WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says Osama bin Laden, the
glowering mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that
killed thousands of Americans, was killed in an operation led by the
United States.
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| FILE - This undated photo shows al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. A person familiar with developments on Sunday, May 1, 2011 says bin Laden is dead and the U.S. has the body.( AP Photo) |
A small team of Americans carried out the attack and
took custody of bin Laden's remains, the president said Sunday in a
dramatic late-night statement at the White House.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11
attacks against the United States, is dead, and the U.S. is in
possession of his body, a person familiar with the situation said late
Sunday.
President Barack Obama was expected to address the nation on the developments Sunday night.
Two senior counterterrorism officials confirmed that
bin Laden was killed in Pakistan last week. One said bin Laden was
killed in a ground operation, not by a Predator drone. Both said the
operation was based on U.S. intelligence, and both said the U.S. is in
possession of bin Laden's body.
Officials long believed bin Laden, the most wanted
man in the world, was hiding a mountainous region along the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak ahead of the president.
The development comes just months before the tenth
anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centers and
Pentagon, orchestrated by bin Laden's al-Qaida organization, that killed
more than 3,000 people.
The attacks set off a chain of events that led the
United States into wars in Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and America's
entire intelligence apparatus was overhauled to counter the threat of
more terror attacks at home.
Al-Qaida organization was also blamed for the 1998
bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 231 people and the
2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen, as
well as countless other plots, some successful and some foiled.
The Associate Press
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