Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 a.m. PKT (20:00 UTC, May 1) by United States Navy SEALs of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six). The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a CIA-led operation with Joint Special Operations Command, commonly known as JSOC, coordinating the Special Mission Units involved in the raid. In addition to SEAL Team Six, participating units under JSOC included the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne)also known as "Night Stalkers"and operators from the CIA's Special Activities Division, which recruits heavily from former JSOC Special Mission Units. The operation ended a nearly 10-year search for bin Laden, following his role in the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was launched from Afghanistan, where U.S. forces were based, about 120 miles (190 km) away. The raid at the compound was 40 minutes long. U.S. military officials said that after the raid was completed, U.S. forces returned to Afghanistan with the body of bin Laden for identification; they then flew over 850 miles (1,370 km) to the Arabian Sea, where his body was buried in accordance with Islamic tradition, within 24 hours of his death.Al-Qaeda confirmed the death on May 6 with posts made on militant websites, vowing to avenge the killing. Other Pakistani militant groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, vowed retaliation against the U.S. and against Pakistan for not preventing the operation. The raid was supported by over 90% of the American public, was welcomed by the United Nations, NATO, the European Union and a large number of governments, but was condemned by others, including two-thirds of the Pakistani public. Legal and ethical aspects of the killing, such as the failure to capture him alive despite him being unarmed, were questioned by others, including Amnesty International. Also controversial was the decision not to publish any photographic or DNA evidence of bin Laden's death. There was also controversy in Pakistan as to how the country's defence was breached and the Air Force failed to pick up the American aircraft.After the killing, Pakistani prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani formed a commission under Senior Justice Javed Iqbal to investigate the circumstances of the attack. The resulting Abbottabad Commission Report, which revealed Pakistani state military and intelligence authorities' "collective failure" that enabled bin Laden to hide in Pakistan for nine years, was leaked to Al Jazeera on July 8, 2013.

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), also transliterated as Usama bin Ladin, was a Saudi terrorist and founder of the Pan-Islamic militant organization al-Qaeda. The group is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Security Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and various countries. Under bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks in the United States, and many other mass-casualty attacks worldwide.He was a Saudi Arabian citizen until 1994 and a member of the wealthy bin Laden family. Bin Laden's father was Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire from Hadhramaut, Yemen, and the founder of the construction company, Saudi Binladin Group. His mother, Alia Ghanem, was from a secular middle-class family in Latakia, Syria. He was born in Saudi Arabia and studied at university in the country until 1979, when he joined Mujahideen forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He helped to fund the Mujahideen by funneling arms, money, and fighters from the Arab world into Afghanistan, and gained popularity among many Arabs. In 1988, he formed al-Qaeda. He was banished from Saudi Arabia in 1992, and shifted his base to Sudan, until US pressure forced him to leave Sudan in 1996. After establishing a new base in Afghanistan, he declared a war against the United States, initiating a series of bombings and related attacks. Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings.Bin Laden is most well known for his role in masterminding the September 11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people and prompted the United States, on the orders of President George W. Bush, to initiate the "War on Terror" and the subsequent War in Afghanistan. He subsequently became the subject of a decade-long international manhunt. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the United States, as the FBI offered a $25 million bounty in their search for him. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by US Navy SEALs inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he lived with a local family from Waziristan. The covert operation was conducted by members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group (SEAL Team Six) and Central Intelligence Agency SAD/SOG operators on the orders of President Barack Obama.