Spontaneous, celebratory rallies broke out in New York City at ground zero, where the twin towers fell on Sept. 11, 2001 and outside the White House where President Barack Obama made the historic announcement. At the same time, US embassies across the globe were placed on high alert and Americans warned about possible reprisals for the death of the man who masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Al-Qaeda will continue,” said Haroun Mir, an Afghan analyst in Kabul, who added that the death in a raid on a mansion in Pakistan vindicated longtime allegations by Afghanistan that Bin Laden enjoyed “safe havens” in the neighboring country.

Chairul Akbar, secretary general of the anti-terrorism agency in Indonesia — the world’s most populous Muslim nation and a frequent Al-Qaeda target — expressed jubilation about the news. Attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda-linked militants have killed more than 260 people in Indonesia, many of them foreign tourists.

“We welcome the death of one of the world’s most dangerous men and highly appreciate the United States’ help in crushing this global enemy,” he said. “He couldn’t be allowed to live. He helped spread a dangerous ideology all over the world, including in Indonesia.” Said Agil Siradj, chairman of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, said Bin Laden’s death will help restore the image of Islam as one of people, not violence and radicalism.

“But I don’t think terrorism will stop with his death,” Saradj said. “As long as there is oppression and injustice against Muslims in Palestine it will continue.” Brian Deegan, a lawyer from the southern Australian city of Adelaide who lost his 21-year-old son Josh in Al-Qaeda-linked bombings on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali in 2002, said he felt a “cold shiver” when learning about Bin Laden’s death on a car radio.

“I don’t gain any satisfaction in his death — nothing will bring Josh back to me,” Deegan said. “But as for my remaining three children, I gain a sense of some security — I feel better for the future for my remaining three children.” Deegan thinks most Australians will share his sense of relief, he said.

“It does show that persons who exact horrific crimes on others on such a mass scale, even in this enormous world of ours, they can run and they can hide, but eventually they will be found,” Deegan said.
 

The Western-backed Palestinian Authority said on Monday the killing of Bin Laden was “good for the cause of peace.”

“Getting rid of Bin Laden is good for the cause of peace worldwide but what counts is to overcome the discourse and the methods — the violent methods — that were created and encouraged by Bin Laden and others in the world,” PA spokesman Ghassan Khatib said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated the Bin Laden's death as a triumph for Washington and its allies in their “war on terror.”

“This is a resounding triumph for justice, freedom and the values shared by all democratic nations fighting shoulder to shoulder in determination against terrorism,” Netanyahu said in a statement early on Monday.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel, which has cast its own struggle with Palestinian and Lebanese militants as an extension of the US-led campaign against Al-Qaeda worldwide, gained from Bin Laden’s death.

“Al Qaeda has ceaselessly tried to penetrate Gaza and Judea and Samaria (West Bank),” he told Israel’s Army Radio, referring to Palestinian territories. “His interception has operational significance for us, too.”

Israel had not contributed to the American commando raid that killed Bin Laden in Pakistan, and was informed of it half an hour before US President Barack Obama made his official announcement on Sunday night, Lieberman said.

President Shimon Peres, Israel’s elder statesman and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said Bin Laden had “met his end at the gallows.” Peres described the death as a lesson about the self-destructiveness of violent extremism.

“Look at all of the murderers, all of those dictators and terrorists. They end up murdering themselves — the real verdict of history, which to my regret takes a lot a time and exacts a lot of victims,” he told Israel Radio.”

Kenya’s prime minister thanked on Monday the United States and Pakistan for the killing of Osama Bin Laden, describing the news as positive for the east African country struck by an Al-Qaeda attack more than a decade ago.

“Kenyans are happy and thank the US people, the Pakistani people and everybody else who managed to kill Osama,” Raila Odinga told Reuters.

“Osama’s death can only be positive for Kenya but we need to have a stable government in Somalia,” he said, referring to a four year insurgency in neighboring Somalia where Al-Qaeda linked rebels are fighting to topple the government.