Islamabad, May 2 (IANS) The city of Abbottabad, where Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden was killed in the early hours of Monday, is in the district by the same name in the hilly Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, a short distance from its capital.
Situated northeast of Islamabad, Abbottabad district has Mansehra district to to the north, Muzaffarabad to the east, Haripur to the west, and Rawalpindi to the south.
It is almost on the same longitude as Srinagar and some 100 km west of the Line of Control dividing India and Pakistan.
Soon after the US confirmed that Osama had, indeed, been killed there, locals told journalists that smoke was seen billowing out of his large mansion, that was fortified by 18-ft walls. There was shock and surprise that the world’s most wanted terrorist was living there.
Officials in Washington said their suspicion arose after it was found that this mansion, though worth around $1 million or even upward, had no telephone or internet connection and the garbage was burnt rather than being disposed of through the civic network.
The district has a population of a little over 800,000 people, 70 percent of whom use Hindko as their first language, while they converse in Urdu and Pushto. The national language Urdu, though, is understood by every one.
The city was named after General Sir James Abbott who was a British army officer in the late 19th century in colonial India.
