TUESDAY, May 03, 2011
The U.S. force raid on Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was tweeted live, unknowingly, by an IT consultant in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Sohaib Athar, living in Abbottabad where bin Laden was killed, tweeted initially before the assault that a overhead helicopter was hovering. He added that the helicopter may not be of Pakistan government.
Athar was not aware that he was tweeting about the biggest milestone of U.S. war against terrorism until Barack Obama announced on national television that Laden is dead.
At 1 a.m. local time Athar posted his first tweet. He said, "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)."
Next he tweeted about a loud sound of as explosion which is now known to all about the U.S. forces blowing up their damaged helicopter.
Athar tweeted, "A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S."
While the assault was in progress, this IT consultant also drew information from local friends in the area who were online at the same time.
He said in his tweet, "The few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani..."
He continued, "People are saying it was not a technical fault and it was shot down. I heard it CIRCLE 3-4 times above, sounded purposeful."
According to the US officials, the raid was for 40 mins. Athar tweeted two hours later that still a military presence is there in the area.
Athar's biography in Twitter describes him as: "An IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops."
May 03, 2011 | 0
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