DUSHANBE, May 3, 2011, Asia-Plus -- After the firefight that killed Osama bin Laden, the U.S. used "multiple methods" to positively identify his remains, NBC News reports.

A senior White House official tells NBC News that the U.S. has completed the DNA analysis and it has come back with a nearly 100 percent match to his relatives.  Osama bin Laden''s death has been confirmed, with the DNA evidence providing a match with 99.9 percent confidence.  NBC News has also been told that the CIA''S facial recognition technology has identified bin Laden''s face with 95 percent certainty -- considered a very high accuracy -- after comparing it to known pictures of him.  Bin Laden was first visually identified on the scene by people in the U.S. forces team who conducted the raid, according to a U.S. official speaking on background.  Bin Laden was also identified by a woman initially believed to be one of his wives, the official said.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee says more than one DNA sample was used to identify Osama bin Laden, NBC News says.

According to Reuters, Bin Laden, 54, was given a sea burial after Muslim funeral rites on a U.S. aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson.  His shrouded body was placed in a weighted bag and eased into the north Arabian Sea, the U.S. military said.  Analysts warned that objections from some Muslim clerics to the sea burial could stoke anti-American sentiment.  The clerics questioned whether the United States followed proper Islamic tradition, saying Muslims should not be buried at sea unless they died during a voyage.

The United States issued security warnings to Americans worldwide.  CIA Director Leon Panetta said al Qaeda would "almost certainly" try to avenge bin Laden''s death, Reuters reports.  Vows to avenge bin Laden''s death reportedly appeared quickly in Islamist militant forums, a key means by which al Qaeda leaders have passed on information.

International media outlets report the Pakistani Taliban has threatened a revenge attack on the U.S. and senior Pakistani politicians after the killing of Osama bin Laden, as the CIA warns al-Qaeda will "almost certainly" attempt an attack on the U.S. to avenge their leader.

Bin Laden, 54, was reportedly shot in the head during the firefight with members of an elite American counter-terrorism unit that launched a helicopter-borne raid on the al-Qaida leader''s compound in Pakistan early Monday, U.S. officials said.

According to the BBC, a team of US forces undertook the operation in Abbottabad, 100 kilometers north-east of Islamabad on May 1.  Giving more details of the operation, a senior US official said a small US team had conducted the operation in about 40 minutes, the BBC reports.  One helicopter was lost due to "technical failure". The team destroyed it and left in its other aircraft.  "After a firefight, US forces killed Osama Bin Laden and took custody of his body."  Three other men were killed in the raid - one of Bin Laden''s sons and two couriers - the official said, adding that one woman was also killed when she was used as "a shield" and two other women were injured.

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says that, to many in the West, Bin Laden became the embodiment of global terrorism, but to others he was a hero, a devout Muslim who fought two world superpowers in the name of jihad.

The son of a wealthy Saudi construction family, Bin Laden grew up in a privileged world.  But soon after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan he joined the mujahideen there and fought alongside them with his Arab followers, a group that later formed the nucleus for al-Qaeda.

After declaring war on America in 1998, Bin Laden is widely believed to have been behind the bombings of US embassies in East Africa, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and the attacks on New York and Washington.  He evaded the forces of the US and its allies for almost a decade, despite a $25m bounty on his head.

Bin Laden had been the subject of a search since he eluded U.S. soldiers and Afghan militia forces in a large-scale assault on the Tora Bora Mountains of Afghanistan in 2001.  The trail quickly went cold after he disappeared and many intelligence officials believed he had been hiding in Pakistan.  While in hiding, bin Laden had taunted the West and advocated his militant Islamist views in videotapes spirited from his hideaway.

Reuters reports some experts describe bib Laden’s death as blow to al-Qaeda, while other experts are more cautious.

Martin Indyk, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, described bin Laden''s death as "a body blow" to al Qaeda at a time when its ideology was already being undercut by the popular revolutions in the Arab world, according to Reuters.  In the meantime, Reuters quoted Rick Nelson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington as saying, “It changes little in terms of on-the-ground realities -- by the time of his death bin Laden was not delivering operational or tactical orders to the numerous al Qaeda affiliates across the world.”