It's official: Osama bin-Laden is dead, says Obama

Al-Qaeda founder and leader Osama Bin Laden has been killed by US forces, President Barack Obama announced.

Quoting Pakistan's ISI, he said it was confirmed that the most dreaded terrorist in the world was killed.

Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on March 10, 1957, Osama bin-Laden was member of a wealthy family with close ties to the Saudi royal family. His parents divorced a year after he was born and he lived with his mother who had married another rich businessman Muhammad al-Attas. He had three half-brothers and one half-sister. His father Muhammed bin Laden was killed in 1967 in an aircraft crash.

He attended an elite secular school till 1976 and studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz university in Saudi Arabia. Some reports said he dropped out of the university and pursued his interest in religion which turned him into his crusade for Jihad or religious war.

A CNN report said he had married four women as of 2002 and had more than 20 children.

He became the mastermind of Islamic war or Jihad waged against non-Islamic nations including the United States, Europe, Africa and India. He defended Jihad and attacks against civilians, including women and children. He was also a known anti-semitic and reportedly said, These Jews are masters of usury and leaders in treachery. They will leave you nothing, either in this world or the next.

Last month, Wikileaks had revealed some documents saying that al Qaeda had warned to set off a “nuclear hellstorm” if Osama bin Laden is ever captured or killed.

Wikileaks' files showed that al Qaeda's senior leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was detained and interrogated, had spilled the beans that the terrorist group had, indeed, hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe and that it would be detonated if Osama bin Laden is captured or killed.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was one of the self-confessed terrorist who had planned the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States that killed more than 3,000 people.

Following the reports by WikiLeaks, US President Obama had authorised an operation to get Bin Laden last week, and on Sunday a small team of US forces undertook the operation and killed Bin Laden after a firefight, the president said on Sunday night. Bin Laden was killed and his body taken by US forces, the president said.

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