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ABSTRACT
The month of May 2011 witnessed the killing of the world's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden (OBL) inside Pakistan. It has been reported that Osama was living in Abbottabad for the last five years, near a Pakistan military academy. The US Navy Seal team, in a commando action called "Operation Geronimo" killed him and took his body with them. As the operation was conducted without prior information to the government of Pakistan, it has brought the two countries relations to an all-time low. There have also been reports that the US troops will be deployed in Pakistan if the nation's nuclear installations come under threat from terrorists out to avenge the killing of OBL (Sunday Express, 15 May, 2011). This has further increased tension between the US and Pakistan.
In this paper, an effort has been made to give a brief background of Al-Qaeda as an organization and to find out implications of the death of Osama Bin Ladin on the Pak-US relations, War on Terror (WOT), Pakistan and Al-Qaeda.
KEY WORDS: Osama Bin Laden, Operation Geronimo, Al-Qaeda, Pakistan, America
A Brief History of Al-Qaeda
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, drew many Muslim volunteers from the Arab world and Pakistan to participate in the Afghan jihad; it was these volunteers for whom the chief ideologue of the "Arab-Afghans" (Rashid: 2011, 123) and mentor for Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azam used the word Al Qaeda, to "describe the role he envisaged the most committed of the volunteers playing once the war against the Soviets was over" (Burke: 2004, 02). Defining 'al Qaeda' proves a complex task, it is commonly misconceived to be a distinct organisation or group headed by Arab leader Osama bin Laden, however in reality it is much more subtle, Burke describes the term as 'a loose network of networks'. The term "Al Qaeda is a messy and rough designation, often applied carelessly in the absence of a more useful term" (Burke: 2004, 01). It is actually a common Arabic word that can mean base, foundation, a rule, a principle, a method or maxim. The above translations are helpful in understanding the use of the term in reference to terrorist and extremist organisations. Abdallah Azzam, an early mentor of bin Ladin...