Bloke unknowingly twits raid on Osama bin Laden

'I need to sleep but Osama had to pick this day to die'


A bloke called Sohaib Athar has become a twitter celebrity having unknowingly twittered the raid that looks to have finally taken out Osama bin Laden.

Athar, who tweets under the name @ReallyVirtual, was peering out of his window, laptop at the ready at 1am in the morning in Abbottabad, Pakistan when he spotted a helicopter.

hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)," he wrote. "Go away helicopter - before I take out my giant swatter

Watching events unfold he reported the downing of a helicopter which apparently was the victim of a technical malfunction. He subsequenly felt a bit bad about his fly swatter joke.

He tweeted: "The abbottabad helicopter/UFO was shot down near the Bilal Town area, and there's report of a flash. People saying it could be a drone

It seems the US miltary machine had come across a compound with high walls, security gates, and no windows overlooking the road. It appears the inhabitants of the compound chose to burn their rubbish and most dubious of all they had no internet access or phone lines.

It looks like the compound was the final hideout of world's most famous beard.

Not that Athar knew that when he was merrily tweeting away.

"A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty ; he wrote.

But as his twitterverse went bananas the realisation dawned on him:Uh oh, now I'm the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.

"I need to sleep," he joked, "but Osama had to pick this day to die

Read more: Bloke unknowingly twits raid on Osama bin Laden | thinq_

More Info: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20...=2547-1_3-0-20

He must be gutted that had he grassed him up earlier he'd be $25 million richer now...

Man Live-Tweets U.S. Raid on Osama bin Laden Without Knowing It


Sohaib Athar, a resident of Abbottabad, Pakistan, spent Sunday's wee hours tweeting about helicopters circling overhead and a mysterious blast. Little did he imagine that he was recording the U.S. attack on the world's most wanted terrorist.
On his Twitter page, Athar (@ReallyVirtual) describes himself as "an IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops." But this weekend, he found himself at the center of the action. At about 1 a.m. local time on Sunday, Athar tweeted about a "helicopter hovering above Abbottabad (a rare event)," later joking that he might have to make use of his "giant swatter."

(More on TIME.com: "Death Comes for the Master Terrorist: Osama bin Laden, 1957-2011")

As U.S. operatives captured and killed the long fugitive leader of al-Qaeda in a short-lived firefight, Athar wrote of a "window-shaking bang" and the power outages that followed. "Funny," he tweeted, "moving to Abbottabad was supposed to be part of the 'being safe' strategy." He would go on to detail the crash of one helicopter engaged in the raid, speculating that it might be a drone or a UFO and relaying reports that it was shot down "near the Bilal Town area." In actuality, the U.S. military aircraft went down due to a mechanical failure.

Later, our unsuspecting witness caught wind of the news that the noise wasn't for nothing. "Uh oh, now I'm the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it," he finally recognized. "And here come the mails from the mainstream media… *sigh*." So much for achieving anonymity in the mountains.

See the full timeline at Twitter.

Read more: Osama bin Laden Death on Twitter: Man Live-Tweets Killing - TIME NewsFeed