Bin Laden Dead, U.S. Official Says
By HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON — Osama bin Laden has been killed, two United States officials said. President Obama was expected to make an announcement on Sunday night, almost ten years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
One of the officials said that American forces, acting on intelligence, launched a “targeted assault” that killed Mr. Bin Laden, whose ability to elude capture for so long deeply frustrated the Bush administration.
The news of the death of the leader of Al Qaeda was bound to electrify the world, particularly as it comes a full decade after American forces, under President Bush, launched their all-out assault to find the man responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
The death of Mr. Bin Laden is a huge punctuation in the American-led war on terrorism. What remains to be seen is whether the death of the leader of Al Qaeda galvanizes his followers by turning him into a martyr, or whether it serves as a turning of the page in the war in Afghanistan and gives further impetus to the Obama administration to bring American troops home.
