Obama says thanks on last day as Illinois senator

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama said "a very affectionate thanks" to the people of Illinois in a letter published Sunday in the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers across his home state.

Barack Obama walks to his vehicle after a workout at a gym in Chicago on Saturday.

Obama announced on Thursday that his resignation from the U.S. Senate is official as of Sunday.

"Today, I am ending one journey to begin another," Obama's letter said. "After serving the people of Illinois in the United States Senate -- one of the highest honors and privileges of my life -- I am stepping down as senator to prepare for the responsibilities I will assume as our nation's next president."

Obama wrote about moving to Illinois two decades ago "as a young man eager to do my part in building a better America."

"On the South Side of Chicago, I worked with families who had lost jobs and lost hope when the local steel plant closed. It wasn't easy, but we slowly rebuilt those neighborhoods one block at a time, and in the process I received the best education I ever had," he wrote.

Obama followed his years as a community organizer and lawyer with a successful bid for the Illinois state Senate.

"It was in Springfield, in the heartland of America, where I saw all that is America converge -- farmers and teachers, businessmen and laborers, all of them with a story to tell, all of them seeking a seat at the table, all of them clamoring to be heard. It was there that I learned to disagree without being disagreeable; to seek compromise while holding fast to those principles that can never be compromised, and to always assume the best in people instead of the worst," his letter said.

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His letter recalled people he met in his travels around the state during his run for the U.S. Senate four years ago.

"I still remember the young woman in East St. Louis who had the grades, the drive and the will but not the money to go to college. I remember the young men and women I met at VFW halls across the state who serve our nation bravely in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I will never forget the workers in Galesburg who faced the closing of a plant they had given their lives to, who wondered how they would provide health care to their sick children with no job and little savings," he wrote.

Obama said his memories of the people of Illinois "will stay with me when I go to the White House in January."

"The challenges we face as a nation are now more numerous and difficult than when I first arrived in Chicago, but I have no doubt that we can meet them. For throughout my years in Illinois, I have heard hope as often as I have heard heartache. Where I have seen struggle, I have seen great strength. And in a state as broad and diverse in background and belief as any in our nation, I have found a spirit of unity and purpose that can steer us through the most troubled waters," he wrote.

Obama then quoted Abraham Lincoln -- "another son of Illinois" who left for Washington.

"To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything," he quoted Lincoln as writing about Illinois.

"Today, I feel the same, and like Lincoln, I ask for your support, your prayers, and for us to 'confidently hope that all will yet be well,'" Obama wrote.

His letter concluded:

"With your help, along with the service and sacrifice of Americans across the nation who are hungry for change and ready to bring it about, I have faith that all will in fact be well. And it is with that faith, and the high hopes I have for the enduring power of the American idea, that I offer the people of my beloved home a very affectionate thanks."

Obama's Senate office will close sometime within two months. His Senate staff will spend that time coordinating with his replacement, advising constituents with open requests, and archiving documents for Obama's presidential library.

Several Illinois Democrats, including Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, a former congressional candidate who now serves in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration, have been mentioned as possible Senate replacements for Obama.

Blagojevich, a Democrat who will appoint Obama's successor, announced last week that he was assembling a panel to look over likely candidates.

Obama's replacement would be up for re-election in 2010.

Vice president-elect Joe Biden, who was also re-elected in Delaware to his Senate seat on November 4, told an interviewer several weeks ago that he would resign when he's sworn in as vice president in January.

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Obama administration to ratchet up hunt for bin Laden

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama wants to renew the U.S. commitment to finding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers.

Osama bin Laden remains on the run despite a $25 million reward for his capture.

The Obama team believes the Bush administration has downplayed the importance of catching the FBI's most-wanted terrorist because it has not been able to find him.

"We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority," Obama said during the presidential debate on October 7.

But tracking down bin Laden won't be easy.

In May, al Qaeda released an audiotape featuring bin Laden. But U.S. intelligence officials say they haven't had a solid lead on the terrorist mastermind's whereabouts since late 2001, when he was nearly captured in a battle with U.S. forces near Tora Bora, Afghanistan.

Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer, told CNN he's talked to "a dozen CIA guys who've been on the hunt for him, and half of them told me they assumed he was dead, the other half said they assumed he was alive, but the key word here is assume. They don't know."  Watch the hunt for bin Laden »

Intelligence officials believe bin Laden is hiding in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, a remote and primitive region with mountain peaks as tall as 14,000 feet (4,270 meters) that make the terrain difficult to navigate.

"If you think of this as sort of a combination of [the hunt for] Eric Rudolph, who was the Olympic bomber, and the movie 'Deliverance,' multiplied by a factor of 10, that's really what you're focusing on in trying to find bin Laden," said Robert Grenier, the former CIA station chief in Pakistan.

The region is divided up by tribes, some of them warring. Developing human sources in the area has been extremely difficult.  See a timeline of bin Laden's terror messages »

"What you literally need to have is an army of individual informants, hopefully focused on the areas that you think bin Laden is most likely to be hiding in," said Grenier, now a security consultant with Kroll.

"But again, you need to have a whole lot of them because one individual who may have access to the families and the clans in a particular valley, if he goes to the valley next door and starts asking questions, he's probably gonna end up dead pretty quickly."

The U.S. government is offering a $25 million reward for information leading to bin Laden's capture, but officials who have worked in the region say the people living there would consider it dishonorable to take the money.

The United States has had some success killing al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan using unmanned drones equipped with Hellfire missiles, but those attacks have killed innocent civilians as well, complicating the political situation between the two countries.

Obama plans to send more troops into Afghanistan to push back the growing Taliban insurgency, but experts warn there could be severe consequences.

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"The president is going to inherit the problem the Soviets had roughly 15 years ago during the Soviet jihad. You cannot tame the people in the North-West Frontier Province and on the border in Pakistan and Afghanistan," said Dalton Fury, the commander of special operations at Tora Bora.

"The only army that has been successful has been Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde. They cut off heads and killed everyone in the villages, and since we have self-imposed rules of warfare, we are not going to do what they did."

Cooperation from Pakistan's military has been touchy, and most experts agree finding bin Laden is just not a priority for Pakistan's troops.

Fury says the best route for the president-elect to take would be to change the dialogue about bin Laden. Intelligence officials do not believe he is playing an operational role and so has no reason to move around or communicate.

"I think it's important to understand that bin Laden had his chance at martyrdom. He was in the mountains of Tora Bora, he ran away. In my opinion, I think we ought to promote this," Fury said.

He believes taunting the al Qaeda leader may force him to prove he's relevant and, in the process, lead the United States right to him.

Despite the challenges, many experts agree it is important to capture bin Laden.

"I don't think the American people will accept him surviving and us leaving. We will be the laughingstock of the world," Fury said.

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Trick-or-treater, 12, shot to death, police say

SUMTER, South Carolina (AP) -- A 12-year-old boy trick-or-treating with his family in central South Carolina was shot from inside a home Friday and killed, and his father and brother were wounded by the gunfire, authorities said.


Police converge on the scene of the fatal shooting of a trick-or-treater Friday night in Sumter, South Carolina.

The shooting suspect, Quentin Patrick, was in custody, a jail official said. Patrick, 22, has been charged with murder and three counts of assault and battery with intent to kill. The jail official said she didn't know whether Patrick had an attorney and his telephone number was unpublished.

The family was headed home from a city-sponsored event downtown when they decided to stop at a few homes, Sumter Police Chief Patty Patterson said. The father and his four children approached a home with a porch light on about 8:30 p.m. ET while their mother waited nearby in a vehicle.

As the family was at the door, they thought they heard fireworks. The 12-year-old boy, his father and brother were all hit by the gunfire. The boy died at a hospital, Coroner Verna Moore said. The other two children were not hurt.

The boy's father and brother were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Authorities have not released the identity of the family.

Patterson also would not release any more details about the shooting.

"The investigation is continuing into what has been a very tragic evening," Patterson said. "Our sorrow and sympathy goes out to this family."

The police chief said there were other people inside the home at the time of the shooting, but she didn't expect any of them to be charged.

A neighbor said he heard a loud noise about the time of the shooting and thought it was simply Halloween mischief.

"I thought, trick-or-treat night -- pranks go down. Anything goes," said Lenwood Dixon, 49, who works at a hazardous waste and recycling company. "I heard a noise like maybe gunfire, then my daughter saw a bunch of lights flashing and saw some cops."

In his six years in the neighborhood, he said he wasn't aware of any violent crimes. He said a few trick-or-treaters had been on his block that night.

"I'm surprised. Since I was here, I'd never heard of anything like that happening. It's a quiet neighborhood," he said. "You don't see many children in the neighborhood. It's more elderly."