Osama bin Laden's remains buried at sea, U.S. officials say

PanARMENIAN.Net - Osama bin Laden's remains were buried at sea, U.S. officials have confirmed.

Bin Laden had been hiding in a two-storey villa 100 yards from a Pakistani military academy when four helicopters carrying U.S. anti-terror forces swooped in the early morning hours.

After he was killed senior American officials said the body would be handled according to Islamic practice and tradition. That practice calls for the body to be buried within 24 hours.

Finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, the U.S. official said, so the U.S. decided to bury him at sea.

The location of his burial was not revealed.

A U.S. official said one of bin Laden's sons was also killed in the raid along with three others, but the official did not name the son or the others killed.

Pakistani officials and a witness said bin Laden's guards opened fire from the roof of the building and one of the choppers crashed. The sound of at least two explosions rocked the small north-western town of Abbottabad where the al Qaida chief made his last stand. The U.S. said no Americans were harmed in the raid.

Abbottabad, home to at least one regiment of the Pakistani army, is dotted with military buildings and home to thousands of army personnel. Surrounded by hills and with mountains in the distance, it is less than half a days drive from the border region with Afghanistan, where most intelligence assessments believed bin Laden was hiding.

The news that he was killed in an army town in Pakistan will raise more pointed questions about how he managed to evade capture and whether Pakistan's military and intelligence leadership knew of his whereabouts and sheltered him.

Critics have long accused elements of Pakistan's security establishment of protecting bin Laden, though Islamabad has always denied this, The Telegraph reported.