CIA 'live tweets' on Laden's fifth anniversary raid draws flak, called embarrassing

The Al-Qaeda leader was killed on 2 May 2011 after a raid conducted by US Navy Seal commandos on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been criticised online for live tweeting the killing of Osama Bin Laden on it's fifth anniversary.

The Guradian reports the act to be distasteful 'victory lap' and a PR exercise.

Osama Bin Laden was killed on 2 May 2011 after a raid on his compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan by US Navy Seal commandos.

It has shared details of the mission and intelligence that led to US most wanted man being found.

The series of tweets complete with diagrams of the compound that the Al-Qaeda leader was killed in marked five years since "Operation Neptune Spear".

"To mark the 5th anniversary of the Osama Bin Laden operation in Abbottabad, we will tweet the raid as if it were happening today.#UBLRaid" tweeted CIA.

But reaction has been largely negative, with one Twitter user calling the move "grotesque and embarrassing".

The tweet announcing the death of "Osama Bin Laden" had been retweeted 2,400 times and favourited 1,700 times at time of writing.

The series concluded with praise of the 'daring team effort' linking to a 'featured story' wrap and a more detailed timeline on the CIA's website.

Others posted memes and gifs of people rolling their eyes and putting their heads in their hands.
 

The CIA's other tweets mostly concern historical trivia and artefacts.

Read more from our special coverage on "OSAMA BIN LADEN"

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• Osama bin Laden wanted much of his fortune used on jihad

Speaking on the fifth anniversary of his death, CIA Director John Brennan said the US had destroyed a large part of Al-Qaeda.

However, not everyone is convinced by the CIA's official account of the Bin Laden operation.
 

Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer-prize winning journalist renowned for breaking the My Lai and Abu Ghraib storie , said that the claim that Bin Laden was tracked down by painstaking surveillance is a fiction constructed by the Obama administration.