Osama Bin Laden Dead: Al Qaeda Leader's Wife Possibly Used As Shield, Killed In Raid (UPDATE)

UPDATE: Reuters is now reporting that bin Laden's wife was not killed in the raid. You can read the new story here.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House said it believes the woman killed on Monday when U.S. forces shot dead al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was one of his wives.

John Brennan, President Barack Obama's top counter terrorism adviser, told reporters her body was positioned in a way that "she was being used as a shield." But he said it was not clear if she had placed herself in the line of fire, or had been held there as a shield by bin Laden or his son.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Alister Bull, editing by Sandra Maler)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[fastcarchix]

08:55 AM on 05/03/2011

I still think the American people want to see proof! I am not into all the grueling details of his death but I find myself like many others wanting solid visual proof. I hate to be like that but hey we have all been taken before.

[padrushka]

03:11 AM on 05/03/2011

I am wondering about the two injured women that did not die in the raid. Where are they,who are they?

[Jake Thomas]

02:34 AM on 05/03/2011

I would throw my wife under a bus for a decent sandwich, I can understand Osama bin Laden's motives entirely.

[mislz7]

01:46 AM on 05/03/2011

I don't know. Nobody knows unless they were there. Could be merely attempt to make him look like a coward after his death. It ain't like he can argue the point. As for how we treat western women, we don't like them to wear burkas, but we sure don't mind putting them in porno movies, maybe even make a few bucks.

[iunhartbaciv]

02:00 AM on 05/03/2011

False equivalence. Shame on you. Are you actually a woman?

[fastcarchix]

09:02 AM on 05/03/2011

I am in agreeance with inuhartbaciv. And I do ask the same question. Are you actually a woman?

[Mattjoe3]

01:18 AM on 05/03/2011

Damn, my wife is never around when I need her....

[natureman44]

04:18 AM on 05/03/2011

Here use mine.

[aFtersootdamP]

01:10 AM on 05/03/2011

It's nice to see huffp0 finally getting away from denigrating Republicans on all their coverage. It's a desperate attempt by the poodle press to make opbama seem presidential as if he had anything to do with osama's demise. The censors make sure only positive posts get through acting as if this were the ME orther some other totalitarian police state.

[Hedonist88]

07:56 AM on 05/03/2011

well at least Obama did a much better job than Bush Cheney and Rummy who LET Osama escape from Tora Bora.

There should be questions asked on why they screwed up there and preferred to focus on invading Iraq instead of searching for Bin Laden

[Justin Fricke]

10:41 AM on 05/03/2011

"It's a desperate attempt by the poodle press to make opbama seem presidenti­al as if he had anything to do with osama's demise."
--------------------------------------
Except for decision to shift intelligence operations into Pakistan. Oh, and his (very risky) decision to put troops on the ground without notifying Pakistani authorities which, let's be honest here, would have been as likely to smuggle Osama to safety as they would have been to help us kill/capture him.

If your litmus for presidential involvement is hands-on action then no PotUS has ever done anything.

[Stan Silver]

01:08 AM on 05/03/2011

This smells like more propaganda.It is never enough to just say he was a madman and we brought him to justice.Before its over they will sully the job our guys did by over selling it.

[T003]

01:45 AM on 05/03/2011

Nope, actually, there are already reports coming out from local eye witnesses who saw the woman being held in front of him as a human shield. It wasn't his first time doing that, but at least it was his last.

[goddessNdiva]

05:01 AM on 05/03/2011

Are those reports from local eye witnesses before torture?

When was the first time that he used a woman to shield him from bullets? Prey tell.

[nybirdcalls]

11:56 AM on 05/04/2011

What a coward. To the very last moment too. Killed thousands of innocents, what "less" can you expect, huh?

[patililac]

12:49 AM on 05/03/2011

I wouldn't put too much stock in this. We want to see the worst side of this guy, but maybe it was all going too quickly to really know.

[alwill]

12:10 AM on 05/03/2011

Why are Muslim men such cowards to use their women and kids to do their dirty work? Fighters my a-- they are pathetic cowards.

[vigoddess]

12:01 AM on 05/03/2011

I still think at 6 ft. 4. his feet stuck out of the helicopter and the helicopter
was too crowded with the other one down - so somebody got the bright idea
to throw him out into the sea and so much for one mass murderer.

They might give him a medal in hell and make him the Devil's apprentice,
or a contract to appear on Celebrity Ghosts.

[havana62]

01:02 AM on 05/03/2011

'the Devil's apprentice­' isn't that on NBC???

[sepuck]

11:50 PM on 05/02/2011

I keep reading about this is expected considering the way muslim men treat there women. I live in america and the newspapers do not even report about rapes and domestic abuse cases anymore in most large cities because it is so common. I americans need to take care of its own social issues before it takes on another contries.

[MJHammonds]

12:01 AM on 05/03/2011

You got that right.  Lately, the only stories you hear outside of the community in which they happen, are from purportedly Muslim families.  Domestic abuse and murder don't rate a headline unless Muslims are involved.

Talk about confirmation bias...

[AntonioSaucedo]

12:21 AM on 05/03/2011

which, of course, doesn't mean it doesn't happen or that shouldn't be reported or criticized.

[cheli2244]

12:16 AM on 05/03/2011

There is a tremendous amount of coverage on this locally where I live. It's a big country, but I've lived in many parts of it and what you claim is certainly not true anywhere I've ever lived. Check the police blotter.

Tune in to CNN Headline news, Jane Velez Mitchell and Nancy Grace are making a living reporting on this to the point that many people accuse them of living off the sensationalism.

I don't get how comparing types of injustice gets us anywhere. Men need to get better, here and there.

The U.S. has gotten much better over time, even during my lifetime, largely due the women's movement. Rape used to almost always be seen as a woman's fault, as in, "She asked for it". "How was she dressed?" There's still some of this, but it's not the norm. Women and children here used to be treated as the property of their husbands and fathers (e.g. "the rule of thumb" comes from the width of the stick with which a man could legally beat his family).

The long and short of it is that we have to fight very hard, men and women, to change things, but we can.

Hopefully, we are witnessing an emergent women's movement in Egypt and other places. I am fully behind them as they conquer their unique challenges.

[Anne Mccormick]

11:47 PM on 05/02/2011

wonderful! the great and sainted Bin Laden in the end hid behind a woman in order to save his own life.

[themasterpuppeteer]

11:47 PM on 05/02/2011

This post correctly uses "POSSIBLY" and "ALLEGEDLY". Reports say the wife survived the attack and helped to physically identify him before the alleged DNA test. Osama was asleep on the 3rd floor of his compound and was killed in seconds when/if he began shooting, so he did not have any human shield, funny how people are saying "coward", he was a mass murderer for christ sakes! Lets move on honorably and peacefully, hopefully...... after viable verification is released.

[djeaninew1066]

12:43 AM on 05/03/2011

And you think that a mass murderer would not use his own wife as a shield. You are really gullible if you think he wouldn't let all of his wives die in a heartbeat to save his own miserable hide. Please!

[BluesDogLefty]

12:51 AM on 05/03/2011

That was an ex-wife who made the ID

[majestic7usa]

11:49 PM on 05/02/2011

I cannot believe You get away with That comment LOL !

[splintercottage]

12:01 AM on 05/03/2011

Wow. What a thing to say. Are you trying to make a joke or speakng up and removing all doubt.

[Goliadkin]

12:21 AM on 05/03/2011

[Irony alert.]

[buttercupkitten3]

11:34 PM on 05/02/2011

This doesn't surprise me at all, considering that he and his ilk have no problems with using women and children as human shields on a regular basis. I'm just glad he's gone, and now we need to go after the terrorist cells in Yemin and other such countries. We definitely should not let our guard down, especially now.