1||May 2, 2011: Late Sunday night, President Obama announced in a live press conference from the White House that American forces had killed Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, had been sought by the U.S. for over a decade, dating back to the waning years of the Clinton administration. ||AFP/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom&&
2||This undated file photo, taken sometime around 1990, shows Bin Laden at a time when he and rebel forces were fighting to reclaim Afghanistan from the Soviets. ||Balkis Press/ABACAUSA.COM/Newscom&&
3||The Saudi-born Bin Laden, shown here in the late 1980s, led the Mujahideen against Soviet forces, with the help of American arms and finances. ||Balkis Press/ABACAUSA.COM/Newscom&&
4||By the late 1990s, then at the helm of Al Qaeda, Bin Laden helped orchestrate the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya, Tanzania, and Dar es Salaam. || ALEXANDER JOE/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom&&
5||The U.S. embassy bombings, carried out by Al Qaeda in 1998, killed over 200 civilians, and led to the F.B.I. to place bin Laden on their most wanted list. ||AFP/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom&&
6||In the wake of Al Qaeda’s attacks on American embassies in Africa, President Clinton launched military strikes against suspected terrorist sites in Sudan and Afghanistan. The attack on Sudan mistakenly hit a pharmaceutical factory. ||White House UPI Photo Service/Newscom&&
7||On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda carried out the deadliest attack on American soil in the nation’s history. ||z03/z03/ZUMA Press/Newscom&&
8||Following the 9/11 attacks, President Bush launched what would become a decade-long mission to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden. The attacks also formed the basis for Bush’s War on Terror, a national security policy that would come to define his presidency. ||U.S. Department of Defense&&
9||Days after the September 11 attacks, President Bush went to Ground Zero in New York City to address rescue workers and call for a swift counterstrike against Al Qaeda. ||Eric Draper – White House via CNP/Newscom&&
10||With American and international forces hunting him, Bin Laden went into hiding, appearing infrequently in videotaped addresses leaked to the media. || RICHARD B. LEVINE/RICHARD B. LEVINE/Newscom&&
11||In an undated Al Qaeda video, Bin Laden was shown firing a rifle. ||Balkis Press/ABACAUSA.COM/Newscom&&
12||An undated photo of Osama Bin Laden.||Balkis Press/ABACAUSA.COM/Newscom&&
13||Bin Laden, in a cave in the Jalalabad region of Afghanistan in 1988. ||Balkis Press/ABACAUSA.COM/Newscom&&
14||Bin Laden, in a video released just prior to the two-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. ||Balkis Press/ABACAUSA.COM/Newscom&&
15||Late at night, on Sunday, May 1, 2011, President Obama announced that U.S. forces had found and killed Osama Bin Laden, ending a decade-long manhunt. ||BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/EFE/Newsco&&
16||The fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where Bin Laden had been hiding. ||VISUAL NEWS/SIPA/VISUAL NEWS/SIPA/Newscom&&
17||Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, another Al Qaeda leader, in an undated image. Some have speculated that al-Zawahiri will succeed Bin Laden as the head of Al Qaeda.||Balkis Press/ABACAUSA.COM/Newscom&&
18||Bin Laden, shown in the early 2000s in an interview with a Pakistani journalist. ||AUSAF/SIPA/AUSAF/SIPA/Newscom&&
19||Bin Laden in an undated photograph. ||AFP/Getty Images/Newscom&&
20||Despite having taken out bin Laden, President Obama warned the country that the threat of international terror still remains.||z03/z03/ZUMA Press/Newscom&&
