Driving Directions from Pakistan Military Academy to Bin Laden's Compound

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=203102110811747366096.0004a24d49e4740eeccf1&ll=34.183992,73.251343&spn=0.010934,0.013368&z=16

by srd11 • 15 years ago

16 15 15 years ago

maps.google.com

koenigdavidmj• 15 years ago

I do not remember the source, but heard that the town had checkpoints at entry as well.

The guy was six and a half feet tall and on kidney dialysis. How was he not noticed for this long?

VB6_Foreverr3• 15 years ago

A further insight into the type of man OBL was.

I heard BBC reporter John Simpson describe his one encounter with OBL which occurred in 1989 in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets. Simpson was interviewing some Mujahadeen when OBL rode in on a horse and tried to persuade them to shoot Simpson and his crew. They refused.

MichaelSalib5• 15 years ago

In his book on 9/11 and Al-Queda, The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright claims that OBL is actually not particularly tall and certainly not 6'6".

srd115• 15 years ago

Corrected to use actual location of Osama's compound, as determined by zeteo from satellite photos here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2506963, instead of the fake one making the rounds.

VB6_Foreverr3• 15 years ago

Someday google will have a streetview of the most wanted with his face blurred out

VB6_Foreverr3• 15 years ago

The best place to hide is the last place you'd be expected to. Also when you hear of cases like the man in Austria who kept his daughter captive in his cellar for years and of Phillip Garrido in California maybe people shouldn't be so quick to assume the worst motives of the Pakistani authorities

MichaelSalib5• 15 years ago

The fact that a military academy was in the same town tells us pretty much nothing. Such institutions by their very nature are focused on external military threats. Pakistan's military has long had an obsessive focus on its Indian counterpart. Cadets at West Point don't spend their free time canvassing the town looking for suspicious houses or people. Cadets at the academy in Abbottabad were probably a lot more focused on Indian strategic nuclear forces than they were on the goings-on in their own town.

Now, that doesn't mean that some elements of the Pakistani government were not cooperating with OBL; it just means that talking about the presence of a military academy in the same town is silly.

srd115• 15 years ago

The military intelligence Pakistani ISI has a major presence there. PMA isn't just any military base. Its the military base.

Its just not reasonable to think they didn't know what that giant compound down the road was.

MichaelSalib5• 15 years ago

The ISI have a major presence at a military academy? Really? Do you have a cite for that?

Maybe you should consider changing the title to talk about a military base with (apparently) many ISI staffers as opposed to a military academy.

edge17• 15 years ago

Why is this so shocking? I keep seeing people point out that he was near by a military academy. There's plenty of documented history of US and Russians spies in eachother's agencies.

In fact, I have read stories about the area I grew up in (suburb of DC) with CIA safehouses, etc.

It's fairly well documented that there are sympathizers within the Pakistani govt. It's all quite corrupt and the world views from that vantage point are quite different than the world views from the US.

MichaelSalib5• 15 years ago

Why is this so shocking?

Er, I never said anything was shocking....

There's plenty of documented history of US and Russians spies in eachother's agencies.

I don't tend to think of West Point as equivalent to the CIA....

In fact, I have read stories about the area I grew up in (suburb of DC) with CIA safehouses, etc.

Sure, and if the claim is 'OBL was hiding right under the noses of the ISI', I'd have no problem with it. What I disagree with is the notion that 'OBL was hiding right under the noses of the Pakistani equivalent of West Point'.

srd115• 15 years ago

"Why is this so shocking? I keep seeing people point out that he was near by a military academy. There's plenty of documented history of US and Russians spies in each other's agencies."

Its odd because OBL wasn't a low level clandestine agent. It's like if we had found Saddam Hussein next to a military base in Jordan.

Driving Directions from Pakistan Military Academy to Bin Laden's Compound

Related Stories