IMPORTANT DISCUSSION: US President Barack Obama speaks with Britain’s Prince Charles prior to meetings in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. — AFP photo
WASHINGTON:It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence, as a propaganda tool. – Barack Obama, US President
President Barack Obama opted against releasing photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, citing national security risks and saying the United States should not brandish ‘trophies’ of its victory.
Obama’s war cabinet had been debating whether to publish gruesome photos of the dead al-Qaeda terror chief, who was gunned down by US special forces in a covert raid inside Pakistan in the early hours of Monday.
“It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence, as a propaganda tool,” Obama told CBS program ‘60 Minutes’.
“That’s not who we are. You know, we don’t trot out this stuff as trophies,” Obama said, arguing that DNA and facial recognition testing had proved beyond doubt that the mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks was dead.
The ‘very graphic’ nature of the scene described by Obama appeared to be shown in photographs obtained by the Reuters news agency yesterday of three unidentified dead men in the house — none of whom resembled Osama.
Reuters said it had bought the pictures from a Pakistani security official who entered Osama compound shortly after the raid occurred.
The dead men were lying in large pools of blood.
One, dressed in a T-shirt, had blood streaming from his right ear.
According to its time stamp, that photo was taken at 2.30am, about 50 minutes after US officials said the raid ended.
The two others were wearing traditional Pakistani gowns.
One had blood spilling from his mouth and chin, and there was a computer cable and what appeared to be a child’s water pistol at his right shoulder.
The third man had blood collecting from his nose and there was also a thick band of blood around the middle of his white shalwar kameez.
Aside from Osama, US and Pakistani officials say four people were killed in the raid — including two brothers who were trusted al-Qaeda couriers and one believed to have been a son of Osama.
Other pictures taken in early daylight showed the trash-strewn grounds of the compound and the tail of a wrecked helicopter believed to be part of a top-secret stealth helicopter programme. One of Osama’s children, now in custody along with a Yemeni wife of the Saudi-born al-Qaeda leader, saw her father shot dead, a Pakistani intelligence official said.
The girl, reported to be 12 years old, “was the one who confirmed to us that Osama was dead and shot and taken away,” said the Pakistani official.
Obama’s top security aides had debated whether to publish a photo of Osama to prove he had been killed, but feared a backlash in the Muslim world that could lead to attacks on US troops or interests.
Even without photographic proof, much of the Pakistani media appears to accept that he is dead, even as conspiracy theories rage among some sections of the public and anger mounts about the circumstances of his killing.
Hardline religious groups have offered prayers for Osama, rather than taken to the streets insisting he is still alive, all the while condemning the United States for acting with impunity on Pakistani soil.
“It was a clear violation of our sovereignty, it was an act of aggression even if Osama bin Laden was there or not,” said Khurshid Ahmed, vice president of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s oldest religious party.
Osama’s body was buried at sea off a US warship to prevent any grave on land from becoming an extremist shrine. The Pakistani villa that served as his lair has instead become the focus of interest for locals and media alike.
There is anger and incredulity in the United States that Osama was unearthed living in relative comfort in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad, barely two hours’ drive north of Islamabad. Some US lawmakers are demanding a cut to the billions in US aid that flows to Pakistan each year, which is meant to shore up both nations’ uneasy alliance as US-led forces fight the Taliban in Pakistan’s neighbour Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s civilian leadership and intelligence officials angrily disputed accusations that the country provides safe haven to extremists, but some newspapers noted a sense of national shame after the discovery of Osama.
In an editorial yesterday, the top-selling daily Jang said it was ‘heartbreaking’ for the public to find out that powerful intelligence agencies were seemingly ignorant of his true location so close to Pakistan’s elite military academy in Abbottabad.
Three days after an elite team of US Navy SEALS eliminated the architect of the 2001 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people, national security experts were combing through a haul of evidence from the Abbottabad villa.
The trove, including about five computers, 10 hard drives and 100 storage devices, represents a dramatic intelligence breakthrough for the United States in its fight against al-Qaeda, experts said. — AFP