Barack Obama was last night forced to clarify that he is ‘absolutely certain’ Osama Bin Laden has been killed.
Three days after a U.S commando shot the Al Qaeda leader in the head, the American President has refused to release photographic proof of the bloodied corpse. Mr Obama has cited ‘national security’ as the reason behind his decision.
Since the news of Bin Laden’s death broke to the world, a fierce debate over whether photographic proof of his dead body should be released has developed. The photographs show the gruesome final moments of the Al Qaeda’s life and it was thought that releasing these images would put an end to any conspiracy theories that Bin Laden was still alive.
However, within minutes of the President’s announcement, graphic photographs thought to show the dead bodies of Bin Laden’s son, trusted courier and another aide also killed in Monday’s raid were released to the public.
The source responsible for making the photographs public is Reuters news agency and were taken in the aftermath of the raid on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound.
The graphic images show the three men lying in pools of blood without weapons following the raid.
The announcement from the White House to keep the photographs of Bin Laden’s dead body has angered members of Obama’s senior advisory team who had pushed for them to be made available to the public.
The American President has said that following DNA tests on the body, he is ‘absolutely certain’ that Bin Laden is dead.
The decision to keep the photos secret was announced by Barack Obama during an interview with CBS television’s 60 Minutes. He said: “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 or as a propaganda tool. That’s not who we are. We don’t trot this stuff out as trophies.”
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