Bin Laden DEAD!

From Wikipedia:
"Death of Osama bin Laden."

The death of Osama bin Laden was reported by international news media, as taking place on Monday, May 2, 2011, at approximately 02:30 UTC, and officially announced by U.S. President Barack Obama about an hour later. At about 1:00 a.m. local time on May 2, (19:00 UTC, May 1), United States military forces shot and killed Osama bin Laden after a 40-minute firefight in Kakul,a town in the Abbottabad district of Pakistan, and then seized his body. The operation was carried out by 25 members of the US Navy SEAL DEVGRU unit under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command forces in Pakistan working with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). After careful monitoring of a compound suspected to be bin Laden's Pakistani residence, U.S. military forces were sent across the border of Afghanistan to launch the attack.Pakistani officials confirmed that bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by the U.S. military. The body was recovered by the U.S. military and was in its possession.ABC News has reported that the body has been identified by DNA testing. However, Reuters reports that DNA test results will be available in the next few days and that bin Laden's body was identified using facial recognition techniques.

The death of bin Laden was celebrated in the United States and welcomed by NATO, the European Union and a large number of countries as a positive and significant turning point for the security of the world. Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood said that the West must pull out of the Middle East following the event. The Hamas administration of the Gaza Strip condemned the killing of a "Muslim and Arab warrior".

American intelligence officials discovered the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden by tracking one of his couriers. Information was collected from Guantánamo Bay detainees, who gave intelligence officers the courier's pseudonym and said that he was a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. In 2007, U.S. officials discovered the courier's real name and in 2009, where he lived. In August 2010, the courier's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was located at34.187666°N 73.24262°ECoordinates: 34.187666°N 73.24262°E. Using satellite photos and intelligence reports, the CIA surmised the inhabitants of the mansion. In September, the CIA concluded that the compound was "custom built to hide someone of significance" and that bin Laden's residence there was very likely. Officials guessed that he was living there with his youngest wife. Built in 2005, the million-dollar three-story mansion was located on an "imposing hilltop" on the outer bounds of the city,and had high security. About eight times the size of nearby houses, it was surrounded by 12-to-18-foot (3.7-5.5 m) concrete walls topped with barbed wire. There were two security gates and the third-floor balcony had a seven-foot-high (2.1 m) privacy wall.[13] Its residents burned their trash, unlike their neighbors, who simply set it out for collection. The compound was located a few hundred yards from Pakistan Military Academy (PMA.)

President Obama met with his security advisors on March 14, 2011, in the first of five security meetings over six weeks. On April 29, at 8:20 a.m., Obama convened with Thomas Donilon, John O. Brennan, and other security advisers in the Diplomatic Room, where he authorized a raid of the Abbottabad compound. The government of Pakistan was not informed of this decision.

The raid was carried out jointly by 20–25 helicopter-borne United States Navy SEALs under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command in cooperation with the CIA. According to Obama administration officials, U.S. officials did not share information about the raid with the government of Pakistan before the operation but did notify Pakistan after its successful completion. According to the Pakistani foreign ministry, the operation was conducted entirely by the U.S. forces, however, Pakistan ISI officials stated that they were also present at what they called a joint operation. The SEALs stormed the compound at approximately 1 a.m. local time (20:00, May 1 (UTC)) and engaged bin Laden and his men in a firefight.Osama bin Laden was shot in the head.The raid lasted about 40 minutes and three other men present at the compound were also reportedly killed in the operation, including an adult son of bin Laden. The helicopter that the SEALs used to breach the mansion walls suffered a mechanical breakdown and could not fly the team out. They burned the helicopter to secure intelligence and carried bin Laden's body out of the compound on foot. The other two men were reported to be couriers for bin Laden. A woman was also reported killed in the operation; according to an unnamed U.S. official, one of the men had tried to use her as a human shield.[24] Two other women were injured.Karachi's Geo News described a helicopter crash and "heavy firing" on the evening of May 1 "near the PMA Kakul Road". Details of the raid, observed from a distance, were tweeted by a resident of Abbottabad, who did not know what was happening. According to a U.S. official on May 2, bin Laden's body was handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition and was buried at sea soon after his death.

An unnamed Pakistani government official confirmed to Agence France-Presse on May 2 that bin Laden was killed in the operation. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan issued a statement on May 2 denying that bin Laden had been killed. Hours later, Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said that if bin Laden had, in fact, been killed, it was, "a great victory for us because martyrdom is the aim of all of us" and vowed to take revenge on Pakistan and the United States. Bin Laden's body was buried at sea less than a day after his death. A burial at sea also leaves no definitive location, thus preventing a burial site from becoming a "terrorist shrine". The Guardian has questioned whether bin Laden's grave would have been a shrine, as that concept is rejected by Wahhabism. It quotes a U.S. official explaining the difficulty of finding a country that would accept the burial of bin Laden in its soil.

Numerous allegations were made that the government of Pakistan was involved in shielding bin Laden. Aspects of the incident that have fueled the allegations include the close location of bin Laden's heavily fortified compound to the Pakistan Military Academy, that the United States apparently did not notify the Pakistani authorities before the operation, and the alleged double standards of Pakistan regarding the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Pakistani-born British MP Khalid Mahmood stated that he was "flabbergasted and shocked" after he learned that bin Laden was living in a city with thousands of Pakistani troops, reviving questions about alleged links between al-Qaeda and elements in Pakistan's security forces.Senator Lindsey Graham questioned “How could [bin Laden] be in such a compound without being noticed?” raising suspicions that Pakistan was either uncommitted in the fight against Islamist militants or was actively sheltering them while pledging to fight them.

^ This is the best news we have had in a very long time. The fact that bin Laden is dead shows that sometimes justice can be done. I am especially glad that he was killed by Americans since he specifically targeted us and now we targeted and got him. I am also glad that he was killed and not captured as now there is no chance he can get away - at least now he won't get his 40 virgins because he didn't die a martyr. He died "hiding" out in the open at a mansion living just like a capitalist. I do not think we should have given him an Islamic burial as it looks like we are honoring him. We should have wrapped his body in bacon and set it on-fire. Regardless what happens now the fact is bin Laden is dead! ^

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden