Pakistan army soldiers stand guard near the compound where it is believed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan, May 2.
By Anjum Naveed, APPakistan army soldiers stand guard near the compound where it is believed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan, May 2.
"Initially it was very hard for my family to believe," Mohammad said of the raid, which he said happened about 1:30 a.m. "My younger brother and cousin living there witnessed some unusual troop movement, but then again Abbottabad has three Army training centers and a military academy so they thought maybe a chief of staff is visiting."He said the power in town went out a couple of hours before the raid, which was unusual as was the way in which unidentified troops were hustling about prior to the raid. The power was restored 15 minutes after the raid.
"Around midnight, they first started hearing firing and blasts, grenades. When the helicopter crashed, there was a huge bang," Mohammad said.
"There was a big blast, everything shook in the house."
Mohammad said they thought the noise was a military exercise. After an hour or two, the Pakistan military sealed off roads and blocked traffic. Then they heard on the news that President Obama had mentioned their city as the place where the United States had killed Osama bin Laden. He says people in Abbottabad have mixed feelings.
"Currently, they are a little bit insecure," he said.
Pakistan has seen terrorism and Islamist groups in large cities such as Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, but not Abbottabad, perhaps due to the large military presence in the town, which has a large military base and an Army training academy. The city is nestled in the Orash Valley, circled by forested hills where the fabled Silk Road once ran. Tourists come here in the summers for its pleasant weather.
The compound where bin Laden was living for five years had few buildings in it and the people there raised their own cattle. There are fields on one side and a few small houses on another. No one from the house would even shop in the local stores, said neighbors.
People in the area come from multiple professional backgrounds, including the medical and teaching professions. Many army officers retire here.
"People feel 'will we be safe? Will we be safe going out? What if the militants take revenge on us?'" he said. "Generally the reaction of the people is that someone like him could be living within us and we did not even know about it."
Mohammad said he and his family were surprised that bin Laden was living in Abbottabad. He said there are many large homes in the neighborhood known as Bilal Colony.
"It is a big surprise for me that bin Laden was actually there," he said. "The current worry of people is how bad the repercussions would be, the suicide bombings."
Mohammad said people are not happy that their sovereignty has been violated and believe the government was involved.
"The American government has said that they did not let the Pakistani government know beforehand and that they were going to launch an operation there. But Abbottabad is some distance away from the Afghanistan border where presumably the helicopter would have flown in from. And then to have a whole city without electricity before the operation and foreign helicopters to enter the airspace and to come all the way inside the country and then to leave as well, the Pakistani military operation would have known and were probably part of this operation."
Salman Hassan Mohammad, 24, a university student who lives in Abbottabad, said that the compound where bin Laden was found was either rented or purchased 10 years ago by an Afghan citizen.
"The family that lived in that home was rarely seen," he said. "They would go to the mosque nearby to pray and then go home."
He said neighbors he talked to said that the family had at least five Toyota SUVs and they never interacted with anyone. He said the city is in disbelief that the most wanted man in America was living among them.
"We are all very happy he is dead. End of this story," Mohammad said. "But we are in disbelief that this happened in Pakistan and in Abbottabad which is such a peaceful place."
Umair Ejaz, a businessman in Lahore, said the news will hurt Pakistan's image.
"What was he doing in Pakistan? That implies Pakistan had given him free accommodation," he said. "The blowback from this is going to be huge. And now they've made a martyr out of him."
Ejaz said al-Qaeda will use the raid as a recruitment tool.
"I think his death will do more harm than good," he said.
Another resident of Lahore, Sehrish Khan, said the raid leaves a lot of unanswered questions about how badly Islamic terrorists are infiltrating his country.
"Mansion? Next to a military base? Eighteen miles from the capital? Staying there for three years?" he said. "The implications are too vast. International media are going to have a field day bashing Pakistan's image even more."
"Our poor country might be turned into another Iraq or Afghanistan," Khan said. "This is only the beginning."
Fizza Aslam, a radio discjockey, said the news is worrying for the future of the country.
"This isn't the end," he said. "Someone else will take over. And now he will step up, and just to prove his strength he'll kill more of us."
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