in some remote tribal area where it s hard to get to surrounded by supporters. but in islamabad. i know afghani officials are already e-mailing me saying we told you he was in afghanistan. we have searched and searched in afghanistan. now they re sort of saying, you know what? we always suspected he was in pakistan. pakistani officials have always said we have no evidence he s in pakistan. if you give us actionable intelligence, we ll help you find him in pakistan. we don t know at this point. we suspect, gloria, this was a cia operation. we don t know if there was assistance from elements of pakistan s intelligence service or not, who gave the u.s. the initial tips where bin laden might be hiding out with his family. all of those details remain to be answered. but it will have a dramatic spill-over effect on u.s. relations with afghanistan, with pakistan and what happens now. and especially these are pictures, by the way, outside the white house right now. you can see people gatheri
but it will be very interesting to understand, when did the president of pakistan know this? did he know, was it coordinated with him before the operation happened? i ll tell you, wolf, given the history of this relationship and the distrust that you talk about, it may, in fact, be that president zardari and the pakistani government were not informed until the operation was under way or immediately after it was finished. fran, hold on for a second because kenny spekt is joining us, a new york city firefighter. this must be, kenny, for you, for your fellow firefighters, an enormously powerful moment. tell us how you re feeling. good evening, wolf. as a new york city firefighter, first and foremost, i think i speak for all new york city firefighters when i give a heartfelt thanks to members of the united states military who took on this very, very dangerous task. i think the most important news
but we re going to get all those details pretty soon. nic robertson is joining us from the united kingdom right now. nic, you were in afghanistan on 9/11 almost ten years ago. and the world is now only beginning to learn that the united states, in some sort of coordinated operation, whether with the assistance of others or not, the united states has confirmed that bin laden is dead. go ahead and weigh in. reporter: wolf, if it proves, as we are beginning to understand that his killing has taken place in pakistan, that he s been hiding in pakistan close to the capital of pakistan, islamabad, this is also going to have is going to make our relations with pakistan even more frayed and even more difficult. it would not be difficult to imagine either that there will be some sort of protests and backlash on the streets there of islamabad. but this has been exactly the
team was aacceptable bssembled and capture or kill him. the president saying they had cooperation from the pakistani government. he thanked the president of pakistan for the assistance in this effort. they had the body. they retrieved the body. and they confirmed, in fact, it was bin laden. i assume they had dna evidence in addition to other obvious visual sightings of bin laden. they wanted to make sure they had the right individual. ed henry is over at the white house, our senior white house correspondent. the president, he was to the point. and he understood fully what this announcement means, the cheering. i can even hear it now around the world. certainly where you are at the white house. reporter: wolf, this crowd behind me at the white house was building literally as the president spoke. the president laid out new details. first, he confirmed what we reported here first, which is that osama bin laden was killed in pakistan, not in afghanistan.
bin laden has been killed at a mansion outside of islamabad, the capital of pakistan. almost hiding in plain sight, if you will. there had been all sorts of speculation in recent years he was in some remote tribal area of a mountainous area of pakistan along the border with afghanistan, an area hard to get to, an area that was almost impossible to find. if, in fact, these reports and we believe they are true that he was killed in a mansion outside the pakistani capital of islamabad, which is where so much of the activity you know, so much of the world was focusing their attention on other areas. in fact, he was killed at a mansion outside of islamabad, that would just be a huge, huge part of this story. john king is getting more information for us as well. what else are you picking up, john? wolf, i just want to reiterate, i m told it was a united states asset that killed osama bin laden based on actionable u.s. intelligence. the president of the united