After Hours

Where on Google Earth was Osama bin Laden? (screenshots)

By // May 2, 2011, 9:27 PM PST

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  • After a major news event, it's become common to look up the actual location on Google Earth. Few people had heard of Abbottabad, Pakistan until President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been tracked down and killed there on May 1. The trail to finding his compound based on eyewitness reports proved to be almost as difficult as  finding him in the first place. The CIA finally helped out by releasing  a diagram of the compound and aerial images.

  • This CIA photo shows the compound today.

  • With the help of the CIA images, here's the bin Laden hideout as seen from the most recent image on Google Earth taken on June 14, 2005..

  • Zooming back on this Google Earth view, you can see the neighborhood.

  • An even farther zoom shows the whole city.

  • A report indicated that the hideout was about 100 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy as reported by CBS News. The proximaty to bin Laden's hideout raises some serious questions.

    Lower left is one of the better early guesses of bin Laden's location from Ogle Earth.

  • Here is a location mentioned by Ogle Earth. The compound was reportedly built in 2005 and this 2005 Google image shows two potential sites off Kabul Road that were under construction. This is about 100 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy as reported by CBS News.

  • When first searching for Abbottabad, Pakistan on Google Earth early on May 2, there were several bin Laden places pinpointed in the same area. Looks a like an 18-foot wall is there.

  • If you zoom back a little, you immediately notice a couple of problems. First, it's a pretty urban area with four lane and two lane roads nearby. The description of the area says it was on the edge of town. Maybe they were there just to mark Abbottabad, Pakistan. Nice area for a walk to the market.

  • On Wikipedia you could find coordinates to this location which is definitely outside of Abbottabad and in a remote location. But it's a little more than 100 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy as reported by CBS News.

  • Mashable posted this building as a possible location. There are certainly a lot of walls in Abbottabad.

  • Another possible location, they were building something in 2005.

  • In 2009, two UCLA professors pieced together information on bin Laden sightings and theorized he was in the location on the left. Circled is where he met his death.

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After a major news event, it's become common to look up the actual location on Google Earth. Few people had heard of Abbottabad, Pakistan until President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been tracked down and killed there on May 1. The trail to finding his compound based on eyewitness reports proved to be almost as difficult as  finding him in the first place. The CIA finally helped out by releasing  a diagram of the compound and aerial images.

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