It was reported late evening Sunday that Obama was going to make an announcement from the White House at 10:30 pm. but when the news broke , many could only speculate as to what the announcement might be. I was monitoring the White House live feed waiting for the President to come on while moving from news site to site when I learned that the announcement was going to be about the death of one of the United States most wanted persons. Osama Bin Laden had, after all, been on the wanted list for almost 10 years and with a bounty of 25 million dollars. The live address scheduled for 10:30 pm did not take place until nearly an hour later from the White House when the President announce live on television that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan.
In fact, as of this post Osama Bin Laden remained on the FBI top ten most wanted list. The President warned Americans in his announcement that while this was a major milestone, it would not end the threat of Al Qaeda. Immediately after the announcement all U.S. Embassies were put on high alert around the world. The news from the white house brought almost an immediate reaction of people gathering at the White House and Ground Zero in NYC of people carrying flags, singing and shouting USA, USA!
The crowds grew quickly and contrary to one Pentagon leader saying the crowd was small only a handful of a younger crowd gathering and he opposed the celebrating of the death of Bin Laden. The large crowds in DC and NYC quickly proved him wrong, the gatherings closing the streets to local and police traffic in both spots.
After the live announcement from the White House, the news began to break out of the early morning assault by U.S. operations with scattered chunks of what happened. Still only small amounts of details were being released a little at a time of how the raid was constructed and when it had been determined that a million dollar compound did actually house one of the most wanted men in the world. It has been reported that the assault happened by helicopter and one of the helicopters crashed and had to be destroyed. However, there were no American casualties reported.
Later on in the early morning more details broke out of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden. It was reported that there were other people killed in the early morning raid that included two other males and one female. It has been reported that one of the men may have been one of the sons of Bin Laden and a courier. The woman killed was said to have been used as a human shield in what was called heavy resistance within the compound that was described as a high security compound with walls up to 18 feet and barbed wire. It was also reported that the original intelligence about the whereabouts of Bin Laden had been learned in August, but the confirmation of where he was living did not come until mid-March. The President signed the order for the operation on Friday before he left to visit the devastation of the storms in Alabama.
Many of the news agencies still trying to get the break on what really happened while in New York more and more people gathered at Ground Zero singing God Bless America and the Stars Bangle Banner. Questions began to pop out about how long Bin Laden may have been living in a mansion less than 60 miles from the Capitol of Pakistan. It was learned that the mansion was built for Osama nearly 5 years ago but only speculation as to if he had lived there that long.
This was great news to hear that our troops have finally prevailed in a long battle and our intelligence officers were able to gather the information that lead them to where Bin Laden was. The strike force was successful in their mission and carried it out without any reported injuries of the task force. There will still be a battle for our troops and I pray for the safe return of them all.
UPDATE!!! AP has just reported that the body of Osama Bin Laden has been buried at sea.
