No Internet and telephone in a million dollar house

Posted on May 2, 2011 / 2 Comments

A decade ago, not having a phone was normal. Now it’s abnormal.

Indian media highlight the absence of connectivity as one of the clues that identified Osama bin Laden’s hideout in a Pakistani suburb.

A large mansion in a massive compound with 12 feet to 18 feet tall walls topped with barbed wire. No telephone or internet connection to the house. And seldom seen residents who burnt their trash rather than dispose it as other neighbors did.

These were the slender leads that eventually took US spooks and seals to the world’s most wanted fugitive. Osama bin Laden lived not in a cave in some frontier mountain redoubt, but in a suburban neighborhood in a million-strong city just an hour’s drive from Islamabad, right under the eyes of the Pakistani military.

I guess he should not have given in to his telecomphobia, supposedly caused by the Cruise missile attack in 1998 that was triggered by his use of a satellite phone. Next thing you know, phone Internet connections that generate no traffic will cause suspicion, especially at the cheap rates we have in South Asia. So future terrorists will have to employ flunkies to watch porn on the Internet to get the spooks off their tails.

2 Comments

Wijeweera
May 2, 2011, 9:23 pm
Machang Bin,

Are you a fool like me to have lived with all the comforts in a mansion in a populated area instead of a cave in Afghan mountains? You threw yourself to US forces and got killed like nothing.
chix
June 21, 2011, 9:11 am
So it tells the future terrorist to watch our for this mistake then?