Tuesday, May 03, 2011

SURVIVORS

The Daily Telegraph is now reporting that bin Laden did not have a weapon and did not use his wife as a human shield.[1]

In the same report it is stated that 23 children and 9 women were in the compound and survived the assault. They were handed over to Pakistan, an 'anonymous' US official said.

BBC Radio 4 reported on their One O' Clock News that one of the children was bin Laden's, though no name was given, and she says she saw her father being shot.

This is repeated in The Guardian in which it is reported that only 18 people were in the compound at the time of the assault.
11.14am: Up to 18 people were in the compound when it was raided, ISI sources have told the BBC. The Navy Seals took away a survivor thought to be one of Bin Laden's sons, its correspondent in Islamabad Owen Bennett-Jones reported.

One of Bin Laden's daughters witnessed her father being shot, he said. ISI sources also claimed the compound was raided in 2003, he reported[2]


But 23 + 9 does not equal 18. Unless some of the women and children sneaked into the compound just after the assault? Only joking.

So now we know that
1. many women and children were allegedly in the compound at the time of the assault, but there is no mention of dead al Qaeda fighters. So how did it take the elite Special Forces 40 minutes to shoot one unarmed man?
2. there were survivors, including one of ObL's sons. So where is he? And where are they?
3. an unnamed daughter of ObL says she saw ObL being shot. How was this possible? Was she hiding in a cupboard in the room? First reports said ObL had been tracked into the only room in the compound that had not been checked, so I assume that any women and children in the compound had been handcuffed and held in a room in the compound. Unless ObL was assassinated right in front of his daughter. Surely she would have been removed from the room first?

[1] Osama bin Laden 'was not armed and did not use wife as human shield', The Daily Telegraph, 3/5/2011

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2011/may/03/osama-bin-laden-death-aftermath

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