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Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed on Sunday in a firefight with U.S. forces in Pakistan and his body was recovered, President Barack Obama announced on Sunday.

“Justice has been done,” Obama said in a dramatic, late-night White House speech announcing the death of the elusive mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the New York and Washington.

Obama said U.S. forces led the operation that killed bin Laden. No Americans were killed in the operation and they took care to avoid civilian casualties, he said. “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. It is a major accomplishment for Obama and his national security team, after many Americans had given up hope of ever finding bin Laden.

A crowd gathered outside the White House to celebrate, chanting, “USA, USA.” Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, had repeatedly vowed to bring bin Laden to justice “dead or alive” for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly3,000 people, but never did before leaving office in early 2009.

U.S. officials said that after searching in vain for the al Qaeda leader since he disappeared in Afghanistan in late 2001, the Saudi-born extremist was killed in the Pakistani town of Abbotabad and his body recovered. Having the body may help convince any doubters that bin Laden is really dead.

He had been the subject of a search since he eluded U.S. soldiers and Afghan militia forces in a large-scale assault on the Tora Bora Mountains of Afghanistan 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 Sept. 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.

DERA GHAZI KHAN

Forty-six devotees were killed and over 90 injured in two suicide blasts at Darbar Sakhi Sarwar, some 35 kilometres from here, on Sunday. The Urs celebrations at the Darbar are in progress these days. The rescue teams faced difficulties due to narrow passages and congested localities.

The dead included four children and eight women, while the locals also arrested a suspected suicide bomber, who was attempting to explode his jacket. According to sources, the suspect was arrested with a suicide jacket in his possession. He was handed over to the local police. The police shifted the arrested young suicide bomber to an undisclosed location for interrogation. Eyewitnesses and the police told this scribe that the officials of the border military police shot at the suicide bomber and rendered him unable to blow himself up.

As per the local residents and eyewitnesses, no strict security measures were in place, and no security personnel were among the killed or injured. The suicide bomber blew himself up at the main gate of Darbar Hazrat Sakhi Sarwar, followed by another blast within three minutes, when thousands of devotees were present at the Darbar.

Rescue 1122 official Dr Natiq Hayat said the death toll was over 30. Ambulances from Multan, Muzaffargarh, Layyah and Rajanpur were shifting the dead and injured to the emergency wards of the District Headquarters Hospital, DG Khan.

Angry protesters attacked the police officials as they reached late at the blast site and shouted slogans against the authorities for poor security arrangements. The devotees also attacked the SHO Sakhi Sarwar police station, Zahid Hussain, on his failure to make foolproof security arrangements.

Sources said the unknown assailants had warned the Darbar administration of dire consequences if the traditional dhamaal was not stopped at the Darbar during the annual Urs.

The DG Khan DPO told The News that strict security measures were taken and walkthrough gates were installed, as per the security plan. He said it was a suicide blast while the attempt for the second suicide blast was foiled and the accused had been arrested.

Agencies add: The blasts took place outside the shrine of the 13th Century Sufi saint Ahmed Sultan, popularly known as Sakhi Sarwar.

“We have recovered 41 bodies so far,” said an officer, Zahid Hussain Shah, adding that more than 70 were wounded. “Both were suicide attackers, they came on foot and blew themselves up when police on duty stopped them,” he said.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks, a militant spokesman said. “Our men carried out these attacks and we will carry out more in retaliation for government operations against our people in the northwest,” Ehsanullah Ehsan told Reuters by telephone from undisclosed location.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Zardari have strongly condemned the bomb blast and loss of life. Zardari asked the officials concerned to take care of the injured. He expressed condolences with the affected families.

ISLAMABAD: The United States on Saturday called for the immediate release of a US citizen Raymond Davis, allegedly involved in killing of two local citizens in Lahore, it said was unlawfully detained by authorities, US embassy in Islamabad said.

“When detained, the US diplomat identified himself to police as a diplomat and repeatedly requested immunity under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” it said in a statement.

It added, “Local police and senior authorities failed to observe their legal obligation to verify his status with either the US consulate general in Lahore or the US embassy in Islamabad”.

Five Palestinians, including two women, were killed in Israeli ground and air raids in Gaza on Thursday, local medical sources said, in the latest Israeli action against the Hamas-ruled territory.

Israeli troops and tanks backed by combat helicopters were operating in the village of Bani Suheila near the southern town of Khan Yunis, witnesses and medical sources said.

Three Palestinian gunmen and two women were killed by Israeli fire and another 30 people were injured in the attacks, the sources said.

Israel has carried out near-daily military strikes and incursions across what it considers a “hostile entity” since the Islamist movement Hamas seized power in June after routing security forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

Israeli troops in about 70 army jeeps also rolled into the West Bank town of Nablus in search of wanted militants on Thursday.

In Gaza, brothers Ahmad Fayyad, 20, and 25-year-old Sami Fayyad, both members of the radical Islamic Jihad, were killed in a raid on a house which also killed their mother, Karima, 50, and sister Asmaa, 20, the medical sources said. Nine other people were injured.

One member of the armed wing of Hamas was also killed during gun battles with Israeli troops.

“Infantry units backed by the air force are continuing to operate in the Khan Yunis area,” an army spokeswoman said, adding that there were “losses” among Palestinians.

Aircraft also destroyed two houses where militants were suspected to be hiding. A third house was blown up by ground troops, witnesses added.