Thaindian News

Washington, May 4 (ANI): A senior congressional aide has revealed that Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden would have been allowed to surrender only if he was naked.

Briefing media on the rules of engagement applied by the US Navy Seals, the aide said: “He would have had to have been naked for them to allow him to surrender.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, the American operatives had orders to capture Bin Laden if he gave himself up. The assault force, however, was told to accept a surrender only if it could be sure he didn’t have a bomb hidden under his clothing and posed no other danger.

The paper quoted White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan as telling Fox television that if U.S. troops “were confident that Bin Laden did not pose any type of threat whatsoever, in terms of his not having an IED [improvised explosives device] on his body, his not having some type of hidden weapon or whatever, a surrender would have been acceptable.

The surrender issue was one of several on which administration officials shifted ground.

White House, spokesman Jay Carney said that at the time of his killing, bin Laden was unarmed.

“In the room with Bin Laden, a woman - Bin Laden’s wife - rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg, but not killed,” Carney said. “Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed.”

CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said in an interview on PBS television Tuesday that he did not believe Bin Laden had a chance to speak before he was shot in the face and killed.

Officials have strongly defended the decision to shoot. (ANI)