THE UNITED States is to move to "bury the rest of al Qaeda" after wiping out its founder and leader Osama bin Laden in a bloody raid by special forces in Pakistan.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s counter-terrorism adviser, said information gathered from the compound in which bin Laden was hiding would be used to “continue efforts to destroy al Qaeda”.

He spoke after the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was killed with three other men and a woman in an assault on the compound in the town of Abbottabad.

Mr Brennan said: “We are hoping to bury the rest of al Qaeda along with bin Laden.

“This is a strategic blow to al Qaeda. It is a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, blow to lead to its demise. But we are determined to destroy it.”

The White House said bin Laden was not armed but did resist when US special forces operatives raided his compound. He added that bin Laden’s wife was shot in the leg but not killed.

Spokesman Jay Carney said a woman killed in the raid had not been acting as a human shield, as previously claimed, but was caught in crossfire.

Top of the US “most wanted” list now is expected to be Ayman al-Zawahiri, an eye surgeon who is al Qaeda’s chief organiser and the possible successor to bin Laden.

It is believed that al-Zawahiri who helped found the Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant group, is living in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

A trove of materials collected from the compound -- including five computers, 10 hard drives and more than 100 storage devices -- is expected to yield clues to help break the al Qaeda network and thwart future terrorist atrocities.

Since the attacks almost a decade ago on New York and Washington, al Qaeda has spawned affiliated groups in the Middle East and north Africa and inspired attacks by so-called home-grown militants in Europe and the United States.

Mr Brennan talked of the continued fight against terrorism after world leaders and security experts urged increased vigilance against possible retaliatory strikes by al Qaeda.

He said bin Laden’s death was the latest in a series of US operations that have delivered “severe body blows” to al Qaeda’s central network in Pakistan and Afghanistan over the past year.

“What we’re most interested in is seeing if we can get any insight into any terrorist plot that might be under way, so we can take measures to stop any type of attack planning.

“Secondly, we’re trying to look and see whether or not there are leads to other individuals within the organisation or insights into their capabilities,” said Brennan.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry said US drone strikes in Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas had killed as many as 17 senior al Qaeda leaders before bin Laden’s death.

CIA director Leon Panetta said the US did not give advance warning of its Abbottabad sortie, fearing it could undermine the operation. He warned bin Laden’s death would “almost certainly” prompt his Islamist supporters to attempt some sort of retaliation.

Mr Panetta said: “It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission: They might alert the targets.”

But Mr Brennan said officials were aware of no specific threat, nearly 48 hours after bin Laden’s death.

He added: “But what we’re doing is, we’re taking all those prudent measures that we need to whenever there’s an incident of significance like this.”

He said bin Laden’s ability to “hide in plain sight” had raised serious questions about Pakistan’s co-operation in the war against al Qaeda.

The terror leader’s compound was, by far, the largest and most heavily fortified in a community whose population includes many retired Pakistani military officers.

Mr Brennan said “clearly there was some kind of support network” for bin Laden inside Pakistan and he added: “We’re not accusing anybody at this point, but we want to make sure we get to the bottom of this.”

The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs moved to condemn the US intrusion yesterday, denying it had “any prior knowledge” of the operation.

It added that while Pakistani Air Force jets were scrambled to deal with the American helicopters in Abbottabad, there was “thankfully ... no engagement with Pakistani forces”.

A ministry spokesman said: “The Government of Pakistan expresses its deep concerns and reservations on the manner in which the Government of the United States carried out this operation without prior information or authorisation from the Government of Pakistan.

“Such actions undermine co-operation and may also sometime constitute a threat to international peace and security.”

But it said it’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency had provided leads that may have led the CIA to identify and reach bin Laden.

Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain will continue to co-operate with Pakistan, despite the questions over what the authorities might have known about bin Laden’s hiding place.

He added: “Our strategy on Afghanistan is straightforward and has not changed.

“Our message to the Taliban is that now is the time to separate from al Qaeda.”