Osama Bin Laden's Son "Doesn't Know If It Was His Father" That Orchestrated 9/11

Feel free to disagree with me Eckolaker. I don't bite.

At least, we have never seen him bite anyone other than Noam Chompsky. And he was asking for it. Save for your taste in music, I have little to disagree with you about.

Osama Bin Laden`s Son Seeks Asylum In Spain
Omar Osama bin Laden is one Osama bin Laden`s 19 children who dismisses his father`s terrorist acts.

http://www.javno.com/en/world/clanak.php?id=199842

11/4/2008

Omar Osama bin Laden, one Osama bin Laden`s 19 children, has sought political asylum in Spain, upon landing in Madrid, El Pais daily writes Tuesday. The son of the most wanted terrorist, founder and leader of the terrorist Al Qaeda network travelled from Cairo on Monday, the paper writes, adding that the Spanish government has announced it will consider the request soon, during which time Omar Osama will be staying in the transit area of Madrid`

Omar bin Laden (28), who declares himself as a pacifist and dismisses his father`s terrorism, is married to a 52-year-old British citizen. He sought asylum from Great Britain in April, but it was not granted.

If the country had granted asylum, it would cause great concern of the public, the British cabinet explained, El Pais reports.

Omar was born in Saudi Arabia, his mother is Syrian and he lived for 10 years in exile with his father in Sudan; then in Afghanistan where he received terrorist training in 2000.

During the time of terrorist attacks on New York, Omar bin Laden was in Saudi Arabia and he now wants to disperse the West`s prejudice on Arabs, above all the assumption that all bin Laden`s sons are terrorists.

He married Jane Felix-Brown in 2006. This is her sixth marriage and she has three children from previous relationships and five grandchildren. Previously, the wife, who calls herself Zaina al Sabah, told The Times that Omar Osama did not know whether his father was behind the 9/11 attack.

Growing Up Bin Laden: Osama's Son Speaks

http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...2318-1,00.html

(Gold9472: Same son?)

By Andrew Lee Butters

For Omar Bin Laden, the fourth eldest of Osama bin Laden's 20 known children, the awful realization that his own father was a terrorist mastermind plotting a global conspiracy that would destroy the lives of thousands of innocent people and even his own family came gradually. Of course, there were warning signs: Omar's childhood was marked by regular beatings and survivalist training; there was the growing army of ruffians and retainers who called his father "Prince"; and then there was that Afghan mullah who had given his father an entire mountain in Tora Bora.

But as he recounts in a book co-written with his mother, Omar — now 28 years-old — found it hard to give up hope that a man who had killed so many people might one day turn his back on violence and become a normal father. The younger bin Laden fled Afghanistan only when it become clear that Osama was planning a massive attack on the United States; but he still couldn't accept that his father was responsible for 9/11 until months later when he heard the familiar voice on audiotape claiming credit for the attacks. "That was the moment to set aside the dream I had indulged, feverishly hoping the world was wrong and it was not my father who brought about that horrible day," he writes. "This knowledge drives me into the blackest hole."

As the first book written about Osama bin Laden with help from anyone in the bin Ladin family, Growing Up bin Laden: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World (St. Martin's Press) is a valuable — if limited — glimpse into the personal life of the world's most wanted man. In recollections from Omar and his mother, Najwa bin Laden (the first of Osama's five known wives), and with the assistance of American author Jean Sasson, the book paints a picture of Osama as a towering figure whose noble demeanor inspired fierce loyalty, but also an absolute authoritarian who wanted as many wives and children as possible in order to have foot soldiers for Islamic jihad. "My sons, your limbs must react to my thinking as though my brain was in your head," he told his children when they complained about their life in al-Qaeda camps.

However, Osama the father remains almost as elusive to his son (and the reader) as he is to the FBI — too consumed by jihad to care much for his children, too distant to seem like a full person. But Omar's memoir itself — which forms the core of the book — presents a strange and fascinating coming-of-age-story about a young boy groomed by his father to take over a worldwide terrorist enterprise who chooses instead to get a job, start a family, and play with animals. If the book suffers somewhat from the limitations of translation and overly formal prose, the thrill of being a fly on the wall of the bin Laden family drama quickly takes over.

Omar's early childhood is both charmed and abusive. Though the family inhabited a mansion in the Saudi city of Jeddah and owned horse ranches in the desert, their father refused to let them have toys, take modern medicine, or use almost any modern conveniences except for light bulbs, automobiles and firearms. Though Osama would punish his boys for laughing or smiling and send them on forced marches in the desert without water, Omar and his brothers could at least console themselves with the honor of being sons of the man who helped defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, a hero in both the Muslim world and the West. "When I was a young boy I worshipped my father, whom I believed to be not only the most brilliant but also the tallest man in the world," Omar writes. "I would have to go to Afghanistan to meet a man taller than my father. In truth, I would have to go to Afghanistan to truly come to know my father."

The nightmare began in earnest after the Saudi government banished Osama from the Kingdom for railing against Riyadh's decision to allow American soldiers on Saudi soil to repel Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. From the new family home in Sudan, while Osama plotted to overthrow the Saudi monarchy and the American government, Omar noticed some dangerous new arrivals in their Khartoum neighborhood, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of an Egyptian Islamist movement who becomes al-Qaeda's second in command. When members of another extremist group raped one of Omar's male friends, al-Zawahiri took justice into his own hands — by executing the victim.

Step by step, Omar found himself stuck on the violent path of his father's choosing. Forced by American pressure to leave Sudan for Afghanistan, Osama settled his family in stone huts high on a mountain in Tora Bora, despite the fact that Najwa, Omar's mother, was pregnant with her tenth child. Osama sent his sons to al-Qaeda training camps, to the front lines of the Afghan civil war, and to attend hours of mind-numbing jihadist indoctrination. Omar and his father narrowly survived an American cruise missile strike launched in retaliation for the al-Qaeda bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa. All the while Osama expected Omar to become his second-in-command. The young man had somehow managed to develop into a serious, capable young adult even as many of his siblings appeared to have suffered from one or another kind of personality disorder related to their extreme upbringing. One day while sitting together on the bin Laden mountain, Osama revealed to Omar his plan to destroy America from within by making it bleed through constant war until Muslims ruled the world. But Omar wasn't interested. "I sat mute, feeling not one jolt of passion for my father's life," he writes. "I only wanted him to be like other fathers, concerned with his work and his family."

Still, ever the dutiful Saudi son, Omar couldn't bring himself to break with his family until the day that his father asked his sons to volunteer for suicide missions. When Omar protested, Osama replied: "You hold no more a place in my heart than any man or boy in the entire country. This is true for all my sons." Omar writes: "I finally knew exactly where I stood. My father hated his enemies more than he loved his sons." With rumors of a massive attack on bin Laden's enemies on the way, Omar finally managed to leave Afghanistan, with his father's permission.

Now, after the carnage of 9/11, there's no going back. Many of his siblings who stayed behind are probably dead, and his father is the most famous mass-murderer alive today. "During these years of loss and sorrow, I have had to reconcile myself to the truth about my father," writes Omar. "I know now that since the first day of the first battle against the Soviets in Afghanistan, my father has been killing other humans. I often wonder if my father has killed so many times that the act of killing no longer brings him pleasure or pain. I am nothing like my father. While he prays for war, I pray for peace."

In an interview with TIME, Omar said that as a private citizen, working for the construction company owned by his father's estranged family, he had little insight on how America should fight al-Qaeda. He turned down an American government offer of asylum for cooperation in finding his father. "I said you, the CIA and the FBI, you should know where he is, but I can't help you because I don't," Omar said by phone from a Middle Eastern country he refused to name either for fear of his safety or his residency status. He has technically been reinstated as a Saudi subject.

Intelligence agencies and scholars of extremist movements might do well to pay attention to Omar's al-Qaeda childhood for clues about how to inoculate young people against radicalism. His remarkable achievement — to have maintained his own humane beliefs despite being pulled from school at the age of 12 and exposed to a near constant deluge of hateful propaganda, isolation, and family pressure — seems to have been a result in part from a love of animals. A constant collector of pets — against his father's wishes — and an avid horseman, Omar's awareness of the madness of al-Qaeda was fueled in part by several acts of animal cruelty by his father's men. When they lived in Sudan, one of the family guards killed Omar's pet monkey by running it over with a truck, explaining that the creature was in fact a Jew turned into a monkey by the hand of God. Later, Omar learns that it was his own father who taught the guard that monkeys are Jews.

Now an adult and free from his father, Omar talks about starting a worldwide peace movement. But having spent much of his life in the wilds of Afghanistan, his ideas about how the world works are hazy. The U.S. government is unlikely to start a dialogue with Osama bin Laden, as he suggests. Another idea, a horse race across North Africa, seems more appropriate. Perhaps a world where people are kinder to animals will be one where they are kinder to each other.

It appears to be the same person.

Osama Bin Laden’s son Omar Ossama is banned from Britain

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3842353.ece

4/30/2008

The son of Osama bin Laden has been banned from entering Britain to live with his new wife because of fears that his presence would cause “considerable public concern”.

Officials have told Omar Ossama bin Laden that there is evidence that he is still loyal to his father, who is held responsible for the deaths of 52 innocent people in the London bombings of July 7, 2005.

Mr bin Laden, 27, is appealing against the refusal to grant him a visa and says that it is wrong to ban him from Britain on the basis of his parentage and inaccurate media reports about his beliefs.

He wants to live in Cheshire with his British wife, Zaina Alsabah bin Laden, 52, formerly known as Jane Felix-Browne. The couple were married in Saudi Arabia last year after a holiday romance but have been living in Egypt while waiting for Mr bin Laden’s visa application to be processed.

His application was refused by an entry clearance officer at the British Embassy in Cairo. The embassy said that the decision had been made on the ground that “exclusion from the United Kingdom is conducive to the public good . . . in the light of the character, conduct or association of the person seeking leave to enter it is undesirable to give him leave to enter”.

The officer added: “I note that statements made during recent media interviews indicate evidence of continuing loyalty to your father, and your presence in the UK could, therefore, cause considerable public concern.”

Mr and Mrs bin Laden have lodged an appeal to be heard by an immigration judge, claiming that the decision is “unjust and arbitrary”. They say there is no evidence that his presence in Britain would be a security risk.

Mr bin Laden left Saudi Arabia as a child when his father was expelled for his extremist beliefs and the family lived in exile in Sudan and then Afghanistan. He said that he left his father before the attacks on the US in September 11, 2001, and returned to Saudi Arabia, were he worked as a metals trader. The couple met in Egypt in September 2006. After their marriage Mr bin Laden divorced his first bride; his new wife’s application to live with him in Saudi Arabia is still being processed.

Mrs bin Laden, 52, who has been married six times and has three sons and five grandchildren, said: “In September last year Omar left Saudi Arabia for good because we couldn’t live apart any more – it was breaking our hearts. It could take the Saudi government years to wade through all their applications before they get to ours.

“We have a nice house in Cairo, but we have no real place to call home. I need my family and I need medical attention in the UK. Our only chance to be together was to live in Britain. We have vowed never to be parted. Omar will never take another wife as long as I am alive.”

Her husband applied for a married settlement visa in October last year. He was granted a visa to visit Italy in February and this month was granted a Schengen visa to travel freely within Europe. The couple have recently visited Austria, Belgium and France without any trouble.

Since being thrust into the public spotlight after becoming the first of bin Laden’s children to marry a Westerner, Mr bin Laden has repeatedly condemned the attacks on America and London. He said he could not condemn his father because he had no evidence of his involvement in terrorism.

Mr bin Laden said: “Who can know 100 per cent that my father is behind 9/11 or 7/7? I am not a judge and jury. I do not know if my father is a terrorist or was involved in the attacks.

“I want to come to England with my wife so she can be close to her children and grandchildren and she should also be near her hospital. The English are nice people and I am sure they will welcome me. People will understand I am not my father. I want to stop war, stop bombing and stop the killing.”

Briton marries bin Laden’s son

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2056380.ece

7/11/2007

A British woman has married a son of Osama bin Laden after a holiday romance and is to apply for a visa so that he can visit Britain, The Times has learnt.

Jane Felix-Browne, a 51-year-old grandmother and parish councillor from Cheshire, has until now kept her marriage to Omar Ossama bin Laden, 27, secret from everyone apart from her immediate family and close friends. But she has now agreed to speak about her relationship with bin Laden’s fourth eldest son.

“It would be nice if, like any other married woman, I could stand up and say this is my husband and this is his name, but I have to be realistic about things,” she told The Times. “I hope people don’t judge me too harshly. I married the son, not the father.”

Mrs Felix-Browne says she is aware that some people will be hostile to her marriage. Among the numerous terrorist plots linked to her new father-in-law are the London suicide bombings on July 7, 2005, the July 21 plot, and the recent attempted attacks in London and Glasgow. “I just married the man I met and fell in love with – to me he is just Omar,” she said. “I hope that people will take a step back and think what it was like when they fell in love. He is the most beautiful person I have ever met. His heart is pure, he is pious, quiet, a true gentleman, and he is my best friend.”

Mrs Felix-Browne, who has been married five times previously, met Mr bin Laden in Egypt in September while undergoing treatment for multiple sclerosis. She says that their fairytale romance began when her future husband saw her riding a horse near the Great Pyramid. They were married in Islamic ceremonies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and are awaiting permission from the authorities in Riyadh to make their marriage official.

Mrs Felix-Browne is still coming to terms with the practical difficulties of being the daughter-in-law of a man with a $25 million (£12.5 million) bounty on his head. “Omar is wary of everyone. He is constantly watching people who he feels might be following him. Not without reason he is fearful of cameras. He is the son of Osama,” she said. “But when we are together he forgets his life.”

Mrs Felix-Browne already knew some members of the bin Laden family through her Islamic marriage to a Saudi man in London when she was 16. She believes that she actually met Osama bin Laden at a party in London in the 1970s.

Omar bin Laden left Saudi Arabia as a child when his father was expelled for his extremist beliefs, his wife said. Living in exile in Sudan and then Afghanistan, he saw at first hand the creation of al-Qaeda and its techniques. Mrs Felix-Browne said: “I never had any problem with his past. Omar did not do anything wrong. He was a child when he was in Afghanistan.”

She said that her husband left Afghanistan before the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. However, some reports claim that he split from his father only after the attack on New York and an argument about tactics.

Mrs Felix-Browne insisted: “He last saw his father in 2000 when they were both in Afghanistan. He left his father because he did not feel it was right to fight or to be in an army. Omar was training to be a soldier and he was only 19.

“He told me he has had no contact with his father since the day he left him. He misses his father. Omar doesn’t know if it was his father who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. I don’t think we will ever know.”

Apart from their religion the couple appear to have little in common. She has three sons and five grandchildren and is a respected parish councillor in the village of Moulton. She has had various jobs, including restoring houses and aircraft, and is a keen rider and scuba diver.

He works as a scrap metal dealer in Jedda and is one of at least 17 children fathered by bin Laden. His father’s reputation means that he has been ostracised by the wealthy and powerful bin Laden family and is under surveillance by the security services in Saudi Arabia.

Mrs Felix-Browne, who now uses the Islamic name Zaina Mohamad, says that she speaks to her husband for several hours every day over the internet or by telephone. During their conversations she refers to him repeatedly as “Habibi”, the Arabic for “my love”. She said: “I find it very difficult to live without him and I know he does too. But really we have the most normal life possible.”

She was aware before her marriage that her husband already had another wife and a two-year-old child. “I haven’t seen her but I have spoken to her for about an hour on the telephone,” she said. “She is fine about it.”

Mrs Felix-Browne was initially reluctant to discuss her new husband but news of their relationship inevitably began to leak out in Britain and the Middle East. “I don’t want any of my family distressed or upset by my actions,” she said. “I know that for everybody who likes me there will probably be a million enemies.”

Now she hopes that Mr bin Laden will come to Britain. “He would like to spend quite a bit of time here,” she said. “There is no reason why he should not come to live, but I don’t think he would like the weather.”

Mrs Felix-Browne said that the couple hoped to use their position to help to heal the wounds caused by her father-in-law. “All we want is peace in this world and I will do all I can to promote it.”