Operation Geronimo: Assassination of Osama Bin Ladin and its implications on the US-Pakistan relations, War on Terror, Pakistan and Al-Qaeda

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.