US defends shooting of Bin Laden

Supporters of Pakistan ex-PM Nawaz Sharif in Abbottabad denounced the US government

US Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s hideout, in which the al-Qaeda leader was killed, was “not an assassination”.

Mr Holder told the BBC the operation was a “kill or capture mission” and that Bin Laden’s surrender would have been accepted if offered.

The protection of the Navy Seals who carried out the raid was “uppermost in our minds”, he added.

Bin Laden was shot dead on 2 May in the complex in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The raid has had a mixed reaction in Pakistan, and on Thursday several hundred supporters of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif rallied in Abbottabad shouting anti-US slogans.

The marchers shouted “Go, America Go”, “Down with [US President Barack] Obama” and “Down with [Pakistani President Asif Ali] Zardari”, and waved the green flags of Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N party.

Mr Sharif has called for a full judicial inquiry into the raid.

Mr Holder said the special forces had acted “in an appropriate way” in the absence of any clear indication Bin Laden had been going to surrender.

“If the possibility had existed, if there was the possibility of a feasible surrender, that would have occurred,” he said.

“But their protection, that is the protection of the force that went into that compound, was I think uppermost in our minds.”

The attorney general reiterated that the operation was legal, saying that international law allows the targeting of enemy commanders.

“I actually think that the dotting of the i’s and the crossing of the t’s is what separates the United States, the United Kingdom, our allies, from those who we are fighting,” he said.

“We do respect the rule of law, there are appropriate ways in which we conduct ourselves and expect our people to conduct themselves, and I think those Navy Seals conducted themselves in a way that’s consistent with American, [and] British values.”

The interview with Mr Holder comes a day after a statement by Bin Laden’s family questioning why he was not captured alive.

His sons criticised the US for carrying out his “arbitrary killing”.

The UN has also raised concerns.

Special rapporteurs Christof Heyns and Martin Scheinin said in a statement that deadly force was permissible in exceptional cases as a last resort.

“However, the norm should be that terrorists be dealt with as criminals, through legal processes of arrest, trial and judicially decided punishment,” they added.

Members of US Congress are being shown photos of Bin Laden just after his death, which the US government has so far refused to publish.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who saw them on Tuesday, described them as “pretty gruesome”.

Meanwhile, documents seized during the raid suggested Bin Laden had a hand in every recent major al-Qaeda threat, US officials have said.

In the latest of a series of media briefings, unnamed US security and and intelligence officials said the documents showed that Bin Laden had calculated how many Americans would have to die before the US withdrew from the Middle East.

He also encouraged his followers to attack cities such as Los Angeles, as well as New York.

Intelligence agents are continuing to analyse the documents – said to be stored on around 100 flash drives and five computers.

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