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Osama bin Laden, the face of global terrorism and architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was killed in a firefight with elite American forces Monday, then quickly buried at sea in a stunning finale to a furtive decade on the run.
Long believed to be hiding in caves, bin Laden was tracked down in a costly, custom-built hideout not far from a Pakistani military academy.
"Justice has been done," President Barack Obama said in a dramatic announcement at the White House while a crowd cheered outside and hundreds more gathered at ground zero in Manhattan to celebrate the news.
The military operation took mere minutes.
U.S. helicopters ferrying elite counter-terrorism troops into the compound identified by the CIA as bin Laden's hideout — and back out again in less than 40 minutes. Bin Laden was shot in the head, officials said, after he and his bodyguards resisted the assault.
Three adult males were also killed in the raid, including one of bin Laden's sons, whom officials did not name. One of bin Laden's sons, Hamza, is a senior member of al-Qaida. U.S. officials also said one woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, and two other women were injured.
The U.S. official who disclosed the burial at sea said it would have been difficult to find a country willing to accept the remains. Obama said the remains had been handled in accordance with Islamic custom, which requires speedy burial.
"I heard a thundering sound, followed by heavy firing. Then firing suddenly stopped. Then more thundering, then a big blast," said Mohammad Haroon Rasheed, a resident of Abbottobad, Pakistan, after the choppers had swooped in and then out again.
 Bin Laden's death marks a psychological triumph in a long struggle that began with the Sept. 11 attacks, and seems certain to give Obama a political lift. But its ultimate impact on al-Qaida is less clear.
The greatest terrorist threat to the U.S. is now considered to be the al-Qaida franchise in Yemen, far from al-Qaida's core in Pakistan. The Yemen branch almost took down a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas 2009 and nearly detonated explosives aboard two U.S. cargo planes last fall. Those operations were carried out without any direct involvement from bin Laden.

 For much of the world, Osama bin Laden was the face of al Qaeda. He was, after all, the man who oversaw the September 11, 2001, attacks.
With bin Laden gone, the question now becomes "What happens to al Qaeda?"
Within hours of bin Laden's death, questions began to emerge about who would take the helm of the organization and whether it would create an opportunity for other Islamic organizations to step up.
"Al Qaeda is weakened. But it doesn't mean that the United States has no challenges," Steven L. Spiegel, director for Middle East development at the University of California Los Angeles, said early Monday.
Opinion: A deathblow to al Qaeda?
Standing behind bin Laden for more than two decades has been an ideological army that stretches around the world, where militants have set up their own "al Qaeda franchises," analysts say.
"He was very good at coming up with messages that would unify al Qaeda," said Paul Cruickshank, a CNN analyst for terrorism and an alumni fellow at the New York University's Center on Law and Security.

"Now without bin Laden, they will likely lose some of that unity."
That loss could make room for groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest political opposition party in many Arab states, and Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the United States, to gain traction, Spiegel said.
Many expect al Qaeda to strike back following bin Laden's death. The U.S. State Department has issued a worldwide travel advisory for American citizens traveling abroad.
"I think that there will be reprisals, not necessarily from al Qaeda itself, although they'll try, but also in Pakistan," said Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst.
"I think that we'll see protests in the streets of Pakistan and some violence ... against American and also Western targets."
Bergen, who met bin Laden in 1997, believes al Qaeda will be irrecoverably damaged by the death of its founder.
 "There's no one who can replace him. When you join al Qaeda you pledge a personal oath of allegiance (to him)," he said.
Bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was widely expected to take over control of the network.
Al-Zawahiri has been described by U.S. counterterrorism officials as al Qaeda's chief organizer and bin Laden's closest confidante. Like bin Laden, he has long believed to have been hiding in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
But there could be other challengers, say analysts.

Pakistan declared the killing of Osama bin Laden a "major setback" to global terrorism but it will inevitably come under pressure to explain how the al Qaeda leader was holed up in a mansion near a military facility. Bin Laden was killed in a dramatic night-time raid by U.S. helicopters and troops on his hideout in Abbottabad, a town that is home to a military academy and that is less then two hours' drive from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. "Osama bin Laden's death illustrates the resolve of the international community, including Pakistan, to fight and eliminate terrorism," the government said in a statement. "It constitutes a major setback to terrorist organisations around the world." However, it was not clear whether the Pakistan military was involved in the operation and there was no official comment from the government for several hours after the news of bin Laden's, raising the possibility that Islamabad was taken by surprise. That bin Laden, mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, was not hiding in mountains along the border but in relative comfort near a military academy will bolster those who have long argued that Pakistan has been playing a duplicitous hand. Just 10 days ago Pakistan's army chief addressed army cadets at that very academy, saying the country's military had broken the back of militants linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban. Washington has in the past accused Pakistan of maintaining ties to militants targeting U.S. troops in neighbouring Afghanistan. Relations have soured in recent months over U.S. drone attacks and CIA activities in the country. Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency, the ISI, has long been suspected of links to al Qaeda's precursor, the Haqqani network, cultivated during the 1980s when Jalaluddin Haqqani was a feared battlefield commander against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Pakistan's arch-rival, India, was quick to comment, saying the news underlined its "concern that terrorists belonging to different organisations find sanctuary in Pakistan". "For some time there will be a lot of tension between Washington and Islamabad because bin Laden seems to have been living here close to Islamabad," said Imtiaz Gul, a Pakistani security analyst. "If the ISI had known, then somebody within the ISI must have leaked this information," Gul
said. "Pakistan will have to do a lot of damage control because the Americans have been reporting he is in Pakistan ... this is a serious blow to the credibility of Pakistan." FLAMES, GUNSHOTS, A BLAST Abbottabad is a popular summer resort, located in a valley surrounded by green hills near Pakistani Kashmir. Islamist militants, particularly those fighting in Indian-controlled Kashmir, used to have training camps near the town. A Reuters reporter in the town on Monday said bin Laden's single-storey residence stood fourth in a row of about a dozen houses, a satellite perched on the roof above a walled compound. A helicopter covered by a sheet sat in a nearby field. Mohammad Idrees, who lives around 400 meters from the house, said local residents were woken in the night by the sound of a big explosion. "We rushed to the rooftop and saw flames near that house. We also heard some gunshots," Idrees said. "Soon after the blast, we saw military vehicles rushing to the site of the blast." Another resident, Nasir Khan, said that commandos had encircled the compound as three helicopters hovered overhead. "All of a sudden there was firing towards the helicopters from the ground," said Khan, who had watched the drama unfold from his rooftop. "There was intense firing and then I saw one of the helicopters crash." A Pakistani military helicopter crashed near Abbottabad on Sunday night, killing one and wounding two, according to local media. It was unclear if the crash was related to bin Laden's death, but witnesses reported gunshots and heavy firing before one of two low-flying helicopters crashed near the academy. Sohaib Athar, whose profile says he is an IT consultant taking a break from the ratrace by hiding in the mountains, sent out a stream of live updates on Twitter about the movement of helicopters and blasts without realising it was a raid on the world's most hunted man. Some of his early tweets were: "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1 am (rare event); Go away helicopter - before I take out my giant swatter." Then he reported his window rattling and a bang. "I hope it's not the start of something nasty," he tweeted. Soon after there were blasts. There were two helicopters, one of them had gone down.