American forces have killed the most wanted and feared terrorist Osama Bin Laden and usedDNA testing to confirm the identity of the man. Despite have sound leads to the compound in which Osama was hiding in Pakistan, is was crucial to be sure that the man they thought was Bin Laden was truly the terrorist. The mission was so secret that the Pakistani government did not even know about it; this for fear of leakages in top secret information that could have foiled the whole project.

Osama Bin Laden was born in a very wealthy Saudi Family. He went on to go to university and did three years before dropping out. His main interests were religion and he dedicated much of his time to reading the Quran. His ideology was radical and dangerous; he merged Sharia law with the violent Jihad ideology. He believed that even innocent civilians were legitimate targets. His objectives were to destroy the US and the State of Israel. He believed the US had committed huge injustices against the Muslim world.

Facial recognition techniques

This was the first technique used to help identify the corpse. People at the scene of the raid were used to identify the corpse; secondly, photos that had been amassed over the years were also used. Bin Laden’s wife, or rather one of the six women he married in his life, also came forward to help identify the corpse. Biometric technology was also used to aid in the identification of the corpse. These procedures include fingerprinting.

DNA Testing to identify remains

The US intelligence has managed to collect a number of DNA profiles belonging to relatives of Bin Laden. This means they had a sound way to identify the body using forensic DNA tests. Relationship testing can confirm the biological relationship between relatives. If the DNA profiles of Bin Laden’s relatives can be confirmed the relationship with Bin Laden’s alleged body, then it clearly indicated that the body in question is actually Bin laden’s. The Intelligence also had access to brain samples from Bin Laden’s sibling sister who has recently died in a US hospital from cancer. With such DNA tests, the closer the relationship between two people, the more accurate the results will be.

In the case in question, DNA testing results showed with a 99.9% probability that the body belonged to Bin Laden.