NEWSPakistani Live Blogs Osama Bin Laden Raid "Without Knowing It"
May 2 2011, Published 5:32 a.m. ET
The raid against Osama bin Laden was live-blogged on Twitter by a Pakistani without him knowing it.
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"Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)," IT consultant Sohaib Athar Tweeted (via The New York Post) on his Twitter handle, @ReallyVirtual from his home.
Athar's home is reportedly close to the compound where Osama was killed by U.S. forces.
"A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt," he added minutes later. "I hope its not the start of something nasty."
Athar guessed he was two miles from the gunfire and continued to Tweet descriptions of the explosions.
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Hours after the raid, he then connected the explosions to President Barack Obama's address that Osama bin Laden had been killed at a mansion in Abbottabad.
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"There goes the neighborhood," Athar Tweeted. "Uh oh, now I'm the guy who live-blogged the Osama raid without knowing it."
And that's when Athar's Twitter became famous, rapidly gaining more than 17,000 Twitter followers. He is now up to over 45,000 followers.
"I am JUST a tweeter, awake at the time of the crash," he wrote. "Not many twitter users in Abbottabad, these guys are more into facebook. That's all."
