Osama Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound doesn’t seem particularly opulent — unless you compare it to his presumed alternative, a cave on the Afghan border — but it is large and, to my eyes, fairly conspicuous:
On the other hand, tall walls, barbed wire, and security gates aren’t necessarily unusual outside the US and similarly developed countries. I would expect a secret lair to wrap around a pleasant atrium orchard, but instead they opted for a monolithic lump of a building in the center of the plot, with a few smaller structures around it:
Nothing looks bomb-proof, by the way.
Abottabad has some history:
The town of Abbottabad in British India was the headquarters of the then Hazara district, and was named after Major James Abbott who founded the town and district in January 1853 after the annexation of the Punjab. He remained the first Deputy Commissioner of the Hazara district between 1849 until April 1853. Major Abbott is noted for having written a poem titled “Abbottabad”, before he went back to Britain, in which he wrote of his fondness for the town and his sadness at having to leave it.
It’s known as the city of schools. One of its more famous schools is the Pakistan Military Academy, which, Steve Sailer points out, is not far at all from Bin Laden’s compound, which was also quite close to a major hospital or two. Hmm…
I wonder if we’ll find the next guy in Costellobad?