Afghan President Hamid Karzai addresses the media at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, May 2, 2011.Shah Marai/AP
The death of Osama bin Laden produced grim satisfaction in Afghanistan, where the al-Qaeda leader's presence helped make it a pariah state during the Taliban regime and triggered the Western attack that has stretched into a decade-long war waged mainly by foreign troops.
For years, even as the NATO-led forces on the ground surged to nearly 150,000 troops to fight anti-government insurgents, Afghans across the political spectrum have argued that Pakistan was hosting and arming the Taliban as well as other terrorist groups.
They saw proof of their argument in the discovery that Mr. bin Laden had been living in a city not far from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, with retired military officers and a military base for neighbours.
"Now no one can deny these terrorists are hiding in Pakistan," said Mohammad Haneef Atmar, a respected former Afghan interior minister who has urged the Afghan government and its Western allies to take a harder line with Pakistan. "There has to be more demonstrable commitment on the part of Pakistan to eliminate these terrorist leaders."
He also said he feared that the elimination of Mr. bin Laden, whose capture was the key motivation for the American-led attack on Afghanistan in 2001, would weaken the resolve of NATO countries to stay and fight the Taliban.
"I also want to warn the United States and the NATO partners of Afghanistan that this should not be seen as 'mission accomplished' and time to pack up and go home," Mr. Atmar said. "Al-Qaeda is not just Osama bin Laden."
Pakistani leaders have long denied they knew the whereabouts of either Mr. bin Laden or the Taliban leadership.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai reacted to the death of Mr. bin Laden by repeating his call for foreign forces to redirect their military might to Afghanistan's neighbour.
"Again and again, for years and every day, we have said that the war on terror is not in Afghan villages, not in Afghan houses of the poor and oppressed," he said.
The war, he added, should be waged against "its financial sources, its sanctuaries, its training bases, and not in Afghanistan."
His plea was echoed by an unlikely ally. "The problem is there, in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan," said Abdul Salam Zaeef, a one-time Taliban diplomat who remains in contact with its leaders. Mr. bin Laden's death, he added, would have no effect on the Taliban insurgency, which he called a "national struggle against the presence of foreigners in Afghanistan."
Amrullah Salah, the former Afghan intelligence chief, agreed. "It won't fundamentally change the insurgency, although it had some financing help from al-Qaeda that could dry up," he said.
But the elimination of Mr. bin Laden brings at least a personal sense of satisfaction to those who fought the Taliban and its al-Qaeda allies through the late 1990s.
The al-Qaeda leader was the mastermind behind the assassination of the Afghan commander of those anti-Taliban forces, Ahmad Shah Masood, who is still revered by his former soldiers and aides.
"We are happy to see some justice," Mr. Salah said. "Bin Laden was the killer of thousand of people in different countries and thousands of Afghans. And he killed my leader. I still feel the pain of that."
Another legacy is an increasing hostility to the West, congealed by the prolonged presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan and the corruption of the Western-backed Karzai government.
In Kandahar, the heartland of the Taliban and the site of an al-Qaeda training camp during the Taliban regime, some predicted a spasm of revenge attacks against Americans.
"Young Afghans loved him because he was a good Muslim and supported Afghanistan and the Taliban," said Hajji Jam Mohammad, a tribal leader in the Dand district of Kandahar province. "They are very angry against the Americans."
More typical, though, was the reaction of Khudabakhsh Wafa, a Kabul chef, who was 10 years old when the Taliban shot up his neighbourhood in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif.
He recalled that they were accompanied by Arab gunmen from al-Qaeda who fought with the Taliban as they took control of the country. His uncle was killed. His father was hauled away and never returned. "I am so happy to hear this news," Mr. Wafa said. "For me, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are the same."