THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The White House last night changed key elements of its account of Osama bin Laden's death, admitting that the al-Qaeda leader was not armed and that his wife was neither killed nor used as a human shield as senior aides had previously claimed.
Correcting the previous version of events, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said that "some of the information came in piece by piece and is being reviewed and updated and elaborated on".
He then said that two al-Qaeda couriers were killed on the first floor of the main, three-storey building where bin Laden lived. In addition, a woman was killed "in the crossfire" on the ground floor.
When the US Navy SEAL assaulters reached the second floor, a woman, later identified as one of bin Laden's wife, "rushed" a SEAL and was "shot in the leg but not killed". He confirmed that bin Laded was "not armed".
The assault team, with bin Laden's body, then departed by helicopter to the USS Karl Vinson in the northern Arabian Sea.
Mr Carney said that the White House was still "making an evaluation" about whether to release "gruesome" photographs of bin Laden's corpse, adding that there were "sensitivities here in terms of the appropriateness".
The pictures of bin Laden are understood to show him with a gaping wound across above [sic] both eyes. » | Toby Harnden, Washington | Tuesday, May 03, 2011
