Pakistan: Live-Tweeting Osama Bin Laden’s Death from Abbottabad · Global Voices
Amira Al Hussaini

This post is part of our special coverage The Death of Osama Bin Laden.
Saudi terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden's life was snuffed out when a CIA-led team attacked a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. One Twitter user, Sohaib Athar, who tweets as @ReallyVirtual, reportedly tweeted the raid, and his reactions so far.
Athar describes himself as “an IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops.”
Here is his timeline:
@ReallyVirtual: Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).
@ReallyVirtual: Go away helicopter – before I take out my giant swatter :-/
@ReallyVirtual: A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S
@ReallyVirtual: @m0hcin all silent after the blast, but a friend heard it 6 km away too… the helicopter is gone too.
@ReallyVirtual: @m0hcin http://bit.ly/ljB6p6 seems like my giant swatter worked !
@ReallyVirtual: @m0hcin the few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani…
@han3yy: OMG :S Bomb Blasts in Abbottabad.. I hope everyone is fine :(
@ReallyVirtual: Since taliban (probably) don't have helicpoters, and since they're saying it was not “ours”, so must be a complicated situation #abbottabad
@ReallyVirtual: @kashaziz technically, it is unidentified until identified, and it is a flying object, so year, why the hell not, we have seen weirder stuff
@ReallyVirtual: 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.
@ReallyVirtual: @smedica people are saying it was not a technical fault and it was shot down. I heard it CIRCLE 3-4 times above, sounded purposeful.
@ReallyVirtual: @tahirakram very likely – but it was too noisy to be a spy craft, or, a very poor spy craft it was.
@ReallyVirtual: @smedica It must have been more, I started noticing the helicpoter when the noise got irritating – which part of Abbottabd are you in?
@ReallyVirtual: Here's the location of the Abbottabad crash according to some people >>> http://on.fb.me/khjf34
@ReallyVirtual: Two helicpoters, one down, could actually be the training accident scenario they're saying it was >> http://bit.ly/ioGE6O
@terminalxpk: A Major of the #Pakistan #Army's 19 FF, Platoon CO says incident at #Abbottabad where #helicopter crashed is accidental and not an “attack”
@terminalxpk: The Major also says no “missiles” were fired and all such exaggerated reports are nothing but rumours #Pakistan
@ReallyVirtual: and now I feel I must apologize to the pilot about the swatter tweets :-/
@ReallyVirtual: And now, a plane flying over Abbottabad…
@ReallyVirtual: Interesting rumors in the otherwise uneventful Abbottabad air today
@naqvi: I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected.
@ReallyVirtual: Report from a taxi driver: The army has cordoned off the crash area and is conducting door-to-door search in the surrounding
@ReallyVirtual: @kursed What really happened doesn't matter if there is an official story behind it that 99.999% of the world would believe
@ReallyVirtual: @kursed Another rumor: two copters that followed the crashed one were foreign Cobras – and got away
@ReallyVirtual: Report from a sweeper: A family also died in the crash, and one of the helicopter riders got away and is now being searched for.
@ReallyVirtual: @kursed Well, there were at least two copters last night, I heard one but a friend heard two, for 15-20 minutes.
@ReallyVirtual: RT @ISuckBigTime: Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan.: ISI has confirmed it < < Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood :-/
@ReallyVirtual: I guess I should unsubscribe from the #abbottabad search on twitter before it kills my machine. Leave Abbottabad alone, Osama and Obama…
@ReallyVirtual: Damn its getting hard to RT some funny Abbottabad tweets, they're scrolling so fast :-(
@ReallyVirtual: Uh oh, now I'm the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.
@ReallyVirtual: and here come the mails from the mainstream media… *sigh*
@ReallyVirtual: For the curious, here is life in abbottabad two minutes ago http://twitpic.com/4s8nfq
Life in Abbottabad
@ReallyVirtual: The shopping plaza I'm in is almost entirely closed, probably mainly because the traffic is blocked in a few places
@ReallyVirtual: And the big question is – now that OBL does not live in Abbottabad, is it open to terrorist attacks too?
@DVNJr: Read @ReallyVirtual's stream. He unwittingly tweeted the helicopters’ raid on Osama bin Laden's compound.
@CClonts: He tweeted this live! Tweets begin at 9-hour indicator. RT @ReallyVirtual: Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).
This post is part of our special coverage The Death of Osama Bin Laden.