Osama Was Hiding Out In An Upscale Suburban Neighborhood

Here are the Pentagon’s details of the Abbotabad (or is it Abbottabad?) compound where Osama was holed up. His digs were not too shabby — the home is valued at about a million. Note to self: when neighbors start burning their garbage and cover windows with walls, get suspicious.

According to The Smoking Gun, Bin Laden ignored his own rule book on hiding out — you don’t curl up in an affluent million dollar mansion, but go to apartments or sprawling suburban areas where the neighbors are less likely to be friendly, or nosy:

“It is preferable to live in apartments or houses ‚Äúin newly developed areas where people do not know one another. Usually, in older quarters people know one another and strangers are easily identified, especially since these quarters have many informers.‚Äù

But such new construction did have a drawback, according to the manual: “In a newer apartment, avoid talking loud because prefabricated ceilings and walls…do not have the same thickness as those in old ones.”