I’m not sure why this map has not been well researched by the media, but according to most sources this is where Osama was taken down. It’s a large complex in an area where helicopters could arrive. It’s in the middle of town near a slew of hospital and schools lessening any chance of Predator attacks. The town looks pretty pedestrian and common for a mid-sized city. You can find this map on Google maps by searching for the bus stop near the compound: “gammi adda stop abbottabad, pakistan” and look around for yourself. A less detailed map is shown in this post in the Atlantic, which is where I found the bus stop.
Click on map to enlarge.
That said the fans of Google Earth and the London Telegraph found a more wide open place here which matches complaints by the State Department regarding the proximity to a military academy:
View Osama bin Laden is dead in a larger map
Where are the Pakistani’s and their cell phone cameras anyway?
Was the Pakistani Government hiding him? Why didn’t his neighbors know he was living there?
I find it plausible very handful knew he was in there and the government might only have a few bin Laden collaborators. (those few would be enough reason to keep this operation a secret from them)
Think about it somewhere in your town their are many gated houses you might be able to look up the owners by public records but as to who they have living there its anyones guess.. on my own street not even the US Censuses could get proof of who or how many were in any one house they just took the word of whoever filled out the form or answered the door. No phone you figure they have cells and only the hardwire phone company would know why should they care. No internet who would know and with all those dishes you’d guess Satellite Internet if no wire came into the house. If a house on my street is off the grid how would I know?
I can think of a dozen houses I drive by every week that could be hiding Elvis or a bin Laden or a Big Foot if the guy never leaves the house who would know? And if it’s just a big quiet house that a suburb grew up around you might think ‘oh some rich recluse lives there hardly ever see anyone come or go go… good fences good neighbors’
Here is the location confirmed by Pentagon:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=213368524753312266594.0004a247b5c2e6b1021f3&t=h&ll=34.169275,73.242599&spn=0.003551,0.006427&z=17&source=embed
Don’t think that’s correct. Using satellite imagery CNN was posting, I found what I’m pretty sure is the actual Bin Laden house on Google Maps:
http://bit.ly/knJsSG
That could only be the compound if the pictures posted by news agencies are wrong: http://bit.ly/kOCTWs. You do see the huge satellite dish in the picture and the telephone/power pole, antennas, and power or telephone ONI attached to the compound?
Also the problem with your current picture is:
1. Not on outskirts of town.
2. Happens to also be Google Maps identified center of town…where their marker lands.
I’m watching NBC, right now, and they made me think it was that compound south of the “Y” on Awami road, adjacent to the farm land.
>> Howard Beale said, on May 2nd, 2011 at 3:18 pm
>> Was the Pakistani Government hiding him? Why didn’t his neighbors know he was living there?
I’ve been to Abbottabad a bunch of times and I was stunned that bin Laden was there.
I wouldn’t call it a suburb of Islamabad, as some are describing it, but you can take a taxi there. And I mean that literally, _you_ could go there easily. So, obviously, could the FBI or CIA.
This fact really changes what I had been assuming about bin Laden. For starters, it means that he could have been “hands on” with al Qaeda far more than I thought.
It also calls into question the competence or honestly of the Pakistani government.
GregAllen said,
it also calls into question the competence or honestly of the Pakistani government
yes it does time and again when we turn over a new card it says Pakistan
plausible is the most generous I can be. lets hope the rest of the popular protest in Arab lands end in governments that want to be part of the international community
Zone and Matt are in the correct location the roads match up with the Pentagon picture which, oddly enough, has the North arrow pointing to the right. The Google Map sat. image was taken in 2005. You can see that the compound appears to be under construction which corresponds with preliminary reports that it was built about 5 years ago. The Google Earth sat. image taken in 2000 shows an empty field.
You think the Paki’s knew something :O
According to the network news, the US military recreated bin Laden’s compound for training.
That’s cool! Amazing, too. Even if it’s just made of plywood.
I saw somewhere else that it is 27,000 sq ft. (Hard to believe, I know. Could be a early reporting error.)
At that size, it might be findable on Google Earth.
Google Earth coordinates:
34°10’9.69″N, 73°14’33.26″E
Jeebus! No wonder it took you Yanks so long to find him. Half of you can’t even find him now.
As I’ve said before – I’m stunned that he was in Abbottabad. It was hard for me to describe how bizarre this is but I think I found a simile:
It’s like the #1 person on the FBI’s Most Wanted List building a conspicuous house in Quantico.
I can only conclude that the Pakistan military was protecting him. Osama would never have moved there if he thought the military was after him.
But he might move there if he thought the US would never have the nerve to fly such a risky mission into the heart of the Pakistani military. More significant than the facility in Abbottabad, is the major air-force base in Rawalpindi which, in air distance, is right on the doorstep.
The military was protecting him makes sense. Because it explains one big problem with the story. SO they get into a firefight with Seals, etc. They had lots of cameras on the ocmpound. Why didn’t they have a tunnel to escape thru upon the first sight of trouble?
#33 Because they only saw it was a shark after they opened the door. The shark claimed on the door that he was an al-qaeda courier, and ISI officer, a pashtu hoarder, a signed telegram guy and a pizza delivery boy. The last one got them.
#33 http://bit.ly/jpRbTm
Look at this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kashmir_map.jpg
It shows Islamabad; Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province & Federally Administrated Tribal Areas; the Northern Areas along with Jammu and Kashmir; China; India; New Delhi and Afghanistan.
The Karakoram Highway mentioned above goes from Abbottabad through the Northern Areas to China. A railway and possibly an oil pipeline will roughly follow this highway from the Arabian Sea to China. There have been reports that Chinese troops are in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. The Chinese are key supporters of the Pakistani military.
Could this be a flash point of a future war?
As old as I am, even I know that picture is not of the place the DOD says he was in. I found it on Google Earth early this morning using the pic from the DOD as a reference.
Come on, are you testing us?
Down, story. Down! Bad story, bad!
nice tanks navy seals team 6