Questions emerge over burial at sea

Osama bin Laden was buried at sea early Monday morning in conformance with Islamic rites, U.S. officials said.

The move raised questions about the government's motive and how it would prove the body was bin Laden's. "The burial at sea gives the whole story an air of incredulity," said Mahmoud Ayoub, professor of Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary. "That means there are no remains to verify the whole story."

Pentagon and intelligence officials said they've taken several steps to identify bin Laden, including visual and photo identifications and a DNA analysis. The officials, who spoke at a briefing, could not be identified by name under the ground rules set by the Pentagon.

The Obama administration is considering releasing photos of bin Laden's body, Deputy national security adviser John Brennan said at a White House briefing.

After he was shot in the head in a firefight with U.S. Navy SEALs, bin Laden's body was taken to the USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Sea, where it was washed, placed on a white sheet and put in a weighted bag.

An officer read religious remarks, which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. The body was then placed on a board and eased into the sea, a Pentagon official said.

Bin Laden was buried within 24 hours of his death.

"It was taken care of in the appropriate way," Brennan said. "It was determined that it was in the best interests of all involved that this burial take place, again, according to Islamic requirements, at sea."

Under Islamic rites, a person must be buried as quickly as possible. The most dignified place for burial is in the ground, Ayoub said. Muslims consider remains buried at sea to be lost, not buried, he said.

"Burial at sea is not acceptable," he said.

Before disposing of the body, the government compared bin Laden's DNA to that of several family members. Pentagon officials did not say which family members.

"You're asking the question: Are these two people related to each other, and how?" said Frederick Bieber, a geneticist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

The best source of DNA for comparison would be from bin Laden himself, said Mitchell Holland, director of the forensic science program at Penn State.

Next would be his children. Siblings aren't as useful, because they inherit only half of each parent's DNA and what each inherits could be different.

Holland said government scientists probably looked for rare, short DNA variations in bin Laden's relatives and then checked for those same rare variations in him.

Unrelated people might share common variations by chance, Bieber said, but sharing a lot "favors that you're related."

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