This account differs from an official version of events issued by the Pentagon on Tuesday, and read by the White House spokesman, Jay Carney , which said the Seal members “were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation.” 
 
 In a television interview on PBS on Tuesday, Leon E. Panetta , the director of the C.I.A. , said, “There were some firefights that were going on as these guys were making their way up the staircase of that compound.” 
 
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 Administration officials said the official account of events has changed over the course of the week because it has taken time to get thorough after-action reports from the Seal team. And, they added, because the Special Operations troops had been fired upon as soon as they touched down in the compound, they were under the assumption that everyone inside was armed. 
 
 “They were in a threatening and hostile environment the entire time,” one American official said. 
 
 When the commandos moved into the main house, they saw the courier’s brother, who they believed was preparing to fire a weapon. They shot and killed him. Then, as they made their way up the stairs of the house, officials said they killed Bin Laden’s son Khalid as he lunged toward the Seal team. 
 
 When the commandos reached the top floor, they entered a room and saw Osama bin Laden with an AK-47 and a Makarov pistol in arm’s reach. They shot and killed him, as well as wounding a woman with him. 
 
 The firefight over and Bin Laden dead, the team found a trove of information and had the time to remove much of it: about 100 thumb drives, DVDs and computer disks, along with 10 computer hard drives and 5 computers. There were also piles of paper documents in the house. 
 
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 The White House declined to release any additional details about the operation, saying that further information would jeopardize the military’s ability to conduct clandestine operations in the future. The administration’s reticence came after it was forced on Tuesday to correct parts of its initial account of the raid, including assertions that Bin Laden had used his wife as a “human shield.” 
 
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 “We’ve revealed a lot of information; we’ve been as forthcoming with facts as we can be,” Mr. Carney said. 
 
 Mr. Carney said the president expressed doubts early on about releasing the photos, but consulted his senior advisers. All of them, Mr. Carney said, voiced concerns about the risks. Based on its monitoring of worldwide reaction to the announcement of Bin Laden’s death, Mr. Carney said, the administration also concluded that most people viewed the reports of his death as credible and that publicizing photos would do little to sway those who believed it was a hoax. 
 
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 Mr. Obama was direct in an interview with the CBS News program “60 Minutes,” to be broadcast Sunday, according to a transcript released by the network. “It is very important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence — as a propaganda tool.” 
 
 “That’s not who we are,” Mr. Obama added. “You know, we don’t trot out this stuff as trophies.” He said, “We don’t need to spike the football.” 
 
 “Certainly there’s no doubt among Al Qaeda members that he is dead,” he said on “60 Minutes.” “And so we don’t think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference. There are going to be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see Bin Laden walking on this earth again.” 
 
 The deliberations were reminiscent of Mr. Obama’s decision in May 2009 to fight the release of photos documenting the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by American military personnel. The administration said originally that it would not oppose releasing the pictures, but the president decided he would fight making them public after his military commanders warned that the images could provoke a reaction against troops in those countries. 
 
 The White House said Mr. Obama would take part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the site of the Sept. 11 memorial in Lower Manhattan on Thursday. He is also to meet with relatives of the victims of the terrorist attacks, but he will not make a speech. The next day, he is to travel to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to speak to troops returning from Afghanistan. 
 
 Seeking to quell any legal questions about the raid, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said, “It was justified as an act of national self-defense,” citing Bin Laden’s role as the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. 
 
 There were divided opinions on Capitol Hill about the photographs, with some lawmakers saying the United States needed to show proof that Bin Laden was dead, while others worried about the possibility of blowback against American troops. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story ||||| White House Press Secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday publicly revised the administration’s account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, telling reporters that the Al Qaeda leader wasn’t armed during the assault and didn’t use one of his wives as a shield. 
 
 On Monday evening, the White House had backed away from key details in its narrative about the raid, including claims by senior U.S. officials that bin Laden had a weapon and may have fired it during a gun battle with U.S. forces. 
 
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 reset Carney offers more on bin Laden Carney: Even I’m confused Brennan’s Monday briefing POLITICO 44 
 
 Officials also retreated from claims that one of bin Laden’s wives was killed in the raid. 
 
 Carney read a statement to reporters Tuesday seeking to clarify discrepancies. He said bin Laden “was not armed.” When a U.S. “assaulter” approached bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader’s “wife” rushed the assaulter. That woman was shot but not killed, Carney said. 
 
 “What is true,” Carney said, is that “we provided a great deal of information with great haste.” 
 
 “Obviously, some of the information was — came in piece by piece and is being reviewed and updated and elaborated upon,” he said. 
 
 Carney told reporters that “resistance does not require a firearm” but directed questions about how bin Laden “resisted” to the Pentagon. 
 
 Carney’s clarification came after a day when the administration’s account had appeared to change but had not been publicly corrected. 
 
 At a televised White House briefing Monday afternoon, Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan had said bin Laden joined in the fight that several residents of the Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound put up against the Navy SEALs during the 40-minute operation. 
 
 “He [bin Laden] was engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in. And whether or not he got off any rounds, I quite frankly don’t know,” Brennan said. 
 
 At a Pentagon briefing earlier Monday, a senior defense official said bin Laden used a woman as a human shield so he could fire shots. “He was firing behind her,” the official said. 
 
 In another background briefing early Monday morning, a senior administration official also said bin Laden put up a fight. “He did resist the assault force. And he was killed in a firefight,” the official said. 
 
 However, during a background, off-camera briefing for television reporters later Monday, a senior White House official said bin Laden was not armed when he was killed, apparently by the U.S. raid team. 
 
 Another White House official familiar with the TV briefing confirmed the change to POLITICO on Monday night, adding, “I’m not aware of him having a weapon.” 
 
 “The bottom line is the team that entered that room was met with resistance and took appropriate action,” said a third American official. 
 
 The White House on Monday night declined to elaborate on the nature of the resistance bin Laden allegedly put up. However, an official confirmed that the Al Qaeda founder was shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest. ||||| U.S. commandos who attacked Osama bin Laden 's compound were operating under rules of engagement that all but assured the Al Qaeda leader would be killed, officials have acknowledged, backing away from an initial account that Bin Laden was armed and used a woman as a shield.After saying Monday that the American operatives who raided the Pakistani compound had orders to capture Bin Laden if he gave himself up, U.S. officials Tuesday added an important qualifier: The assault force was told to accept a surrender only if it could be sure he didn't have a bomb hidden under his clothing and posed no other danger.Bin Laden could have surrendered only "if he did not pose any type of threat whatsoever," White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan said on Fox television, and if U.S. troops "were confident of that in terms of his not having an IED [improvised explosives device] on his body, his not having some type of hidden weapon or whatever."Added a senior congressional aide briefed on the rules of engagement: "He would have had to have been naked for them to allow him to surrender."Once troops exchanged fire with Bin Laden allies living in the compound — three men and a woman were killed in addition to the Al Qaeda leader — the chances of a surrender were almost nil, experts say.The surrender issue was one of several on which administration officials shifted ground.At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney read a Pentagon "narrative" of the tense minutes at the compound in the city of Abbottabad that he said was intended to correct information that had been released "in great haste" by Brennan the day before. Brennan had said Bin Laden was armed, "engaged in a firefight" with U.S. forces and shielded himself behind a woman."In the room with Bin Laden, a woman — Bin Laden's wife — rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed," Carney said. "Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed." CIA Director Leon E. Panetta said in an interview on PBS television Tuesday that he did not believe Bin Laden had a chance to speak before he was shot in the face and killed."To be frank, I don't think he had a lot of time to say anything," Panetta said.Nonetheless, officials strongly defended the decision to shoot. "The right of self-defense is never denied," said a special forces officer interviewed by telephone who was not authorized to speak publicly."If anyone feels in any way that there is a hostile threat in a case like this — it can be a movement, or a failure to follow commands — deadly force will be authorized. It's a judgment call," the officer said. "And these assaulters are some of the finest, most highly trained in discriminate shooting. They train for hostage rescue."The CIA has had grim experience with concealed suicide vests: In December 2009, a Jordanian doctor who the CIA believed was its agent blew himself up with a vest, killing seven CIA employees and contractors who had come to greet him at a base in Khowst, Afghanistan Yet if Bin Laden had been taken alive, it would have posed myriad complications.The U.S. probably would have faced questions about the legality of having snatched a prisoner from a sovereign country without that country's permission, and whether to treat him as an enemy combatant or pursue a criminal prosecution.Panetta told Congress last month that Bin Laden probably would have been taken first to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and then the prison at Guantanamo Bay , Cuba, an uncomfortable chain of events for an administration that promised to close Guantanamo. And any legal proceeding, whether criminal or military, would have afforded the world's most famous terrorist leader a global platform.Carney also said officials were still mulling over the release of a gruesome photograph of a dead Bin Laden. Officials understand that some people will not believe the Al Qaeda leader is dead without seeing the photograph, but they are concerned about the "sensitivity" of the image, which could offend or inflame parts of the Muslim world.He added that the White House stood by its claim Monday that Bin Laden had resisted capture, but said that "resistance does not require a firearm."
– There was fire, but no real firefight. That's the latest revision in the White House's version of events during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. The fire came from some 20 Navy Seals who shot dead bin Laden and three other men and a woman, only one of whom was armed, officials say now. Bin Laden's courier, Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, fired on the Seals as they launched the raid. After he and his wife were shot dead, the Americans weren't fired on again, reports AP. The others were killed because US forces believed they all posed a "serious threat," said a federal source. Initially, White House officials said the special forces came under heavy, prolonged small-arms fire as they moved into bin Laden's hideout. Instead of chaos amidst a hail of gunfire, the team moved methodically from room to room in what the New York Times characterizes as a "one-sided" 40-minute operation, confronting bin Laden aides and gathering some 22 children and women, some of whom were placed in plastic handcuffs. The US forces ended up in bin Laden's bedroom, shooting his wife in the leg and the apparently pajama-clad al-Qaeda leader in the head and chest, reports MSNBC. Bin Laden was shot as he appeared to be reaching for a nearby weapon, said a spokesman. CIA Chief Leon Panetta had reported that the men were "engaged in a firefight throughout the operation." White House officials said all details of the raid were not initially clear. "They were in a threatening and hostile environment the entire time," one official told the Times.