Bin Laden Killed in U.S. Operation that Targeted Him in Pakistan

The leader of the al-Qaida organization was killed in an operation led by the United States involving both American helicopters and ground-based troops in Pakistan on Sunday. This came as an end to around 10 years of pursuit of the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

American officials announced that bin Laden was discovered in a million-dollar complex in the community of Abbottabad, located around 60 kilometers north of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

An informed source about the operation has said that bin Laden was shot in the head.

Last night the American president, Barack Obama, in a quickly organized speech from the White House, announced that the man responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, in which around 3,000 people died, had been killed and that justice had been done.

Leaders from around the world praised the killing of bin Laden as a tremendous victory in the war against al-Qaida, though some analysts have warned that to say that this is a turning point in the fight against extremism is premature.

The death of bin Laden, which has been confirmed by the Pakistani authorities, is considered at the very least a powerful symbolic strike against al-Qaida, an organization that launched bloody attacks on many Western and Arab cities and against which was directed a worldwide campaign, which despite weakening it, left it as a danger to numerous states.

Just as the news was announced, celebrations were organized, and citizens were holding up American flags in both Washington and New York, the site of the two towers of the World Trade Center, which exploded in the attacks. This is a big achievement for Obama and his national security team and could provide him with political backing in his bid for re-election to the presidency in 2012.

Obama may now find it easy to bring to a close the war in Afghanistan, which has been going on for two years and started after the September attacks on Washington and New York.

However, the operation to kill bin Laden could complicate relations with Pakistan, which were already extremely tense due to attacks carried out by drones in the western part of the country and the imprisonment of a member of the American Central Intelligence Agency, accused of killing two Pakistani men.

An American official said that the Pakistani authorities had announced the raid in detail after it happened.

The discovery of bin Laden in a luxury compound will put pressure on the Pakistani authorities to explain how the leader of the al-Qaida organization was able to live in relative comfort at a very short distance from Islamabad.

The compound in which bin Laden was living was near the Pakistani army’s training academy and less than a two-hour’s drive from Islamabad, the analyst, Imtiaz Gul, said. “For some time there will be a lot of tension between Washington and Islamabad because bin Laden seems to have been living here close to Islamabad,” he said, adding: “If the ISI had known, then somebody within the ISI must have leaked this information.”

American officials said they found their way to the compound in Abbottabad (a fortress-like building with three floors) after four years of tracking one of bin Laden’s trusty couriers, whose identity was revealed after a number of the men who were arrested after the Sept. 11 attacks recognized him, according to American officials.

A senior American official also announced, in a briefing to journalists in Washington: “Detainees also identified this man as one of the few al-Qaida couriers trusted by bin Laden. They indicated he might be living with and protecting bin Laden.”

Officials said that bin Laden was finally found after the authorities discovered, in August 2010, that this man was living with his brother and their families in an unusual building in Pakistan amid increased security measures.

A senior official in the American administration said, “When we saw the compound where the brothers lived, we were shocked by what we saw — an extraordinarily unique compound.”

Another official in the American administration said, “We had high confidence that a high-value target was being harbored by the brothers on the compound, and we assessed that there was a strong probability that that person was Osama bin Laden.”

Finally, another official in the American administration said that he thought there were three other adults killed in the operation, as well as bin Laden. Among them was the adult son of the leader of the al-Qaida organization.