Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Bin Laden taken alive and then killed, daughter allegedly claims

One of Osama bin Laden's young daughters allegedly told authorities that U.S. forces captured her father alive first, and then killed him in the first few minutes of Sunday's raid on his compound, senior Pakistani security sources told NBC News.

The NBC sources confirmed an earlier Al Arabiya report that the girl told Pakistani investigators that commandos had captured her father alive and shot him to death in front of the family in the compound. The daughter was part of a group taken away after the raid, the report said.In a broadcast report on the network, a reporter said U.S. forces killed bin Laden ten minutes after they located him.

A senior Pakistani intelligence official, who declined to be identified, earlier told Reuters that the daughter, aged 12 or 13, was one of the people who had confirmed that the suspected mastermind of the 9/11 attacks had been killed by U.S. commandos.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney described the chaotic raid, saying the U.S. team "methodically cleared the compound, moving from room to room in an operation lasting nearly 40 minutes," noting that "they were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation." A woman offered to sacrifice her life and tried to shield bin Laden, senior Pakistani officials told NBC on Wednesday.

Officials revealed the allegation as questions swirled in Washington about whether Pakistan was complicit in protecting the mastermind of those attacks. Several Republicans and Democrats in Congress have raised the possibility of cutting off U.S. aid to Pakistan. The Pakistani government has denied suggestions that its security forces knew anything about bin Laden's hideout or failed to spot suspicious signs in a city with a heavy military presence.

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