Mary Whitfill
Features Editor
Osama bin Laden, perpetrator of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, was announced dead Sunday night. Bin Laden was killed by a CIA-led operation. The United States has announced that they have the body of the terrorist leader and DNA testing confirmed his identity.
Bin Laden was killed in a ground attack by Joint Special Operations Command forces working with the Central Intelligence Agency. Leon Panetta, CIA director, called members of Congress to describe the killing and President Obama has made the announcement on national TV.
“Tonight I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that has killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda,” Obama said.
Bin Laden was on the FBI’s most wanted fugitives list even before the 9/11 attacks. His name has been one of immense interest since 1993, when he engaged in a firefight with U.S. soldiers outside of Somalia. His other offenses include the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed 224 in August 1998 and an attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in October 2000. In 1997, Bin Laden declared a “holy war” on the United States.
Bin Laden has been avoiding U.S. capture for years, since hours after the 9/11 attacks when proof surfaced that he headed the operation. It was only six days after the attacks that President Bush announced he was the number one suspect. Two months following the attacks, bin Laden released a video claiming that the result of the incident had reached beyond his “optimistic” expectations.
