never reach my ear My gift for you is a few sad tears I bid you farewell with a heavy heart Never from my mind will your memories thwart Abbottabad’s mild temperatures and picturesque views of the surrounding Sarban hills made it a popular destination for Pakistani tourists looking for relief during the brutally hot summer months. The people of Abbottabad are an ethnically diverse group, most of whom speak the Indo-Aryan language Hindko and are known collectively as the Hindkowans. At one time they practiced Hinduism but most are now Sunni Muslims. Bin Laden managed to go undetected in Abbottabad by hiding in “an extraordinarily unique compound,” that with 12- to 18-foot security walls, the Post’s Philip Rucker, Anne E. Kornblut and Ernesto Londono report.

It wasn’t clear how long the al-Qaeda leader had been holed up there, but officials said they had been eyeing the compound “for months” after receiving a tip in August 2010. The last time the mountainous resort town’s name appeared widely in American news reports was in 2005 when the city was hit hard by the Kashmir earthquake that killed more than 73,000 people across northern Pakistan. Pranksters on Google Maps have located what is presumably bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, rating it with five stars, “Great property to get away from it all. Must See!” Osama bin Laden killed in U.S. raid, buried at sea - The Washington Post Osama bin Laden killed in U.S. raid, buried at sea The inside track on Washington politics. Be the first to know about new stories from PowerPost. Sign up to follow, and we’ll e-mail you free updates as they’re published. You’ll receive free e-mail news updates each time a new story is published. You’re all set! Got it By Scott Wilson, Craig Whitlock and William Branigin May 2, 2011 Osama bin Laden was buried at sea Monday after U.S.

forces raided his well-appointed hideout in Pakistan, shot him in a firefight in which at least one of his wives was used as a human shield, then spirited his body out of the country aboard a helicopter, U.S. officials said. In a White House briefing Monday afternoon, John O. Brennan , President Obama ’s chief counterterrorism adviser, said it was “inconceivable that bin Laden did not have a support system” in Pakistan that allowed him to live comfortably with his family in a town north of the capital. He said U.S. officials are pursuing this with the Pakistanis, who were pointedly not informed about the raid before it took place. Obama made one of the “gutsiest calls” of any president in deciding to go ahead with the raid based on his confidence — but only circumstantial evidence — that bin Laden was indeed living in the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, Brennan said. He said there were “absolutely” disagreements among Obama’s advisers about that course of action.

Brennan described tense moments in the White House Situation Room on Sunday as Obama and his top aides monitored the raid “in real time” and “the minutes passed like days.” When it became clear later that bin Laden was dead, he said, the president’s reaction was, “We got him.” The death of the long-hunted al-Qaeda leader , who had eluded intensive U.S. efforts to capture or kill him after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks he ordered, triggered warnings Monday that his radical Islamist network or sympathizers could try to retaliate against Americans or U.S. interests. It also served, U.S. officials said, to send a message to the extremist Taliban movement fighting to make a comeback in Afghanistan, where it had harbored bin Laden and al-Qaeda before being driven from power by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in November 2001. The message: Give up hope of defeating U.S. and NATO forces, renounce al-Qaeda and join the political process. Bin Laden was killed early Monday in Pakistan (Sunday afternoon in Washington) in what officials described as a surgical raid by U.S.

Special Operations Forces on his compound in Abbottabad, a garrison town 72 miles by road north of the capital, Islamabad. The raiding team reportedly was led by U.S. Navy SEALs. Also killed in the raid were bin Laden’s son Khaled, two brothers who were harboring him and one of his wives, officials said. In a rare Sunday night address from the East Room of the White House, President Obama said a small team of U.S. personnel attacked the compound, where bin Laden had been hiding since at least last summer. During a firefight, the U.S. team killed bin Laden, 54, and took custody of his body in what Obama called “the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al-Qaeda.” At the White House early Monday afternoon, Obama said: “I think we can all agree this is a good day for America. Our country has kept its commitment to see that justice is done. The world is safer.

It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden.” Speaking at a ceremony to award Medals of Honor posthumously to two Korean War veterans, Obama added: “Today, we are reminded that, as a nation, there’s nothing we can’t do when we put our shoulders to the wheel, when we work together, when we remember the sense of unity that defines us as Americans.” The discovery that bin Laden had been hiding in a well-populated part of Pakistan, rather than a remote location, raised new questions about the extent to which Pakistan is cooperating with the United States in combating terrorism. U.S. forces flew to bin Laden’s hideout in helicopters about 1 a.m. Monday (4 p.m. Sunday in Washington) from neighboring Afghanistan. Bin Laden was killed after he and his guards resisted the U.S. attackers, a senior Obama administration official said. U.S. personnel identified him by facial recognition. Bin Laden was shot in the head, the Associated Press reported. Brennan said the U.S. team was prepared for the “remote” contingency of capturing bin laden alive, as well as what officials viewed as the greater likelihood of a gun battle.

“If we had the opportunity to take him alive, we would have done that,” he said. He said U.S. officials are talking to the Pakistanis to “pursue all leads to find out what sort of support system” and “benefectors” bin Laden had in Pakistan, given that he was living in a house that “had the appearance of a fortress” and that clearly stood out from the surrounding neighborhood. “It does raise questions” about why Pakistani authorities did not investigate it, he said. Brennan also said the raiders seized unspecified materials from bin Laden’s compound that will be analyzed for their intelligence value. He declined to elaborate on the materials. The death of bin Laden is a “defining moment” in the war against terrorism and represents “decapitating the head of the snake that is al-Qaeda,” Brennan said. He said al-Qaeda now faces a problem because bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, “is not charismatic” and has “a lot of detractors in the organization.” He predicted that “you’re going to see them eating themselves more and more.” Earlier, a U.S. official said the SEAL team quickly flew bin Laden’s body by helicopter back to Afghanistan, where it was positively identified.

Then, the official said, the body was taken out of Afghanistan and “buried at sea,” in part because the U.S. government did not want an accessible gravesite that could become a shrine for bin Laden’s followers. The body of water where the burial at sea took place was later identified as the northern Arabian Sea. A senior defense official told reporters at the Pentagon that bin Laden’s body was buried at sea from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson after traditional Islamic rites including the washing of the corpse. According to the official, bin Laden “was killed by U.S. bullets” in a firefight at the compound that lasted nearly 40 minutes. A senior U.S. intelligence official said bin Laden was first “visually identified” at the compound by U.S. Special Operations Forces as well as one of his wives, who survived the raid and later identified him by name. The Special Operations Forces also compared the corpse to photographs of bin Laden “with 95 percent certainty that the body was Osama bin Laden,” the senior intelligence official said. On Monday morning, U.S. officials completed tests that showed a “virtually 100 percent match of the body” with DNA collected from other bin Laden family members. U.S.

officials declined to say whether an autopsy was conducted. The U.S. intelligence official said there was “no indication that the Pakistanis were aware that Osama bin Laden was at the compound” and that intelligence on the compound was not shared outside the U.S. government. Bin Laden “was more or less hiding in plain sight” and living “high on the hog” with his family on the second and third floors of the house, which sat behind 18-foot walls, with privacy walls on the balconies, the official said. He said bin Laden and the other three men at the compound “certainly did use women as shields.” Besides the wife who was killed, two other women were wounded, the official said. There were also children at the compound. The dead woman was later identified as a wife who was deliberately placed in the line of fire, Brennan said. “She was positioned in a way that indicated she was being used as a shield,” he said. During the raid, one U.S. helicopter broke down. The crew destroyed the helicopter with explosives, so as not to leave the technology behind, and U.S. forces exited on the remaining aircraft.

“All non-combatants were moved safely away from the compound before the detonation” of the helicopter, a U.S. official said. In Abbottabad, there was conflicting information on who owned the house and on details of the raid. Two Abbottabad residents who live near the compound said the people who lived in the house were Pashtuns from the Swat Valley. One said two brothers lived there, one of whom was a contractor who built the house in 2005. Another Abbottabad resident said the inhabitants of the house were from South Waziristan, a tribal area along the border with Afghanistan, and that some occupants seemed to be Arabs. A Pakistani security source said one of bin Laden’s wives and a daughter were taken to the Combined Military Hospital in Abbottabad after the raid, the wife with a bullet wound in the leg. The official also said that the owners of the house were two Afghans named Tariq and Arshad. A Pakistani intelligence official initially claimed early Monday that the raid was a joint operation carried out “primarily” by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, contradicting U.S.

officials who said it was conducted in strict secrecy by Americans without previously informing Pakistani intelligence, which has long been viewed as riddled with Taliban sympathizers. The Pakistani official later said the raid was “based on intelligence input from us” but that Pakistan did not participate. The discovery that bin Laden was living close to Pakistani military installations was embarrassing “to an extent, yes,” the official said. “Had we known, we would have taken him out.” U.S. government facilities around the world were placed on heightened alert after the raid, while the State Department issued a worldwide travel alert warning of “enhanced potential for anti-American violence given recent counter-terrorism activity in Pakistan.” CIA director Leon Panetta told his agency that terrorist groups around the world “almost certainly will attempt to avenge” bin Laden’s death. “We must — and will — remain vigilant and resolute,” Panetta wrote in a congratulatory memo. “But we have struck a heavy blow against the enemy. The only leader they have ever known, whose hateful vision gave rise to their atrocities, is no more. The supposedly uncatchable one has been caught and killed.” According to the private SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors radical Islamist Web sites, jihadists threatened retaliation Monday against Americans for the death of bin Laden.

One called for attacks on American tourists. Another warned that those who celebrate the killing will face men “who do not fear death and who will reap your souls.” Yet another wrote that Americans should expect to see “hell.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed Monday that the United States “will continue to take the fight to al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies.” Appearing before reporters at the State Department, she said: “Even as we mark this milestone, we should not forget that the battle to stop al-Qaeda and its syndicate of terror will not end with the death of bin Laden.” She added: “Our message to the Taliban remains the same, but today it may have even greater resonance. You cannot wait us out. You cannot defeat us. But you can make the choice to abandon al-Qaeda and participate in a peaceful political process.” George J. Tenet, director of the CIA at the time of the Sept.

11 attacks, expressed gratitude Monday on behalf of “those of us who worked against bin Laden and al-Qaeda going back to the mid-1990s, across three administrations.” “This act of courage and professional discipline, hopefully, will bring healing to families who lost loved ones on the USS Cole, at our embassies in East Africa, the World Trade Center, Pentagon and the fields of Pennsylvania,” Tenet said. “We must also never forget the families of our allies around the world who have also suffered from heinous acts of terrorism inspired by bin Laden.” But Anthony H. Cordesman, a military and terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said bin Laden could gain some posthumous stature. “Extremists and terrorists are likely to admire the fact that Osama is reported to have died fighting, and that the U.S. had to destroy one of the helicopters used in the raid,” he said. “They will take the same comfort if reports are correct that two bin Laden couriers, and one of Osama bin Laden’s sons, were also killed in fighting the SEALs.” The killing of the terrorism mastermind who had eluded U.S.

forces for nearly a decade drew a spontaneous, cheering crowd late Sunday outside the White House gates and at New York’s Ground Zero, the site of al-Qaeda’s 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. “We will be relentless in defense of our citizens and our friends and allies,” a somber Obama said Sunday night in his nine-minute statement that aired live on television worldwide . “We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to families who have lost loved ones to al-Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done.” Bin Laden’s killing will provide a clear moment of victory for Obama at a time of deep political turmoil overseas that is upending long-standing U.S. policy in much of the Muslim world, particularly the Middle East. It also comes nearly 10 years after bin Laden orchestrated the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil, when al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked three passenger jets and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and crashed a fourth jet in rural Shanksville, Pa. “Today’s achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people,” Obama said.

“The cause of securing our country is not complete, but tonight we are once again reminded that America can do whatever it is we set our mind to. That is the story of our history.” Years in the making The secret operation that culminated with bin Laden’s death was years in the making. For most of the past decade, bin Laden was thought to be hiding in Pakistan, but American intelligence had lost his trail until picking up fresh intelligence of his possible whereabouts last August. After months of studying intelligence and reviewing operational plans, Obama gave the order on Friday morning for the action that ended in bin Laden’s death. The operation took place in Abbottabad, a city of about 100,000 in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, about a two-hour drive north of Islamabad. Named for a British military officer who founded it as a military cantonment and summer retreat, it is the headquarters of a brigade of the Pakistan army’s 2nd Division. A Special Operations team conducted the mission based on CIA intelligence, some of which was obtained from detainees in U.S. custody, according to senior U.S. officials who detailed the operation under the condition of anonymity.

“We’ve been staring at the compound for months trying to figure out for sure whether we had enough to go with,” one official said. Operatives have “been working this target for years, years, years. They finally found the guy who led to the guy who led to the guy who led to the guy, and this is it.” Beginning in September, the CIA began to work with Obama on a set of intelligence assessments, which led him to believe that it was possible that bin Laden might be located at the compound. By mid-February, Obama determined that there was a sound intelligence basis for pursuing this theory and developing courses of action in case it proved correct. He held five National Security meetings in the second half of March to discuss potential action. On Friday, shortly before flying to Alabama to visit tornado-ravaged communities, Obama gathered senior officials in the Diplomatic Room. At 8:20 a.m., he made the decision to undertake the operation. National security adviser Thomas E. Donilon prepared the formal orders and convened senior national security officials that afternoon to plan for the operation. The United States did not share any intelligence with foreign governments, including Pakistan’s, and only a “very small number” of people within the U.S.

government knew about it, one official said. Throughout the afternoon Sunday, Obama met with senior officials in the Situation Room for briefings on the operation. At 3:50 p.m., Obama learned that bin Laden was tentatively identified, and the president remained “ actively involved in all facets of the operation, ” a senior administration official said. The courier The operation hinged almost entirely on the hunt for a single man: a courier working out of Pakistan who had been trusted by bin Laden for years. U.S. analysts and operatives spent years figuring out the courier’s identity, senior administration officials said, concluding that he was a former protege of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-declared mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who is being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The courier “had our constant attention,” one official said. Detainees “identified this man as one of the few al-Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden, [and] indicated he might be living with or protecting bin Laden,” the official said. But until four years ago, the United States was unable to track the courier down or uncover his real name. In 2009, U.S.

officials narrowed down the region in Pakistan where the courier was working, senior administration officials said. Then, in August, U.S. officials found the compound that turned out to be bin Laden’s hiding spot. It was described as an extraordinary place, with 12- to 18-foot security walls, multiple interior walls dividing the property and massive privacy walls blocking even a third-story balcony. “When we saw the compound . . . we were shocked by what we saw,” the official told reporters, describing it as “an extraordinarily unique compound,” built perhaps in 2005 and expressly for bin Laden. “Everything we saw . . . was perfectly consistent with what our experts expected bin Laden’s hideout to look like.” A senior official said the property, valued at $1 million, had no Internet or phone service. But photos appeared to show a satellite dish at the property, indicating that it had television reception. Bin Laden’s death offered a sense of closure for families of those lost in the 2001 attacks. Basmattie Bishundat, whose son, Kris Romeo Bishundat, died at the Pentagon on Sept.

11, was glued to her television in the Maryland suburb Waldorf in the early hours of Monday, wishing she could join the revelers at the White House . “I cannot believe it, finally,” Bishundat murmured as she watched the pictures from the White House on CNN. “All kinds of emotions. Finally, a sense of closure. Finally, they’ve got the person who started all of this mess.” With the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaching this year, bin Laden’s assassination could benefit Obama domestically even more than the capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein helped propel then-President George W. Bush to reelection in 2004. Obama called Bush and former president Bill Clinton, as well as senior congressional leaders, before announcing bin Laden’s death to the nation. Although Bush and former officials were quick to declare bin Laden’s killing a victory that transcended party lines, it represented the culmination of the former president’s promise, never fulfilled during his time in office, to capture the al-Qaeda leader “dead or alive.” In a statement, Bush congratulated Obama and the military and intelligence personnel who “devoted their lives to this mission.” “They have our everlasting gratitude,” Bush said.

“This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.” Obama announced bin Laden’s death eight years to the day after Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq, a war spawned in large part by the Sept. 11 attacks, in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s secretary of state, said in her own statement: “Nothing can bring back bin Laden’s innocent victims, but perhaps this can help salve the wounds of their loved ones.” Victory for U.S. Bin Laden, the son of a billionaire Saudi Arabian contractor, was wanted by the United States not only for the Sept. 11 hijackings but also for al-Qaeda’s bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, which killed 224 civilians and wounded more than 5,000 people. The U.S.

government had offered a $25 million reward for information leading to his capture or death. He was one of a handful of Islamist radicals who in 1988 founded al-Qaeda — which means “the base” in Arabic — to coordinate the efforts of various groups fighting the Soviet army in Afghanistan. After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, al-Qaeda eventually shifted its effort to target another superpower: the United States. A senior administration official said the loss of bin Laden puts al-Qaeda “on a path of decline that will be difficult to reverse.” “As the only al-Qaeda leader whose authority was universally respected, he also maintained his cohesion, and his likely successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, is far less charismatic and not as well respected within the organization, according to comments from several captured al-Qaeda leaders,” the official said. “He probably will have difficulty maintaining the loyalty of bin Laden’s largely Gulf Arab followers.” That bin Laden was killed — rather than captured — was a victory itself for U.S. officials, who had dreaded the prospect of a long and complicated legal battle if he was taken into U.S. custody.

With the military brig at Guantanamo Bay no longer being used to house new detainees, and with the country paralyzed by the politics of where and how to try other alleged perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, the logistics of trying bin Laden could have turned the capture into a spectacle. Now, although he might become a martyr to his supporters, it will be as an invisible hero. “Every day he was alive was a symbolic victory,” said Dan Byman, director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and professional staff member on the 9/11 Commission. “This is a man we have hunted with different degrees of intensity for more than 10 years. . . . His successful defiance was damaging to the United States.” Washington reacts Obama’s announcement on Sunday seemed to electrify Washington and indeed the country. Hundreds of people streamed toward the White House with flags, some chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” In New York, many more were celebrating at Ground Zero and in Times Square. Before Obama announced the killing, top administration officials divided up the most senior members of Congress and began making calls in the evening, according to congressional aides in both parties.

Vice President Biden contacted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.); Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee; and Secretary of State Clinton called Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senior congressional leaders issued statements commending the military for the killing. “Today, the American people have seen justice,” House Homeland Security Chairman Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), whose Long Island district lost many in the 2001 attacks, said in a statement. “In 2001, President Bush said, ‘We will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail.’ President Bush deserves great credit for putting action behind those words. President Obama deserves equal credit for his resolve in this long war against al-Qaeda.” Kerry urged vigilance, saying: “A single death does not end the threat from al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups.” “The killing of Osama bin Laden closes an important chapter in our war against extremists who kill innocent people around the world,” Kerry added.

“We are a nation of peace and laws, and people everywhere should understand that our 10-year manhunt was in search of justice not revenge. Terrorists everywhere must never doubt that the United States will hunt them down no matter where they are, no matter how long it takes.” Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) told CNN: “We’ve cut the head off of the worm, but they may grow another head.” Minutes after the news broke on Sunday night, hundreds of people rushed to the White House to celebrate. Many were George Washington University students who were cramming for finals when someone alerted an entire dormitory building after seeing a bulletin on television. “I feel like relief,” said freshman Molly Nostrand, 19, who was a fourth-grader in 2001. “After 10 years, it’s a sense of closure in a way.” Those who arrived early to the impromptu street celebration sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” in roars and chanted “U.S.A.!” Many brought American flags and some put together signs. “Ding, Dong, Bin Laden is Dead,” one read. One group of waved a “Bush-Cheney 2000” election poster.

“I think it’s an accomplishment for the U.S. of A.,” Richard Indoe, 73, a farmer from Ohio said, shortly after filming a few seconds of the revelry using a flip cellphone. “Too bad this didn’t happen during George W. Bush’s time.” Staff writers Philip Rucker, Anne E. Kornblut, Karen DeYoung, Ernesto Londoño, Glenn Kessler, Paul Kane, Felicia Sonmez and Amy Gardner contributed to this report. national Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbotabad near Islamabad of Pakistan - People's Daily Online Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbotabad near Islamabad of Pakistan 13:08, May 02, 2011 QQ A TV grab from CNN shows Abbottabad, where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan, May 1, 2011. U.S. President Barack Obama announced Sunday night that a U.S. operation had killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and put his body in U.S. custody.

(Xinhua) Pakistani Urdu TV channel Geo News quoted Pakistani intelligence officials as saying that the world's most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden was killed in a search operation launched by the Pakistani forces after a Pakistani army helicopter was shot down in the wee hours of Monday in Abbotabad, a mountainous town located some 60 kilometers north of Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad. At about 1:20 a.m. local time a Pakistani helicopter was shot down by unknown people in the Sikandarabad area of Abbotabad. The Pakistani forces launched a search operation in the nearby area and encountered with a group of unknown armed people. A fire exchange followed between the two sides. When the fire exchange ended, the Pakistani forces arrested some Arab women and kids as well some other armed people who later confessed to the Pakistani forces they were with Osama Bin laden when the fire was exchanged and Bin Laden was killed in the firing. Local media reported that after the dead body of Bin Laden was recovered, two U.S. helicopter flew to the site and carried away the dead body of Bin Laden. Initial reports said that at least one was killed and two others were injured in the crash. At least two houses were engulfed by the huge fire caused by the crashed chopper.

Rescue team rushed to the site shortly after the crash was reported and the armed forces cordoned off the area and launched a search operation there. Sources of Xinhua said they tried to enter the area after the incident took place, but no media people were allowed inside. "No one knows in that helicopter crash Bin Laden was killed," said the sources. Source: Xinhua Do you have anything to say? Name Osama Bin Laden Pakistan Compound - 2011 | Today in History | 2 May 16 - YouTube Osama Bin Laden Pakistan Compound - 2011 | Today in History | 2 May 16 Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Jul 30, 2015 On May 2, 2011 Osama bin Laden was killed by elite American forces at his Pakistan compound, then quickly buried at sea after a decade on the run.

AP covered the compound and town in which bin Laden was killed by US troops. Osama bin Laden, the world's most-wanted man was killed in his luxury hideout in Pakistan in a firefight with US forces, President Barack Obama said Sunday. A small team of Americans killed bin Laden early on Monday local time in the town of Abbottabad, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of the capital Islamabad, US and Pakistani officials said. AP Television video showed flames were visible after the attack on the building, about 100 yards (metres) from the gates of a Pakistani military academy, certain to raise questions about al-Qaida's ability to build a custom-made hideout in such close proximity. Later, a heavy Pakistan military presence could be seen in the town as soldiers stood guard over the area surrounding the compound. The team took custody of his remains and an American official said bin Laden had been buried at sea. Three adult males were also killed in the raid, including one of bin Laden's sons, whom officials did not name. US officials also said one woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, and two other women were injured.

US officials said the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) tracked bin Laden to his location, then elite troops from Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, Land) Team Six, a top military counter-terrorism unit, flew to the hideout in four helicopters. Bin Laden was shot in the head in an ensuing firefight, these officials said, adding that he and his guards had resisted his attackers. US personnel identified him by facial recognition, the official said, declining to say whether DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) analysis had also been used. Obama said neither Americans nor civilians were harmed in the operation. Abbottabad, surrounded by hills and with mountains in the distance, is less than half a day's drive from the border region with Afghanistan, where most intelligence assessments believed bin Laden was holed up.

You can license this story through AP Archive: Find out more about AP Archive: Category Ex-lawyer of Pakistan doctor who helped find bin Laden killed Ex-lawyer of Pakistan doctor who helped find bin Laden killed Pin it Share Relatives wheel the body of Pakistani lawyer Samiullah Afridi after he was shot dead in Peshawar on March 17, 2015 (AFP Photo/A Majeed) More A former lawyer of a Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA in the hunt for Osama bin Laden was shot dead in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, officials said. Two militant groups claimed responsibility for the attack on Samiullah Afridi, who had faced threats for representing doctor Shakeel Afridi, on the outskirts of Peshawar. Afridi was returning from a village, Mathra, when unknown gunmen sprayed bullets on his car, Mian Saeed, a senior police official, told AFP. "According to initial reports, two gunmen fired on his car from both sides and escaped after the attack," he said. Another police official Shakirullah Bangash confirmed the incident and said that a search operation was being conducted in the area to trace the attackers.

Fahad Marwat, a spokesman for the militant group Jandullah called AFP soon after the incident and claimed responsibility for the killing. Later in the evening, a Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan also called AFP and claimed the attack. "We killed Samiullah Afridi for supporting Shakeel Afridi and will also target other lawyers who are providing legal assistance to him," he said. The deceased lawyer told AFP in 2014 that he had decided to withdraw from the doctor's case after he received threats against his life for providing legal aid to him. The CIA recruited Afridi for a fake vaccination programme in a bid to confirm the 9/11 mastermind was living in Abbottabad. The plan was to use the drive as cover to collect DNA material after vaccinating bin Laden's children as a way of positively identifying the Al-Qaeda leader. The doctor was convicted under Pakistan's tribal justice system and jailed to 33 years in 2012 for having ties to militants. Last year a tribunal cut 10 years off his sentence. Some US lawmakers have said the case was revenge for his help in the search for the Al-Qaeda chief.

Pakistan's powerful army were hugely embarrassed by the May 2011 US special forces raid -- conducted without Pakistani knowledge -- that found and killed bin Laden in the northern town of Abbottabad, a stone's throw from an elite military academy. The CIA's fake vaccination campaign increased Taliban opposition to immunisation drives, which the militants say are cover for spying, and attacks on health teams have claimed 74 lives since December 2012. Officials said last week that the tribunal hearing an appeal by the doctor was dissolved because the contracts of its members and chairman expired in January and no replacements have been hired or plans made to renew them. Reblog Osama bin Laden obituary | World news | The Guardian Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden obituary Leader of al-Qaida and the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he became the world's most wanted man Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind of the attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001.

Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Monday 2 May 2011 13.05 EDT First published on Monday 2 May 2011 13.05 EDT Share on Messenger Close To his enemies, whatever colour or creed, he was a religious fanatic, a terrorist with the blood of thousands on his hands, a man who had brought war and suffering to a broad swath of the Islamic world and come close to provoking a global conflagration on a scale not seen for decades. To his supporters, whose numbers peaked in the few years after the attacks of 11 September 2001 in America that he masterminded, he was a visionary leader fighting both western aggression against Muslims and his co-religionists' lack of faith and rigour. For both, Osama bin Laden , who has been killed at the age of 54 by US special forces at a compound near Abbottabad, a town about 50 miles north-east of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, was one of those rare figures whose actions changed the course of history. His life was one of extremes and of contradictions. Born to great wealth, he lived in relative poverty.

A graduate of civil engineering, he assumed the mantle of a religious scholar. A gifted propagandist who had little real experience of battle, he projected himself as a mujahid, a holy warrior. A man who called for a return to the values and social systems of the seventh century as a means of restoring a just order in today's world, he justified the use of advanced modern technology to kill thousands through a rigorous and anachronistic interpretation of Islamic law. One of the most notorious people on the planet, Bin Laden lived for years in obscurity, his public presence limited to intermittent appearances in videos on the internet. A man who professed to have sacrificed all for others and to care nothing for himself, he was fiercely conscious of posterity. Bin Laden's story started in the remote, poor, deeply conservative Hadramawt region of south-east Yemen, from where his father, Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, set out for the Saudi city of Jeddah to seek his fortune around 1930. By the time Osama was born there, the 17th of 52 children, his father was a rich construction magnate.

His connections to Saudi Arabia's ruling family, the al-Sauds, won him lucrative contracts to build palaces in Riyadh and the highway from Medina to Jeddah. The crowning achievement of the family firm, the Saudi Binladen Group, was reconstructing Islam's holiest mosque in Mecca. Osama's father was an austere patriarch; his mother, a beautiful, educated young woman from Syria who shunned the veil in favour of Chanel suits. Because of her foreign origin and as the 10th wife, her prestige in the household was low. Raised in a palace in Jeddah, Osama grew up polite, courteous, diligent and, from an early age, pious. His father died in a helicopter crash when he was 11. Stories of teenage revelry are unfounded. While his siblings studied and, often, partied overseas, the tall, painfully shy teenager chose to stay in Saudi Arabia . In 1974, he married the 14-year-old Najwa Ghanem, his mother's niece, and enrolled in the economics and management faculty of the King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah.

Though he eventually graduated in civil engineering and spent a short time in the family company, his true interests lay elsewhere. In the late 1970s, universities across the Arab world were torn by fierce ideological struggle. In Egypt, leftists battled, both physically and intellectually, against the increasing number of supporters of Islamist doctrines. Though circulating in the region since the 1930s, they had been re-energised by the failures of Arab armies against Israel in 1967 and 1973 and by the apparent inability of secular pan-Arab, nationalist or socialist ideas to bring any social or economic improvement to the lives of hundreds of millions. At university, Bin Laden, who had been raised in the strict tradition of Saudi "Salafist" Islamic practice known outside the kingdom as Wahhabism, was exposed to newer, more politicised and often anti-clerical religious doctrines. It was the fusion of the two, particularly by charismatic preachers such as the Jordanian-Palestinian Abdullah Azzam, that laid the foundation of the young man's own thinking. The year of Bin Laden's graduation, 1979, was a tumultuous one in the Islamic world.

In February, Ayatollah Khomeini created the Islamic republic in Iran. Then, in November, rebels took over the mosques in Mecca and demanded a return to true Islamic rule. When soldiers eventually broke their siege and killed the ringleaders, Bin Laden was seething. He saw the assault as an atrocity committed on the holiest soil in Islam. To him, the rebels were martyrs. A month later came the third defining event of the year: the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. Despite his later boasts, Bin Laden did not immediately travel to Peshawar, the Pakistani frontier town 20 miles from Afghanistan that had been at the centre of activism, covert or otherwise, against the Afghan Marxist government for several years, and had now acquired a new strategic significance as a key forward base in the cold war. Arriving in early 1981, he was to spend the next few years making trips between the city and Saudi Arabia before basing himself there from around 1986. Bin Laden's role in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s has been grossly exaggerated. His military contribution was negligible.

The "foreign legion" never numbered more than a few thousand, of whom most never saw combat but ran charities caring for refugees or wounded Afghan fighters. It was to the seven Afghan mujahideen groups, and only to them, that the Pakistanis disbursed American and Saudi aid. Likewise, it was only the Afghans who received training. Bin Laden was not, despite later claims, created by the CIA, who had no contact with such people. He spent most of the first half of the 1980s as a fundraiser and aide to senior figures among the Arabs in Peshawar, including Azzam. Bin Laden also used his knowledge of construction and the resources of his company, with the blessing of the Saudi royal family, to build roads, bunkers and encampments for the Afghan fighters. In 1987, now aged 30, Bin Laden took part in a battle in the hills around the small Afghan town of Jaji. Though heavily mythologised subsequently, the action saw determined fighting between Afghan mujahideen, backed by some units of Arabs, and Soviet troops.

Now relatively well-known among the Peshawar-based militants, Bin Laden also began playing a role as a broker between competing Afghan and Arab factions as well as continuing to fund a radical newspaper and organising medical care for wounded fighters. It was during this period too that he began co-operating more closely with an older and more experienced Egyptian militant, a former doctor called Ayman al-Zawahiri. However, the two were not close. Together with Azzam, Bin Laden also ran a logistical centre dealing with the volunteers arriving from the Arab world to take part in the "jihad". Witnesses also remember seeing Bin Laden at the battle of Jalalabad, an ill-fated and costly bid to capture the eastern Afghan city from forces loyal to the communist Afghan government in 1989, six months after the Soviet withdrawal. A year earlier, al-Qaida had been founded by Bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and 14 associates in a series of meetings at a rented house in a western suburb of Peshawar. The meetings had stretched into the small hours as discussions ranged over the aims of the group, its composition and hierarchy. Little thought appears to have been given to its name, but it was an appropriate and useful one nonetheless.

"Al-Qaida" was a commonly used word in Arabic and, though often simply translated as "the base", has a range of other meanings too. This variety and consequent flexibility, itself a departure from the style of names adopted previously by militant groups, was to prove key in the coming years. Al-Qaida also differed from the multitude of other militant groups active across the Islamic world at the time in its avowed internationalism. Its founders' aim was to unite the disparate groups of militants who were fighting against the Soviets to focus their energies on new targets. Its campaign would take two main forms: guerrilla wars such as that in Afghanistan and a series of spectacular and violent actions that would radicalise and mobilise all those who had hitherto shunned the call to arms, eventually provoking a mass uprising that would lead to a new era for the world's Muslims. The two strategies would be mutually reinforcing. Azzam, who had been a huge influence on Bin Laden, was killed in a mysterious bomb blast in late 1989. With the Soviets leaving Afghanistan and the internecine squabbling between factions getting worse, Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia.

Expecting to be feted as a hero, he, like many other returning mujahideen, was shocked to find a frosty welcome from authorities in the kingdom. Though increasingly critical, however, Bin Laden had yet to turn fully against the rulers of his native land. In August 1990, when Iraq annexed Kuwait and threatened Saudi security, he offered to raise an army of Arab Afghan veterans to fight the "godless" Saddam. His offer was rejected and the house of al-Saud sought US help instead. By January 1991, some 300,000 foreign troops were stationed on Saudi territory. Bin Laden accused the Americans of "desecrating holy Arab soil", and cited Qur'anic verses forbidding the presence of two religions in Arabia. He also criticised the Saudi grand mufti, Abdul Aziz bin Baz, and other senior clerics for approving the decision. Placed under house arrest, Bin Laden slipped out of Saudi Arabia, eventually reaching the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, where the leading Islamist ideologue Hassan Turabi had recently taken power and was offering protection and facilities to a wide variety of Islamic militant groups.

For the next five years, Bin Laden tried to make progress with the al-Qaida project. He cultivated contacts with militants in Yemen and was linked to a bomb explosion there in 1992. He sent observers, though no fighters, to Somalia during the ill-fated international intervention there in 1993. Other operations in the Balkans or the Caucasus brought limited success. Several attempts to reach out to other groups were rebuffed. There was a strong sense that Bin Laden had lost his way. Certainly the focus of the new militancy that the war in Afghanistan had spawned was elsewhere: in Algeria and in Egypt, where local groups such as al-Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad were taking on governments and their security services in bloody insurgencies; in the Balkans; in America, where a bid to bring down the twin towers narrowly failed. In Sudan, Bin Laden set up a tannery, farmed, built a road as a goodwill gesture and rode horses, a favourite pastime, while followers amused themselves playing football or swimming in the Nile. Nonetheless, Bin Laden was now on the radar of security services, albeit if his name was often misspelt and his role described as "financier".

In April 1994, the Saudi government stripped Bin Laden of his citizenship and his family disowned his actions. Eventually, in 1996, Sudan succumbed to US pressure and expelled its controversial guest. In need of a new sanctuary, Bin Laden accepted an offer of protection from three anti-Taliban Afghan warlords and flew to Jalalabad. The next years finally saw al-Qaida, already the vanguard, become the "base" or "foundation" too, as originally envisaged. Working with a growing group of experienced collaborators, Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri set up or appropriated dozens of training camps, guesthouses and other facilities that provided them with a pool of ready volunteers for various projects. At the same time they launched a sophisticated outreach programme, sending emissaries to groups throughout the Islamic world offering cash and technical help in return for a degree of fealty. Such bids were often unsuccessful, with groups in Algeria, Indonesia, Chechnya, Uzbekistan and elsewhere jealously guarding their independence, but they were accepted frequently enough for a "network of networks" to begin to emerge.

The basic strategy remained the same: a series of spectacular violent actions to radicalise potential recruits, to weaken the enemy economically and morally, and eventually to provoke a mass uprising that would lead to the establishment of a new caliphate. Bin Laden's now keen eye for public relations – and an understanding of the potential of the still new technology of satellite television - led to exclusive interviews with select journalists. He also began to issue his own "fatwas" or religious opinions. The first, in August 1996, stuck to familiar themes: promising to drive US troops out of the Gulf, overthrow the Saudi government and liberate Muslim shrines in Palestine. In February 1998, as he announced an alliance between al-Qaida and four other groups from Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan called The World Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders, Bin Laden issued a second fatwa, which called on all Muslims to "obey God's order" and kill Americans, including civilians, "wherever you find them". Pursuing his strategy of propaganda by deed, Bin Laden organised a successful attack on US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in August 1998.

These killed 224, all but 12 of them African staff or bystanders. The US president Bill Clinton retaliated with cruise missile raids on alleged Bin Laden facilities in Sudan and Afghanistan. Several Pakistani and Algerian allies were killed, although Bin Laden himself escaped unscathed. In their aftermath a Saudi deal with the Taliban for the expulsion of Bin Laden fell through. In July 1999, the US imposed sanctions on the Taliban. The idea for the 11 September 2001 attacks came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an experienced and capable Kuwait-born Pakistani militant who travelled to seek out Bin Laden shortly after the latter's arrival in Afghanistan. Building on schemes he had tried to implement in the far east, Mohammed's ambitious plans for hijacking dozens of aircraft to strike US targets was initially rejected by Bin Laden, but then dusted off, revised and finally accepted after a series of heated meetings of al-Qaida's leadership in the spring of 1999. They were controversial, with many militants fearing a backlash or an overwhelming American reaction. Bin Laden, convinced the US was a nation of decadent cowards, pressed ahead.

The volunteers for the plan were found simply by scouring the various training camps, either those offering basic training for foreigners arriving to fight with the Taliban or those for more advanced candidates who were being trained by al-Qaida instructors in techniques of urban terrorism. The CIA, which was now running a Bin Laden unit, placed a $5m bounty on the fugitive's head and worked up a series of plans to kill or capture him. These became more urgent in October 2000 when a dinghy charged with explosives was driven into an American warship off the Yemeni port of Aden, killing its own crew and 17 sailors. But targeting Bin Laden was difficult. American agencies squabbled among themselves. The military distrusted the plans concocted by civilians or the CIA. The raw intelligence did not exist. Though his relationship with the Taliban was complex, with much suspicion on both sides, Bin Laden had been able to graft much of his own internationalised ideology on to that of Afghans such as Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's leader.

Bin Laden had been forced to implement a charm offensive after the Taliban expelled his previous protectors in the autumn of 1996, and over the years financial help and the military assistance provided by his Chechen, Arab, Pakistani and Uzbekistani recruits led to the formation of elite units attached mainly to the Pashtun Taliban forces, consolidating links. Bin Laden, aware of the constant threat to his life, moved often between Kabul and Kandahar as well as a base near the Tora Bora mountain range in eastern Afghanistan, south of Jalalabad. On 9 September 2001, two men run by al-Zawahiri killed the legendary Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Massoud. Two days later, Bin Laden was in the hills of eastern Logar province, not far from where he had fought almost 15 years before. Listening to a shortwave radio, he learned of the success of the attacks in the US. The co-ordination of four simultaneously hijacked airliners; the origins of the terrorists and their "martyrdom"; the choice of targets all pointed to one group: al-Qaida. Such an attack had been signalled, if vaguely, by intelligence over the summer.

Within hours, President George Bush had blamed Bin Laden and begun planning a major campaign that aimed to deter what were seen to be the states giving terrorists safe havens, and rooting out the terrorists themselves through aggressive military action. This was to be the "global war on terror". Faced with an ultimatum, the Taliban again refused to surrender Bin Laden, who initially denied involvement, and an American-led aerial bombing campaign followed. When matched with action on the ground by anti-Taliban forces within Afghanistan aided by small groups of US special forces, the regime crumbled fast. In November, Kabul's liberated residents expressed their loathing for "the foreigners" – not the British or Americans, but the Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens. During the campaign of 2001, many leading al-Qaida figures were killed and the group's physical "base" destroyed. By mid-December, American planes were pounding the slopes above Tora Bora, where Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri were thought to be. They also released the "smoking gun" video, in which Bin Laden spoke of how he had planned the 11 September operation. This did little to allay the conspiracy theories that were already circulating widely.

The 2001 campaign was inconclusive, however, as al-Qaida's leaders escaped from Tora Bora. The venality of the Afghan auxiliaries hired by the Americans as "beaters" to flush out Bin Laden, his local contacts, the half-hearted nature of Pakistani efforts and a sense of Islamic solidarity among local people was enough to allow them to slip away to the south. Bin Laden appeared gaunt and apparently wounded in a video. A new chapter began. Along with a physical "base", the word al-Qaida can mean a vanguard – al-Qaida al-Sulbah. Another meaning is a maxim or a methodology, something much more ephemeral. If, in the early 1990s, Bin Laden's organisation had been a vanguard and in the latter part of the decade it had been a base, in the coming years it would be more an ideology, a worldview, a way of doing things. Bin Laden found a new base in the restive and semi-autonomous Pakistani tribal agencies, just across the border from Afghanistan. Here he and his associates tried to rebuild what they had lost in terms of infrastructure.

Using the cash they were still able to obtain from donors in the Gulf and elsewhere, they paid protection money to local Pashtun elders and, increasingly, militants. A grassroots militant movement was setting the area afire and Bin Laden, as he had done elsewhere, was able to graft his own global struggle on to the local one of the tribes of places such as Waziristan. Intermittent videos gave little clue as to his whereabouts but, broadcast by mainstream TV channels, repeated his call to arms to the Muslim masses. For some years, though he himself was in much more physical danger than at any previous time, it appeared than al-Qaida, by triggering a global confrontation with the west, might achieve its aims. Through 2002 and 2003, in part, but not only, provoked by the invasion of Iraq, a wave of radicalisation surged through the Islamic world, and there were major bomb attacks in Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, elsewhere in the Middle East, in Africa and in the far east. Many were perpetrated by individuals commissioned and trained in the al-Qaida camps in the late 1990s. But new volunteers were often recruited with little difficulty.

In 2004 came an attack in Madrid, which, though it did not have a direct link with al-Qaida, appeared to indicate that its ideology was having an impact everywhere, provoking the kind of generalised violence that Bin Laden had hoped for many years before. Another dynamic that did implicate al-Qaida more directly was the training and direction of young British men who found their way to Pakistan. These were responsible for a string of attacks – including those of 7 July 2005 in London. If the reasons that motivated these volunteers to seek out al-Qaida were their own, the group played a significant role in turning individuals with diffuse desires to participate in "jihad" into focused terrorist operatives with some, though luckily frequently insufficient, technical skills. Bin Laden's ability to exploit the media was also still very evident. His address to the American people on the eve of Bush's re-election in November 2004 received massive coverage. In it, the Saudi ideologue and propagandist appeared in statesmanlike robes rather than the more customary combat vest. In Iraq, where American and British forces were in great trouble, local Islamic militants had sworn allegiance to al-Qaida.

In Saudi Arabia itself there was a storm of violence, again by people professing loyalty to Bin Laden and undoubtedly influenced by him. Yet in retrospect, the period of 2005-06 was a peak. One thing was still lacking: any evidence of mass radicalisation. The militants were still very much in a minority and evidence from polls proved the growing disgust that many in the Islamic world felt for the extremists, particularly when they could see at first hand what their tactics meant in terms of shattered bodies and shattered lives. In Iraq, the globalised ideology of al-Qaida, stripped of any local cultural specificity other than the claim of Muslim solidarity, was increasingly rejected by the tribes in the western provinces that had led the insurgency up to then. In the Maghreb, militants remained reviled. The wave of support of three or four years earlier in the far east had fallen away, leaving radical groups isolated. Only in Pakistan and Afghanistan was headway being made in the great struggle against "crusader-Zionists". Criticism too had begun to come from within the militant movement, where key former associates spoke of how Bin Laden's thinking, tactics and strategy were all wrong. The number of Muslim casualties in al-Qaida's attacks was going up.

Bin Laden's associates were being picked off by the now intense missile strikes from unmanned drones over the tribal areas, and his communications were clearly difficult. One senior lieutenant made a plaintive call for funds. However, al-Qaida retained some capacity, as a series of abortive attempts to strike in Europe and elsewhere made clear. The ideology remained strong enough to attract aspirant militants, misfits, the angry and the alienated in sufficient numbers for the group to survive – the basic aim of any clandestine extremist organisation. The hunt for Bin Laden also suffered from huge structural problems, not least the need to rely on Pakistani assistance, and an inability to gather intelligence on the ground. Despite attempts to exploit new issues such as climate change or to deploy younger spokesmen, there was a sense that Bin Laden, and with him al-Qaida, was drifting away from the principal position he had once occupied in the landscape of contemporary Islamic militancy. The events of this year's Arab spring merely emphasised that apparent marginalisation. Bin Laden's ideology had been a response to the failure of many previous utopic projects in the Islamic world. It had held a brief attraction for some, not least because of the actions taken in a bid to counter it.

But most Muslims always knew something essential was missing: the notion of Allah al-rahman w'al-rakhim – God the merciful and beneficent. Bin Laden once claimed: "It is our duty to bring light to the world." Yet behind his rhetoric of righteousness, divine justice and retribution, there was nothing but darkness. He had four wives and 19 children. One of his sons was killed alongside him. • Osama bin Laden, terrorist leader, born 10 March 1957; died 2 May 2011 • This article was amended on 4 May 2011. The original gave the date of Osama bin Laden's death as 1 May. This has been corrected.

Seals alleged to have divulged classified information to the maker of a video game called Medal of Honour: Warfighter Published: 9 Nov 2012 Judges' ruling in Salim Hamdan case may have repercussions for others convicted under Military Commissions Act Published: 16 Oct 2012 Lawyer for Pakistan doctor who helped CIA find bin Laden shot dead Lawyer for Pakistan doctor who helped CIA find bin Laden shot dead By Jibran Ahmad Share By Jibran Ahmad PESHAWAR (Reuters) - A Pakistani lawyer under death threats for defending a doctor who helped CIA agents hunt al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was shot dead on Tuesday, police said, and two militant groups claimed responsibility. Samiullah Afridi represented Dr Shakil Afridi, who was jailed in 2012 for 33 years for running a fake vaccination campaign believed to have helped the U.S. intelligence agency track down bin Laden. That sentence was overturned in 2013 and the doctor is now in jail awaiting a new trial. Samiullah Afridi was shot dead on Tuesday as he was returning to his home in the northwestern city of Peshawar, police said.

According to media, he had recently returned there from abroad after leaving Pakistan for his safety. "He was returning home when armed men opened fire. He died on the spot," police official Jamal Hussain said. A hospital spokesman added that Samiullah Afridi was shot twice, in the abdomen and the neck. Two Pakistan militant groups claimed responsibility for the laywer's death. Jundullah, a Taliban splinter group, said: "We killed him because he was defending Shakil, who is our enemy." A Taliban faction, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar (TTP-JA), later said it had shot him. "Dr Shakil Afridi had spied on our respected and supreme leader Sheikh Osama to the CIA," TTP-JA spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said. "Samiullah Afridi had represented his case," Ehsan said, "that's why we decided to eliminate him when we can't approach Dr Shakil." U.S. officials have hailed Shakil Afridi as a hero for helping pinpoint bin Laden's location before a 2011 raid by U.S.

special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed the al Qaeda leader after more than a decade of searching for him. Samiullah Afridi stopped representing the doctor last year, saying he had become a target. "I have been receiving threats from various organizations, and because of those threats I even went to Dubai some time back," he told Reuters TV. "Some organizations do not want us to continue defending this case ... Not only is my life in danger, my family is also in danger. I have therefore decided to quit this case." Shakil Afridi's original sentence damaged ties between Pakistan and the United States that were already strained over the bin Laden raid. Angry U.S. senators withheld $33 million in aid from Pakistan in retaliation. (Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud and Reuters TV; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Tom Heneghan) Reblog

Question: What is the name of the Pakistani town in which Osama Bin Laden was shot and killed in May 2011?
Answer: ABBOTTABAD