Osama Bin Laden’s killing in 2011 may be well known, but some people are only now realising the significance of the al-Qaeda leader’s sea burial.
Former US Navy SEAL Team 6 member Robert O’Neill recalled the moment the leader of the militant group was killed in a conversation held in the 9/11 Memorial Museum, saying: “A foot and a half in front of me was Osama bin Laden.” “And I shot him twice, and then once more.” Bin Laden had been on the FBI’s most-wanted list for more than ten years before he was killed on May 2, 2011, at his compound near Islamabad, Pakistan.
“Other SEALs entered the room as I turned around and sort of halted there to stare at them. … Are you OK? [One of the SEALs] asked me while glancing at me. What do we do now? I questioned. “Now let’s go find the computers,” he added as he grinned and put his hand on my shoulder.Barack Obama, who was president at the time, broke the news of Bin Laden’s passing, but the US had to decide how to buried him.
Buried at sea
The nation made its choice using historical precedent and religious doctrine.
Islamic law forbids cremation, and burying him on land presented a problem because his native Saudi Arabia reportedly wouldn’t accept the remains, and officials were worried his cemetery may turn into a “terrorist shrine.”
Because of this, it was decided to bury Bin Laden at sea, and measures were taken to make sure no one could locate or retrieve his remains.
The US moved Bin Laden’s body to the USS Carl Vinson ship as soon as it was discovered because, according to Islamic tradition, a body must be buried within 24 hours of passing away.
His remains were buried according to Islamic customs, which included washing them, wrapping them in white cloth, and bringing in an Arabic interpreter.
According to a US defence official, “a military commander read prepared religious remarks that were translated into Arabic by a native speaker.”
He was then loaded onto a wooden board and pushed into the ocean by the US, which defied convention by packing his body into a weighted bag first.
Death of laden
At 6:00 GMT, roughly 12 hours after his death, he was buried.
One internet user tweeted the following after learning how Bin Laden was buried last month: “What they were planning to do with his remains has long intrigued me.” “In my opinion, nobody would want to create a memorial for him.”
After U.S. soldiers invaded Osama bin Laden’s opulent hideout in Pakistan, shot him in a shootout in which at least one of his wives was used as a human shield, and then smuggled his body out of the country aboard a helicopter, U.S. sources say bin Laden was buried at sea on Monday.
The president’s response when it became evident that bin Laden was killed, according to Brennan, was, “We got him.” On Sunday, the Situation Room at the White House was tense as Obama and his closest aides followed the raid “in real time,” and “the minutes passed like days.”
After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which he ordered, the long-sought-after al-Qaeda leader eluded intensive U.S. efforts to kill or capture him. His death on Monday sparked warnings that his radical Islamist network or sympathisers might attempt to retaliate against Americans or U.S. interests.
In the fight against terrorism, the death of bin Laden marks a “defining event” and the “decapitation of the head of the snake that is al-Qaeda,” according to Brennan.
He claimed that because Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s deputy, “is not charismatic” and “has a lot of enemies in the organisation,” al-Qaeda is currently facing difficulties. “You’re going to see them devouring themselves more and more,” he said. An earlier U.S. official said that the SEAL team swiftly returned to Afghanistan with bin Laden’s body by helicopter after it had been positively identified. The body was then removed from Afghanistan and “buried at sea,” according to the person, in part because the US government did not want a visible tomb that would turn into a shrine for bin Laden’s supporters.
