Osama Bin Laden's Death: The World Reacts
After President Barack Obama told the world that the U.S. had killed Osama bin Laden, the first reaction of hundreds of people in D.C. was to head to the White House for a celebratory rally. Many more people reacted on Twitter.
- Word of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden was distributed instantly through live press conferences and videos on the Internet.
- The White House tweeted the President's message, highlighting key points:
- WAMU's Patrick Madden was outside the White House as a crowd gathered to celebrate the death of the man that orchestrated the largest terrorist attack on American soil.
Just back from spending a some time at W. House with a few thousand new friends. Sorry to have missed @jackandersonIII, @SkyKerstein, etc.- It was a moment that people were inclined to commemorate in one way or another -- one of those being by snatching up newspapers whose front pages marked the event. The Newseum's site was so overloaded with orders that it crashed, reports the Washington Post:
Huge demand for front pages with Osama bin Laden’s death crashes Web site of D.C.’s Newseum wapo.st/m8aSoz- For D.C. residents, Metro increased its security in order to account for the possibility of an attack in response to the news.
- Despite the celebratory mood of many, people couldn't help but wonder what this means for the global war on terror:
So now what? Will #anwaralalawqi step up to fill #osamabinladen 's shoes? Will the AQ movement die? Will there be reprisals? Many questions.
Wait they dropped him in the ocean already? Are you freaking kidding me? #OsamaBinLadenDEAD- News of the incident also came from an unwitting, although not surprising, source: a blogger in the suburb of Attomabad, where bin Laden's hideout was:
One Twitter User Reports Live From Osama Bin Laden RaidWithout knowing what he was doing, Sohaib Athar, a.k.a. @ReallyVirtual, has more or less just live-tweeted the raid in which terrorist Osama bin…- The 33-year-old computer programmer tweeted:
- And then several hours later, had realized what happened:
- One Slate political correspondent humorously pictures TV news-style coverage of bin Laden's death:
