Osama body identified by wife,DNA tests

The al-Qaeda leader was identified by name by a woman believed to be one of his wives.

The US used multiple means to confirm the identity of Osama bin Laden during and after the firefight in which he was killed,before placing his body in the North Arabian Sea from aboard a US aircraft carrier,senior US officials said Monday.

The al-Qaeda leader was identified by name by a woman believed to be a wife of his,Osama had several,who was present at his Pakistan compound at the time of the US raid. He also was visually identified by members of the US raid squad,a senior intelligence official told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

The intelligence official also said quite a bit of unspecified material was collected by US forces during the raid. Without describing the material,the official said it is being analysed by a team of people at the CIA.

The officials said Osama was killed toward the end of the firefight,which took place overnight Monday in a building at a compound north of Islamabad,the Pakistani capital. His body was put aboard the USS Carl Vinson and placed into the North Arabian Sea. Traditional Islamic procedures for handling the remains were followed,the officials said,including washing the corpse,placing it in a white sheet. Preparations for at-sea burial began at 1:10 am Monday and were completed at 2 am,one official said.

The intelligence official said the DNA match,using DNA from several family members,provided virtual certainty it was Osama’s body. Officials did not immediately say where or how the testing was done but the test explains why President Barack Obama was confident to announce the death to the world Sunday night. Obama provided no details on the identification process.

The US is believed to have collected DNA samples from Osamas family members in the years since the September 11,2001 attacks that triggered the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. It was unclear whether the US also had fingerprints or some other means to identify the body on site.

Osama was shot in the head during the firefight with members of an elite US counter-terrorism unit that launched a helicopter-borne raid on the al-Qaida leaders compound,US officials said. Officials said the US special forces who stormed the compound came face to face with their target.

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US officials also said Osama was identified through facial recognition,a reference to technology for mapping unique facial characteristics,but it was not clear exactly how the Navy SEAL troops performed the comparison. The body was photographed before being buried at sea,although no images have been released by the Obama administration.