Obama to bin Laden assault team: 'Job well done'

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) — Brimming with pride, President Barack Obama embraced the U.S. commandos he sent after terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, saluting them Friday on behalf of America and people all over the world. "Job well done," he declared.

Speaking to a hangar full of cheering soldiers, Obama said: "Thanks to the incredible skill and courage of countless individuals — intelligence, military over many years — the terrorist leader that struck our nation 9/11 will never threaten America again."

President Barack Obama greets military personnel prior to addressing troops, Friday at Fort Campbell, Ky.

The president addressed the larger group after meeting privately with the full assault team — Army helicopter pilots and Navy SEAL commandos — who executed the dangerous raid on bin Laden's compound and killed the al-Qaida leader in Pakistan early Monday.,"

At an Army post whose troops have sustained heavy losses in an Afghanistan war that has grown on his watch, Obama said: "We are ultimately going to defeat al-Qaida." Still, he warned that the fight against terrorists still rages.

Capping an extraordinary week for the military, the nation and himself, he called the bin Laden raid one of the most successful intelligence and military operations in America's history.

Vice President Joe Biden joined Obama in a briefing and in thanking the members of the mission behind closed doors. He emerged to the broader audience of troops and put it bluntly: "We just spent time with the assaulters who got bin Laden."