The SEALs, which stands for Sea, Air, Land, are elite troops used for some of the riskiest anti-terrorism missions, as well as behind-the-lines reconnaissance and unconventional warfare.

On loan to the CIA for the mission Sunday night into Monday, the SEAL team launched the assault from helicopters on a heavily fortified villa in a city near Islamabad that US intelligence had identified as bin Laden's hideout.

"Responsibility for the raid is Leon Panetta's; It was executed by Navy SEALs," said the official, referring by name to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

CNN described the operation as a "kill mission" but US officials told AFP bin Laden "resisted as we expected."

The Al-Qaeda leader's body was buried at sea, two officials said on condition of anonymity.

"We wanted to avoid a situation where it would become a shrine," one of the officials said.

And there was no time for negotiations with other countries to arrange for a possible burial, the official told AFP.

earlier related report
Bin Laden dead as joyful US says justice is done
Abbottabad, Pakistan (AFP) May 2, 2011 - Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was shot dead deep inside Pakistan Monday in a night-time helicopter raid by US commandos, ending a decade-long manhunt for the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

"Justice has been done," President Barack Obama declared in a dramatic televised address, sparking raucous celebrations across the United States, after an operation that officials said lasted less than 40 minutes.

The carnage rained down on New York and Washington by hijacked passenger planes on September 11, 2001 set in train war in Afghanistan against bin Laden's Taliban protectors and a decade of tumult as the United States then went to war in Iraq.

World leaders welcomed the news but warned that Al-Qaeda's willingness to wreak havoc was undimmed and that the possibility of reprisal attacks meant vigilance was more important than ever.

Pakistan's main Taliban faction threatened to attack Pakistan and the US, calling them "the enemies of Islam".

"If he has become a martyr, it is a great victory for us because martyrdom is the aim of all of us," spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by phone.

An Internet outlet for official Al-Qaeda messages accepted its leader's killing and eulogised him as a "knight" who sacrificed his soul and money to fight the United States, monitoring group SITE said.

Obama said he had directed US armed forces to attack a heavily-fortified compound in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad, less than two hours' drive north of Islamabad, after a tip-off that first emerged last August.

"A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability," the president said. "After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."

Bin Laden's body was quickly buried at sea, US officials said. "We wanted to avoid a situation where it would become a shrine," one said.

Elite troops from the US Navy SEALs carried out the operation, killing bin Laden with a bullet to the head, a US official told AFP.

The SEALs, which stands for Sea, Air, Land, are used for some of the riskiest anti-terrorism missions and were loaned to the CIA for the mission, the official said.

Footage taken by the US network ABC inside the house showed blood on the floor in one room and broken computers in another, stripped of their hard drives.

Explosions, helicopters clattering overhead and gunfire tore locals from their sleep as they rushed to see what was going on, residents said.

Ejaz Mahmood, an Abbottabad tailor, said he heard a blast in the early hours and "saw a fireball coming down from the air".

One helicopter in the raid went down due to "mechanical failure" but was blown up by its crew, who left the compound along with the assault force on another chopper, a US official said.

Residents were stunned when they switched on their TV sets after daybreak to hear Obama announce that bin Laden had been killed in their home town, which was soon engulfed by a heavy Pakistani security presence.

"We heard ambulance sirens and security people shouting. We saw fire and flames coming out," according to another resident who was too frightened to give his name.

Senior US officials said two brothers believed to be bin Laden's couriers and one of his adult sons were also killed in the raid, while a woman who was used as a human shield perished.

Officials said they were stunned when intelligence reports first revealed the elaborate security at the compound, with 12-18 foot (four-to-six metre) high walls topped with barbed wire.

"Everything we saw, the extremely elaborate operational security, the brothers' background and their behaviour, and the location and the design of the compound itself, was perfectly consistent with what our experts expected bin Laden's hideout to look like," one senior US official said.

Until now, bin Laden had always managed to evade US forces, despite a $25 million bounty, and was most often thought to be hiding on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

His presence in Abbottabad -- a leafy town that is home to an elite Pakistani military academy -- raised new questions about the Islamabad government's zeal for prosecuting the war on terror.

US officials made clear Pakistan was not informed about the operation in advance, and Islamabad authorities had nothing to say in response to the killing for four hours before a carefully worded statement.

Asked in an AFP interview about the extent of Pakistani cooperation, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said: "I don't know the details, I don't know minute details, but in short we have intelligence cooperation."

He described bin Laden's death as a "great victory".

"We will not allow our soil to be used against any other country for terrorism," Gilani said.

But leaders in both Afghanistan and India said bin Laden's discovery so close to Islamabad vindicated their claims of double-dealing by their nuclear-armed neighbour.

George W. Bush, US president at the time of the 9/11 attacks when about 3,000 people died, said bin Laden's death was a "victory for America".

"The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done," he said.

In a spontaneous eruption of joy, thousands gathered outside the gates of the White House, cheering, waving US flags and shouting "USA, USA". Another large crowd gathered at Ground Zero in New York, singing "God Bless America".

Share prices rallied worldwide and the US dollar rose on currency markets.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy congratulated the US for its "tenacity" in hunting down bin Laden and British Prime Minister David Cameron said his death would bring "great relief" to people worldwide.

In comments aimed at the Taliban fighting US-led troops in Afghanistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said "you cannot wait us out", and urged the insurgents to break with Al-Qaeda.

But the US State Department warned of the potential for reprisals against Americans with CIA director Leon Panetta saying that terrorist groups "almost certainly" would try to avenge bin Laden.

Iran meanwhile said bin Laden's death had removed "any excuse" for the US and its allies to deploy forces in the Middle East under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

Born in Riyadh in 1957, bin Laden was the son of a construction tycoon whose riches enabled the future Al-Qaeda leader to fund Islamic fighters waging war against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

He went on to build a many-tentacled extremist group that earned global notoriety by bombing US embassies in East Africa in 1998.

But both in 1998 and after 9/11, bin Laden was unrepentant about what he called his divinely ordained mission against the United States and Israel.

"Jihad will continue," he said not long after September 11, 2001. "Even if I am not around."

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