> A dumb phone can be localized by cell triangulation. The US military disclosed that it was using such a technique in Afghanistan to locate Al-Qaeda targets (they disclosed this because Al-Qaeda had gotten so paranoid about he accuracy of US military operations that they had assumed they had human spies on the ground feeding the US information and began killing civilians on suspicion of spying).

they absolutely had spies on the ground who were likely civilians, eg the doctor who got bin laden's family's dna under the cover of a vaccine program. the narrative that they were only using cell tower triangulation may have a seed of truth but it sounds a lot like counterintel meant to throw off the trail to me.