President Barack Obama made the announcement Sunday night.
"I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda and a terrorist who is responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children," Obama said in a statement televised live from the White House late Sunday evening.
Obama said he had met repeatedly with his national security team since August and that they received information that bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Pakistan. He said last week the U.S. determined that it had enough information to take action.
Obama said on Sunday, under his direction, the U.S. launched "a targeted attack against the compound in Abbottabad, which is about 150 kilometres north of Islamabad, and that bin Laden was killed in a firefight...Justice has been done."
The attack team included four helicopters carrying CIA paramilitaries and a Navy SEAL. The raid took place at 1:30 a.m. local time.
An American official said U.S. personnel buried bin Laden's remains since it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the body for burial within 24 hours, in keeping with Islamic tradition.
The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York and Pentagon in Washington, D.C., which included the hijacking of four airplanes, killed more than 3,000 people.
The attacks set off a chain of events that led the U.S. into wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq, and America's entire intelligence apparatus was overhauled to counter the threat of more terror attacks.
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