details. we'll have the very latest for you, including reaction from the families of 9/11 victims. "early" this monday morning, may families of 9/11 victims. "early" this monday morning, may 2nd, 2011. captioning funded by cbs and you are looking at a live shot of ground zero. we are down here on the corner of church street which rings very familiar for folks as we prepare to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11 the news comes in that osama bin laden was killed in that daring raid in pakistan. we're going to get you the very latest on exactly what happened there, what this means, as we head forward in the fight against terrorism, and of course, how people are reacting to the news. we mentioned people celebrating in the streets. down here at ground zero, when you speak to folks, some say it is closure, others, really concerned about a potential increase of a risk of terrorism. so we'll get to all of that in just a moment. we'll be here at ground zero. chris wragge in the studio in new york. where plenty is happening as well, chris. >> still a very big open wound, erica, for everyone involved in 9/11 in the years since. the news started leaking out around 11:00 p.m. here on the east coast. president obama confirmed it a short time later and the reaction from all over the world has been overwhelming, as you can imagine, and we are going to bring you each and every element of that over the next two hours here on "the early show." erica, back to you at ground zero, and kick things off. >> all right, chris. we do want to begin at the white house because that is, of course, where the news came from last night. white house correspondent bill plante, i believe, we're going to bill at this point, who has the very latest on where we stand this morning. >> good morning, erica. the president decided to go ahead with this operation on friday. and then last night, at 11:30 eastern time, he was able to tell the nation and the world that it had been a success. but that the battle was far from over. >> after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, i was briefed on a possible lead to bin laden. it was far from certain. and it took many months to run this thread to ground. i met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin laden, hiding within a compound deep inside pakistan. and finally, last week, i determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get osama bin laden and bring him to justice. >> just after 4:00 -- just after 2:00 yesterday afternoon the president returned to the white house from a round of golf. and he began meeting with his national security officials. he gave the go-ahead for the operation, and in the hours following, he learned that the target was identified as bin laden, and then that bin laden had been killed. he had briefings later last evening, before going on the air later last night. erica? >> bill, do we know, because this is, of course, a hunt for a terror mastermind, that actually went across three presidencies. did president obama speak at all with former president george w. bush? >> he did. the president spoke with former president george w. bush and with former president clinton last night. former president bush issued this statement, a written statement, he said america has sent an unmistakable message, no matter how long it takes, justice will be done. we do know that president bush congratulated president obama. erica? >> all right. senior white house correspondent this morning, bill, thanks. chris, as we move into this next phase many people are wondering, really what was the minutia that went into this, how did they manage to get all of their ducks in a row. >> precisely. let's go to the pentagon where cbs news national security correspondent david martin has the very latest information on the raid that killed osama bin laden. david, good morning. >> good morning, chris. as bill has reported, president obama gave the order on friday to sent american commandos deep inside pakistan to attack bin laden's hideout, which turned out to be a million dollar villa. the clandestine attack, executed by up to 25 special operations forces working for the cia took place early monday morning in pakistan. at a large compound in an affluent suburb of the capital of islamabad. two blackhawk helicopters approached the hideout. one of them suffered a mechanical failure as it came in, and made a hard landing. the commandos, mostly navy s.e.a.l.s, stormed out of the helicopters and into a three-story building at the heart of the compound. a firefight erupted. bin laden is said to have' resisted but was killed inside the building along with one of his sons, two kour yirs and a woman used as a human shield. the raiders took bin laden's body with them for pozive identification. but had to leave the helicopter behind, blowing it up. according to muslim custom, bin laden had to be buried within 24 hours of his death and officials say he is being buried at sea from the deck of a u.s. navy warship. now, chris, this compound was eight times larger than any of the surrounding homes in this suburb, popular with retired pakistani military officers. and u.s. officials say the pakistani government is going to have a hard time explaining how bin laden could have been living there without anyone knowing. >> it doesn't sound like this was some clandestine cave obviously. but how did the u.s. eventually find out he was at this compound, as large as you say it was? >> by tracking his favorite courier over a period of years. they finally found where the courier lived last august, and when they started zeroing in on this compound, they saw this was no ordinary compound. it had walls, something like 12 feet high, barbed wire on the walls, and despite it being a million dollar residence, it had no telephone or internet service, and the people who lived there burned their trash, rather than putting it out for a collection. and then finally, after months of surveillance they saw that the number of people living in that compound, coincided with the number of people thought to be living with bin laden as members of his immediate family. >> so essentially he was hiding out in the open. david, let me ask you about, as far as did the u.s. ask for any type of permission from the pakistani government before taking action? >> no. and they didn't even inform the pakistani government that this was happening. the pakistani government found out about it when things started going boom at this -- at this villa. >> all right. david martin for us at the pentagon this morning. david, thank you very much. now, pakistan's role, of course, in this ten-year effort to bring bin laden to justice will come into question. especially after hearing all this. let's go back to erica at ground zero. erica? >> chris, it's actually been a question over the last few years, just how deep was pakistan's commitment to this fight on terror and to being in that fight with the u.s. we do want to take a look at how this is playing out, what the reaction is now, on the ground in pakistan. for that we're joined by cbs news farhan vocari in islamabad this morning. good morning. >> good morning. >> give us an idea, how is -- >> good morning, erica. -- >> across pakistan in this country, most people frankly are quite stunned. this is a country with ordinary people. by and large sympathize with causes of the kind that are promoted by osama bin laden or for that matter even the taliban. but across high-ranking officials in this country, there's generally a sense of relief. sense of relief because this is an important milestone which has been achieved. osama bin laden was -- responsible for the assassination, two assassination attempts on a former pakistani president. possibly even in some ways, ties to the 2007 assassination of former prime minister benazir bhutto. so as you can see, he has much blood of people in this country on his hands. >> from islamabad for us this morning, thank you. we want to turn now to cbs news chief foreign affairs correspondent lara logan who joins us from washington. lara, as we look at the connection, and we talk a little bit, david martin touched on the commitment from pakistan to the u.s. in the fight against terror, what -- what the pakistani government actually knew, what's happening this morning in terms -- in terms of that relationship? >> well, that's a very interesting question, erica. because that relationship has been at its lowest point for the past six weeks, and few months. it's been getting worse and worse, as the pakistanis have been trying to leverage whatever they can against the u.s., and the u.s. has been an increasingly apparently weak position. and where it stands now is the pakistanis are looking extremely vulnerable. because they have to explain how osama bin laden was living right in the middle of one of their main cities, not only was this a sophisticated, congested city. but the most significant thing to note about it is that it was -- this neighborhood was home to pakistani military officers, retired officers. the city itself also hosts the pakistani military academy, which is the main training facility. former president pervez musharraf went through that academy. the current chief of the army in pakistan was in the area just four days ago addressing cadets. there is no doubt, i have spoken to officials from the special operations side, the counterterrorism, everybody that you can talk to says, there is no way the pakistanis didn't know about this. and that's the question they're going to have to answer. because, you know, until recently the pakistanis were even denying that osama bin laden was on their soil. and that appears now to have been a lie. >> it's going to be interesting when we hear more about that. but since this is a tenuous relationship, especially in pakistan, because as i understand it, and i throw this to you because this is your expertise, lara, it's been a little tough on their end because they want the support of the united states in some respects, but then at the same time, the close relationship with the u.s., and pakistan, does not always sit well with people at home. >> no. the close relationship with the u.s. doesn't sit well at all. in fact, you know, right across pakistan there's a lot of animosity towards the united states. but you know what's important to note here, erica, is that the pakistanis have been very willing to help the u.s. when it comes to organizations like al qaeda, organizations like the pakistani taliban, that threaten their existence. there is a whole host of other organizations like the network that are responsible for the fighting in eastern afghanistan. like the afghan taliban, mullah omar the leader of the taliban who gave refuge to osama bin laden and gave him the space to plan 9/11 from his soil. and also, lashkar-e-toiba the militant organization that was really created by the pakistanis as a foil to the threat their perceive from india. and the pakistanis have protected those militant groups. they're very selective about who they go after. the pakistani government has issued a statement this morning, you know, making a point of how many pakistani civilians, some 30,000, they say, that have been killed by acts of terrorism on their soil. and some 5,000 pakistani security forces. but what the pakistanis are never honest about is that they protect militants who are responsible for the deaths of americans. american civilians, american soldiers. i mean, american soldiers on the ground in afghanistan have rarely, if you can imagine this, erica, they've been handcuffed, being sent into battle. because all they can do is kill osama bin laden's foot soldiers. they could never get at the leadership itself because they were across the border of pakistan. and pakistan has protected the high command of the taliban, and really, were america's enemy. and you know, the pakistanis have never been, you know, they've never been made to answer for this. they've been allowed always to put pakistani concerns first and say, oh, but this, but this, but that. we're doing this, we're doing that. it really is, in the words of one very senior former intelligence official in afghanistan said to me, it's the grand deception of pakistan. >> we'll be continuing to follow that. lara logan, appreciate you coming in with your expertise this morning. chris, we'll send it back to you. one of the things we're going to be talking further about throughout this broadcast and definitely in the coming days is what this does, as well, to the threat of terrorism both here and abroad. >> exactly. now under a heightened awareness again. early this morning the state department issued a worldwide travel alert for u.s. citizens telling them to expect that the killing of osama bin laden will trigger anti-american attacks. cbs news homeland security correspondent bob orr joins us now from washington. bob, good morning. >> good morning. >> are authorities raising terror levels worldwide now? >> not in the classic sense where we used to go up a color. we don't have color codes anymore. but we're not raising the terror threat level. with that said, significant portions of the u.s. government and military installations, and law enforcement agencies are kind of raising their guard. last night the fbi put out a bulletin to all of the joint terrorism task forces across america, urging vigilance and saying, look, it's possible we could face retaliatory strikes from al qaeda and sympathizers, so be on the lookout for any kind of signs, any kind of evidence that there could be something in the works. we want to say this morning, though, that as far as we know there is no credible threat out there. nothing in the pipeline, so to speak, but it is true that america is on guard. >> but retaliation has to be something that everyone's thinking about right now, and is that a major, major concern? >> well, it is a big concern, because al qaeda takes a very long view here. it's obvious to most counterterrorism experts that al qaeda would like to try something in the form of retribution for the death of bin laden. but, i don't know that that would be today or tomorrow. they tend to think longer-term. they're strategic planners. we could face a sizable risk down the road. the one thing that's kind of a wild card in this is because al qaeda has fractionalized and splintered, the base of operations, the real power base, has kind of shifted to yemen. and al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. it could be that the leader of aqap there, and the american born radical cleric anwar al awlaki may see this as a call to arms. they have tried to hit the u.s. before with the failed underwear bomb attack in december 2009. and last year with the printer bombs that were found in dubai and in london. so we could face a fairly more immediate risk from that group, and then finally, there's the risk of the so-called lone wolf. someone, perhaps even living in this country, that could view the killing of bin laden as unjust and take something into their own hands, try to strike out. so, we're on guard, but at the moment we don't know of anything chris. >> he's been a figurehead, bin laden, for so many years for al qaeda. how significantly does his death dismantle the infrastructure? >> well, this is a big blow, no matter how you look at it for al qaeda. this is the spiritual head. he's the founder of al qaeda. so at the core command in that pakistan/afghanistan region this is a significant blow that will be a setback for core al qaeda. however, over the past several years, his operational role has somewhat been diminished. he's more of a spiritual leader. he has left different attacks in different kinds of plots. but he hasn't been right at the center of that. the threat is kind of dispersed now and we're looking at problems in somalia, problems in yemen and other al qaeda splinter groups and sympathizer groups. so the fight's not over. this is a big blow against al qaeda, but this does not mean that we've completely abolished the threat that aq presents. >> exactly. he's been a major target for the last ten years. now the big question is who to target next. bob orr in washington for us this morning. bob, thank you very much. now we're going to switch gears for just a moment here. marysol castro is here with your first check of the weather on this monday morning. >> good morning, chris. good morning, everyone at home. if you take a look at the national picture, we're still dealing with a little bit of severe weather. nothing like what we saw last week. but there are some lulls, you can see a big stretch of high pressure over much of the nation, we're still contending with some cooler temperatures, and some precipitation in the pacific northwest. we'll turn our focus to that severe weather seend what's in store. so really the same areas that were hit last week are going to continue to see hail, gusty winds and rain for today. but again nothing like what we saw last week. in terms of the rain, there could be as much as 4 to 5 inches of it over the next 24 hours. the rain is expected to fall at a rate of about 1 to 2 inches an hour. which is still at a steady clip. others, of course, will make us focus on a lot of flood >> thanks so much. that's your latest weather. now back to chris and erica. >> marysol, thank you very much. still ahead this morning on "the early show," 9/11 victims react. we're going to speak with the ceo of kantor fitzgerald which lost more than 650 employees at the world trade center. erica? >> and chris, we will also take a closer look at reaction, both down here at ground zero and across the u.s. and the world, as news of osama bin laden's death is reported. stay with us, you're watching a special edition of "the early show" on cbs. mother's day is not for celebrating moms. it's for celebrating all they've given us. really?! 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