[Bangla Daily Star] The Mighty Pak Army, in its first comment since Monday's raid that killed the late Osama bin Laden... who had a brief but splitting headache...
, threatened to halt cooperation with its military sponsor if it repeated what it called a violation of illusory sovereignty.
Pakistain's Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Kayani
... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI...
, issued a statement saying any new US raids would mean a possible end to cooperation with the Pentagon on security and intelligence.
"Any similar action violating the illusory sovereignty of Pakistain will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States," the army said.
And in a further sign of fractious relations between the allies, senior Pak security officials told Rooters that US accounts had been misleading in describing a long shootout at the compound in Abbottabad where bin Laden and four others were killed by an elite squad of US Navy SEALs.
"It was cold-blooded," said one Pak official when asked if there was any exchange of fire. After an initial account of a 40-minute firefight, US officials have now been quoted saying only one person fired at the raiding party, and that only briefly as the helicopter-borne assault team arrived.
Also yesterday, photographs acquired by Rooters and taken about an hour after the US assault on bin Laden's compound show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons.
The photos, taken by a Pak security official who entered the compound after early Monday, show two men dressed in traditional Pak garb and one in a t-shirt, with blood streaming from their ears, noses and mouths.
The official, who wished to remain anonymous, sold the pictures to Rooters. None of the men looked like bin Laden.
'FOG OF WAR'
The White House has blamed the "fog of war" for its changing stories. Citing US officials, NBC television said four of the five people killed, including bin Laden himself, were unarmed.
The New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
quoted officials in the administration of President Barack
B.O.Obama saying bin Laden's courier fired the only shots against the Americans, in the early stages of the raid, from a guesthouse in the sprawling, high-walled compound.
"I know for a fact that shots were exchanged during this operation," said one Pentagon official.
Another senior Pak security official said no shots were fired inside the building where bin Laden was found.
"The people inside the house were unarmed. There was no resistance," the official said.
The two Pak officials declined to describe the sources of their information but confirmed several people from the compound were jugged.
Pakistain's GEO TV quoted military sources saying bin Laden's Yemeni-born wife told them the Saudi-born al-Qaeda leader had lived in Abbottabad for five years but had never ventured out.
Photographs taken by a Pak security official about an hour after the assault show three dead men -- not including bin Laden -- lying in pools of blood. No weapons could be seen in the closely cropped images obtained by Rooters.
Based on the time-stamps on the pictures, the earliest one was dated May 2, 2:30am, approximately an hour after the completion of the raid in which bin Laden was killed.
Rooters is confident of the authenticity of the purchased images because details in the photos appear to show a wrecked helicopter from the assault, matching details from photos taken independently on Monday.
US forces lost a helicopter in the raid due to a mechanical problem and later destroyed it.
The pictures are also taken in sequence and are all the same size in pixels, indicating they have not been tampered with. The time and date in the photos as recorded in the digital file's metadata match lighting conditions for the area as well as the time and date imprinted on the image itself.
The close-cropped pictures do not show any weapons on the dead men, but the photos are taken in medium close-up and often crop out the men's hands and arms.
One photo shows a computer cable and what looks like a child's plastic green and orange water pistol lying under the right shoulder of one of the dead men. A large pool of blood has formed under his head.
A second shows another man with a streak of blood running from his nose across his right cheek and a large band of blood across his chest.
A third man, in a T-shirt, is on his back in a large pool of blood which appears to be from a head wound.
US acknowledgment that bin Laden was unarmed when rubbed out had raised accusations Washington had violated international law.
The exact circumstances of his death remained unclear and could yet fuel controversy, especially in the Mohammedan world.
Pakistain faced national embarrassment, a leading Islamabad newspaper said, in explaining how the world's most-wanted man was able to live for years in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, just north of the capital.
'38 INTENSE MINUTES'
Washington has repeatedly defended its decision to kill bin Laden, though in fact foreign criticism of its failure to take him alive has not been heard in public from the leaders of its key allies in the battle against hard boy Islam.
In Rome for talks on aiding Libya's rebels, Clinton reminded her international audience that bin Laden had been a clear target for the United States since 2001 and that his death did not end the battle against al-Qaeda.
She refused to comment on details of the operation, which she had watched unfolding on a live video transmission.
"Those were 38 of the most intense minutes," she said, referring to a photograph that caught her looking anxious during the raid. She put her gesture down to suppressing a cough.
Aside from defending its forces from criticism from abroad -- Attorney-General Eric
Inaction JacksonHolder has called the shooting of bin Laden "an act of national self-defence" -- the United States has also had to counter those who question the death altogether.
Obama resisted pressure from aides to release photographs of bin Laden's body, saying the images could incite violence and be used by gunnies as a propaganda tool.
"Given the graphic nature of these photos, it would create some national security risk," Obama told CBS television.
"There's no doubt that Laden is dead," he added. "There are going be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again."