Insider tip leads US to Osama Bin Laden

The tip that landed Osama bin Laden came to light in August. It was a "great lead," a federal law enforcement source told Fox News. Officials wouldn't know how good it was until months later. After an exhaustive streak of intelligence gathering and high-level meetings that tip resulted on Sunday in the death of the world's most wanted terrorist at US hands.

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Though President Obama gave only sparse details of the operation in his surprise address to the nation on Sunday night, officials filled in the blanks where they could about the mission that brought to justice the man responsible for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and countless acts of violence around the world.

Though bin Laden was pursued throughout the George W Bush administration, President Obama renewed the effort on June 2, 2009, when he signed a memo to CIA director Leon Panetta ordering a "detailed operation plan" for finding and capturing bin Laden. More than a year later, what Obama described as a "possible lead" came in. Senior administration officials said they had been tracking an Al-Qaeda courier in bin Laden's inner circle. Two years ago, the US determined the areas in Pakistan where he operated. By August, they had determined the exact location in Abbottabad, Pakistan -- where bin Laden was apparently hiding out in a sprawling compound on the outskirts of town

One US official said the compound was built over a six-year period. The intelligence community, led by the CIA, concluded it was custom-built to house someone of bin Laden's stature. It was enclosed by a high wall topped with barbed wire, and protected by two security gates. Officials said that by February, they determined they would pursue the compound. This touched off a series of high-level meetings to develop a course of action.

According to one senior administration official, the president convened at least nine meetings with his top national security leaders. Those advisers met formally another five times, in addition to countless briefings among the National Security Council, CIA, Pentagon and Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president was actively involved at all levels, the official said. The federal law enforcement source said that by last week, it seemed "this might be the real deal."

The president must have felt the same way. At 8:20 am on April 29, before he left for Alabama to survey storm damage, Obama authorised the operation to target bin Laden. By Sunday, a "small team" of special operations forces was in Pakistan for the final mission. That mission was the all-day focus of national security staff.

According to one official, national security leaders were in the Situation Room since 1 pm on Sunday. The rest of the afternoon went as follows:

At 2 pm, Obama met with the team to review final preparations.

At 3:32 pm, he returned to the Situation Room for an additional briefing.

At 3:50 pm, he learned that bin Laden had been tentatively identified.

At 7:01 pm, the president learned there was a "high probability" the target was bin Laden.

At 8:30 pm, Obama received more briefings.

In Abbottabad, a senior US defence official said the actual operation took place at 3:30 pm ET.

Officials said three adult men other than bin Laden were killed – one was believed to be bin Laden's son, the others couriers. Two women were also injured, the officials said. No Americans were killed, though the US did lose a helicopter that went down due to mechanical failure. An official said the Pakistanis were not involved in the raid but helped provide information that led to it. Intelligence was also provided by detainees.

Osama's six children, two wives held in Pakistan
Islamabad: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's six children and two wives have been arrested in Pakistan, a media report said.

Osama bin Laden was killed on Monday in a security operation in Pakistan's Abbotabad city, less than 100 km from the Pakistan capital.

Sources said Osama's six children, two wives and four close friends were arrested during a search operation launched early Monday morning by the Pakistani forces in a mountainous area located some 60 km north of Pakistan's capital Islamabad, Xinhua qouted Dunya TV as saying.

Bin Laden's son shot down a U.S. helicopter

It said Pakistan's army headquarters, when the U.S. military in Pakistan last week hunt No. 1 leader of al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden, the staff met with bin Laden's residence in the desperate resistance. It was witnessed by U.S. military helicopter gunship shot down bin Laden's son.

It said Pakistan's army headquarters, the U.S. military has dispatched a four armed helicopters launched the attack on the residence of bin Laden •. With bin Laden and his son and shelter in exchange of fire with other officers, including a helicopter was shot down. After the U.S. media have reported that the U.S. military operations in the "no casualties. " The Pakistani military said the claim into question.


Osama bin Laden was holed up in a two-story house 100 yards from a Pakistani military academy when four helicopters carrying U.S. forces swooped early Monday, killing the world's most wanted man and leaving his final hiding place in flames, Pakistani officials and a witness said.

They said bin Laden's guards opened fire from the roof of the compound in the small northwestern town of Abbottabad, and one of the choppers crashed. However U.S. officials said no Americans were hurt in the operation. The sound of at least two explosions rocked Abbottabad as the fighting raged.

Abbottabad is home to three Pakistan army regiments and thousands of military personnel and is dotted with military buildings. The discovery that bin Laden's was living in an army town in Pakistan raises pointed questions about how he managed to evade capture and even whether Pakistan's military and intelligence leadership knew of his whereabouts and sheltered him.

Critics have long accused elements of Pakistan's security establishment of protecting bin Laden, though Islamabad has always denied this. Army and government officials gave no formal comment Monday.

Most intelligence assessments believed bin Laden was holed up somewhere along the lawless border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, possibly in a cave and sheltered by loyal tribesmen. That region is remote, homes to soaring mountains and the Pakistan state has little or no presence in much of it.

It was not known how long bin Laden had been in Abbottabad, which is surrounded by hills and is less than half a days drive from the border region with Afghanistan and two hours from the capital, Islamabad.

It was also unclear how much of a role - if any - Pakistani security forces played in the operation. A Pakistani official said the choppers took off from Ghazi air base in northwest Pakistan, where the U.S. army was based to help out in the aftermath of the floods in 2010.

Pakistani officials said a son of bin Laden and three other people were killed.

Other unidentified males were taken by helicopter away from the scene, while four children and two woman left in an ambulance, the official said.

Abbottabad resident Mohammad Haroon Rasheed said the raid happened about 1:15 a.m. local time.

"I heard a thundering sound, followed by heavy firing. Then firing suddenly stopped. Then more thundering, then a big blast," he said. "In the morning when we went out to see what happened, some helicopter wreckage was lying in an open field."

He said the house was 100 meters (yards) away from the gate of the Kakul Military Academy, an army run institution where top officers train. A Pakistan intelligence official said the property where bin Laden was staying was 3,000 square feet.

A Pakistani official in the town said fighters on the roof opened fire on the choppers as they came close to the building with rocket propelled grenades. Another official said four helicopters took off from the Ghazi air base in northwest Pakistan.

Last summer, the U.S. army was based in Ghazi to help out in the aftermath of the floods.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Pakistan has in the past cooperated with the CIA in arresting al-Qaida suspects on its soil, but relations between its main intelligence agency and the CIA had been very strained in recent months amid tensions over the future of Afghanistan.

In late January, a senior Indonesian al-Qaida operative, Umar Patek, was arrested at another location in Abbottabad.

News of his arrest only broke in late March. A Pakistani intelligence official said its officers were led to the house where Patek was staying after they arrested an al-Qaida facilitator, Faisal Shahzad, who worked at the post office there.

Bin laden killed: Dramatic reconstruction of how hit squad finally took out Bin Laden

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Almost ten years after the horror of 9/11, Osama bin Laden must have thought he was safe.
He had moved from the remote, barren mountains on Afghanistan's inhospitable border to a comfortable $1million mansion in one of Pakistan's most picturesque and affluent cities.
Abbottabad - named after James Abbott, the British major who founded the town in 1853 - has such a pleasant climate that it is a major hub for tourists visiting the region.
And the former home of the Gurkhas is still a major military base so locals have no reason to feel threatened.
Behind the walls of his sprawling compound about 60 miles north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, Bin Laden had every reason to believe he was way beyond the searching eyes of the Americans he had taunted for so long.
His family was with him and a parade of couriers would bring him everything he needed from the city outside of more than a million people.
So confident was he that the huge three-storey house he was living in was eight times larger than most other homes in the area, hardly a low-profile hideaway for the most wanted man in the world.
But, according to U.S. intelligence sources, Bin Laden was taken completely by surprise by the special forces who had spent the best part of a decade stalking him.

He had, after all, survived two wars launched with the aim of capturing him and his followers.
The last time the Americans and the British got as close - a few months after the attacks on New York and Washington - Bin Laden managed to elude them on horseback through the caves and gullies in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
For most of the past ten years, Bin Laden lived up to the nickname of 'Elvis' he had been given by the CIA because there had been so many bogus and fanciful sightings.
But as long ago as last August, President Obama was told in an intelligence briefing that there was a possible lead that Bin Laden was hiding in plain sight in Abbottabad.

It took eight months for U.S. and Pakistani agents to confirm for certain that the information was accurate.

Meticulous: Initial intelligence about bin Laden's location in Abottabad first emerged in August

Mr Obama and his national security chiefs wanted to be absolutely sure because the tip seemed so implausible.

After so many dead end enquiries, it was hard to believe that the elusive Al Qaeda chief would be so brazen as to live in a town favoured as a retirement spot for Pakistan's military and society elite.
The ten-foot walls and heavy security surrounding the compound made verification all the more difficult.

But a week ago, Mr Obama was given concrete photographic proof that Bin Laden was there.
After several run-throughs and the diplomatic blessing of the Pakistani government, a small special forces team of U.S. Navy Seals landed in the compound grounds yesterday with the explicit instruction - get Osama bin Laden, dead or alive.
The raid on the compound, which was just 100 yards from a Pakistani military academy, was launched at about 1.15am in the morning, according to witnesses. Four U.S. helicopters took off from the Ghazi air base in northwest Pakistan.
Bin Laden's guards opened fire from the roof and one of the helicopters crashed.

During an operation that took just 40 minutes from start to finish, Bin Laden was shot in the head in a firefight as he tried to evade capture. Three of his men were also killed along with a woman they tried to use as a human shield. One of Bin Laden's eleven sons was said to be among the dead.

Stormed: An image from Geo TV shows flames from the compound where terror mastermind Bin Laden was shot

No Americans were hurt in the mission, but it didn't go without a hitch.

The helicopter they used to breach the mansion walls suffered a mechanical breakdown and couldn't fly the soldiers out.
The Seals burned the helicopter and had to carry Bin Laden's body out on foot, an ignominious ending for the terrorist chief after one of history's biggest manhunts.
It was also a major triumph for a special CIA and special forces team of up to 100 whose mission since September 11 has been to find and kill Bin Laden.

For years, they have had to brave the jibes aimed at both the Bush and Obama administrations over the failure to track down the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.
They worked closely with the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service for whom many CIA officials have a deep mistrust because of the agency's traditional ties with the Pashtuns of Waziristan, who were believed to have harboured Bin Laden for some of his years on the run.
After he evaded capture in mid-December 1991, there were precious few credible leads of his wherebouts.
But about four years ago, CIA agents managed to identify one of his most trusted couriers after a detainee at Guantanamo Bay gave them his nickname.
It took another two years for them to discover the area where the courier and his brother were operating.
By January this year, they found out that the courier and his brother were living in a mansion that appeared to be much larger than anything they could afford.
Suspicions were raised further by the thick walls around the compound.

Mission: U.S. President Barack Obama announces that America's most wanted man is dead

While other homes in the area put rubbish out to be collected, the trash was burned in the ground of the mansion, which did not have a telephone or internet service.
By February, U.S. intelligence officials were confident that Bin Laden and his family were living there and by March, Mr Obama was convening top secret meeting with his senior security staff.
The CIA believe that for many years before settling in Abbottabad, Bin Laden moved from village to village in Waziristan. He communicated only about once a month and never used a telephone.
When he reached a village with his bodyguards he would request a meeting with the local tribal leader and a substantial bribe would be paid.
Bin Laden would then be the guest of the village, where under Pashtun custom, he must be protected.
The main obstacle in finding him was that even if someone wanted to betray him and collect the $25 million reward - there was no one to turn to.

The local police would know Bin Laden was there and if anyone tried to report his presence they would quite likely be killed.

One local mullah from Waziristan agreed to send information about Bin Laden's movements and his beheaded body was found several weeks later with a message that his was the fate of spies.
While Operation Enduring Freedom was successful in liberating Afghanistan from Taliban control after 9/11, there was no doubt that the real prize was Bin Laden himself.
But the Al Qaeda chief had chosen his first redoubt with care. For several years before 2001, he had developed an intricate network of caves and dwellings 14,000ft up in the settlement known as Tora Bora.

The impenetrable mountains not only made it difficult for anybody to track him, they were also just a few miles from Pakistan, allowing him to escape easily as western troops moved in.
The commander of one U.S. military force told the '60 Minutes' news show how soldiers under his command found Bin Laden - but let him slip through their fingers.
The commander, calling himself Dalton Fury, expressed his frustration at having known where Bin Laden was, but feeling he was powerless to do anything.
At one point, he said, his forces were closing in on Bin Laden's men - but he decided to abort the mission because he did not have support from Afghan troops.
And in another incident Delta soldiers actually saw a tall man dressed in camouflage that they believed was Bin Laden - only to have the Al Qaeda leader escape their bombing campaign in the mountains.
Fury talked about a book he has written entitled 'Kill Bin Laden', detailing his memories of the campaign in Tora Bora in 2001.
'Our job was to go find him, capture or kill him, and we knew the writing on the wall was to kill him because nobody wanted to bring Osama bin Laden back to stand trial in the United States somewhere,' the mission commander told his interviewer.
He said the administration's strategy was to let Afghans do most of the fighting, however.
Using radio intercepts and other intelligence, he said, the CIA pinpointed Bin Laden's location in the Tora Bora mountains near Pakistan.
Fury's Delta team joined the CIA and Afghan fighters and piled into pick-up trucks. He claimed their orders were to kill Bin Laden and leave the body with the Afghans, keeping an Afghan face on the war.
However an audacious plan to come at Bin Laden from the back door was vetoed higher-up - Fury claimed he was never sure who.
And a second plan to drop hundreds of landmines over any escape route into Pakistan was also vetoed, with Fury claiming he had no idea why.
The only option left was a frontal assault. Fury said he had 50 men in Delta force up against Bin Laden's 1,000 - support from the Afghan forces was needed.

But, he claimed, many of the Afghan soldiers were not on board - seeing Bin Laden as a hero.

One night - alone without his Afghan allies - Fury said he was told Bin Laden was two kilometres away. Faced with overwhelming odds, he elected to stay away.

But the decision always nagged him. He wrote in his book: 'My decision to abort that effort to kill or capture Bin Laden when we might have been within 2,000 metres of him, about 2,000 yards, still bothers me.
'It leaves me with a feeling of somehow letting down our nation at a critical time.' But, he added, it wasn't worth the risk.
Fury had a second chance: Later, a Delta force named Jackal radioed they had Bin Laden in sight.

He wrote: 'The operation Jackal team observed 50 men moving into a cave that they hadn't seen before. The mujahideen said they saw an individual, a taller fellow, wearing a camouflage jacket. Everybody put two and two together, "okay, that's got to be Osama bin Laden egressing from the battlefield".
'They called up every available bomb in the air, took control of the airspace. And they dropped several hours of bombs on the cave he went into.

'We believe, it was our opinion at the time, that he died inside that cave.'
Later, however, he was proven wrong, when American forces were unable to find Bin Laden's body and the Al Qaeda leader began releasing radio and video footage again.

Fury told 60 Minutes he believes he knows what happened.
He said Bin Laden was wounded in the shoulder by shrapnel from an American bomb, and was then hidden a town next to the Al Qaeda cemetery.

'We believe a gentleman brought him in - a gentleman, him and his family were supporting Al Qaeda during the battle. They were providing food, ammo, water.

'We think he went to that house, received medical attention for a few days then, and then we believe they put him in a vehicle and moved him back across the pass,' he was quoted as saying.

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A crowd of perhaps 1,000 has gathered in lower Manhattan at the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

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Special Report: Death of Osama Bin Laden

With chants of "USA, USA," revelers celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden, the man behind the attacks, have spilled into the street, bringing traffic to a standstill.

"It's like the World Series down here," CBS News chief national correspondent Byron Pitts reported from the celebration.

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Osama Bin Laden is dead

Osama Bin Laden Dead Picture

For Ashley Smith, the news of Bin Laden's death brings a bit of closure. She worked two blocks from Ground Zero on the day of the attacks and was forced to run from her office for safety when the buildings collapsed. She joined the impromptu rally in lower Manhattan.

Key dates in the hunt for Osama bin Laden

She was skeptical of the U.S.'s response initially but now says it was all worth it. "I felt like we had all of our money fighting this endless war over there, now it totally validates it," said Smith.

Diane Massaroli lost her husband, Michael, nearly 10 years ago on 9/11. She only comes to Ground Zero once a year on the anniversary of the attacks but felt compelled to come tonight.

"We can never celebrate ever since this happened. [Tonight] is sad also but it's a celebration," Massaroli said.

President Barack Obama said in an address from the White House late Sunday night that a small team of Americans carried out the operation to kill bin Laden in Pakistan, and that cooperation from Pakistani authorities was crucial.

"Shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda," Mr. Obama said. "Tonight, we can say to those who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda's terror, justice has been done."

Osama bin Laden Killed; ID Confirmed by DNA Testing

Osama bin Laden, hunted as the mastermind behind the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, has been killed, President Obama announced tonight.

The president called the killing of bin Laden the "most significant achievement to date" in the effort to defeat al Qaeda.

Bin Laden was located at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which was monitored and when the time was determined to be right, the president said, he authorized a "targeted operation."

"A small team of Americans carried out the operation," Obama said. "After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."

DNA testing confirmed that it was bin Laden, sources told ABC News.

Sources said the attack was carried out by Joint Special Operations Command forces working with the CIA.

A Pakistani intelligence official tells ABC News that this was a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation and that last night at 1:30am local time, two American helicopters swooped into Abbottabad, a town about 100 miles from Islamabad.

One of the helicopters was shot down, according to this Pakistani official.

Vice President Biden briefed Republican congressional leaders this evening on the operation, which had been kept secret until shortly before the president's announcement tonight.

Former President George W. Bush said in a statement tonight that Obama called him to inform him of the news of bin Laden's death.

Bush called the operation a "momentous achievement" that "marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.

"I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude," the former president said in a statement. "The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done."

Outside the White House, a crowd of about 200 people has gathered with American flags. They are singing the Star Spangled banner and chanting "USA USA"

His death brings to an end a tumultuous life that saw bin Laden go from being the carefree son of a Saudi billionaire, to terrorist leader and the most wanted man in the world.

Bin Laden created and funded the al Qaeda terror network, which was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The Saudi exile had been a man on the run since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan overthrew the ruling Taliban regime, which harbored bin Laden.

In a video filmed two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden gloated about the attack, saying it had exceeded even his "optimistic" calculations.

"Our terrorism is against America. Our terrorism is a blessed terrorism to prevent the unjust person from committing injustice and to stop American support for Israel, which kills our sons," he said in the video.

Long before the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden was known as an enemy of the United States. He was suspected of playing large roles in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. Embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden in October 2000.

In addition, authorities say bin Laden and his al Qaeda network were involved in previous attacks against U.S. interests -- including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, failed plots to kill President Clinton and the pope, and attacks on U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and Somalia.

Bin Laden also used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines and Afghanistan, sending "holy warriors" to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.

Until the capture of one of his top al Qaeda lieutenants in March 2003, there had been no confirmation of his whereabouts -- or even that he was still alive -- since late 2001, when he appeared in a series of videotapes later released to news organizations.

In recent years, several audio recordings of bin Laden have been authenticated by U.S. officials and made public. In an 18-minute videotape weeks before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, bin Laden threatened fresh attacks on the United States as well as his intent to push America into bankruptcy.

Young Man With a Privileged Life

Born in 1957, bin Laden was a son of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest construction magnate. Saudi sources remembered him as a typical young man whose intense religiosity began to emerge as he grew fascinated with the ancient mosques of Mecca and Medina, which his family's company was involved in rebuilding.

Bin Laden attended schools in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, and was encouraged to marry early, at the age of 17, to a Syrian girl and family relation. She was to be the first of several wives. He attended King Abdul-Aziz University and was slated to join the family business. He soon chose a different path, however.

Former classmates of bin Laden recall him as a frequent patron of nightclubs, who drank and caroused with his Saudi royalty cohorts. Yet it was also at the university that bin Laden met the Muslim fundamentalist Sheik Abdullah Azzam, perhaps his first teacher of religious politics and his earliest radical influence.

Azzam spoke fervently of the need to liberate Islamic nations from foreign interests and interventions, and he indoctrinated his disciples in the strictest tenets of the Muslim faith. Bin Laden, however, would eventually cultivate a brand of militant religious extremism that exceeded his teacher's.

He began his relationship with fundamental Islamic groups in the early 1970s. His religious passion exploded in 1979 when Russia invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden left his comfortable Saudi home for Afghanistan to participate in the Afghan jihad, or holy war, against the Soviet Union -- a cause that the United States funded, pouring $3 billion into the Afghan resistance via the CIA.

Turning Against the Saudi Elite

His active opposition to the Soviet Union and his monetary support in purchasing arms, establishing training camps, and building houses, roads and other infrastructure, cemented his position as a hero among many people.

In 1988, he and the Egyptians founded al Qaeda, ("The Base"), a network initially designed to build fighting power for the Afghan resistance.

Bin Laden's politics became more radical during the war. Upon returning to his home in Saudi Arabia, he was widely honored as a hero. But he returned to a country that he perceived had stepped away from the fundamentals of Islam. He declared the Saudi ruling family "insufficiently Islamic" and increasingly advocated the use of violence to force movement toward extremism.

Bin Laden saw American influence in Saudi Arabia as counter to everything he believed. He fell into disfavor with the Saudi government and moved his family to Sudan where he established terrorist camps -- training and equipping terrorists from a dozen countries.

Bin Laden would not compromise his religious beliefs and after three years of continued criticism of the Saudi royal family, his own family disowned him.

Saudi Arabia stripped bin Laden of his citizenship in the mid-'90s for his alleged activities against the royal family, after he had left the country for Sudan. He later was expelled from Sudan under U.S., Egyptian and Saudi pressure. In 1996, he took refuge in Afghanistan.

Back to Afghanistan

Former mujahideen commanders close to the Taliban said that, in Afghanistan, bin Laden bankrolled the hard-line Islamic militia's capture of Kabul under the leadership of Mullah Mohammed Omar. He became one of Omar's most trusted advisers.

One of bin Laden's main strengths among the Muslim people was that followers saw him as a true believer in the faith. In their eyes he transcended other leaders who are viewed as dictators who care little for Islam or the people they lead. Bin Laden entered their lives with a message they can follow and he had the cash at his disposal to carry out that message.

Bin Laden was said to personally control about $300 million of his family's $5 billion fortune. His role as a financier of terrorism is pivotal, experts said, because he revolutionized the financing of extremist movements by forming and funding his own private terror network.

In 1998, he issued an edict openly declared war on America: "We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it."

Bin Laden committed himself to expelling all Americans and Jews from Muslim holy lands. "Osama bin Laden may be the most dangerous non-state terrorist in the world," Sandy Berger, President Clinton's national security adviser, told ABC News.

Most Wanted Man on Earth

His place in American history is relatively new, but in a short time he left a violent mark.

In 1993, bin Laden was linked by U.S. officials to the bombing of the World Trade Center that killed six people. He is also believed to have orchestrated at least a dozen attacks, some successful, some not. Among the worst of these were two truck bombings, both on Aug. 7, 1998, of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Clinton responded with cruise missile attacks on suspected al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. In November 1998, the U.S. State Department promised $5 million to anyone with information leading to bin Laden's arrest.

Despite attempts to apprehend him, bin Laden eluded the American government and continued plotting against it.

The same group, with bin Laden at the helm, is widely believed to be responsible for the October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole.

Then came the stunning Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. On a clear, late-summer morning, two hijacked commercial jets flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. About an hour later, another hijacked airliner slammed into the Pentagon in the nation's capital. A fourth hijacked jet did not reach its target, crashing in western Pennsylvania instead.

When the massive towers collapsed in flames, nearly 3,000 people perished. Among those lost in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania were the 19 hijackers, most of whom have been linked to al Qaeda operations. Bin Laden denied involvement in the attacks, but he praised the hijackers for their acts. The U.S. government nevertheless regarded the terrorist leader as its prime suspect and stepped up the manhunt.

In March 2005, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf admitted that bin Laden had been in Pakistan in the spring of 2004 and was almost captured. Intelligence officials said they believed he was hiding in the rugged mountains that straddle the border with Afghanistan. The U.S. government even launched a series of television and radio ads in Pakistan trumpeting the $25 million reward for his capture.

In January 2006, a purported Bin Laden audio tape was released where a male voice threatens the United States with more attacks on U.S. soil.

Obama tells nation bin Laden is dead

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Osama bin Laden is shown in Afghanistan, In this April 1998 file photo

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, President Barack Obama said Sunday

A small team of Americans carried out the attack and took custody of bin Laden's remains, the president said in a dramatic late-night statement at the White House.

A jubilant crowd gathered outside the White House as word spread of bin Laden's death after a global manhunt that lasted nearly a decade.

"Justice has been done," the president said.

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.