Still charting U.S. bin Laden operation

Ladies, Gents,

I am still working on charting the US operation that killed bin Laden. I’ve spent the last hour reading news articles, and so far none give the time of arrival of US forces at bin Laden’s hideout in local time. I would love your help. Would you please post any references giving the time for any portion of the operation into the comment area? If you’re not a registered user, you may email them to me at dreams@planetwaves.net.

We are still confirming every basic fact: the Ghazi Air Force base from which the attack was launched, which Ghazi that would have been (there seem to be three in Pakistan), the time of the launch, and and others. Basically, when the time gets sketchy like this, any fact that is connected to a timestamp of any kind is helpful in constructing a timeline and cross-checking the times given. If you find data given by other astrologers, would you please note the source of the data?

Thanks for your help.

25 thoughts on “Still charting U.S. bin Laden operation”

  1. yes, many seem to be questioning the relationship between the US and Pakistan on this one, in terms of ‘how could pakistan not have known what the US was up to?

    http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/2/did_pakistani_govt_know_where_osama

    and in case anyone finds this sort of thing interesting, here is a short article from this past Nov with four international relations experts/scholars giving their take on the problematic US/Pakistan relationship. it’s just a little context i found interesting last week as i caught up on my alumni mag reading:
    http://www.bu.edu/today/node/11863

  2. Sure Fe – just musing is all…and wondering how any of us would know if the verified DNA evidence was genuine. I’m all Bin Laden-ed out for the day anyway…

  3. I cant find a time atall, though i heard about an IT consultant that lived down the road from where it happened and was live tweeting that something wierd was going on with helicopters – his tweets may be the most reliable thing around right now…

    On a more interesting note, when are you going to fess up to your obvious biological connection to OBL? talk about separated at birth… hahaha

    http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/17/bin-laden-is-dead-long-live-bin-laden/

    ( i was comparing it with the present blog photo you are using but cant find a way to link it here)

  4. “Ah yes, our old friends Pakistan.”

    eric:

    Where I really find it hard to swallow is how Osama built this million dollar complex right in the middle of the lush military retirement community developed to reward Pakistan’s generals, without anyone saying anything or being suspicious.

    Perhaps key players in Pakistan have been taking money from either side of the fence to keep quiet and/or provide information.

    Whatever that is, Pakistan is not a useful ally.

  5. Patti:

    Maybe first we should see if we can work with DNA, which has been verified, and the current event for now.

    The astrology will probably give us a clue as to whether or not this is for real.

  7. I am going to go with the contemporaneous notes created by Twitter Guy. Seems like 12:35 am TODAY was the turning point, local time in Paki. That would take us back to 3:35 pm Sunday in Washington DC, a time given by Politico as the start of the operation. Note, I think some people/entities are not sure of the time diff. Paki is NOT on summer time; they are on standard time, and the time diff seems to be, they are 9 hours ahead of Washington, DC.

    Daily Mail gave a time of 1:15 am Pakistan time as the “launch” of the operation, though based on 40 minutes run time, that’s starting to sound like the “game over” time. So the window I have is 12:35 am to 1:15 am Pakistan time, which is 40 minutes. I’ve gone over this about six times and this is the best we’ve got so far.

    It more or less fits the other time lines, such as Obama being informed of bin Laden’s death at 3:50 pm Washington DC time. Evidently he was watching in live video, like a good gamer would.

    Now, as for when the scuttlebutt got out that something was afoot, that’s another question. I love how they sent Obama out to play golf in the COLD to make things look normal.

    There are a lot of questions; there are chunks of this story that even the media is saying defy credulity — media such as Kerry, and Andrea Mitchell of NBC News.

    Ah yes, our old friends Pakistan.

  8. OK, I think the time that the BBC listed could be a bit off. They stated that the attack started at 2230 (10:30 pm) on May 1 in Pakistan, which would put the time at 1:30 pm EST (May 1). In the same article, the BBC mentions that the tweet that came from Sohaib Athar was posted around 1 am, May 2 (Pakistan local time), which would be about 4 pm EST (May 1) in the U.S. That tweet was a post that mentioned a helicopter was flying around Abbottabad.

    I just looked at the website for the Guardian, which has an article that includes this:

    “Bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man, was killed in a helicopter raid by US special forces on a fortified compound in a well-off suburb of Islamabad around 1am local time on Monday. The al-Qaida leader resisted arrest and was killed by a gunshot to the head, US officials said. A US national security official said the special forces team had orders to kill rather than capture the fugitive.”

    The Guardian mentions the 1 am local time as well (Pakistan, 1 am, May 2) which is of course 4pm EST, May 1 in the U.S.

  9. eric:

    from the CNN blog “This Just In”…:

    [Updated 12:27 p.m. ET] Senior defense officials said that for a majority of the 40 minute operation at the Abbottobad compound, special forces were involved in a firefight – clearing their way through two other floors before they reached Osama bin Laden.

    Bin Laden was not killed until the last five to ten minutes of the firefight, officials said.

    Bin Laden and his family lived on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the 3-story building, and those floors were cleared last, the official said. The official says one of bin Laden’s own wives identified his body to U.S. forces, after the team made visual identification themselves.

    U.S. forces also recovered what a senior Intelligence official is calling “quite a bit of material.”

    “There’s a robust collection of materials we need to sift through, and we hope to find valuable intelligence that will lead us to other players in al Qaeda,” a senior intelligence official said.

    The official added a Task Force has been set up “because of the sheer volume of material collected. That material is currently being exploited and analyzed.”

  10. CNN is reporting that the raid began at “4pm EST on Sunday . . .just after midnight in Pakistan.” Still confusing. . .

  11. Eeek sorry again, didn’t mean to confuse things. Looks to be before the official announcement – the earliest announcement being 10.24 pm (EST). Everything I’ve seen agrees the operation itself was between 4-5pm (EST) so far but can’t find anything exact.

  12. patti.t16 — are you saying that people were tweeting about bin Laden’s death an hour before the *announcement* happened, or before the *assassination* happened?

    thanks!

  16. The BBC posted this:

    The operation began at about 2230 (1730 GMT) and lasted about 45 minutes, military sources told BBC Urdu. Two or three helicopters were seen flying low over the area. Witnesses say it caused panic among local residents.

  18. Right now, it is 8:08 pm (May 2) in Pakistan, and 11:08 am here on the U.S. east coast.

    Also, I found this timeline in the NY Times, which does not indicate the time of attack but might be helpful somehow:

    May 1:

    2 p.m.: Mr. Obama meets with his national security team to review preparations.
    3:50 p.m.: Mr. Obama told that Bin Laden had been tentatively identified.
    7:01 p.m.: Mr. Obama told that it was a “high probability” that Bin Laden had been killed.
    11:35 p.m.: In a televised address, Mr. Obama announces Bin Laden’s death.

  19. The information that I am looking at about DST in Pakistan is confusing in that they may have only implemented something like that in 2008. I could be totally wrong, however.

  20. I am probably not doing this properly but it looks like they are 9 hours ahead of us. I’m not sure what you mean about the daylight savings time rules.

  21. Would someone besides me – for objectivity – help calculate the time difference between Pakistan and Washington DC?

    If you do, please take into account current daylight savings time rules for both countries.
    With a squiggy time like this, I like to nail it several times, several ways.

    Thanks!

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