Deaf Writer's Alarm

WASHINGTON • Calling it a "good day for America," President Barack Obama said Monday that the death of Osama bin Laden had made the world "a better place," as new details emerged about the overnight raid and firefight in Pakistan that killed him.

"The world is safer," Obama said as he appeared at a White House ceremony bestowing the Medal of Honor on two soldiers killed in the Korean War. "It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden."

Bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaida and the most hunted man in the world, was found not in the remote tribal areas along the Pakistani-Afghan border where he had long been presumed to have been sheltered, but in a large compound in the city of Abbottabad, about an hour's drive north from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The compound, only about a third of a mile from a military academy of the Pakistani army, is at the end of a narrow dirt road and is roughly eight times the size of other homes in the area. It has no telephone or Internet connections. When American operatives converged on the residence, Bin Laden "resisted the assault force" and was shot in the head and killed near the end of an intense 40-minute gunbattle, senior administration officials said.

The raid carried extraordinary risks — and not just from bin Laden and those with him in the compound. As the sound of battle shook the night, Pakistan scrambled jets to respond to an operation that its military had not been informed was taking place.

"They had no idea about who might have been on there, whether it be U.S. or somebody else," John Brennan, Obama's counterterrorism adviser, said in a briefing Monday. "So we were watching and making sure that our people and our aircraft were able to get out of the Pakistani airspace, and thankfully there was no engagement with Pakistani forces."

The tensest moment, he said, came when one of two helicopters that flew the American troops into the compound broke down, stalling as it flew over the 18-foot wall of the compound and prepared to land. After the raid, the team blew up the helicopter and called in one of two backups. In all, 79 commandos and a dog were involved.

Obama considered other options that would have been less risky, such as an airstrike, but ultimately opted to send in commandos because, Brennan said, "it gave us the ability to minimize collateral damage" and "to ensure that we knew who it was that was on that compound."

One of bin Laden's wives, who was living in the compound with him, identified his body after the fighting stopped; and officials said the Central Intelligence Agency analysis found a "virtually 100 percent" match between his DNA and that of several members of his family.

The administration disclosed that military and intelligence officials first learned last summer that a "high-value target" was being protected in the compound, and they began working on a plan for going in to get him. Beginning in March, Obama presided over five national security meetings at the White House to review plans for the operation.

On Friday morning, just before leaving Washington to tour tornado damage in Alabama, Obama gave the final order for members of the Navy SEALs and CIA operatives to strike.

Three men besides bin Laden were killed in the 40-minute raid. One is believed to be his son and the two others his couriers, according to a U.S. official. A woman was killed, reportedly while shielding bin Laden; Brennan said she was bin Laden's wife. No Americans were harmed.

The raid, months in the planning, came after intelligence officials learned the identity of one of bin Laden's couriers from a "detainee," presumably at Guantanamo, and traced the courier to the hideout.

Muslim tradition requires prompt burial, generally within 24 hours, but American authorities found a way to comply with that requirement while denying his followers a shrine. His body was washed in accordance with Islamic custom, and placed in a white sheet and then inside a weighted bag, a senior defense official said. Aboard the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea, the body was placed on a board, tipped up and "eased into the sea," the official said.

American intelligence officials said that the team removed a large trove of documents and materials from the residence, and that the CIA was just beginning to go through it.

The reaction in Washington the day after was ebullient. Obama recalled the sense of unity and purpose that immediately followed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon nearly a decade ago.

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