(DeaD)
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. 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."
"Justice has been done."
US reports say Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden dead
Pakistani intelligence officials also confirmed bin Laden'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 bin Laden was killed.
Asked whether Pakistani intelligence participated in the operation he said only: "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 bin Laden 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 bin Laden 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 bin Laden and other Islamic extremist groups.
The death of bin Laden 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 bin Laden "dead or alive" in the weeks after the September 11 attacks.
But bin Laden frequently taunted Bush, and after he took office in 2009, Obama, with taped messages.
Bin Laden 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.
