Taliban threats
Pakistan's main Taliban faction has threatened to attack Pakistan and the United States after the US confirmed that Osama bin Laden had been killed near the Pakistani capital.
"If he has been martyred, we will avenge his death and launch attacks against American and Pakistani governments and their security forces," spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"These people are in fact the enemies of Islam," he added.
The Taliban spokesman said the militia had not itself managed to confirm bin Laden's death, which was announced by US President Barack Obama.
"If he has become a martyr, it is a great victory for us because martyrdom is the aim of all of us."
Iraq 'delighted'
Iraq was "delighted" by the news of Bin Laden's death, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP, noting that thousands of Iraqis had died "because of his ideologies".
"We, like many people in the world, are delighted to see an end to his mentality and his devious ideology," Zebari said.
"Iraqis suffered a great deal at the hands of this man and his terrorist organisation. Thousands of Iraqis were murdered and killed because of his ideologies."
Zebari said that while "Al-Qaeda will not disappear as such, it is a major blow to the organisation."
Al-Qaeda front group the Islamic State of Iraq has said it carried out a number of spectacular attacks in Baghdad and in the provinces in recent years.
Officials have warned that, as Iraqi security forces have strengthened their capabilities, the ISI has shifted its efforts to lower-cost assassinations, a spate of which have taken place in the past two weeks.
Russia hails slaughter
Russia hailed the killing as a great success and offered to work more closely with the United States in the war against global terrorism.
"The Kremlin welcomes the serious success the United States achieved in the war against international terrorism," President Dmitry Medvedev's press service said in a statement.
"Retribution inevitably reaches all terrorists," it added in comments that echoed those made by US President Barack Obama when he announced the death.
Russia's then-president Vladimir Putin was the first leader to telephone his US counterpart George W. Bush and express sympathies over the September 11, 2001, terror attacks masterminded by bin Laden.
Putin at the time voiced Russia's willingness to expand international cooperation with the United States and compared the attack to a string of Russian apartment block bombings that killed nearly 300 people in 1999.
Russia blamed those strikes on North Caucasus Islamist extremists with links to international terror networks such as Al-Qaeda.
Germany cautious
The killing was a "victory for the forces of peace," but Bin Laden's death does not mean extremism has been defeated, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.
"Last night the forces of peace achieved a victory. But this does not mean that international terrorism has been defeated yet. We must all remain vigilant," Merkel said in a statement.
"The US military has achieved a decisive blow against Al-Qaeda with its commando action against Osama bin Laden and his killing," Merkel said, adding she had expressed her "relief" to US President Barack Obama.
"Osama bin Laden was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people.
"Osama bin Laden claimed to be acting in the name of Islam, but in reality he made a mockery of the basic values of his and all other religions."
Earlier German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in a statement called the death of "one of the world's most brutal terrorists ... good news for all the people of the world who love peace and think freely."
He warned however of the risk of acts of revenge.
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