Al Qaeda leader Bin Laden dead — US officials

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD: Osama Bin Laden is dead and his body has been recovered by US authorities, US and Pakistani officials said on Sunday.
US President Barack Obama was to make the dramatic announcement shortly in a hastily called, late-night appearance at the White House.
A senior US counterterrorism official said Bin Laden was killed in a ground operation in Pakistan, not by a Predator drone. The official said it happened last week.
In Islamabad, a senior Pakistani intelligence official confirmed that Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.
Officials have 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.
It is a major accomplishment for Obama and his national security team. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, had repeatedly vowed to bring to justice the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, but never did before leaving office in early 2009.
US officials said that after searching in vain for the Al-Qaeda leader since he disappeared in Afghanistan in late 2001, the Saudi-born extremist is dead and his body recovered.
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 US 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 Sept. 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.