Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been killed after US forces raided his hiding place in Pakistan. President Barack Obama said it was, ‘the most significant achievement to date in our efforts to defeat Al-Qaeda’.
On Sunday a team of US forces undertook the operation in Abbottabad, a sleepy hollow 150 kilometres from Peshawar and home to the PMA – Pakistan Military Academy – their Sandhurst. Incredibly Bin Laden was living just 1000 yards away from the academy in a built up complex! Not in some mountain cave as most people thought.
After a fire fight Bin Laden was killed and his body recovered. No US soldiers were killed in the operation. Bin Laden’s body has been identified and has been buried at sea.
Despite being the most wanted man in the world, with a bounty of $25 million on his head, Bin Laden has successfully eluded capture for 10 years since 9/11 (and before then as well). Today thousands of Americans are celebrating news which they thought would never come.
Reaction to the News
A last Americans feel as if they have got some sort of justice, it is significant that it was the Americans who found him. America has struggled to recover from the events of 9/11. Perhaps Americans can now find some closure for that terrible event.
Bin Laden’s death is a vital symbolic victory for America and for US president Barack Obama. In the years since 9/11 the west and America has struggled. There has been a major recession, stock markets are lower. There has been a sense of the declining power of the West. Will today’s events help reverse this?
Terrorism Expert Michael Yardley said,
Bin Laden killed more Afghans than Americans. He used Islam as a screen for his own, evil, crusade. There are only a tiny number of Al Qaeda operating in Afghanistan now – maybe 100. We should not revel in his death too much though, the war isn’t over yet.
Experts and US officials have warned about the possibility of reprisal attacks. But a senior US official said, ‘the loss of Bin Laden puts the group on a path of decline that will be difficult to reverse’. Ayman al-Zawahiri, previously Al-Qaeda’s number 2 remains at large. He is much more heavily involved in Al-Qaeda’s day to day operations than Bin Laden ever was in recent years. He is not however thought to be as popular or as charismatic as Bin Laden.