Osama Bin Laden's daughter has claimed that her father was captured alive and then shot dead by US special forces in the first few minutes of their 40-minute operation at his compound.

The Arabic news network Al-Arabiya quoted "senior Pakistani security officials" as saying that the 12-year-old said her father was shot dead in front of his family before being dragged to a US military helicopter. 

Al-Arabiya also quoted security sources as saying that bin Laden family members - including six children, one of Osama's wives and a Yemeni woman who may be their personal doctor – had been transported to hospital in Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad.

"They are now under treatment in the military hospital of Rawalpindi, where they have been transported in an helicopter," said a source, who added that the wife said they had been living at the Abbottabad address for five or six months.

A Pakistani official challenged the US account of a firefight at the compound, telling Al-Arabiya: "Not a single bullet was fired from the compound at the US forces and their choppers. Their chopper developed some technical fault and crashed and the wreckage was left on the spot."

Security officials said they did not recover any arms and explosives during their detailed search of the compound and the 13-roomed house on Monday and Tuesday, during which they removed two buffalos, a cow and around 150 chickens.

"There was no bunker or tunnel inside the house and that's why I don't understand why the world's most wanted man would have decided to live here," a senior official told Al-Arabiya.