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The firefight took place in Abbottabad, Pakistan: Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbottabad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbottabad Maps: http://maps.goog

The firefight took place in Abbottabad, Pakistan: Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbottabad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbottabad Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=safari&q=abbottabad+pakistan&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Abbottābad,+Abbottabad,+Khyber+Pakhtunkhwa,+Pakistan&gl=us&ll=34.145446,73.221688&spn=0.033528,0.065875&z=15 http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=safari&q=ab... Google Earth (copy/paste): 34° 8'48.00"N 73°12'59.00"E

thematt 15y ago
That is way more populated than where I was expecting we would find him. Speculation had been going on for years that he was in a cave in the mountains of Pakistan or some remote village. I see a college, drugstores and even a movie theater on that map. The mere fact that his location was mappable by Google is surprising.
- joe24pack 15y ago
  Not really, hiding in plain sight is a common tactic.
- haribilalic 15y ago
  It's easy to imagine that someone like Osama would be hiding in a cave or like Saddam in a "spider hole", but hiding in populated areas isn't uncommon. Karadzic was also hiding in plain sight in Belgrade and Vienna while on the "run". He had, however, adopted a new identity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_prosecution_of_Radovan_Karadžić http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_prosecution_of_Radov...
  - nagnatron 15y ago
    He also participated in a few TV shows and no one recognized him.
- gexla 15y ago
  Looks like he could even brush up on his hockey and golf skills. Apparently that's a good place to hide out if you need to. Next up, Zawahiri (edited.) Considering that Osama was in a mansion outside of Islamabad, I would expect Zawahiri (edited) to be in a beach house outside of Karachi. Edit: Imagine being the guy who pulled the trigger. I will never cheer anyone's death, but Osama would likely not allowed himself to be taken alive. Buy a beer / coke / shot (whatever he prefers) for the shooter. These guys are military hackers, maybe they read this as well. Edit: Whoops, got wrong name of #2. blush
  - Perceval 15y ago
    You mean Zawahiri. Zarkawi was the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and was killed several years ago. Zawahiri was the #2 to Bin Laden and remains at large.
- abbasmehdi 15y ago
  It's a military town, in that part of the world it is a well known fact that OBL, Pk military, and the CIA are in bed...
  - pessimist 15y ago
    This is frankly not the time to push ridiculous conspiracy theories about the CIA being in bed with Osama.
    - abbasmehdi 15y ago
      Sorry don't mean to hurt your sensitivity, but try to think objectively, what's accepted here isn't the same that's been accepted over there by society in large. Also if you really think it took the US over a decade and over 1,000,000,000,000 dollars to find that guy then whose military sucks? OBL is a joke, the world knows, the difference is that some kids at the magic show actually believe that it's real magic.
    - danilocampos 15y ago
      It's hardly far-fetched to say the two parties were acquainted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA-Osama_bin_Laden_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA-Osama_bin_Laden_controversy Dunno if I'd go as far as saying they were still pals in the last decade but I would warn you that jingoistic fervor is a terrible reason to suspend critical thought or curiosity. Boogeymen are enormously useful tools to those who have power. Skepticism is as valuable to apply to one's government as to conspiracy theorists. It's never "the time" to turn off your brain. This is the same organism, mind you, that once called Iraq an imminent threat. Keep your salt handy. Here's a great book by a former CIA field agent that explains just how complicated the reality of our middle east relations can get: http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Devil-Washington-Saudi-Crude/dp/1400050219 http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Devil-Washington-Saudi-Crude/... Get through that book and even the most outlandish claims about our foreign policy or intelligence services will seem worth considering.
      - shareme 15y ago
- deleted 15y ago
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  - deleted 15y ago
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- nikcub 15y ago
  If you ever read any books etc. on laying low the key rules are always not a big city, not not a small area either small area means that you are noticed right away by the locals, since they spend their days waiting for something out of the ordinary to happen. big cities you have surveillance and large media. you need mid sized besides, in the case of bin laden, there was far too much heat in the tribal areas with daily drone attacks and military incursions etc. for him to be hiding there. the big cities are full of CIA agents, so it was always going to be somewhere in between.
  - patrickk 15y ago
    Very easy to say all this in hindsight. If it was that obvious then mid-sized cities would have been under scrutiny for years.
deleted 15y ago
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jonknee 15y ago
Apparently Street View hadn't gotten to his hide out yet. Unfortunate. Surprising that it was in such a populated area. I'm anxious to find out more details on what the compound was like.
- elliottcarlson 15y ago
  Al Jazeera has been showing video of the supposed compound - will try and get the description of the compound the next time they describe it, but from what I recall they mentioned it didn't have many windows and there was an outer wall to protect it.
  - tlack 15y ago
    its somewhere near PMA Kakul Road in Abbottabad http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=abbottabad+pakistan&sll=34.071644,73.171906&sspn=0.026021,0.053215&gl=us&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Abbott%C4%81bad,+Abbottabad,+Khyber+Pakhtunkhwa,+Pakistan&ll=34.14221,73.23584&spn=0.00325,0.006652&t=h&z=18 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#38... update: here it is. add your review. http://bit.ly/kP0DCq http://bit.ly/kP0DCq
    - buro9 15y ago
      It's not there, Google Places has a page for it already that has been verified against the various news sources showing it: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?cid=11196890339658103699 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?cid=11196890339658103699 PMA Kakul (Pakistan Military Academy) is 200m South East of that, again matching the news reports.
      - nikcub 15y ago
        I think that one is a lot more likely because it matches the known elements of the location more closely than the other location * Surrounded with very high walls with a single entrance * The compound was eight times larger than other houses in the area * When it was built it was only accessible via a dirt road * It has a field and grassy area to the side of it, which is what is shown in the Pakistan TV footage * The compound had a clear view of anybody approaching by road, and escape routes out the back It is amazing that they built this place only 5 years ago for the purpose of housing bin laden, and nobody in the area really asked any questions. It seems that the compound didn't have a cover story either - it had no phone or internet connection It would have been a lot smarter to find a rich arab and his family to use as a cover. Say that it is his holiday home and get all the regular services hooked up. Having such a big building with high walls that doesn't have a phone or internet service must stand out so much that it only further leads me to believe that some in Pakistan knew what it was for and who was there. Apparently there were ISI agents on the scene at the time of the gun battle, even though the USA didn't tip anybody off in pakistan about the compound or about the operation I think the official US line of the pakistan government helping is just a way of placating skeptics. All the official statements from the government talk about a foreign operation and they seem to be distancing themselves from it
pessimist 15y ago
From wikipedia: "The city is well-known throughout Pakistan for its pleasant weather, high standard educational institutions and military establishments. It remains a major hub for tourism ...", "50 km from Islamabad" Just amazing - harbored by friends in the Pakistani military for years while they received billions in aid from the US. Edit: From the BBC - "Syed Riaz Hussain in Abbottabad, writes: "Last night, at around 0100, there was heavy gunfire about 300 metres from our house, which was followed by a huge blast. There was little in terms of military activity during the day to suggest something even remotely close to what happened. The exact spot where this incident took place, is a stone's throw from the Pakistan Military Academy, Pakistan's equivalent of West Point."
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- shimonamit 15y ago
  Abbottabad literally looks like a resort nested in the Swiss Alps.
- ab9 15y ago
  "Just amazing - harbored by friends in the Pakistani military for years while they received billions in aid from the US." This is completely normal, and it's long been the case for the Taliban too. The Taliban operate, and sometimes govern, fearlessly and openly in parts of Pakistan. This includes proper towns and city districts, not just remote regions in the mountains. The old guard of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is largely pro-Taliban and provides political protection, funding, supplies, training, etc. Other parts of the Pakistani government help them too.
  - nodata 15y ago
    I noticed you switched from talking about al-Qaeda to the Taliban. The Bush administration tended to group the two together, but what's a good way of looking at the two groups?
    - 15y ago
huim 15y ago
FAKE! Arriving from Tora Bora with a caravan of donkeys and a dialysis machine Bin Laden lives undetected for years in a former British enclave where Pakistanian Hindko is the primary language... that is until local JANG newspapers and real-time bloggers report a "bang" and "helicopter noise"... which is the "directed" action of the US President interrupting his golf game in order to improvise a speedy "burial at sea". -- Obama has committed TREASON with this new lie.
- retrogradeorbit 15y ago
  Isn't it amazing how readily everyone accepts the official line with no proof whatsoever and contradictory and baffling 'facts' like the burial at sea. People _want_ to believe.
  - 51Cards 15y ago
    What's more amazing is no matter what happens the conspiracy theorists will always pop up preferring to believe they are perpetually being duped. As I said to someone else earlier today the proof they got him will come in the next few weeks. If they didn't he won't waste any time in getting out a video saying 'nah nah, you missed me'. He would never miss an opportunity to make the US look like morons.
    - blahblahblah 15y ago
      Disbelieving the official story doesn't make you a conspiracy theorist. Disbelieving the official story and also believing that you know what really happened is what makes you a conspiracy theorist. The null hypothesis, "I don't f%#@$ng know, and neither does anyone else except for a few members of the ruling class who have high-level access to classified information, none of whom can be trusted to tell the truth to mere peons like us because of their obvious self-interest in getting us to buy into their preferred worldview," is still a reasonable position to take.

thematt 15y ago

That is way more populated than where I was expecting we would find him. Speculation had been going on for years that he was in a cave in the mountains of Pakistan or some remote village. I see a college, drugstores and even a movie theater on that map. The mere fact that his location was mappable by Google is surprising.

joe24pack 15y ago
Not really, hiding in plain sight is a common tactic.
haribilalic 15y ago
It's easy to imagine that someone like Osama would be hiding in a cave or like Saddam in a "spider hole", but hiding in populated areas isn't uncommon. Karadzic was also hiding in plain sight in Belgrade and Vienna while on the "run". He had, however, adopted a new identity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_prosecution_of_Radovan_Karadžić http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_and_prosecution_of_Radov...
- nagnatron 15y ago
  He also participated in a few TV shows and no one recognized him.
gexla 15y ago
Looks like he could even brush up on his hockey and golf skills. Apparently that's a good place to hide out if you need to. Next up, Zawahiri (edited.) Considering that Osama was in a mansion outside of Islamabad, I would expect Zawahiri (edited) to be in a beach house outside of Karachi. Edit: Imagine being the guy who pulled the trigger. I will never cheer anyone's death, but Osama would likely not allowed himself to be taken alive. Buy a beer / coke / shot (whatever he prefers) for the shooter. These guys are military hackers, maybe they read this as well. Edit: Whoops, got wrong name of #2. blush
- Perceval 15y ago
  You mean Zawahiri. Zarkawi was the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and was killed several years ago. Zawahiri was the #2 to Bin Laden and remains at large.
abbasmehdi 15y ago
It's a military town, in that part of the world it is a well known fact that OBL, Pk military, and the CIA are in bed...
- pessimist 15y ago
  This is frankly not the time to push ridiculous conspiracy theories about the CIA being in bed with Osama.
  - abbasmehdi 15y ago
    Sorry don't mean to hurt your sensitivity, but try to think objectively, what's accepted here isn't the same that's been accepted over there by society in large. Also if you really think it took the US over a decade and over 1,000,000,000,000 dollars to find that guy then whose military sucks? OBL is a joke, the world knows, the difference is that some kids at the magic show actually believe that it's real magic.
  - danilocampos 15y ago
    It's hardly far-fetched to say the two parties were acquainted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA-Osama_bin_Laden_controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA-Osama_bin_Laden_controversy Dunno if I'd go as far as saying they were still pals in the last decade but I would warn you that jingoistic fervor is a terrible reason to suspend critical thought or curiosity. Boogeymen are enormously useful tools to those who have power. Skepticism is as valuable to apply to one's government as to conspiracy theorists. It's never "the time" to turn off your brain. This is the same organism, mind you, that once called Iraq an imminent threat. Keep your salt handy. Here's a great book by a former CIA field agent that explains just how complicated the reality of our middle east relations can get: http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Devil-Washington-Saudi-Crude/dp/1400050219 http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Devil-Washington-Saudi-Crude/... Get through that book and even the most outlandish claims about our foreign policy or intelligence services will seem worth considering.
    - shareme 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
nikcub 15y ago
If you ever read any books etc. on laying low the key rules are always not a big city, not not a small area either small area means that you are noticed right away by the locals, since they spend their days waiting for something out of the ordinary to happen. big cities you have surveillance and large media. you need mid sized besides, in the case of bin laden, there was far too much heat in the tribal areas with daily drone attacks and military incursions etc. for him to be hiding there. the big cities are full of CIA agents, so it was always going to be somewhere in between.
- patrickk 15y ago
  Very easy to say all this in hindsight. If it was that obvious then mid-sized cities would have been under scrutiny for years.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

jonknee 15y ago

Apparently Street View hadn't gotten to his hide out yet. Unfortunate. Surprising that it was in such a populated area. I'm anxious to find out more details on what the compound was like.

elliottcarlson 15y ago
Al Jazeera has been showing video of the supposed compound - will try and get the description of the compound the next time they describe it, but from what I recall they mentioned it didn't have many windows and there was an outer wall to protect it.
- tlack 15y ago
  its somewhere near PMA Kakul Road in Abbottabad http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=abbottabad+pakistan&sll=34.071644,73.171906&sspn=0.026021,0.053215&gl=us&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Abbott%C4%81bad,+Abbottabad,+Khyber+Pakhtunkhwa,+Pakistan&ll=34.14221,73.23584&spn=0.00325,0.006652&t=h&z=18 http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&#38... update: here it is. add your review. http://bit.ly/kP0DCq http://bit.ly/kP0DCq
  - buro9 15y ago
    It's not there, Google Places has a page for it already that has been verified against the various news sources showing it: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?cid=11196890339658103699 http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?cid=11196890339658103699 PMA Kakul (Pakistan Military Academy) is 200m South East of that, again matching the news reports.
    - nikcub 15y ago
      I think that one is a lot more likely because it matches the known elements of the location more closely than the other location * Surrounded with very high walls with a single entrance * The compound was eight times larger than other houses in the area * When it was built it was only accessible via a dirt road * It has a field and grassy area to the side of it, which is what is shown in the Pakistan TV footage * The compound had a clear view of anybody approaching by road, and escape routes out the back It is amazing that they built this place only 5 years ago for the purpose of housing bin laden, and nobody in the area really asked any questions. It seems that the compound didn't have a cover story either - it had no phone or internet connection It would have been a lot smarter to find a rich arab and his family to use as a cover. Say that it is his holiday home and get all the regular services hooked up. Having such a big building with high walls that doesn't have a phone or internet service must stand out so much that it only further leads me to believe that some in Pakistan knew what it was for and who was there. Apparently there were ISI agents on the scene at the time of the gun battle, even though the USA didn't tip anybody off in pakistan about the compound or about the operation I think the official US line of the pakistan government helping is just a way of placating skeptics. All the official statements from the government talk about a foreign operation and they seem to be distancing themselves from it

pessimist 15y ago

From wikipedia: "The city is well-known throughout Pakistan for its pleasant weather, high standard educational institutions and military establishments. It remains a major hub for tourism ...", "50 km from Islamabad" Just amazing - harbored by friends in the Pakistani military for years while they received billions in aid from the US. Edit: From the BBC - "Syed Riaz Hussain in Abbottabad, writes: "Last night, at around 0100, there was heavy gunfire about 300 metres from our house, which was followed by a huge blast. There was little in terms of military activity during the day to suggest something even remotely close to what happened. The exact spot where this incident took place, is a stone's throw from the Pakistan Military Academy, Pakistan's equivalent of West Point."

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
shimonamit 15y ago
Abbottabad literally looks like a resort nested in the Swiss Alps.
ab9 15y ago
"Just amazing - harbored by friends in the Pakistani military for years while they received billions in aid from the US." This is completely normal, and it's long been the case for the Taliban too. The Taliban operate, and sometimes govern, fearlessly and openly in parts of Pakistan. This includes proper towns and city districts, not just remote regions in the mountains. The old guard of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is largely pro-Taliban and provides political protection, funding, supplies, training, etc. Other parts of the Pakistani government help them too.
- nodata 15y ago
  I noticed you switched from talking about al-Qaeda to the Taliban. The Bush administration tended to group the two together, but what's a good way of looking at the two groups?
  - 15y ago

huim 15y ago

FAKE! Arriving from Tora Bora with a caravan of donkeys and a dialysis machine Bin Laden lives undetected for years in a former British enclave where Pakistanian Hindko is the primary language... that is until local JANG newspapers and real-time bloggers report a "bang" and "helicopter noise"... which is the "directed" action of the US President interrupting his golf game in order to improvise a speedy "burial at sea". -- Obama has committed TREASON with this new lie.

retrogradeorbit 15y ago
Isn't it amazing how readily everyone accepts the official line with no proof whatsoever and contradictory and baffling 'facts' like the burial at sea. People _want_ to believe.
- 51Cards 15y ago
  What's more amazing is no matter what happens the conspiracy theorists will always pop up preferring to believe they are perpetually being duped. As I said to someone else earlier today the proof they got him will come in the next few weeks. If they didn't he won't waste any time in getting out a video saying 'nah nah, you missed me'. He would never miss an opportunity to make the US look like morons.
  - blahblahblah 15y ago
    Disbelieving the official story doesn't make you a conspiracy theorist. Disbelieving the official story and also believing that you know what really happened is what makes you a conspiracy theorist. The null hypothesis, "I don't f%#@$ng know, and neither does anyone else except for a few members of the ruling class who have high-level access to classified information, none of whom can be trusted to tell the truth to mere peons like us because of their obvious self-interest in getting us to buy into their preferred worldview," is still a reasonable position to take.