TEHRAN - It was announced on Monday that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been killed.

However, there are still many unanswered questions about the direction the so-called war on terrorism will take now, and questions about Bin Laden’s life, his cooperation with the CIA, and his leadership of Al-Qaeda that Bin Laden may take to the grave.
Iran has announced that with the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, certain foreign states have lost the pretext they were using to maintain their military presence in the region.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that the excuse used by foreign countries to wage a military operation in the region under the pretext of fighting against terrorism has been eliminated,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast stated on Monday.
“We hope that this incident will bring an end to war, conflict, and the killing of innocent people and will help establish peace in the region,” Mehmanparast said.
He added, “This event clearly shows that there was no need to launch a massive military campaign to deal with a single person.”
Mehmanparast also stated, “The Islamic Republic of Iran, as one of the greatest victims of terrorism, condemns every kind of terrorism, such as the organized terrorism in the Zionist regime.”
Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan
A CIA-led team killed Osama Bin Laden at a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, about 62 kilometers north of Islamabad, on Sunday and recovered his body, bringing a close to the world’s highest-profile manhunt after a decade-long search, U.S. President Obama announced to the world on Sunday night, the Los Angeles Times reported.
“Justice has been done,” Obama said solemnly in a hastily-arranged late-night TV address from the East Room of the White House. Bin Laden, he said, “murdered thousands of innocent men, women, and children” and his death was “the most significant achievement to date” in the U.S. war against the Al-Qaeda terrorist network that Bin Laden founded, led, and inspired.
As described by the president and top administration officials, the successful effort to track down Bin Laden centered on a man whom the officials described as a trusted courier for Al-Qaeda, a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, who was allegedly the operational mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
Obama said that after he entered the White House in 2009, he had ordered CIA Director Leon Panetta to make the killing or capture of Bin Laden the “top priority of our war against Al-Qaeda.” Then, in August, he was briefed on “a possible lead” to the elusive terrorist’s hiding place. “It took many months to run this thread to ground,” he said.
By Friday, a senior White House official said, the evidence had become sufficiently certain that Obama was able to give the go-ahead for the operation.
After years of rumors that the world’s most-wanted man was hiding in the caves and rugged redoubts of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, the CIA ultimately found him hiding in what officials described as a comfortable mansion surrounded by a high wall in a small town near Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital.
On Sunday, a “small team” of Americans raided the compound. After a firefight, the U.S. president said, they killed Bin Laden. No Americans were injured in the raid.
Other officials said DNA tests had confirmed Bin Laden’s identity.
Obama praised the joint efforts of U.S. and Pakistani intelligence and appealed to Muslims around the globe to support the U.S. action.
“Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader,” he said. “He was a mass murderer of Muslims.”
Obama also said that the United States is not and will never be at war against Islam.
Four people, including one of Bin Laden’s sons, were also killed in the operation.
Hours after Obama made the announcement, a top Al-Qaeda ideologue promised revenge for Bin Laden’s death. The commentator, going by the online name Assad al-Jihad2, posted on websites a long eulogy for the Al-Qaeda leader and promised to “avenge the killing of the Sheik of Islam.”
The Pakistani Taliban also threatened attacks against Pakistani government leaders, including President Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani army, and the United States.
“Now Pakistani rulers, President Zardari and the army will be our first targets. America will be our second target,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
Qais Azimy, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Kabul, said Afghan officials described Bin Laden’s killing as a “symbolic victory” since he was no longer directly connected to the group’s field operations.