NEWS

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, was killed yesterday afternoon by a shot to the head when a group of Navy SEALs raided a heavily fortified building after a 40-minute firefight near Islamabad, Pakistan.

People of all ages celebrated the news by gathering at different iconic spots, including Ground Zero and outside the White House, holding signs and waving American flags.

However, FAU experts on the war in the Middle East and on U.S.-Muslim relations say a counterattack on the U.S. from radical Islamic groups could be imminent.

“Al-Qaida is going to try to demonstrate that they are still functional, that they can still deliver on the message that, of course, did not die with bin Laden,” said political science professor Jeffrey Morton.

Morton said a complicated and intricate plan like 9/11 — which could take months or years to prepare — is not necessarily the only way terrorist groups can retaliate.

 “Suicide bombers, people with basic chemicals that can be purchased in the open market can make an effort rather quickly and without a lot of support,” Morton said. “I think the most important thing for young people to understand is that bin Laden did not create an anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, he didn’t create the hatred of the U.S. among the radicals, he rather galvanized it — he gave it more unified meaning.”

He also believes that the way people in the U.S. celebrated bin Laden’s killing may create a negative perception in other countries.

“It should be a much more serious matter … If we think about the last major leader that was executed, that was Saddam Hussein, and even though he was killed judicially by his own people, it was captured on a cell phone with giggling and laughing in the background by his Iraqi captors,” Morton said. “That was a very bad image for the United States.”

Robert Rabil, director of graduate studies in the department of political science, disagrees with this notion.

“I think we celebrated here because justice has been served,” said Rabil, who was born in Lebanon. “If those people in the Middle East are upset about the death of someone who committed a large murder or suicide act, I’m sorry for them.”

Bin Laden’s killing comes after almost a 10-year manhunt.

Contrary to several hypothesis, bin Laden wasn’t hidden in a subterranean compound carved inside the Afghan mountains, but rather in plain sight — and in relative comfort — with his family on the second and third floors of a home located at the end of a narrow dirt road in Abbottabad, a city an hour’s drive north of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, according to a New York Times article.

Professor Morton said  the U.S.’s failure to previously capture the most wanted terrorist in the world comes in part due to the Pakistani intelligence community, which is very much pro-al-Qaida and has been misdirecting the American efforts to track down bin Laden.

“The fact that he was in a large compound near a large city tells us that the Pakistani, perhaps not at a presidential level, but certainly significant numbers of Pakistanis knew he was there and either harbored him or refused to divulge information of his where about,” Morton said.

Bin Laden, 54, was born in Saudi Arabia to a wealthy family, as stated in his New York Times obituary.

He believed in jihad, a broad concept mentioned in the Quran. Muslims use the word jihad in a religious context to refer to three types of struggles: an internal struggle to maintain faith, the struggle to improve the Muslim society, or the struggle to defend Islam.

The latter belief in jihad led bin Laden, who had become a religious fanatic, to seek violent means of achieving his purpose of defending Islam against the western influences of the U.S. These violent means are known as terrorism.

Despite the spontaneous celebrations on May 1 and the early hours of May 2, Professor Morton doesn’t think FAU students will participate in demonstrations.

“I would be surprised to see it in part because students are less emotional than the older public who experienced 9/11, especially those from the north east and Washington,” Morton said. “And also the reality that students are studying for exams and getting ready for graduation.”

Alexandra Pericles was one of those students.

“Honestly I have not been up to date on that,” Pericles said. “If he is really dead then show us the body. I also thought it could be a hoax.”

Julie Warner, another FAU student, found out about it while she was cooking dinner.

“I think it brings justice to everybody that happened to pass away on that day of Sept. 11,” Warner said. “It is going to bring us a new pride as Americans. I don’t think our security is going to go down or anything.”

Bin Laden’s body was buried at sea to prevent radicals from making a shrine of his burial site.

Professor Rabil said that even though bin Laden’s death has weakened al-Qaida and brought a sense of relief to the American public, the war on Islamic terrorism is far from over.

“I think yes, probably you are going to have a desire to go ahead and retaliate but a desire to retaliate doesn’t lead into a capability to go ahead and retaliate. And I hope that they don’t have the capability,” Rabil said. “The war on terror, on extremism is not going to end. It’s an ideological war.”

Philicia Iris Douglas contributed reporting from the Boca campus.