The curtain is just beginning to rise on the scope and power of the world's most-wanted terrorist one week after U.S. Navy SEALs killed him during a daring nighttime raid.New details have been released almost daily since a team of American commandos stormed bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Islamabad, killing him and four others.For Americans, and much of the world, news of the killings brought a sense of relief, even satisfaction.The pain, the frustration, the sadness elicited by the 9/11 attacks have never really left. How could they? For much of the past decade, Americans processed the world through the lens of the worst terrorist attacks ever committed on U.S. soil.Since that attack, citizens of the United States, Britain, Spain and other countries had grown startlingly accustomed to terror strikes and near-misses. Adding to the pain was the ever-growing laundry list of indignities, the "fog of war," and the clarity to know that personal freedoms were eroding in agonizingly public ways.Then it happened. Bin Laden was killed.Read Morehttp://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/08/bin.laden.week.wrap/?hpt=C1
WASHINGTON —President Obama announced late Sunday that Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, was killed in a firefight during an operation he ordered Sunday inside Pakistan, ending a 10-year manhunt for the world’s most wanted terrorist. American officials were in possession of his body, he said.“On nights like this one, ‘’ the president said, “we can say that justice has been done.’’The fate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Al Qaeda number two in command, was unclear.The death of Mr. Bin Laden is a defining moment in the American-led war on terrorism. What remains to be seen is whether the death of the leader of Al Qaeda galvanizes his followers by turning him into a martyr, or whether it serves as a turning of the page in the war in Afghanistan and gives further impetus to the Obama administration to bring American troops home.President Obama said that on Sunday, a small team of U.S. operatives launched a “targeted assault’’ on a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad where months of intelligence work had established that Mr. Bin Laden was living. Mr. Bin Laden was killed after a firefight, and the troops took custody of his body.The killing ended a 10-year manhunt in which Mr. Bin Laden repeatedly eluded his pursuers, deeply frustrating the Bush administration and counterterrorism officials.The news of the death of the leader of Al Qaeda electrified the world — crowds gathered outside the White House, cheering, as they waited for the president to confirm the news. Mr. bin Laden was able to elude capture by hiding out in the mountains of Afghanistan and elsewhere. He initially escaped from Tora Bora in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan after an American invasion routed the Taliban, his protectors.Since then, he issued some 30 messages, in audio, video or electronic text, sometimes taunting, sometimes gloating, sometimes urging new terrorist attacks. Intelligence officials believe the messages were passed from hand to hand repeatedly to obscure any trail back to his hiding place. Even while in hiding, he remained a potent symbolic figure. And American officials believe, based on intercepted communications from second- and third-tier Qaeda operatives, that he also still helped shape Al Qaeda’s strategy.Read More
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