Osama bin Laden, the glowering mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed thousands of Americans, was killed in an operation led by the United States, President Barack Obama said Sunday. A small team of Americans killed bin Laden in a firefight at a compound in Pakistan, the president said in a dramatic late-night statement at the White House. A jubilant crowd gathered outside the White House as word spread of bin Laden's death after a global ...

They flocked to the open field by the hundreds to praise Allah. In a village in central Java, just a few miles from where Indonesian special forces shot dead an Islamic terrorist linked to the fatal July bombings of two hotels in Jakarta, worshippers raised their hands to the heavens. But this ceremony, which took place as the call of the muezzin echoed in the sultry air, was not a celebration of Islam. Instead, in the heart of the world's ...

Osama bin Laden wanted to talk to his followers. This time the U.S. government was only too happy to help. Within a day of hearing the scratchy audiocassette of the al-Qaeda leader praising the recent bombings in Bali and the Moscow theater assault, intelligence sources tell TIME, U.S. agents paid a visit to one of bin Laden's senior operatives, Ramzi Binalshibh, held for interrogation at a safe house somewhere overseas. They played the 3-minute tape for Binalshibh, who has begun ...

India and Pakistan blame each other's spies for just about everything that goes wrong. If there's an outbreak of plague or a riot, it's the work of the sinister "foreign hand." Indians are certain, for instance, that Pakistan's secret service, the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, masterminded the December attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi. Do they have any concrete evidence? "Zilch," concedes an Indian official. "Quite honestly, we only know they are involved by implication." Equally, the Pakistanis ...

The bombs that ripped through Baghdad on Sunday immediately brought more bloodshed -- and bode only of the promise of more to come.Under the international agreement between Washington, D.C. and Baghdad signed by the then-outgoing Bush administration, America's war in Iraq has all but ended with command of the war shifting permanently to the Iraqi government. Al Qaeda attacks took place during the U.S. command and now persist under Iraqi command. While many are thwarted, while car bombs are found ...

An umbrella group affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility Tuesday for a pair of weekend bombings that killed 160 people in Baghdad.Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who visited the scene shortly after the explosions, said holding the elections as scheduled would send a strong message to the attackers. "The cowardly attack ... should not affect the determination of the Iraqi people from continuing their battle against the deposed regime and the gangs of the criminal Baath party, and ...

Authorities have closed all educational institutions across the county until at least the end of the week, following twin suicide bombings at an Islamic university on Tuesday. By Wednesday, the death toll from the attacks at Islamabad's International Islamic University had climbed to six. Twenty-nine others were wounded, said Naeem Iqbal of the Islamabad police. Watch more about the attacks Officials in the North West Frontier Province, Balochistan and Sindh shuttered their schools and colleges ...

The bombings, shootings and fighting across Iraq in nearly five years of war have left more than 85,000 Iraqis dead, a government ministry said in a report. The Iraqi Human Rights Ministry said 85,694 people were killed from 2004 to October 31, 2008, in the violence across the country. There were 147,195 people wounded during the same period. The figures include civilians and Iraqi security forces but not insurgents and militias. The review is considered the first official report ...

Iraqi authorities on Sunday closed all entrances into Ramadi and imposed a curfew after a series of car bombings killed at least 19 people and injured more than 80 others, according to Interior Ministry officials. The three -- who were identified only by initials -- were accused of contacts with opposition groups, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported Saturday. The death sentences can be appealed, ISNA reported, quoting Bashiri Rad, director of public relations of the Tehran judiciary. No other ...

The Tanzanian national indicted in the 1998 terrorist bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania will not face the possibility of the death penalty, according to a letter issued by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday. Holder's letter directed U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara "not to seek the death penalty" against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani. CNN obtained the letter from the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bharara sent his own letter to ...