May 4, 2011

U.S. officials are pondering whether to release the graphic photos of a dead Osama bin Laden they say show a precision kill shot above his left eye. And there's also video of the al-Qaida leader's swift burial at sea.

Officials want to debunk the mythology already building that bin Laden is somehow still alive, but they don't want to inflame Islamic sentiment by showing images of bin Laden with part of his skull blown away by a gunshot.

The photos also show that bin Laden was shot in the chest. U.S. forces delivered the shots near the end of a frenzied firefight in a high-security Pakistani compound, where officials bin Laden had lived for six years.

Also found at the compound where 23 children, nine women, a son of bin Laden's who also was killed, and the bin Laden courier who unwittingly led the United States to it's target: the man who orchestrated the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.