Osama Bin Laden Gets Islamic Burial Ceremony On U.S. Carrier

Politico reports that "Osama Bin Laden’s body was buried at sea early Monday morning in an Islamic ceremony performed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, a senior defense official said today. The religious ceremony, performed by a military officer and translated into Arabic by a native speaker, occurred between 1:10 a.m. and 2 a.m. EDT in the North Arabian Sea, the official told reporters in a background briefing at the Pentagon. The Al Qaeda leader was shot in the head Sunday in a 40-minute raid by Navy SEALs at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Three other men and a woman were killed with him. Other women and children found at the compound were taken to a safe location and left there, the senior defense official said. The raiders also obtained 'a robust collection of material' that will be analyzed for leads to other Al Qaeda members, a senior intelligence official said. Officials did not say whether they would provide proof of bin Laden’s death, but they said they may consider whether to do so later. The 40-minute operation at a heavily fortified home just down the road from the Pakistani Military Academy in a city where many retired military officers lived, was the culmination of years of work by U.S. intelligence agencies, stemming from tracking one of bin Laden’s couriers who had been identified by detainees and other intelligence, the senior intelligence official said."

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