Twitter broke the news of Osama bin Laden’s death before President Obama gave his address to the United States.
The White House communications director (and former chief of staff for Donald Rumsfeld) Keith Urbahn revealed the news via the micro-blogging site: “So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn.”
During the raid in Pakistan, an IT consultant also tweeted details of the operation as it happened – writing about a helicopter hovering overhead shortly before the assault began, according to the BBC.
Sohaib Athar, who lives in Abbottabad, unknowingly posted the following tweets as the significant events unfolded: “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).”
“A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S.”
“The few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani…”
“People are saying it was not a technical fault and it was shot down. I heard it CIRCLE 3-4 times above, sounded purposeful.”