Reuters Buys Graphic Post-Raid Pics

Reuters released graphic photos Wednesday that the news agency says were taken inside Osama Bin Laden’s Pakistani hideaway only hours after U.S. forces stormed the compound and killed the al-Qaida leader.

Reuters says the photos (WARNING: Images are graphic) were taken by a Pakistani security official who arrived on the scene after the early-morning raid, and later sold to the news agency.

The pictures show three men with blood streaming from their ears, noses, and mouths. None of the photos show any weapons on the dead men, but Reuters notes that “the photos are taken in medium close-up and often crop out the men's hands and arms.”

None of the three men pictured are Bin Laden. President Obama announced Wednesday that he has opted against releasing photos of the al-Qaida leader's corpse. "We don't trot out this stuff as trophies," Obama said in an interview with CBS News.

Reuters says that it is confident that the photos are real because some of the them appear to match details from images of the compound taken independently the same day.