Abbottabad (or, in the local pronunciation: Abtabad) has already risen to a status shared only by some of Calvino’s ‘Invisibles Cities’: that of a mysterious fairy land of which everybody talks but few know something for certain. In particular, when the news of Osama bin Laden’s killing broke, its exact distance from the Pakistani capital Islamabad seemed as difficult to ascertain as the existence of the Northwest Passage. AAN’s cartographic team found out.
‘The operation took place at a fortified compound on the outskirts of Abbottabad in north-west Pakistan, about 100km (62 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.’ (BBC)
‘Mr. bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, 40 miles from Islamabad.’ (Wall Street Journal)
‘…the garrison suburb of Abbottabad, about 30 miles from the center of Islamabad.’ (National Journal)
‘After years of former Pakistani military dictator General Musharraf assuring the world that bin Laden was either dead or in Afghanistan, he was found and dispatched by US special forces in the town of Abbottabad, a mere 30 miles – 50km – as the crow flies from the capital Islamabad.’ (al-Jazeera)
‘…ad appena 61 chilometri dalla capitale Islamabad…’ (il Manifesto)
‘Osama bin Laden was killed on Monday morning in a direct U.S. army operation in Abbottabad, a cantonment district with a population of over 800,000 some 100 kilometers away from capital Islamabad.’ (Xinhua)
‘The world’s most wanted man was killed on Monday in an American raid on his compound in the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, close to a military academy, only 60 km from the capital Islamabad.’ (Pajhwok)
‘Speaking in Pakistan’s parliament on Friday, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha accepted the failure of Pakistan’s spy agency to detect the compound of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad some 35km from Islamabad.’ (Tolo)
‘…we never imagined that Osama bin Laden would be found hiding in plain sight, a stone’s throw from Pakistan’s leading military academy and an hour’s drive from Islamabad.’ (New York Times)
Last but not least, there comes Wikipedia, with a would-be definitive definition of the city’s location:
‘115 kilometres (71 mi) northeast of the capital Islamabad’ – while it becomes a mere 50 km away from Islamabad in its Italian version.
After a fortnight, the daily flow of articles directly focussing on Bin Laden’s death has started to dwindle. Not so, references to the place where the killing took place, Abbottabad, still frequently mentioned in articles dealing with this or that political development inside or outside Pakistan. And, one must say, continuously located by journalists in a most random way ‘near Islamabad’, giving the impression that the town roams in a semi-nomadic way around the capital in ranges that differ from each other for several dozens kilometres.
AAN offers a small record of distances given in the last weeks, intended as a double memento: for journalists, to begin practising with maps – which, although intrinsically imprecise and limited, are, like dogs, man’s best friends – and for senior al-Qaeda leaders, hopefully their sense of responsibility will make sure that they select their hiding places inside big and well-known cities in the future, so to avoid headaches and doubts to the media and the public in the unfortunate event of a raid(٭).
Breaking a long abstinence from Google Earth (which, it is known, can cause addiction), the matter was thus settled by AAN: Abbottabad has finally found its place 48 km from Islamabad as the helicopter flies, while, by road, it lies 90 km from it if one passes through Haripur, or 85 km when taking the scenic and tortuous road that, through Murree, follows the mountains edge which separates Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa from Azad Kashmir. And, in contrast to what Wikipedia says, Abbottabad is only very slightly to the North-East of the capital, rather more directly to the North of it.
(٭) This may well be considered a trifling matter, but it does not lend additional harmony to the chorus of blame directed at the ISI if journalists and experts from every corner of the world cannot agree on the location of a city with maybe 120,000 souls: the diabolic intelligence service could well argue that if the whole world cannot fix Abbottabad on the map they are kind of justified in not spotting a single man hiding in such a city that keeps swaying around…
Abbottabad (or, in the local pronunciation: Abtabad) has already risen to a status shared only by some of Calvino’s ‘Invisibles Cities’: that of a mysterious fairy land of which everybody talks but few know something for certain. In particular, when the news of Osama bin Laden’s killing broke, its exact distance from the Pakistani capital Islamabad seemed as difficult to ascertain as the existence of the Northwest Passage. AAN’s cartographic team found out.
‘The operation took place at a fortified compound on the outskirts of Abbottabad in north-west Pakistan, about 100km (62 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.’ (BBC)
‘Mr. bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, 40 miles from Islamabad.’ (Wall Street Journal)
‘…the garrison suburb of Abbottabad, about 30 miles from the center of Islamabad.’ (National Journal)
‘After years of former Pakistani military dictator General Musharraf assuring the world that bin Laden was either dead or in Afghanistan, he was found and dispatched by US special forces in the town of Abbottabad, a mere 30 miles – 50km – as the crow flies from the capital Islamabad.’ (al-Jazeera)
‘…ad appena 61 chilometri dalla capitale Islamabad…’ (il Manifesto)
‘Osama bin Laden was killed on Monday morning in a direct U.S. army operation in Abbottabad, a cantonment district with a population of over 800,000 some 100 kilometers away from capital Islamabad.’ (Xinhua)
‘The world’s most wanted man was killed on Monday in an American raid on his compound in the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, close to a military academy, only 60 km from the capital Islamabad.’ (Pajhwok)
‘Speaking in Pakistan’s parliament on Friday, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha accepted the failure of Pakistan’s spy agency to detect the compound of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad some 35km from Islamabad.’ (Tolo)
‘…we never imagined that Osama bin Laden would be found hiding in plain sight, a stone’s throw from Pakistan’s leading military academy and an hour’s drive from Islamabad.’ (New York Times)
Last but not least, there comes Wikipedia, with a would-be definitive definition of the city’s location:
‘115 kilometres (71 mi) northeast of the capital Islamabad’ – while it becomes a mere 50 km away from Islamabad in its Italian version.
After a fortnight, the daily flow of articles directly focussing on Bin Laden’s death has started to dwindle. Not so, references to the place where the killing took place, Abbottabad, still frequently mentioned in articles dealing with this or that political development inside or outside Pakistan. And, one must say, continuously located by journalists in a most random way ‘near Islamabad’, giving the impression that the town roams in a semi-nomadic way around the capital in ranges that differ from each other for several dozens kilometres.
AAN offers a small record of distances given in the last weeks, intended as a double memento: for journalists, to begin practising with maps – which, although intrinsically imprecise and limited, are, like dogs, man’s best friends – and for senior al-Qaeda leaders, hopefully their sense of responsibility will make sure that they select their hiding places inside big and well-known cities in the future, so to avoid headaches and doubts to the media and the public in the unfortunate event of a raid(٭).
Breaking a long abstinence from Google Earth (which, it is known, can cause addiction), the matter was thus settled by AAN: Abbottabad has finally found its place 48 km from Islamabad as the helicopter flies, while, by road, it lies 90 km from it if one passes through Haripur, or 85 km when taking the scenic and tortuous road that, through Murree, follows the mountains edge which separates Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa from Azad Kashmir. And, in contrast to what Wikipedia says, Abbottabad is only very slightly to the North-East of the capital, rather more directly to the North of it.
(٭) This may well be considered a trifling matter, but it does not lend additional harmony to the chorus of blame directed at the ISI if journalists and experts from every corner of the world cannot agree on the location of a city with maybe 120,000 souls: the diabolic intelligence service could well argue that if the whole world cannot fix Abbottabad on the map they are kind of justified in not spotting a single man hiding in such a city that keeps swaying around…
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 9 Mar 2020
Tags:
Pakistan
