Sohaib Athar is a self-described “IT consultant taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops.” He is also the man who inadvertently tweeted the US attack on al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on Sunday.
Athar (33), saw his Twitter followers jump to nearly 91,000 people on Tuesday afternoon, from only around 750 on Saturday night, according to Twittercounter.com.
The first tweet regarding the raid from Athar – as @ReallyVirtual – on the microblogging site read, “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).”
Athar needed several hours of exchanges on Twitter to realise his role in what just happened.
“Uh oh, now I’m the guy who live blogged the Osama raid without knowing it,” he tweeted on Monday.
Here is the rest of Athar’s Twitter feed – from the most recent post going backward – about the raid on the compound where US forces found the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks and shot him to death:
» Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan.: ISI has confirmed it << Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood :-/
» I guess Abbottabad is going to get as crowded as the Lahore that I left behind for some peace and quiet. *sigh*
» Well, there were at least two copters last night, I heard one but a friend heard two, for 15-20 minutes.
» 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.
» Another rumor: two copters that followed the crashed one were foreign Cobras – and got away
» What really happened doesn’t matter if there is an official story behind it that 99.999% of the world would believe
» Report from a taxi driver: The army has cordoned off the crash area and is conducting door-to-door search in the surrounding
» I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected.
» Interesting rumors in the otherwise uneventful Abbottabad air today
» 1 dead and 1 injured in Abbottabad for heli crashed
» And now, a plane flying over Abbottabad…
» And now I feel I must apologize to the pilot about the swatter tweets :-/
» The Major also says no “missiles” were fired and all such exaggerated reports are nothing but rumours #Pakistan
» A Major of the #Pakistan #Army‘s 19 FF, Platoon CO says incident at #Abbottabad where #helicopter crashed is accidental and not an “attack”
» Two helicopters, one down, could actually be the training accident scenario they’re saying it was >> http://bit.ly/ioGE6O
» Here’s the location of the Abbottabad crash according to some people >>> http://on.fb.me/khjf34
» People are saying it was not a technical fault and it was shot down. I heard it CIRCLE 3-4 times above, sounded purposeful.
» Figures, if they have the right to shoot planes flying over the president house, the must have the same instructions for PMA
» 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.
» Technically, it is unidentified until identified, and it is a flying object, so year, why the hell not, we have seen weirder stuff
» Since taliban (probably) don’t have helicopters, and since they’re saying it was not “ours”, so must be a complicated situation
» Funny, moving to Abbottabad was part of the ‘being safe’ strategy
» OMG :S Bomb Blasts in Abbottabad.. I hope everyone is fine 🙁
» The few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani…
» All silent after the blast, but a friend heard it 6 km away too… the helicopter is gone too.
» A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S
» Go away helicopter – before I take out my giant swatter :-/
