Between reality and fiction: What really happened to the corpse of Osama Bin Laden?

2021-09-10T12:05:25.215Z

No one ever saw images of his body. The epic account of the operation spread by the White House and a mystery that grows with the passage of time.

No one ever saw images of his body.
The epic account of the operation spread by the White House and a mystery that grows with the passage of time.

Carolina brunstein

09/09/2021 17:15

Clarín.com
World

Updated 09/09/2021 20:27

Two shots that shattered his head.

Many more who left his body practically pulverized.

A corpse thrown into the sea after a Muslim ritual.

Or debris scattered throughout the mountains of Pakistan.

What happened to the corpse of Osama Bin Laden?

The end of the terrorist who had become the most wanted man in the world is known: the United States special forces located him and killed him in the early morning of May 2, 2011 - it was still the afternoon of Sunday, May 1 in the United States. United - in an operation in a house surrounded by walls and heavily guarded in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad,

after an intense search of almost ten years.

The mission, planned under strict secrecy during months of delicate intelligence tasks, was carried out without the knowledge of the Pakistani civilian or military authorities, according to the version of Islamabad and Washington known in those days.

But the

details are hazy

Amid state secrets, contradictions and speculations, a decade later suspicions fly over what really happened that night and in the hours that followed.

An analysis by Tungstene software of a broadcast image of Bin Laden's supposed bloody face.

AFP

The fate of the corpse of the leader of the Al Qaeda network, identified by Washington as the

mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001

, was the subject of controversy from the moment that the then president of the United States, Barack Obama, announced his death as a formidable military and political victory.

In the following years, books and films were made about the search for Bin Laden and the final outcome.

Journalists and researchers who tried to track more data got little.

They came across classified documents and officials with few words.

The stories mixed reality and fiction.

And conspiracy theories were not lacking.

No one ever saw images of Bin Laden dead.

Nor of the supposed Muslim ceremony on the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier of the US Navy, from where it would have been launched into the Arabian Sea.

The then security adviser to the Obama administration, John Brennan, reported on May 2 that the terrorist of Saudi origin had been "buried at sea within 24 hours of death, respecting Islamic traditions and after consulting experts."

The operative

"Tonight I can tell the citizens of the United States and the rest of the world that we have launched an operation that killed the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, a terrorist responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children."

Obama was exulting.

The televised message in which he made the announcement

went around the world

Like the photo that was released later, in which he appeared with his vice Joe Biden, Chancellor Hillary Clinton and national security advisers in a room of the White House, following on screen the operation that was carried out in Pakistan.

Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and security advisers in a White House room, following the operation / Reuter

At that dawn, two helicopters - four, according to some sources - flew over the fortified mansion of Abbottabad, 60 km from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, where Bin Laden was suspected to be hiding.

Under the roar of the engines and propellers, two dozen elite soldiers - the Navy Seals - fought their way with hand-held explosives, powerful assault rifles and night vision devices, according to the reconstruction made by the US media and everything the world, based on information released from Washington.

Two of Bin Laden's bodyguards, the wife of one of them and one of the sons of the founder and leader of Al Qaeda, were also killed in an intense shooting.

The terrorist was not armed, but he put up resistance

, he told himself.

His body was taken into the custody of US forces in Pakistan.

Afghan citizens follow the information on the death of Osama Bin Laden on a local channel.

REUTERS

The news flooded the world press for several days.

The details, however, were scant.

US Defense sources reported that a religious funeral ceremony had been held on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson, off the coast of Oman.

The reason for throwing him into the sea, according to official voices,

was to prevent his burial from becoming a massive event and his burial a place of pilgrimage

Nor was it easy to find a country that would agree to bury the most wanted terrorist internationally.

But several media pointed out that

Islam only recognizes the burial of a corpse on dry land

According to experts in this religion, it is advisable to do it without a coffin, so that the body is in direct contact with the earth and the head is oriented towards Mecca.

Islam does allow burial at sea in certain circumstances: during a long voyage and in order to avoid decomposition, or when there is a danger that the enemies of the deceased may exhume or mutilate the corpse.

Was that the Bin Laden situation?

The other version

In 2015, the prestigious American journalist Seymour Hersh, who had already uncovered the truth about other international scandals, stirred the waters by

accusing the Obama administration of lying about the death of Bin Laden.

In a lengthy article in the London Review of Books, Hersh noted that the Pakistani Army and secret services played a key role in Osama's death, especially in preparing the elite US troops who carried out the mission. in May 2011.

The author pointed out that the al Qaeda leader had been in the custody of the Pakistani secret services since 2006 in that Abbottabad complex - a multi-story house valued at a million dollars and surrounded by walls up to 5 meters high - and that his

His health was so deteriorated that he could not get around on his own

According to the reporter, the

epic account of the operation

released by the White House was far from reality: the terrorist was not caught "hiding" in his shelter, but the United States reached him through an informant who sold the data to change of 25 million dollars.

The place where Osama Bin Laden was killed by US Navy Seals two days earlier, in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Hersh maintained that there was "no shooting" and that the soldiers of the special forces of the United States were guided by Pakistani spies to Bin Laden's room.

There they found him crouching, trying to flee, and shot him dead.

Afterwards, they

emptied their magazines on the corpse

to the point that it disintegrated.

In addition, it points out that Bin Laden's remains "including his head, which had bullet holes, were thrown into a body bag."

Hersh also shot down the account of the burial at sea: "During the return flight by helicopter - to Jalalabad, where the SEALS were based - some parts were thrown into the mountains of the Hindu Kush," the journalist wrote, citing a senior US intelligence official.

The controversy did not take long to ignite.

Washington came out to deny the journalist and stood firm in his version.

But history is still riddled with black holes

And the intrigue seems to grow over the years.

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