The Obama Administration used several methods, including DNA testing, to confirm that U.S. Navy Seals did in fact kill Osama bin Laden in a weekend raid in Pakistan, U.S. officials said on Monday.
In addition to facial-recognition techniques, analysis of photos by the CIA and confirmation from people at the site of the raid (quoting a senior U.S. defense official, CNN reported that "one of bin Laden's own wives identified his body to U.S. forces, after the team made visual identification themselves"), DNA from the body was matched to confirm bin Laden's identity.
Matched to what? The U.S. is believed to have collected DNA samples from several of bin Laden's family members during the decade since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. According to an ABC News affiliate in Boston, one of those samples belonged to bin Laden's sister, who died of brain cancer about a year ago at Massachusetts General Hospital; after her death, government officials were reported to have taken some of her brain tissue for genetic testing.
DNA matching suggests with 99.9% certainty, officials said, that the man killed by a shot to the head in a compound in Abbottabad, a town about an hour's drive north of Islamabad, was Osama bin Laden. That may be the best confirmation we'll get, considering that the body has already been buried at sea in accordance with Muslim custom, which requires interment within 24 hours of death. The AP reported that Administration officials were "weighing the merit and appropriateness of releasing a photo of bin Laden."
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