Sources: Al-Qaida head bin Laden dead

WASHINGTON: Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the terrible September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed thousands of Americans, was killed in an operation led by the United States, President Barack Obama said Sunday.

A small team of Americans made the attack and took custody of bin Laden remains, the president said in a statement spectacular late night at the White House.

A jubilant crowd gathered outside the White House the mouth of the death of bin Laden after a global manhunt that lasted nearly a decade.

"Justice has been served," the president said.

The development comes just months before the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon orchestrated by bin Laden's organization al-Qaeda, which killed over 3,000 people.

The attacks sparked a series of events that led the U.S. into wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq, and the intelligence apparatus of the whole of America has been revised to address the threat of terrorist attacks more comfortable.

The Al-Qaeda was also blamed for attacks in 1998 against 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 successes and some foiled. - (AP)