Nearly 10 years after the 9/11 attacks, the mastermind behind the attack, Osama bin Laden, has been confirmed dead by U.S. President Barack Obama. The announcement was leaked by John King of CNN around 7:45 p.m. PDT Sunday night and several other journalists shortly before. @@John King: http://johnkingusa.blogs.cnn.com/@@
CNN “Situation Room” host Wolf Blitzer commented just before Obama made the announcement about what the president was likely to say. @@http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/situation.room/@@
“He’ll give the perspective as only a U.S. president can give,” Blitzer told the national audience.
King gave his thoughts just after Blitzer.
“This is a signature moment for this president, this country and the world,” King said.
Obama announced early Sunday evening that he would be making a statement from the White House. The announcement of his speech came before the rumor of bin Laden’s death started circulating through social media outlets.
Obama confirmed the special forces mission used to locate bin Laden. He said during the speech that the forces had enough intelligence to begin on a possible lead to the al-Qaida mastermind last August, while this last week they began the task of seeking him out.
A small team of Americans was in the group that found bin Laden, Obama said, and no Americans were harmed and they intended to keep surrounding casualties low.
The president made clear some takeaways he wanted the American people to hold important.
“The death of bin Laden marks the most significant effort to date, but it doesn’t mark the end,” Obama said before reaffirming, “(America) is not and never will be at war with Islam.
“The American people did not choose this fight, it came to our shores … on nights like this one, we can say justice has been done.”
At the end of his speech, the president returned to the importance of tonight’s events on the near future.
“America can do whatever we set our mind to … let us remember that we can do these things, not because of our wealth, but because of who we are,” Obama said.
He said during his 10-minute speech that the death came after a firefight with the small team of U.S. soldiers when they found his location.
CNN reported well after Obama’s speech more information about the actual encounter U.S. forces had with bin Laden. Reportedly, there was a helicopter raid, and the small group involved was made up of Navy Seals who had practiced the procedure several times before entering the area of Abbottabad where bin Laden was located.
@@wolf blitzer: “he’ll give the perspective as only a us president can give.” “everybody on that day remembers where they were when there was a fear that the us capitol would be under attack … as every American remembers their anger also worth remembering, that wasn’t the only scar, it was nov 19, 1998, it was 1999, in 2000 … signature moment for this president, this country and the world.” John King@@
Obama’s speech, provided by whitehouse.gov:

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