Pakistanis say US shot Osama in 'cold blood'

A senior security official said US troops killed Osama bin Laden in "cold blood", fuelling a global controversy and straining a vital relationship Washington was trying to repair on Thursday. And Pakistan's army, in its first comment since Monday's raid, threatened to halt cooperation with its military sponsor if it repeated what it called a violation of sovereignty.
But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washinton was still anxious to maintain its alliance with Islamabad. "It is not always an easy relationship. You know that," she said. "But, on the other hand, it is a productive one for both our countries and we are going to continue to cooperate between our governments, our militaries, our law-enforcement agencies, but most importantly between the American and Pakistani people."
Americans are questioning how the al Qaeda leader could live for years in some comfort in a garrison town near the Pakistani capital. Some call for cutting billions of dollars in US aid.
And in a further sign of fractious relations between the allies, senior security officials told Reuters that US accounts had been misleading in describing a long gun battle 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 Pakistani 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.
A US acknowledgement that bin Laden was unarmed when shot in the head - as well as the disposal of his body at sea, a practice rare in Islam - have drawn criticism from the Arab world and Europe, where some have warned of a backlash against the West, even among Muslims who reject Qaeda's violence.
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 quoted officials in the administration of President Barack 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 Pakistani 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 officials declined to describe the sources of their information but confirmed several people from the compound were detained. Pakistan'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 Pakistani 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 Reuters.