Sohaib Athar — the Abbottabad IT consultant that tweeted the U.S. raid on Osama Bin Laden by accident — has been inundated with media requests since news of the Al-Qaeda leader's death broke. And now he just wants to sleep.
"Bin Laden is dead," Athar wrote on Twitter on Monday. "I didn’t kill him. Please let me sleep now."
On Sunday afternoon (or early Monday local time), Athar tweeted as U.S. forces were carrying out their mission:
"Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)."
Then:
"A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope it’s not the start of something nasty."
"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."
Only Obama's announcement did Athar realize what he had been tweeting — and anticipated the deluge.
"Uh oh, now I'm the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it," he wrote as word of his accidental scoop spread.
Athar told the BBC he's since been hit with a barrage of media requests from around the world.
So how was Athar the only apparent Abbottabad resident tweeting about the operation?
"Not many people use Twitter here," Athar said. "Everyone uses Facebook."
