[Global] After The Death of Osama

Calling it a “good day for America,” President Obama said on Monday that the death of Osama bin Laden had made the world “a better place,” as new details emerged about the overnight raid and firefight in Pakistan that killed him. “The world is safer,” Mr. Obama said as he appeared at a White House ceremony bestowing the Medal of Honor to two soldiers killed in the Korean War. “It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden.”

Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda and the most hunted man in the world, was found not in the remote tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border where he has long been presumed to be sheltered, but in a large compound in the city of Abbottabad, about an hour’s drive north from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.



The compound, only about a third of a mile from a military academy of the Pakistani Army, is at the end of a narrow dirt road and is roughly eight times the size of other homes in the area. It has no telephone or Internet connections. When American operatives converged on the residence early on Monday morning, Bin Laden “resisted the assault force” and was shot in the head and killed near the end of an intense 40-minute gun battle, senior administration officials said.

The raid carried extraordinary risks — and not just from Bin Laden and those with him in the compound. As the sound of battle shook the night, Pakistan scrambled jets to respond to a military operation that its military had not been informed was taking place.

“They had no idea about who might have been on there, whether it be U.S. or somebody else,” John O. Brennan, President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, said in a briefing on Monday. “So we were watching and making sure that our people and our aircraft were able to get out of the Pakistani airspace, and thankfully there was no engagement with Pakistani forces.”

Mr. Obama and his national security advisers gathered in the White House to follow the raid, which had been planned and carried out in extreme secrecy. “It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here yesterday,” Mr. Brennan said. “The minutes passed like days.”

The tensest moment for those watching, he said, came when one of two helicopters that flew the American troops into the compound broke down, stalling as it flew over the 18-foot wall of the compound and prepared to land. After the raid, the team blew up the helicopter and called in one of two backups. In all, 79 commandos and a dog were involved. President Obama considered other options that would have been less risky, like an airstrike, but ultimately opted to send in commandos because, Mr. Brennan said, “it gave us the ability to minimize collateral damage” and “to ensure that we knew who it was that was on that compound.”

In Indonesia, Indonesia’s military (TNI) is increasing its alertness following the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan to anticipate possible threats, TNI commander Admiral Agus Suhartono said.

"Certainly we together with the police will step up the alertness to prevent any eventuality," he said here on Monday. He said TNI still needed support from all community components including the mass media who could report immediately in case they found abnormal things.
"That way we could take anticipatory measures more quickly, correctly and better so that any eventuality could be prevented," he said.

Bin Laden (54), the leader of terrorist network Al Qaeda, was believed to be the mastermind of the tragedy on September 11, 2001 in New York when more than 3,000 people were killed after two planes crashed into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. The news about his death broke on May 1 after ten years of manhunt.

US President Barrack Obama confirmed the report at a press conference on Sunday local time. Obama said a US military unit carried out an operation after intelligence confirmed Bin Laden’s exact whereabouts. Bin Laden was confirmed dead following the operation and after DNA testing was carried out with results matched with his.