Osama was unarmed

OSAMA BIN LADEN was not armed when a US Navy SEAL raiding party confronted him during the assault on his compound in Pakistan, the White House has said.

White House press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged that bin Laden did not have a weapon even though administration officials said bin Laden resisted during the raid.

Carney said resistance does not require a firearm.

He said that a woman in the room with bin Laden — believed to be one of his wives — confronted the US forces and was shot but not killed.

CIA chief Leon Panetta last night revealed that a photo of a dead bin Laden would “be ultimately released”.

Earlier, Carney said the photograph of a dead bin Laden is “gruesome” and that “it could be inflammatory”. He said the White House is mulling whether to make the photo public, but he said officials are concerned about the “sensitivity” of doing so.

Asked if US President Barack Obama is involved in the photo discussion, Carney said the president is involved in every aspect of this issue.

Other details that emerged included the fact that one of bin Laden’s wives tried to rush the US attackers and was shot in the leg.

High temperatures caused a lumbering helicopter carrying elite commandos to make a hard landing. As Navy SEALs swept through the massive compound, they handcuffed those they encountered with plastic zip ties and pressed on in pursuit of their target, code-named Geronimo.

Once bin Laden had been shot, they doubled back to move the prisoners away from the compound before blowing up the downed helicopter.

The fuller picture of the assault emerged as US officials weighed whether to release a secret video and photos of bin Laden, killed with a precise shot above his left eye.

US officials say the photos show bin Laden was shot above his left eye, blowing away part of his skull. He was also shot in the chest.

It all happened at the end of a frenzied firefight in a high- walled Pakistani compound where helicopter-borne US forces found 23 children, nine women, a courier who had unwittingly led the US to its target, a son of bin Laden who was also slain, and more.

Bin Laden may have lived at the fortified compound for up to six years, putting him far from the lawless and harsh Pakistani frontier where he had been assumed to be hiding out.

White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan said the US was scouring items seized in the raid — said to include hard drives, DVDs, a pile of documents and more — that might tip US intelligence to al-Qaida’s operational details and perhaps lead the manhunt to the presumed next-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri.