Osama bin Laden Used One Of His Wives As A Human Shield [UPDATED]

I suppose that someone who has no moral compunction about killing thousands of people at a time really wouldn’t think twice about doing this:

Osama bin Laden used one of his wives as a human shield during the U.S. raid, chief counterterrorism adviser to President Barack Obama John Brennan said Monday.

She was killed during the operation.

Coward.

Update: This may not actually be the case.

FILED UNDER: National Security, Terrorism, , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Tony says:

    I dunno. I can well believe it to be true. But doesn’t this story have a whiff of the so-apt-it-can’t-possibly-be-legit about it?

  2. Andy says:

    It seems much more likely UBL’s wife used herself as a human shield.

  3. CB says:

    he must have been a liberal

  4. Janis Gore says:

    I agree with Andy.

    What possible good could come out of surviving that situation?

  5. John Burgess says:

    You know, I sort of suspect that there’s a video recording of the entire event, not that we’re likely to see it absent an FOIA request that’s likely to fail. Or, perhaps, the expiration of that 25-year declassification.

  6. Janis Gore says:

    All true, Mr. Burgess. The powers that be are saying that they watched events in real time.

    But there’s nothing to say that there mighn’t have been an agreement between husband and wife prior to events.

  7. Franklin says:

    he must have been a liberal

    Yes, because religious fundamentalists who believe that wives are property are usually considered “liberal”. In bizarro world.

  8. jukeboxgrad says:

    “Reuters news service later reported that the White House was backing away from the story, with an unidentified official saying the woman was not his wife and was not used as a shield.”

    http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2011/05/03/bin_laden_raid_meticulously_planned/