Osama bin Laden is dead.

Osama bin Laden is dead"Justice has been carried out", said the President Barack Obama

WASHINGTON.- Osama bin Laden, the brains behind the 9/.11 terrorist attacks, was killed in an operation headed by the United States, according to a statement issued on Sunday by President Barack Obama.

A small team of Americans (led by Seal Team Six) carried out the attack and captured the remains of bin Laden, indicated the US President in a dramatic nighttime announcement from the White House. A jubilant group of people came outside the presidential residence as news of the event began to spread.

"Justice has been carried out", said the President.

For some time the authorities have believed that bin Laden, the most sought after person in the world for more than a decade, was hidden in a mountainous region along the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

His death comes barely months before the tenth anniversary of the attacks on 11 September at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in which over 3000 persons were killed.

The attacks unleashed a series of events that took the United States to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A United States official confirmed that Osama bin Laden was killed in a mansion near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

A Pakistani intelligence officer also confirmed that bin Laden died in Pakistan.

Both persons spoke on the condition that their identities would not be revealed.

Former President George W. Bush said that he congratulated President Barack Obama after learning of the death of bin Laden.

In a press release issued Sunday night, Bush said that Obama called him to tell him that United States forces had killed bin Laden.

Bush said that "this memorable achievement marks a victory for the United States, for the people that seek peace all over the world and for those that lost loved ones on 11 September of 2001".

He added that the United States "has sent a clear message that no matter how long it takes, justice will be done".

For his part, the mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, said that the Americans have fulfilled the promise that was made after 9/11 to capture and kill Osama bin Laden.

Bloomberg added that the death of the al-Qaida leader does not diminish the suffering that United States citizens experienced in body and soul on 9/11, the day on which the World Trade Center was destroyed, but it is a "critically important victory" for the nation. He considered it to be a tribute to the men and women of the armed forces that have fought with strength the war against terrorism.

The 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is just a few months away.

Bloomberg said in a press communiqué that he expects that the news about the death of bin Laden "offers certain closure and comfort to all those that lost loved ones (in the 9/11 attack)."