Yahoo!7 and agencies
May 2, 2011, 5:44 pm
Step-by-step: How the U.S. killed Bin Laden
By Aamer Madhani
Soon after coming to office, President Obama made it clear that killing or capturing Bin Laden was one of his highest national security priorities.
But it wasn't until last summer that intelligence officials caught a break in their pursuit.
In September 2010, the CIA presented Obama with a set of assessments that indicated Bin Laden could be hiding in a compound in northwest Pakistan. Starting in mid-March, the president convened at least nine National Security Council meetings to discuss the intelligence suggesting Bin Laden may be hiding out virtually in plain sight.
The CIA developed their theory through leads from individuals in bin Laden's inner circle and other captured fighters following September 11. Intelligence officials were repeatedly told about one courier working for bin Laden, as someone that America's Most Wanted Man deeply trusted.
The detainees provided U.S. officials the courier's nickname, and identified him as protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al Libbi, once Al Qaeda's third highest ranking official. (He was captured in 2005).
The president finally gave the order for the operation to pursue bin Laden on the morning of April 29 - just before he departed for Alabama to visit areas ravaged by last week's tornadoes that tore through the southern U.S., a senior administration official said.
Early Sunday morning in Pakistan, the strike began.
By 1 pm in Washington, top advisers had gathered at the White House. Around 2 pm, Obama huddled with them to review final preparations for the operation. He returned to Situation Room at 3:32 pm for another update, and by 3:50 he was given word that bin Laden was "tentatively identified" as among those killed in the operation. At 7 pm, Obama was told it was a "high probability" that it was, indeed, bin Laden.
The entire operation took just 40-minutes and involved a small U.S. team, a senior administration official said.
In addition to bin Laden, four others on the compound - an adult son of Bin Laden and two of bin Laden's couriers - were killed in the strike on the compound in an affluent suburb about 35 miles outside of Islamabad. A woman, who an administration official said was used as a human shield, was also killed in the operation.
Administration officials offered scant details about how Bin Laden conducted himself in his final moments, only saying that he was felled in a firefight.
No Americans were killed in the operation, which was kept secret from the Pakistani government until after it was completed. But an administration official said that a helicopter was lost in the operation.
Before announcing the news that Bin Laden had been killed, Obama called former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to deliver the news.
By the time Obama stepped to the podium, hundreds had gathered outside the White House to celebrate the president's biggest national security victory of his presidency.
Poll: Do you think it was right for President Obama to declare Osama Bin Laden dead, despite US and Australia military now being put on alert for revenge attacks?
Bin Laden already buried at sea: report
A US official says Osama bin Laden has already been buried at sea in accordance with Islamic tradition.
The US decided to bury him at sea because it would have been difficult finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist, the official said.
Other reports say the US doesn't want for his burial place to become a terrorist shrine and the best way to avoid this is to bury his body at sea.
Under Islamic tradition, the body must be washed and buried as soon as possible, ideally within twenty four hours.
Senior administration officials say the body was handled according to Islamic traditions but did not immediately say where the body was buried at sea.
No evidence Bin Laden was terrorist: Habib
The death of Osama bin Laden will not end the war on terror and there is no evidence he masterminded the September 11 attacks, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib says.
“America is the war on terror, George Bush is the war on Terror,” Mr Habib said today. “What, you think with Osama bin Laden dying there won’t be war any more? There is no evidence he was a terrorist.”
Mr Habib said bin Laden’s death would not slow the war on terror.
“I’m not surprised by his dying,” he said. “The war will never stop. America needs to stop lying and stop abusing power ... and not be a devil.”
Mr Habib also said he was “disgusted” by reports US authorities were in possession of bin Laden’s body.
“Because to hold someone’s body, really, it’s not a human being doing that. If he were alive, it’s not really an issue,” he said.
“If you take a human being’s body and play with it after he is dead, that’s disgusting. We have to bury his body. Good or bad, we have to respect his body.
“What, are they going to make a statue for him?“
Bin Laden dead
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan and his body has been recovered, President Barack Obama has announced.
"Justice has been done," Obama said in a dramatic, late-night White House speech announcing the death of the elusive mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the New York and Washington.
It is a major accomplishment for Obama and his national security team and could give him a political boost as he seeks re-election in 2012.
And it was at least a huge symbolic blow to al Qaeda, the militant organisation that has staged bloody attacks in many western and Arab countries cities and has been the subject of a worldwide campaign against it.
Officials say the US operation that killed bin Laden also left three other men and a woman dead, including one of bin Laden's sons.
Obama said U.S. forces led a targeted operation that killed bin Laden in Abbotabad north of Islamabad. No Americans were killed in the operation and they took care to avoid civilian casualties, he said.
A map of Pakistan
"The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda and a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of men, women and children," Obama said.
Intelligence that originated last August provided the clues that eventually led to bin Laden's trail. A US official said Obama gave the final order to pursue the operation last Friday morning.
"The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda and a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of men, women and children," Obama said.
"After a firefight they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body," he said.
In Washington, thousands of people gathered quickly outside the White House, waving American flags, cheering and chanting "USA, USA, USA." Car drivers blew their horns in celebration and people streamed to Lafayette Park across from the presidential mansion. Police vehicles with their lights flashing stood vigil.
"I'm down here to witness the history. My boyfriend is commissioning as a Marine next week. So I'm really proud of the troops," Laura Vogler, a junior at American University in Washington, said outside the White House.
Osama bin Laden. File Photo
Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, had repeatedly vowed to bring to justice the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, but never did before leaving office in early 2009.
Having the body may help convince any doubters that bin Laden is really dead.
He had been the subject of a search since he eluded U.S. soldiers and Afghan militia forces in a large-scale assault on the Tora Bora mountains in 2001. The trail quickly went cold after he disappeared and many intelligence officials believed he had been hiding in Pakistan.
While in hiding, bin Laden had taunted the West and advocated his militant Islamist views in videotapes spirited from his hideaway.
Besides September 11, Washington has also linked bin Laden to a string of attacks -- including the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the warship USS Cole in Yemen.
Rumours of Osama's death were reported on Twitter before the official announcement.
Keith Urbahn, Chief of Staff, Office of Donald Rumsfeld tweeted: "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn."
The Saudi-born leader of al-Qaeda has been wanted since a series of attacks on Western targets, most notably the September 11, 2001 attacks that levelled the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and caused massive damage to the Pentagon.
Osama bin Laden's death: a moment in history
Osama bin Laden - 9/11 author who defied Bush, Obama
Challenging the might of the "infidel" United States, Osama bin Laden masterminded the deadliest militant attacks in history and then built a global network of allies to wage a "holy war" intended to outlive him.
The man behind the suicide hijack attacks of September 11, 2001, and who U.S. officials said late on Sunday was dead, was the nemesis of former President George W. Bush, who pledged to take him "dead or alive" and whose two terms were dominated by a "war on terror" against his al Qaeda network.
Bin Laden also assailed Bush's successor, Barack Obama, dismissing a new beginning with Muslims he offered in a 2009 speech as sowing "seeds for hatred and revenge against America."
Widely assumed to be hiding in Pakistan -- whether in a mountain cave or a bustling city -- bin Laden was believed to be largely bereft of operational control, under threat from U.S. drone strikes and struggling with disenchantment among former supporters alienated by suicide attacks in Iraq in 2004-06.
Remembering September 11
But even as political and security pressures grew on him in 2009-2101, the Saudi-born militant appeared to hit upon a strategy of smaller, more easily-organized attacks, carried out by globally-scattered hubs of sympathizers and affiliate groups. Al Qaeda sprouted new offshoots in Yemen, Iraq and North Africa and directed or inspired attacks from Bali to Britain to the United States, where a Nigerian Islamist made a botched attempt to down an airliner over Detroit on Dec 25, 2009. While remaining the potent figurehead of al Qaeda, bin Laden turned its core leadership from an organisation that executed complex team-based attacks into a propaganda hub that cultivated affiliated groups to organise and strike on their own. With his long grey beard and wistful expression, bin Laden became one of the most instantly recognizable people on the planet, his gaunt face staring out from propaganda videos and framed on a U.S. website offering a $25 million (15 million pounds) bounty.
Officials say U.S. authorities have recovered bin Laden's body, ending the largest manhunt in history involving thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and tens of thousands of Pakistani soldiers in the rugged mountains along the border.
Whether reviled as a terrorist and mass murderer or hailed as the champion of oppressed Muslims fighting injustice and humiliation, bin Laden changed the course of history.
The world's most wanted terrorists
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