Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, mastermind of the September 11th terrorist attacks and the world’s most wanted man for almost a decade is dead, President Barack Obama is poised to announce.
Mr Obama was due to address the United States and people across the globe shortly after 11pm local time on Sunday night from the East Room of the White House.
He was expected to say that the Saudi-born Islamist had been killed by an American "asset" and that his body was in US custody in Afghanistan.
Military sources said that bin Laden was killed in a mansion outside Islamabad along with other family members after “actionable intelligence” about his whereabouts was received.
Two senior counterterrorism officials confirmed that bin Laden was killed in Pakistan last week. One said bin Laden was killed in a ground operation, not by a Predator drone.
A Pakistani intelligence official confirmed that the al-Qaeda leader had been killed in Pakistan.
Bin Laden was widely assumed to have been hiding in the remote tribal areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The fact that he was killed close to the Pakistani capital will fuel fears that Pakistan has been giving sanctuary to al-Qaeda leaders.
In the days after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush said that bin Laden was wanted “dead or alive” while Vice President Dick Cheney said he would willingly accept the al-Qaeda leader’s head “on a platter”.
But after bin Laden escaped from US forces in the Tora Bora cave complex in April 2002 he eluded the CIA and American forces despite the intense focus on killing or capturing the man responsible for killing 3,000 Americans and others in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania in the worst terrorist attack in US history.
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