Posted on 05/05/2011 8:25:32 AM PDT by markomalley
As U.S. special forces assaulted Osama bin Laden's walled compound in Pakistan, a Twitter user was already recording a rough outline of the events to come.
Sohaib Athar, who describes himself as a 33-year-old programmer and consultant "taking a break from the rat race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops," happened to be staying up late at the time. And, from an account called Really Virtual, he live-blogged what he heard.
Athar's real-time dispatches and self-effacing follow-ups have transformed him into an instant online celebrity. He's received at least one marriage proposal--through Twitter, of course--as well as requests for bin Laden-related "souvenirs," and he also appears to have become Pakistan's first Twitter user to surpass 100,000 followers.
CNET interviewed Athar this afternoon about his instant fame, the state of affairs in Abbottabad, and his plans for another tech start-up. Some other questions we didn't ask, about whether he knew bin Laden was living there (he didn't), are answered in a FAQ on his Web site. Below is a transcript, lightly edited for space. (See list of related CNET stories.)
Q: You said in your FAQ that nobody has contacted you from any governmental agency. Is that still the case?
Athar: Yes. No contact from the army, intelligence (ISI), police, government, etc. Unless it was undercover.
How many requests for interviews have you had so far? just dozens, or hundreds?
Athar: I haven't really counted them yet, but there are still 120-plus unread requests in my mailbox at the moment from today alone. I have been following CNET for a few years now--Download.com has been helpful too, so prioritized you.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.cnet.com ...
Yes, that is the guy that did not hear those stealth helicopters.
They must have worked just fine!
Who cut off the power??
“One of my colleagues wanted me to ask you if there was any weirdness with radios, Wi-Fi, or mobile phones during the raid. Jamming, in other words.
Athar: The power was cut off during the raid—a friend living in the neighborhood verified that. Landlines were working at least in my area. They did jam the signals and landlines a while AFTER the operation (and probably during the search operations) in the (Pakistani) morning, as many people could not get through to their friends or family living near the compound.”
A guy being interviewed by a Turkish paper is saying there were 2-3 helicopters and a drone screeching.
No way Osama didn’t hear all of this commotion.
Plus even if he was wearing a CPAP machine..the power went out.
The sound of helicopters is not uncommon in Abbotabad. There is a lot of military there.
In fact, I heard someone say that the U.S. probably tried to mimic the common flight patterns so that people wouldn’t notice anything was unusual.
Seems to have worked.
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