WASHINGTON (AP) –
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.