In PHOTOS: Obama thanks CIA for Osama op; vows to wipe out Qaeda

"I've returned just to say thank you, on behalf of all Americans and people around the world, because you carried on. You stayed focused on your mission. You honoured the memory of your fallen colleagues.

"In helping to locate and take down Osama bin Laden, you made it possible for us to achieve the most significant victory yet in our war to defeat the Al Qaeda," Obama said on Friday in his address to the CIA officials at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

...

Full coverage: 10 years later, US finally gets Osama

"After I directed that getting bin Laden be the priority, you hunkered down even more, building on years of painstaking work; pulling together, in some cases, the slenderest of intelligence streams, running those threads to ground until you found that courier and you tracked him to that compound," Obama said.

"And when I was briefed last summer, you had built the strongest intelligence case against -- in terms of where bin Laden was since Tora Bora. In the months that followed, including all those meetings in the Situation Room, we did what sound intelligence demands," he said.

"We pushed for more collection. We pushed for more evidence. We questioned our assumptions. You strengthened your analysis. You didn't bite your tongue and try to spin the ball, but you gave it to me straight each and every time," Obama said.

"I knew that the consequences of failure could be enormous. But I made the decision that I did because I had absolute confidence in the skill of our military personnel and I had confidence in you. I put my bet on you. And now the whole world knows that that faith in you was justified," he said.

"Every terrorist in the Al Qaeda network should be watching their back, because we're going to review every video, we are going to examine every photo, we're going to read every one of those millions of pages, we're going to pursue every lead. We are going to go wherever it takes us," Obama said on Fridday.

"We're going to finish the job. We are going to defeat the Al Qaeda," Obama said, referring to the treasure trove of information in his remarks to the intelligence community at the CIA headquarters.

"Because we not only took out the symbol and operational leader of the Al Qaeda, we walked off with his files -- the largest treasure trove of intelligence ever seized from a terrorist leader. Many of you now are working around the clock; you didn't have much time to celebrate.

We've got to analyse and evaluate and exploit this mountain of intelligence," Obama said in his address to the intelligence community.

"Even as we stay focused on this mission, we need you to stay nimble and flexible to meet the full range of threats to our security, from plots against our homeland to nations seeking weapons of mass destruction to transnational threats such as cyber criminals and narco traffickers," he said.