Osama bin Laden's death in Pakistan is welcome news in Georgia.
The brother of a victim of the al-Qaida leader's reign of international terror, which includes orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said bin Laden's death brings him a measure of closure.
Georgia's congressmen who served during 9-11 called the news "historic," praising the U.S. special forces responsible for killing bin Laden.
"We celebrate this victory against an embodiment of evil, and we remember and mourn the thousands of innocents who died at the hands of this murderer," said Gov. Nathan Deal, who was a Republican member of Congress in 2001. "Today, our great nation showed once again that we will stop at nothing to defeat those who threaten our people with terrorism."
Georgia's sacrifices stemming from 9-11 and the subsequent military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are still being tallied.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have claimed 184 Georgians in the military, according to a running tally by The Washington Post. Georgia's National Guard, the citizen-soldiers working in support of the active-duty military, has been in constant deployment rotation for nearly a decade. Georgia-based Guard units and Georgia natives in the military remain in Afghanistan, where nine U.S. soldiers died over the weekend.
Anton Gunn, of Atlanta, has been living with the specter of bin Laden and Al-Qaida longer than most. His brother was killed in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, an operation for which bin Laden and al-Qaida took credit.
Early Monday morning, as the news of bin Laden’s death sunk in, Gunn was reflective.
“For me and my family, my siblings and my parents in particular, we’re so happy there is some level of closure,” said Gunn, a regional director for U.S. Health and Human Services, who worked for President Obama’s 2008 campaign.
“And the reason I say some and not all, is because Al-Qaida is a huge network,” Gunn said. “This is not over.”
Details of the operation, whose planning began eight months ago, were released by the White House during a Monday morning conference call.
Senior White House officials said the president’s involvement in plans to capture or kill bin Laden began last September, when intelligence officials identified a mansion about 45 miles outside Islamabad, Pakistan, that fit a profile that had been built over a number of years.
Information from detainees identified a trusted courier who operated within bin Laden’s inner circle, administration officials said. The courier and his brother built a highly-secure compound that a senior White House officials said “was built to house Osama Bin Laden.”
The house was in an affluent suburb of Islamabad and described as being eight times larger than surrounding homes, with 12- to 18-foot walls topped with barbed wire, internal walls as, possibly, a second line of defense, and no outgoing connections for phone or Internet service, officials said.
After chairing five national security committee meetings from mid-March until last week, President Obama gave the order Friday morning to attack the compound.
Sunday afternoon, a small U.S. team was helicoptered into the compound and began a firefight with individuals inside.
Bin Laden was killed in the gunfight, along with the courier and his brother, and one of bin Laden’s sons. Also, a woman was killed when one of the al Qaida operatives used her as a human shield, White House officials said. No Americans were injured or killed.
"This is a historic moment for the U.S. special operations and intelligence communities," said U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. "I highly commend the special operations units who undertook this mission."
President Obama contacted Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton before making his announcement to the public Sunday evening. All three presidents have at some point sought bin Laden.
U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson said bin Laden's death brings some needed closure.
"It brings to close an unfortunate chapter in American history," said U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson.
That sentiment was echoed by U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Georgia Republican.
"The backbone of the al-Qaida is no more," Westmoreland said.
But the legacy of 9-11 remains.
"(Bin Laden's) terrorism changed not only individual lives, but it promoted an environment of fear and the need for ever-ready security to assure the defense of this nation and others around the world," said U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat.
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