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Man Unknowingly Tweets the Osama Raid

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-seeing-twitter-eye dept.

Sohaib Athar, a.k.a. @ReallyVirtual, had no idea the helicopters he was complaining about on twitter were part of the top secret mission that killed Osama bin Laden Sunday night. 10 hours before bin Laden's death was announced Athar posted: "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).” From the article: "During the raid, Athar speculates that he was two or three kilometers away from the shooting that took place. Once news broke that bin Laden had been killed in Abbottabad, Athar tweeted, 'Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.'”

5 of 354 comments (clear)

  1. This is good to know by ls671 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is good to know. Otherwise his tweet might have ended up on some conspiracy theorist sites with a "black helicopters" tag or something...

    A very interesting point is that it is said one of the 4 choppers was hit by enemy fire which I haven't heard about yet. President Obama said "no Americans were injured" so I would assume it was only a minor hit.

    On another topic, CNN just announced a few minutes ago that there is a DNA match confirming the body was indeed Osama. They also announced that the FBI has updated its most wanted list, it makes sense I guess...

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    1. Re:This is good to know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Read carefully. He tweeted 10 hours before his death was *announced* by Obama. In that 10 hours, the raid took place, OBL was killed, the body was brought to Afghanistan, positively ID'd and perhaps even already given a seamans grave.

    2. Re:This is good to know by chispito · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Yes that is what I meant. Poorly worded on my part. Scum = islamists. Its family = women and children they hide behind. I was looking at diagrams and images of the compound and trying to figure out where this helicopter might have been blown up.

      Given the nature of how details emerge, it seems possible to me they landed in an adjacent or nearby field and stormed walls. The pictures released from today don't show any damage I can see.

      --
      The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
  2. Re:Call me Crazy... by corbettw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The statement I saw was that they dumped him in the ocean to deny his followers a crypt they could go to to revere him. And since both the ISI and al Qaeda have confirmed he was killed, I don't think the deathers are gonna get a lot of followers on this latest conspiracy theory (but then again, there are a lot of crazy and stupid people out there, so I could be wrong).

    --
    God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
  3. Re:Call me Crazy... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To be completely fair to the US, it's fairly reasonable that if someone commits an act of war from inside your country, you wash your hands of them immediately, otherwise there's a kind of tacit acknlowedgement that said act of war falls within your jurisdiction. Not the best excuse ever, but better than the excuse Iraq got.