OBL killing: 5 years onCIA’s “live tweets” marks 5th anniversary of killing of Bin Laden

Osama bin Laden was killed five years ago, on 2 May 2011, in a raid by U.S. Special Forces on his compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan.

To commemorate the event, the CIA decided to live-tweet the military operation which ended in OBL’s “as if it were happening today.” That decision, however, has been greeted with criticism as a tasteless “victory lap” and PR exercise.

DW reports that on Sunday, the CIA announced to its 1.33 million Twitter followers that it would tweet the series of tweets – which includes diagrams of Bin Laden compound – using the hashtag #UBLRaid.

In the introduction to the series of tweets, the CIA praised the success of the mission as the “culmination of years of complex, thorough and highly advanced intel ops & analyses led by CIA w support of [intelligence community].”

“Death of Usama Bin Ladin [sic] marked significant victory in U.S.-led campaign to disrupt, dismantle, & defeat al-Qaida,” the introduction said.

The tweets also offer details of the compound in which Bin Laden was found, and the features that led to its discovery including “trash burned not collected.”

The tweets start at 1:25 p.m. EDT, and ends with the killing of Bin Laden.

The series concluded with praise of the “daring … team effort,” linking to a “featured story” and a more detailed timeline on the CIA’s Web site.

A CIA spokesman on Sunday defended the tweets. In a statement to ABC News, noting that it was not the first time the CIA had marked historical events on social media, the spokesman, Ryan Trapani, said that “The takedown of bin Laden stands as one of the great intelligence successes of all time. History has been a key element of CIA’s social media efforts.

“On the fifth anniversary, it is appropriate to remember the day and honor all those who had a hand in this achievement.”