A US intelligence official has confirmed he is set to announce Bin Laden’s death, US media are reporting.

CNN reports bin Laden was killed in an attack on a mansion outside the Pakistan capital Islamabad.

It claimed members of bin Laden’s family were also killed.

A White House official declined to divulge the subject matter of the statement, but the decision to address the nation at such short notice and on a Sunday evening was highly unusual.

Bin Laden – head of the militant Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda – is alleged to be the mastermind behind the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre towers and the Pentagon.

He has been hunted by US forces for nearly a decade.