Osama bin Laden used his wife as a human shield in a last desperate attempt to save his own life before he was gunned down by US special forces in his hideout in Pakistan.

Armed with an automatic weapon, the al-Qaeda leader's last act was to force his young bride to sacrifice her life as he tried to fire back at the US Navy Seals storming the compound.

Bin Laden was killed with a single shot to the head after being tracked down to a million-dollar compound just 35 miles from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where he is thought to have been living for six years.

The extraordinary details of his last stand were disclosed by the White House as the 13-year hunt for the world's most wanted man finally reached its bloody end.

President Barack Obama, watching the raid in real time, turned to his advisers after the most significant moment in the war on terror, and said: "We got him."

Far from living in a cave or a tunnel, the terrorist mastermind had been "hiding in plain view" less than a mile from Pakistan's main military academy in Abbottabad.

The 54 year-old, whose body was identified using DNA and facial recognition techniques, was buried at sea to avoid any danger of his grave becoming a shrine.

News of bin Laden's death, conveyed on live television by Mr Obama at 4.30am British time yesterday, prompted scenes of wild celebration on the streets of New York, the city where al-Qaeda's worst atrocity took place, and throughout America.

The death of bin Laden meant the world was "a safer place", President Obama said last night. Earlier, the White House described it as a "defining moment in the war against al-Qaeda".

(Read by Renee Haines. Renee Haines is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)