2 may 2011 5:22
The official from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency said up to 12 women and children who survived the US raid on their villa were now in custody.
The child, reported to be 12 years old, "was the one who confirmed to us that Osama was dead and shot and taken away," said the official.
Four bodies were retrieved from the daring covert attack, including one of bin Laden's sons, said the official.
Up to three women and nine children, including the young Yemeni woman who was shot in the leg and a daughter of the Saudi-born mastermind, are in detention, he said.
Intelligence officials said the group were being interrogated.
"There are a lot of questions we want to ask them," another official said.
The Pakistani government said Tuesday that family members of bin Laden were "being looked after" and would be handed over to their countries of origin.
photos obtained by Reuters show show three other men lying in pools of blood at bin Laden's compound, allegedly unarmed.
Two men photographed were dressed in traditional Pakistani clothing, while another was in a T-shirt. The photos showed the men with blood streaming from their mouths, noses and ears, Reuters reports.
Their hands and arms were often cropped out of the pictures as they were taken from a close-up distance. No weapons were seen on their bodies, but one of the photos showed what appeared to be a child's plastic green and orange water pistol lying near a man's shoulder.
Osama's daughter watches unarmed father killed
Girl's account differs from US official version
Osama bin Laden's 12-year-old daughter, Safia, has reportedly told Pakistani investigators that her father was captured alive by US special forces before being shot dead in front of his family.
The claims, reported by the al-Arabiya network, contradict early statements from the White House that the al-Qaeda chief was killed trying to resist capture.
But they came as Leon Panetta, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, admitted that the Navy Seals who raided Bin Laden's compound in the town of Abbottabad in the early hours of Monday made no great effort to persuade him to surrender.
"The authority here was to kill Bin Laden," Panetta told PBS television. "Obviously, under the rules of engagement, if he had in fact thrown up his hands, surrendered and didn't appear to be representing any kind of threat, then they were to capture him. But they had full authority to kill him," Panetta said.
Panetta later told NBC television that the opportunity to capture Bin Laden alive "never developed".
There have been conflicting accounts from Washington on the details of the operation, raising suspicions that the Seals had indeed been on a shoot-to-kill mission.
The White House said initially that Bin Laden had used his wife as a human shield and had been armed. But, in fact, a woman killed during the operation was not his wife and the al-Qaeda chief was not carrying a weapon.
Al-Arabiya reported that Safia was one of eight women and children taken from the high-walled compound only a few hundred metres from Pakistan's premier military academy.
It said that Safia and her mother, who is thought to be Bin Laden's fifth wife, had been taken to the garrison town of Rawalpindi for medical treatment and to be debriefed by Pakistani intelligence.
The girl's account differed from the official White House version in other ways.
Safia reportedly told her interrogators her father was shot dead at the start of an operation that took 40 minutes, slightly longer than expected, after one of the Seals' three Black Hawk helicopters crashed to the ground because of a technical fault.
Al-Arabiya reported that Bin Laden was dragged to a helicopter after being shot dead. He was buried at sea a few hours later from a US warship.
Captured with members of the Bin Laden household was a Yemeni woman who Pakistani officials think might have been Bin Laden's personal doctor. The 54-year-old al-Qaeda leader suffered from kidney problems.
A Pakistani official challenged the US account of a gun battle at the compound, telling Al-Arabiya. "Not a single bullet was fired from the compound at the US forces and their choppers," he said.
Security officials said they did not recover any arms and explosives during their search of the compound and the 13-room house on Monday and Tuesday.
"There was no bunker or tunnel inside the house and that's why I don't understand why the world's most wanted man would have decided to live here," a senior official said.
strange pulverization of the helicopter .. secret weapons
The internet is buzzing with speculation that the aircraft which crashed during SEAL Team Six's deadly raid on Osama bin Laden's compound is a new type of stealth chopper.
US officials said the smooth, silver helicopter was a newer version of the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk - the helicopter which was shot down during a 1993 raid in Somalia that killed 18 soldiers.
But military analysts and aviation specialists said the photos showed it had unique features never seen before in public, suggesting it was a secret stealth helicopter.
U.S. military helicopter gunship shot down bin Laden's son.
chinese description of classified navy helicopter The Pentagon's biggest fear is that the helicopter pieces will end up in the hands of the China. If that happens they will reverse engineer the pieces and figure out the technology.. The Chinese are great at manufacturing things...
Stealth: The strange design of the rotor tail has led many to speculate that U.S. Navy SEALs used a secret stealth helicopter in Sunday's raids- Distinctive features, such as the smooth and angular outer shell, covered rotor blades and pointed rear end have bamboozled aviation experts
burning wreckage
Aviation Week speculated that the helicopter was a "highly modified version" of the Black Hawk, writing that the chopper's tail "features stealth-configured shapes on the boom and tip fairings, swept stabilisers and a 'dishpan' cover over a non-standard five-or-six-blade tail rotor".
The blackest of Black Hawks? Bin Laden raid chopper mystery
Photos via Reuters who are confident of the authenticity of the images which they purchased from anonymous Pakistani security official, who started taking them one hour after the raid.
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