Osama bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, is dead, US president Barack Obama has announced.
The man who was the inspiration for countless acts of terror from the September 11 outrage to the July 7 London bombings was killed in a US operation in Pakistan.
He was holed up not in the mountains of Afghanistan but in a two-storey house a stone's throw from a Pakistani army base in Abbottabad, about 50 miles from the capital Islamabad.
David Cameron welcomed the development, saying it would "bring great relief to people across the world". He added: "It is a great success that he has been found and will no longer be able to pursue his campaign of global terror."
Jubilant crowds flocked to the White House and to Ground Zero in New York where the twin towers of the World Trade Centre stood until they were destroyed by two hijacked jets on September 11, 2001.
Relatives of al Qaida victims in the UK also welcomed the news. Nigel Thompson, who worked as a stockbroker with Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Centre, died at the age of 33.
His father Norman, from Sheffield, said: "I'm pleased, definitely. It doesn't bring our son back - we've lost him. People talk of closure. There's no such thing as closure because we have it every day. It's one of those difficult things. It would bring justice, definitely, but certainly no closure. It's an every day trial for us."
Labour leader Ed Miliband said: "For the victims of 9/11 and their families, nothing can take away the pain of what happened but this will provide an important sense of justice."
Pakistan's High Commissioner in the UK insisted that the country's authorities were not aware of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad prior to the attack.
Mr Hasan told BBC Radio 5 Live: "Nobody knew that Osama bin Laden was there - no security agency, no Pakistani authorities knew about it. Had we known it we would have done it ourselves."
