'If he's not naked, shoot him': Navy Seals warned Al Qaeda chief could be wearing suicide vest under clothes
By Daily Mail ReporterLast updated at 3:26 PM on 5th May 2011
- Al Qaeda chief said to have been shot in his pyjamas
- Obama to visit Ground Zero and meet families of Bin Laden's victims
- Was bolthole an Al Qaeda nerve centre?
- Clinton in Rome – 'Fight against terrorism doesn’t end here'
- White House still refusing to release photos
- Pakistan warns of 'disastrous consequences' if there are any more raids
- Security officials say there was no firefight, killing was 'cold-blooded'
- Senior U.S. defence official: Only one of the five killed was armed and fired a shot
- Archbishop of Canterbury 'uncomfortable' at killing of unarmed man
- Sarah Palin tells Obama to stop 'pussy-footing around' and release pictures
- Clinton: Iconic image of White House monitoring operation 'may have caught me preventing a cough'
- Did terror mastermind operate a no smoking policy at his home?
Osama Bin Laden: The Al-Qaeda leader was assassinated in Pakistan
The elite U.S. Navy Seals team that killed him was told to assume he was wearing a suicide vest if he was clothed, according to a briefing given to a congressional aide.
The aide - briefed on the rules of engagement - revealed that Bin Laden 'would have had to be naked for them to allow him to surrender'.
The terror mastermind was wearing his nightclothes - believed to be pyjamas - when the commandos stormed his compound in Abbottabad.
The admission raises the question of whether the operation targeting the Al Qaeda chief - in which he was shot in the head by a U.S. commando at a hideout in Abbottabad in Pakistan - would have done anything other than kill him.
Military specialists have said that, even arriving in helicopters whose noisy approach would have alerted the house's occupants and all but ensured a fight, were typical of a 'kill raid'.
A special forces officer told the LA Times: ‘If anyone feels in any way that there is a hostile threat ... deadly force will be authorised.
'It is a judgment call.’
The raid on Bin Laden's lair has been the focus of a constantly changing stream of information from the White House.
Initially, chief counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan claimed commandos were under orders to capture the terror head alive: 'If we had the opportunity to take Bin Laden alive, if he didn't present any threat, the individuals involved were able and prepared to do that.'
However, on Tuesday, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Bin Laden 'made some threatening moves', adding 'to be frank, I don't think he had a lot of time to say anything.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1383803/Osama-Bin-Laden-dead-Navy-Seals-suicide-vest-warning-hes-naked-shoot-him.html#ixzz1LUfvOVBU
No comments:
Post a Comment