A U.S. official said Monday that Osama bin Laden has been buried at sea, hours after U.S. President Barack Obama announced that American forces had killed the terror mastermind in his Pakistan hideout.
After bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. forces in Pakistan, senior administration officials said the body would be handled according to Islamic practice and tradition.
That practice calls for the body to be buried within 24 hours, the official said. Finding a country willing to accept the remains of the world's most wanted terrorist would have been difficult, the official said. So the U.S. decided to bury him at sea.
The official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters, did not immediately say where that occurred.
Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader who masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States is dead and the U.S. had recovered his body, U.S. President Barack Obama said from Washington late Sunday.
"Justice has been made," Obama said in a heartfelt address from the White House, as he remembered the close to 3,000 people victims of the 2001 attacks.
The United States first discovered a lead on bin Laden's whereabouts in August 2010, and Obama recounted his meeting with CIA head Leon Panetta, in which he said the capture of the al-Qaida leader was to be a top priority.