Osama bin Laden Killed
On May 2, 2011 (local time in Pakistan, where it was already the early hours), US Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of al-Qaeda, in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The operation ended a manhunt that had lasted nearly a decade after the September 11, 2001 attacks, and it was widely seen as the most significant symbolic victory of the American-led "war on terror."
Bin Laden, a Saudi-born son of a wealthy construction family, had helped organize Arab volunteers during the Soviet-Afghan war of the 1980s and went on to found al-Qaeda. The group claimed responsibility for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people. After the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, bin Laden escaped, and his whereabouts remained unknown for years. A failed attempt to catch him in the Tora Bora mountains became a lasting source of criticism of US strategy.
The breakthrough came through intelligence work that traced a trusted courier to a large, unusually secured compound in Abbottabad, a garrison town not far from Pakistan's capital. Analysts could not confirm who lived there, and officials were divided about how certain they were. President Barack Obama authorized a raid, and SEAL team members flew in by helicopter from Afghanistan. One helicopter was damaged in a hard landing and was destroyed by the team afterward. The assault lasted a short time; bin Laden and several others were killed, and his body was taken away and buried at sea. The Pakistani government was not told in advance.
The raid strained relations between Washington and Islamabad. Many Americans wondered how bin Laden could have lived for years so close to a military academy, and Pakistani officials denied knowing he was there. Historians and analysts still debate whether anyone in Pakistan's establishment had knowledge of his presence; no conclusive public evidence has settled the question. Details of the raid itself, including the precise circumstances of the shooting, have also been disputed in various accounts by participants.
Bin Laden's death did not end al-Qaeda or international terrorism. The organization had already become decentralized, with affiliates in Yemen, North Africa, and elsewhere, and new groups such as the Islamic State later eclipsed it in prominence. Still, the killing gave many people, especially families of 9/11 victims, a sense of closure, and it gave Obama a political boost. It also fed ongoing debates about intelligence, interrogation methods, sovereignty, and the long-term cost of the wars that followed the 2001 attacks.