PUTAJ – Humanities and Social Sciences Vol. 24, No. 2 (December), 2017 129 Representation of Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani, British and American Media: A Case Study of the Abbottabad Operation Amir Hamza Marwan * & Faizullah Jan † Abstract This research paper draws on the representation of Osama bin Laden, after his killing in the Abbottabad Operation, in the Pakistani, British and American media. The aim of this research is to look into the coverage of major national and international media outlets and to assess how they portrayed Osama bin Laden. The media outlets studied in this research study include: Dawn, The New York Times, Guardian, Geo News, Dunya News and PTV News. The content of these media outlets have been studied for the ten consecutive days. In order to ensure the better argument, the first three statements particularly made about bin Laden in the stories were collected, coded and studied. The findings – based on the Quantitative Content Analysis – demonstrate that almost all the selected media outlets stayed critical of Osama bin Laden after his killing in Abbottabad. It further demonstrates that the selected TV channels and newspapers covered it in independent way – without any fear of repercussions from Taliban or al- Qaida. Keywords: Abbottabad Operation, bin Laden‘s death, representation, national and international media, critical coverage Introduction Osama bin Laden was shot dead by the U.S. Navy Seals in an Operation ―Neptune Spear‖, which took place in Abbottabad, Pakista n. It lasted for almost forty minutes and left five dead and two injured. The dead included the bin Laden, his son and his trusted courier. The operation enabled the U.S. to kill bin Laden who was the alleged architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in U.S. and 7/7 attacks in U.K. U.S. and her allies chased bin Laden for more than a decade. It resulted in the War on Terror, one of the longest wars and manhunts in the human history, which left thousands * Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Peshawar, Pakistan † Department of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Peshawar, Pakistan