Obama watched live as Osama bin Laden was killed
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It was from the White House that US president Barack Obama watched his highly skilled operatives enter Osama bin Laden's Pakistan compound and shoot dead the terrorist leader.
Flagged by key staff in vice president Joe Biden and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, Mr Obama watched through a video camera attached to the helmet of a Navy Seal as bin Laden was shot in the left eye.
Mr Obama watched images beamed live to him via satellite as bin Laden used one of his wives as a human shield in a desperate bid to save his life.
The woman died. along with three others, including one of bin Laden's sons.
After pulling off the killer shot, the operative then carried out what is called a "double tap" in the military - a second shot, most likely to the chest, to make sure bin Laden was dead.
A few hours later, the body of the terrorist figurehead was buried at sea.
The killing of the al-Qaeda leader marked the end of a decade-long search for the man who had eluded the US for so long.
Osama bin Laden's final act was one of cowardice, and US officials admitted it was Navy Seals who had killed the terrorist's wife.
"There was family at that compound, and there was a female who was, in fact, in the line of fire that reportedly was used as a shield to shield bin Laden from the incoming fire," counter-terrorism official John Brennan said.
Pressed on reports the woman shot dead by Navy Seals during a firefight at a compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan was one of bin Laden's four wives, Brennan told a White House briefing: "That's my understanding."
Barack Obama's top anti-terror adviser John Brennan said that it was "inconceivable" that bin Laden did not have a support network in Pakistan.
"I am not going to speculate about what type of support he might have had on an official basis inside of Pakistan," said Brennan, when quizzed by reporters on oft reported links between Pakistani intelligence and radical Islamists.
"But we are closely talking to the Pakistanis right now.
"We are looking right now at how he was able to hold out there for so long and whether or not there was any type of support system within Pakistan that allowed him to stay there."
US officials are puzzled by the comfortable surroundings of the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived, and the fact that his presence in a fortified building did not attract suspicion of Pakistani authorities.
Mr Obama said he had directed US special forces to attack the heavily-fortified compound after a tip-off that first emerged last August.
"A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability," the president said. "After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body."
Bin Laden's body was buried at sea having been administered Islamic religious rites, US officials said. "We wanted to avoid a situation where it would become a shrine," one said.
The body, which was wrapped in a white sheet and placed in a weighted bag, "was placed on a prepared flat-board... (and) eased into the sea," a separate senior defence official said.
Elite troops from the US Navy Seals carried out the assault, which lasted less than 40 minutes, killing bin Laden with a bullet to the head, another US official told AFP.
