Students' reactions to bin Laden's death

By Matt Rupel

The sounds of students loudly celebrating could be heard around campus Sunday evening as news of Osama bin Laden's death reached Santa Clara.

"We were watching Sports Center," said sophomore Scott Johnson, "and it came on the ticker." Johnson and sophomore Alex Pascal said they were siting on the couch in their apartment off-campus when they found out.

Pascal said he yelled "America" when he found out.

Johnson said they wondered if it was really true when a police officer showed up at their door, asking if they were partying because bin Laden was killed. "He goes, ‘Oh I got a call because apparently somebody was throwing something against the fence.'"

Sophomore Brett Davey said that cheers could even be heard in the Learning Commons.

According to Johnson, the celebrating at Santa Clara was "more tame."

Bin Laden, the terror mastermind killed by Navy SEALs in an intense firefight, was hunted down based on information first gleaned years ago from detainees at secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe, officials disclosed Monday. The U.S. said a DNA match proved the man behind the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was dead, and millions of Americans rejoiced.

After the gunfire, U.S. forces swept bin Laden's fortified compound in Pakistan and left with a trove of hard drives, DVDs and other documents that officials said the CIA was already poring over. The hope: clues leading to his presumed successor, al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri.

"The world is safer. It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden," declared President Barack Obama, hours after U.S. forces killed the al-Qaida leader. They then ferried the body out for a quick burial at sea.

Bin Laden's death after a decade on the run unloosed a national wave of euphoria mixed with remembrance for the thousands who died in the Sept. 11 2001, terror attacks. Crowds celebrated throughout the night outside the White House and at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, where the Twin Towers once stood. Thousands of students at Penn State University and in other college towns spilled into the streets and set off firecrackers to mark the moment.

"For my family and I, it's good, it's desirable, it's right," said Mike Low of Batesville, Ark., whose daughter Sara was a flight attendant aboard the hijacked plane that was flown into the World Trade Center North Tower. "It certainly brings an ending to a major quest for all of us."

Halfway around the world, a prominent al-Qaeda commentator vowed revenge for bin Laden's death.

"Woe to his enemies. By God, we will avenge the killing of the Sheik of Islam," he wrote under his online name Assad al-Jihad. "Those who wish that jihad has ended or weakened, I tell them: Let us wait a little bit."

U.S. officials conceded the risk of renewed attack. The terrorists "almost certainly will attempt to avenge" bin Laden's death, CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote in a memo that congratulated the agency for its role in the operation.

"Bin Laden is dead. Al-Qaeda is not."

Contact Matt Rupel at mrupel@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4546. Chris Brummitt, David Espo, Ben Feller, Matt Apuzzo, Erica Werner, Pauline Jelinek, Robert Burns, Matthew Lee, Eileen Sullivan and Kimberly Dozier of the Associated Press contributed to this story.