US President Barak Obama announced on May 2 that Al Qaeda Leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a home near Islamabad in Pakistan.
The world’s most wanted terrorist, responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US that left thousands of people dead, was reportedly gunned down in a US military operation.
“Justice has been done,’’ Mr Obama said.
The joy of the news of Osama’s death started from the White House and spread around the US and the world amidst tight security measures at all US diplomatic missions.
Former President George W Bush, under whose watch the 9/11 incidents took place, issued a statement hailing the death of the terrorist as a momentous achievement.
“The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message that ‘No matter how long it takes, justice will be done. I congratulate the President and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission,” he said.
India’s Home Minister Palaniyappan Chidambaram said, “We take note with grave concern that as per the statement of President Obama, the fire fight in which Osama bin Laden was killed took place in Abbottabad, deep inside Pakistan. This fact underlines our concern that terrorists belonging to different organisations find sanctuary in Pakistan.”
Major boost
Osama’s death is a major victory for Mr Obama, whose popularity as President has been on the wane. Observers say that the death of the terrorist will boost the chances of Mr Obama securing a second-term in office at the 2012 US Presidential Elections.
It also signalled a major victory for Obama’s AfPak, a neologism, which the US uses to refer to Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single theatre of operations in its war against terrorism.
The development came just four months before the 10th Anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, organised by Osama and Al Qaeda.
The attacks set off a chain of events that led the US to strike against the Talibans in Afghanistan (2001) and Sadam Hussein in Iraq (2003). The 9/11 attacks also forced the US to overhaul its intelligence apparatus and establish the new Department of Homeland Security.
The US also blamed Al Qaeda for the August 1998 bombings of its two embassies in Africa killing 231 people and the October 12, 2000 attack on the US Navy destroyer USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors in Yemen.
