Osama bin Laden was not armed when US special forces stormed his compound in Pakistan but he did resist before he was shot, White House spokesman Jay Carney said today.
The al-Qaeda leader was shot dead by US special forces in an attack on a sprawling compound near a military academy in the northwestern town of Abbottabad, 60km from the capital Islamabad.
Mr Carney said bin Laden's wife "rushed the US assaulter" and was shot in the leg but not killed, contrary to what a White House official said yesterday.
Mr Carney declined to offer further details on bin Laden's behavior during the raid. However, he insisted bin Laden resisted capture, saying "resistance did not require a firearm".
US forces faced a firefight throughout the 40-minute raid.
"We expected a great deal of resistance and were met with a great deal of resistance. There were many other people who were armed in the compound," Mr Carney said.
The killing of bin Laden was not likely to affect the US timetable for bringing American troops out of Afghanistan, Mr Carney said, adding that the goal of starting a drawdown in July remained.
He said a photograph of a dead bin Laden is "gruesome" and that "it could be inflammatory" if released.
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.
Mr Carney said there is a discussion internally about the most appropriate way to handle but "there is not some roiling debate here about this." Asked if President Barack Obama is involved in the photo discussion, Mr Carney said the president is involved in every aspect of this issue.
Earlier Pakistan categorically denied any prior knowledge of the US raid that killed bin Laden, but said it had been sharing information about the targeted compound with the CIA since 2009.
"Neither any base nor facility inside Pakistan was used by the US forces, nor the Pakistan Army provided any operational or logistic assistance to these operations conducted by the US forces," the foreign ministry said in a lengthy statement.
While Islamabad hailed the killing of bin Laden as an important milestone in the fight against terrorism, the statement said Pakistan had expressed "deep concerns" that the operation was carried out without informing it in advance.
Only a handful of people within the Obama administration were aware of the operation. US officials said no other country - including Pakistan - was informed. CIA director Leon Panetta said today Pakistani officials were not told of the mission because of concerns bin Laden might have been tipped off.
According to the foreign ministry statement, US helicopters entered Pakistani airspace by making use of "blind spots" in the radar coverage caused by the hilly terrain surrounding Abbottabad. It said the Pakistani air force scrambled its jets within minutes of being informed of the US operation but there was no engagement with the US forces as they had already left Pakistani airspace.
It said Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency had been sharing information about the compound with the CIA and other friendly intelligence agencies since 2009.
In an article published in the Washington Post today, Pakistan's president dismissed claims that his country harboured bin Laden as "baseless speculation".
“Some in the US press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing," Asif Ali Zardari said. “Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn’t reflect fact. Pakistan had as much reason to despise al-Qaeda as any nation. The war on terrorism is as much Pakistan’s war as it is America’s.”
Mr Zardari acknowledged bin Laden’s assassination was not a joint operation between his military and the US. But he insisted a decade of co-operation and partnership between the countries led to his elimination “as a continuing threat to the civilised world”.
Bin Laden (54) was killed after months of CIA surveillance on a three-storey house on half a hectare of land in a wealthy suburb of Abbottabad. The White House said he was buried at sea “in strict conformance with Islamic practice”.
Reports said he was wrapped in a weighted white cloth, placed on a board and dropped into the Persian Gulf from the deck of a US aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson.
US attorney general Eric Holder today insisted the US operation and the taking of bin Laden’s body were "lawful, legitimate and appropriate”.
Facing pressure to produce proof of bin Laden's death, White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said the US was considering whether to release photographs and video taken during the raid. "We want to make sure that we're able to do it in a thoughtful manner. We also want to anticipate what the reaction might be on the part of al-Qaeda or others to the release of certain information so that we can take the appropriate steps beforehand," Mr Brennan told CNN.
The Afghan Taliban said Washington had not provided "acceptable evidence to back up their claim" that he had been killed. In a statement from Kabul, they also said aides bin Laden had not confirmed or denied his death.
Another US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said photographs of bin Laden's burial at sea may be released but no decision has been made. Washington was also weighing whether to release a photo of his body.
Meanwhile, the United States has closed two of its consulates in Pakistan to the public until further notice due to security concerns.
British prime minister David Cameron said his government would be asking "searching questions" of Pakistan about how much it knew of the network supporting bin Laden. "The fact that bin Laden was living in a large house in a populated area suggests that he must have had a support network in Pakistan," Mr Cameron told the House of Commons in London today. "We don't currently know the extent of that network, so it is right that we ask searching questions about it. And we will."
Mr Cameron said Britain must be more vigilant than ever about security threats following the killing of the al-Qaeda leader. Britain will keep its terrorist threat level - currently at severe - under review, he said.
"While bin Laden is gone, the threat of al-Qaeda remains. Clearly there is a risk that al Qaeda and its affiliates in places like Yemen and the Maghreb will want to demonstrate they are able to operate effectively," Mr Cameron told MPs.
"And, of course, there is always the risk of a radicalised individual acting alone, a so-called lone-wolf attack. So we must be more vigilant than ever - and we must maintain that vigilance for some time to come," he said.
Despite the finger pointing at Islamabad, US and British officials said they would continue working with Pakistan to combat militancy. China, a strong ally of Pakistan, defended Islamabad against accusations it had done too little against threats of terrorism.
Mr Brennan said last night the special forces team that landed by helicopter at the compound were prepared to take bin Laden alive if he surrendered. He said the three-storey house surrounded by high walls topped with barbed wire was registered in the name of a “gatekeeper-courier” who unwittingly led the Americans to bin Laden.
In addition to bin Laden, the courier and his brother, bin Laden’s son Khaled and a woman were killed in the assault. Contrary to earlier reports, the woman was not bin Laden's wife and was not used as a human shield by the al-Qaeda leader before his death, a US official said last night.
The aircraft – four, according to different reports – carried soldiers from the US navy’s elite Seal Team Six, a highly secretive counter-terrorism unit that works closely with the CIA.
Thousands of miles away in the US, officials watching on live video feeds had a heart-stopping moment when one of the helicopters crashed. “The minutes passed like days. It was very tense, with a lot of people holding their breath,” said Mr Brennan.
The US had been led to the compound by one of bin Laden’s most trusted men: a courier, first identified by detainees at Guantanámo Bay. He was said to be protege of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged architect of the September 11th attacks.
In the first sign militants were attempting to strike back, Afghan forces killed and wounded 25 foreign fighters overnight after they crossed the border from Pakistan today, a government official said. Jamaluddin Badr, governor of Afghanistan's northeastern Nuristan province, said the fighters killed included Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis.
Some US politicians have questioned how it was possible for bin Laden to live in a populated area near a military training academy without anyone in authority knowing about it. The US Congress has approved $20 billion for Pakistan in direct aid and military reimbursements partly to help Islamabad fight militancy since bin Laden masterminded the September 11th, 2001 attacks.
"Our government is in fiscal distress. To make contributions to a country that isn't going to be fully supportive is a problem for many," said Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein.