Lack of internet leads CIA to bin Laden's villa

UPDATE: At right - the internet has not just proved a tool for social news, but the Whitehouse to distribute its own information and photos, circumventing tradtional media. This image shows President Barack Obama and the members of the national security team in the Situation Room of the White House on May 1, as the operation was happening.

Following the shooting of Bin Laden, there's been a lot of comment about the role technology played in the event.

An IT consultant called Sohaib Athar (aka @ReallyVirtual) unwittingly live-tweeted the event at around 1am local time, Time reported.

The news first broke on the internet, as as Keith Urbahn, the chief of staff for the former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted:

However, the claim that the news broke online has to be qualified, or at least be an accolade applied in retrospect. Even hours later, mainstream media are still saying Mr Urbahn "apparently" worked for Mr Rumsfeld. And Mr Urbahn himself followed up his first message with "Ladies, gents, let's wait to see what the President says. Could be misinformation or pure rumor." 

Like many, I also saw the first rumours and actual news on Twitter. At one point, the social network said there were 4000 bin Laden-related posts being made per second (remarkably, he Fail Whale stayed at bay). But - like Mr Urbahn, I suspect - I quickly headed to the old media haven the New York Times for confirmation of which parts of the story were true.

And internet wags were quick to weigh in, suggesting Bin Laden's location details had been knicked from the Sony PlayStation Network, or:

In truth, of course, the Al Qaeda leader spent no time online.

But, ironically, that proved part of his downfall.

The US edition of Computerworld quotes an analyst who reckons the lack of any internet connection - or even phone line - at a $1US million villa was inherently suspicious (qualification: pics published by the Wall Street Journal and others show a stonking great satellite dish on the property, though that could have been for TV rather than comms. The Journal's infographic also includes a second, smaller dish).

Intelligence officials finally tracked the courier last August to the Abbottabad compound, which sits about 35 miles from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. Using satellite photos and other intelligence, CIA officials developed the theory Bin Laden was hiding inside. The absence of telephone and Internet evidently bolstered their suspicions.

Not having telephone and Internet service would arouse suspicions much in the same way that fictional detective Sherlock Holmes took note of how a dog did NOT bark at an intruder

Going low tech caused a further complication: it meant Bin Laden had to rely on a courier for communication, and the courier's pseudonym was revealed by detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

BELOW: Several hours after the raid, local IT consultant called Sohaib Athar provides a street scene in Abbottabad, about an hour north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad (he has also pointed people to a photo blog that reveals Abbottabad is a very picturesque town):

BELOW: One of Mr Athar's friends posted a Yfrog long-distance photo of Bin Laden's compound (the building to the right of the column, surrounded by the red fence; click to zoom), a close up, plus a YouTube video (a bit dodgy am-cam, but it includes a close up).