"Justice has been done," Obama said in a dramatic, late-night White House speech announcing the death of the elusive mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people.  It is was major accomplishment for Obama and his national security team and could give him a political boost as he seeks re-election in 2012.

And it was at least a huge symbolic blow to al Qaeda, the militant organization that has staged bloody attacks in many western and Arab countries cities and has been the subject of a worldwide campaign against it. 

Obama said U.S. forces led a targeted operation that killed bin Laden in Abbotabad north of Islamabad. No Americans were killed in the operation and they took care to avoid civilian casualties, he said.  In Washington, thousands of people gathered quickly outside the White House, waving American flags, cheering and chanting "USA, USA, USA." Car drivers blew their horns in celebration and people streamed to Lafayette Park across from the presidential mansion. Police vehicles with their lights flashing stood vigil.  "I´m down here to witness the history. My boyfriend is commissioning as a Marine next week. So I´m really proud of the troops," Laura Vogler, a junior at American University in Washington, said outside the White House.  Many Americans had given up hope of ever finding bin Laden after he vanished in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan in late 2001 as U.S. and allied forces invaded the country in response to the September 11 attacks. 

Intelligence that originated last August provided the clues that eventually led to bin Laden´s trail, the president said. A U.S. official said Obama gave the final order to pursue the operation last Friday morning. 

"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 men, women and children," Obama said. 

A crowd gathered in Lafayette Park outside the White House erupted in jubilation at the news. Hundreds of people waved flags, hugged and cheered. 

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Former President George W. Bush, who famously vowed to bring bin Laden to justice "dead or alive" but never did, called the operation a "momentous achievement" after Obama called him with the news. 

Martin Indyk, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, described bin Laden´s death as "a body blow" to al Qaeda at a time when its ideology was already being undercut by the popular revolutions in the Arab world.  Statements of appreciation poured in from both sides of Washington´s often divided political divide. Republican Senator John McCain declared, "I am overjoyed that we finally got the world´s top terrorist." 

Said former President Bill Clinton: "I congratulate the president, the national security team and the members of our armed forces on bringing Osama bin Laden to justice after more than a decade of murderous al Qaeda attacks."  Having the body may help convince any doubters that bin Laden is really dead.  Bin Laden had been hunted since he eluded U.S. soldiers and Afghan militia forces in a large-scale assault on the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan close to the Pakistan frontier in 2001. 

The trail quickly went cold after he disappeared and many intelligence officials believed he had been hiding in Pakistan. 

While in hiding, bin Laden had taunted the West and advocated his militant Islamist views in videotapes spirited from his hideaway.  Besides September 11, Washington has also linked bin Laden to a string of attacks -- including the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the warship USS Cole in Yemen.

Some said the killing of the Saudi-born al-Qaeda founder in Pakistan was scarcely relevant any more, now that secular uprisings have begun toppling corrupt Arab autocrats who had resisted violent extremist efforts to weaken their grip on power.

“Oh God, please make this news not true ... God curse you, Obama,” said a message on a Jihadist forum in some of the first reaction to the al-Qaeda leader’s death. Oh Americans ... it is still legal for us to cut your necks.”

For some in the Middle East, bin Laden has been seen as the only Muslim leader to take the fight against Western dominance to the heart of the enemy -- in the form of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. On the streets of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden’s native land which stripped him of his citizenship after Sept. 11, there was a mood of disbelief and sorrow among many.

”I feel that it is a lie,” said one Saudi in Riyadh. He did not want to be named. “I don’t trust the US government or the media. They just want to be done with his story. It would be a sad thing if he really did die. I love him and in my eyes he is a hero and a jihadist.” Officials in the country of his birth maintained near silence at the news of bin Laden’s death. The state news agency merely noted that Washington and Pakistan had announced it.

Other Gulf Arab states also eschewed comment. But Pakistani Taliban threatened attacks against government leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistan army and the United States on Monday, after the killing of Osama bin Laden in the country.

“Now Pakistani rulers, President Zardari and the army will be our first targets. America will be our second target,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location. Elsewhere in Gaza, Hamas condemned the killing of bin Laden and mourned him as an “Arab holy warrior.”

“We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood,” Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, told reporters. Though he noted doctrinal differences between bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and Hamas, Haniyeh said: “We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs.”

‘Harmed Islam’

Another strand of opinion believes that bin Laden and al-Qaeda brought catastrophe on their Muslim world as the United States retaliated with two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the word “Islam” became associated with “terrorism.”

“The damage bin Laden had caused Islam is beyond appalling and a collective shame,” said another Saudi, Mahmoud Sabbagh, on Twitter.

Another, anonymous, Saudi said: “He might have had a noble idea to elevate Islam but his implementation was wrong and caused more harm than good. I believe his death will calm people down and may dry up the wells of terrorism.”

In Yemen, bin Laden’s ancestral home and the base for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been behind recent foiled anti-American attacks, some believed his death would cause his group to lose heart.

“Al-Qaeda is finished without bin Laden. Al-Qaeda members will not be able to continue,” said Ali Mubarak, a Yemeni man in his 50s as he sipped tea in a cafe in Sanaa. For many Arabs, inspired by the popular upheavals of the past few months, the news of Osama bin Laden’s death had less significance than it once might have.

“The death of Osama is coming at a very interesting time. The perfect time, when Al-Qaeda is in eclipse and the sentiments of freedom are rising,” said Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi commentator and independent analyst. Recalling the mass demonstrations on Cairo’s Tahrir Square, he added: “The people at Tahrir Square had shut down the ideas and concepts of bin Laden.”

Egyptian Thanaa Al-Atroushy said: “Though I am surprised, I don’t think such news will affect anything in any way. He is a man of al-Qaeda, who are known to have weird beliefs to justify killing the innocent like those of Sept. 11.”

Risk of retaliation

But while some hoped his death may terminate al-Qaeda, many others believe that al-Qaeda franchises across the world would continue campaigns against the United States.

”I am not happy at the news. Osama was seeking justice. He was taking revenge on the Americans and what they did to Arabs, his death to me is martyrdom, I see him a martyr,” added Egyptian Sameh Bakry, a Suez Canal employee.