ABBOTTABAD (Pakistan): Knowing there would be disbelievers, the United States said it used convincing means to confirm Osama bin Laden's identity during and after the firefight that killed him. But the mystique that surrounded the terrorist chieftain in life is persisting in death.
Was it really him? How do we know? Where are the pictures? Already, those questions are spreading in Pakistan and beyond. In the absence of photos and with his body given up to the sea, many people do not believe the Al-Qaeda leader is really dead.
In the quiet Pakistani town where Osama was said to have been killed, conspiracy theories of nefarious US activities spread like wildfire.
Nestled in pine-dotted hills, the Bilal suburb of the relatively well-off garrison town of Abbottabad was the last place in Pakistan where people would ever imagine that the world's 'most wanted' man was lying low.
Unlike other parts of the north-west, many people wear Western dress. Unlike in Osama's native Saudi Arabia, women are seen driving cars, and no one who spoke to Agence France-Presse said they had ever seen an Arab.
The first time they realised anything was wrong, the residents say, was when helicopters suddenly roared overhead in the dead of night, before loud explosions and then gunfire deafened the area. Frightened, they woke up.
But it was only when they switched on the television that they heard US President Barack Obama say the world's most-wanted terrorist had been killed in their town.
Educated professionals went from astonished to incredulous to disbelieving, delving into conspiracy theories that run deep in Pakistan, fanned by widespread distrust of the government's official ally in the war on terror.
Mr Bashir Qureshi, who lives just a bean field away from where Osama was shot and whose windows were blown out in the raid, was dismissive.
'Nobody believes it. We've never seen any Arabs around here,' he said laughing. 'They (the US) said they had thrown his body to the sea! This is wrong, he was not here.'
Mr Shakil Ahmed, who works for a pharmaceutical company, said he believed that the US desire to pull 130,000 international troops out of Afghanistan and wrap up a 10-year war against the Taleban was a motive for peddling lies.
'The US wants to quit Afghanistan. They are saying Osama is dead so they can have an excuse,' he said. 'If he is killed, why don't they show his body?'
Yesterday, dozens of Pakistani young people demonstrated outside the upmarket compound where Osama was killed, mocking the US and shouting: 'Osama is alive!'
It was the lack of evidence presented by the Americans straight after the killing that perhaps did the most to raise suspicions.
Defence analyst Imtiaz Gul said conspiracy theories were only to be expected in a country where anti-Americanism is rampant, given that nobody had seen the body and that the nature of the covert operation raised so many questions.
US officials are balancing that scepticism with the sensitivities that might be inflamed by showing images they say they have of the dead Al-Qaeda leader and video of his burial at sea. Still, it appeared likely that photographic evidence would be produced.
'We are going to do everything we can to make sure that nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got Osama bin Laden,' Mr John Brennan, President Obama's counterterrorism adviser, said on Monday.
Osama's burial from an aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Sea was videotaped aboard the ship, according to a senior defence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because a decision on whether to release the video was not final.
The official said it was highly likely that the video, along with photographs of Osama's body, would be made public in coming days.
Dr Seth Jones, a Rand Corp political scientist who advised the commander of US special operations forces in Afghanistan, said the administration should do all it can to minimise doubts.
'There are always conspiracy theories,' he said. 'There are individuals who believe that Osama wasn't involved in the Sept 11 attacks.'
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
HE WAS NOT HERE
'Nobody believes it. We've never seen any Arabs around here... They (the US) said they had thrown his body into the sea! This is wrong, he was not here.'
Mr Bashir Qureshi, who lives just a bean field away from where Osama bin Laden was killed
AN EXCUSE
'The US wants to quit Afghanistan. They are saying Osama is dead so they can have an excuse... If he is killed, why don't they show his body?'
Mr Shakil Ahmed, who works for a pharmaceutical company
