US PRESIDENT Barack Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, yesterday corrected mistakes in the White House’s initial account of bin Laden’s death to say he “was not armed” though he “resisted”.
A woman on the ground floor of the house was killed in crossfire. Bin Laden’s wife, who was in the upstairs room with him, was not used as a shield but “rushed the US assaulter”. She was shot in the leg but survived, Mr Carney added.
The US believes it can dismantle the entire al-Qaeda network following the killing of the group’s founder, Osama bin Laden, Mr Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, said yesterday.
“We’re going to try to take advantage of this opportunity we have now with the death of bin Laden to ensure that we’re able to destroy that organisation,” Mr Brennan said in an interview. “We’re determined to do so and we believe we can. We believe that we have damaged the organisation, degraded its capability and made it much more difficult for it to operate inside of Pakistan as well as beyond.”
Mr Brennan’s remarks contrasted with earlier warnings by US officials that al-Qaeda is likely to retaliate for bin Laden’s killing. He said the administration knew of no specific threats 48 hours after bin Laden’s death. The US was nonetheless “taking all those prudent measures that we need to whenever there’s an incident of significance like this . . . Right now, I think we feel pretty confident that we are at the right posture,” he said.
Details of life in the compound prior to the raid are emerging in reports by US media. In an interview with bin Laden’s grocer in Abottabad, Bloomberg news revealed that the household consumed large amounts of Pepsi and Coca-Cola, those staples of the western imperialist diet. Arabs usually drink Pepsi rather than Coke, which they associate with Israel.
The grocer, 150 metres from the compound where bin Laden and four others were killed overnight from Sunday to Monday, said Rashid and Akbar Khan, the owners of the fortified residence, drove the 150 metres to pick up food in a Pajero or Suzuki van and bought enough for 10 people.
They “always bought the best brands, Nestlé milk, the good-quality soaps and shampoos. They always paid cash, never asked for credit,” the grocer said.
Mr Carney said there were three families living in the compound: the bin Ladens, one on the ground floor and another in a second building.
Mr Brennan said material seized by US navy seals during the 40-minute raid on bin Laden’s compound “is currently being exploited and reviewed” in the hope it will help the US to dismantle al-Qaeda.
The US believes that Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s deputy, “is in the same area of southwest Asia, whether it’s in Pakistan or Afghanistan,” Mr Brennan said. Material taken from the compound could show whether al-Qaeda branches in Yemen and the Maghreb act autonomously, as previously thought.
Security sources believe al-Qaeda in the Maghreb may have been responsible for the suicide bombing that killed 16 people in Marrakech last week.
CIA director Leon Panetta has set up a taskforce to act on new intelligence from the raid as quickly as possible. Mr Panetta yesterday said in an interview: “It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission: they might alert the targets.” He also said the CIA was only 60 to 80 per cent certain that bin Laden was in the compound.
Mr Obama's approval rating rose nine percentage points after bin Laden was killed, according to a poll conducted by the Washington Postand Pew Research Center. Some 56 per cent of respondents contacted on Monday evening viewed the president positively, his highest rating since 2009. He received an all time high rating of 69 per cent approval for his handling of terrorism, but a low 40 per cent approval rating for the economy.