Obama announces Osama bin Laden's death - video
US president Barack Obama announces Osama Bin Laden has been killed in a firefight with American forces in Pakistan, saying justice has been done
Video of Osama bin Laden's dead body being dropped into the North Arabian Sea from the USS Carl Vinson early this morning could be made public, according to officials.
The 40-minute ceremony, and perhaps photos of his corpse, will be released "cautiously," according to The Associated Press, citing two Pentagon officials.
The world's most notorious terrorist did not receive a customary Islamic burial as he was slipped into the North Arabian Sea today when no others countries would accept his body, according to experts in Muslim funeral rites.
"Dumping the body into the sea is not part of any Islamic ritual," said Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy and a physician of internal medicine. "Koranic scripture says God created him and he must return to the earth."
U.S. officials told ABC News that the last thing they wanted was to create a burial place which could become a terrorist shrine. To avoid that, bin Laden was buried at sea.
Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan said earlier today that the administration would likely release an image of bin Laden's body. He added that they would do so carefully as, "We don't want to do anything to compromise our ability to be successful the next time we get one of these guys and take him off the battlefield," he said.
Complete coverage of the death of bin Laden.
The corpse was taken to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, officials told ABC News. The ceremony, done according to Islamic law, began about 1:10 a.m. today EST and lasted about 45 minutes, according to officials.
Osama Bin Laden Dead: Outpouring At Ground Zero Brings Complex Range Of Emotions
All along Church Street near Ground Zero, a mass of New Yorkers spilled into the streets to mark the death of Osama bin Laden, architect of the mass killing at that very spot nearly a decade ago. But behind the constant refrain of patriotic chants was a deep range of emotions among the masses gathered there.
There were the friends and family who lost loved ones nearly ten years ago; the doe-eyed college freshmen, scaling traffic signals, hoisting American flags and spraying champagne on crowds below, and the neighborhood loyalists, who every day deal with fresh reminders of a seminal New York City tragedy.
Lydia Roman and Maria Dapontes-Dougherty raised a t-shirt bearing a black-and-white photo and emblazoned with the name Christopher Santora high above the crowd. At 23, Santora was one of the youngest firefighters to perish in the World Trade Towers nearly 10 years ago.
Close family friends from Astoria, the two women come out to Ground Zero for every annual Sept. 11 memorial service. But this night was clearly different.
“The anniversaries become kind of normal, in a way,” said Dapontes-Dougherty, who rushed over from Queens immediately after Obama’s speech. “Tonight, we’re celebrating justice. It just makes you proud. It lets you know that America didn’t give up.”
As younger students hoisted friends on their shoulders nearby, Rick Kelly calmly observed the crowd around him. Kelly lost 15 close friends and coworkers in the 9/11 attacks.
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He had just ended his job as the bartender at the Windows on the World restaurant, located at the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, a few weeks earlier. After making frantic calls to former coworkers, he learned that none of his friends from that morning's shift made it out alive.
The second Kelly heard the news of bin Laden's death Sunday evening, he left his West Village apartment and headed straight to Ground Zero.
“That was something that really changed my life in every way,” Kelly recalled. “So to be down here nine-and-a-half years later, it just makes me complete. This puts a bookend on it.”
As the crowds poured down Vesey Street and completely blocked Church Street, cab driver Louis Buteau had all but given up on any fares for the rest of the evening. He was the unfortunate first in a long line of traffic continuously honking--at first in frustration, but eventually as celebration.
“What can we do?” Buteau laughed, as chants of “Obama got Osama” thundered in the crowd. “The moment is a big moment. It’s a victory moment. And maybe after all of it, someone might have a big fare for me.”
Standing toward the edge of the crowd, Rosalie Joseph and Robert Concister had more solemn thoughts for the occasion. They’re residents of Battery Park City, a neighborhood brought to its knees by the attacks, but one they have tirelessly worked to rebuild.
They fled as fast as they could once the second plane hit. Their apartment building, Gateway Plaza, was severely damaged by the fires from the World Trade Center. Yet they returned to the neighborhood as soon as they could in early 2002: Concister reopened his business, while Joseph began working on charity events for the local fire community.
“It’s a celebration, and I get it, but it’s kind of hard to cheer,” Joseph said.
“On some level, people don’t know what to do,” Concister added. “I don’t think a lot of people actually realize why they’re cheering.”
Take a look at videos from Ground Zero
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