osama bin laden dead!

AP



In this April 1998 file photo, exiled Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden is seen in Afghanistan. (AP)

Usama bin Laden is dead, putting an end to the worldwide manhunt that began nearly a decade ago on Sept. 11, 2001. The architect of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil was killed a week ago inside Pakistan by a U.S. bomb.



President Obama announced the stunning development during an address to the nation late Sunday night from the White House.



“Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Usama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda.”



The U.S. had been waiting for the results of a DNA test to confirm his identity before going public. Sources said the vice president informed congressional leaders late Sunday night that the world’s most wanted man had indeed been killed.



The announcement comes nearly a decade after the 2001 terror attacks which triggered the Afghanistan war and started a tireless hunt for the terrorist mastermind and Al Qaeda leader.









Sources tell Fox News that Usama Bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian–born leader of Al Qaeda is widely known as the most dangerous terrorist on the planet, has been killed.



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 Center towers in New York and Pentagon in Washington, orchestrated by bin Laden's al-Qaeda 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-Qaeda 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.



In light of bin Laden’s death, authorities around the world are being urged to take security precautions. One source said officials are concerned bin Laden’s death could incite violence or terrorist acts against U.S. personnel overseas.