US President Barack Obama told an American television channel that he has decided not to release photos showing the body of Osama Bin Laden
US President Barack Obama told an American television channel that he has decided not to release photos showing the body of Osama Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, after he was killed by US commandos.
Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said Obama had consulted members of his national security team before making the decision.
Carney said that in the interview with CBS, Obama had stressed it was important to keep photographic evidence from "floating around as incitement or propaganda tool".
"That is not who we are. We don't trot this stuff out as trophies," Obama was quoted as saying in the interview for the channel's "60 Minutes" program. "There is no doubt that we killed Osama
bin Laden. You will not see bin Laden walking on this Earth again," the president said.
"It is not in our national security interests to allow those images, as has been in the past been the case, to become icons to rally opinion against the United States," Carney said.
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US officials who have seen the pictures taken of bin Laden's body have described them as "gruesome".
There are fears that if the photos are released they could provoke anger and trigger a backlash against US personnel in the Muslim world.
Obama's decision came as the Reuters news agency released photographs it said were taken about an hour after the US assault on bin Laden's compound. The pictures show three dead men lying in pools of blood, but no weapons.
The US attorney general has said that killing bin Laden was an act of national self-defense, countering allegations that the raid by US forces on his Pakistani hide-out was illegal.
Pakistan has welcomed bin Laden's death, but its foreign ministry expressed deep concerns about the raid, which it called an "unauthorized unilateral action". The CIA said it kept Pakistan out of the loop because it feared bin Laden would be tipped off, highlighting the depth of mistrust between the two supposed allies.
