Live peacefully, get good education: Osama told his kids

IANS

London, 12 Feb 2012: Slain al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden reportedly told his children to live peacefully in the West where they would get a good education, his brother-in-law has revealed.

 

Zakaria al-Sadah, whose sister was Osama’s fifth wife, said the al-Qaida chief did not want his children and grandchildren to follow the same path of terrorism like him, the Daily Mail reported.

 

"He told his own children and grandchildren, go to Europe and America and get a good education," al-Sadah, a 24-year-old journalism student, was quoted as saying.

 

He said that Osama’s children were left traumatised by the raid carried out by US special forces in May last year in Pakistan that killed the terrorist.

 

The children, who were found in the compound in Abbottabad, have not seen the sun for around nine months, al-Sadah said.

 

The worst affected was 12-year-old daughter Safiyah, who held the head of her injured mother during the attack.

 

Amal, a 29-year-old Yememi woman, and two other wives, Khairiah and Siham, have gone on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment, al-Sadah said.

 

He said he fears his sister could be charged with committing crimes against Pakistan.

 

He wanted to take the children back to Yemen but Pakistani officials have reportedly refused saying the children could be hiding information.

 

"These children have seen their father killed and they need a caring environment, not a prison, whatever you think of their father and what he has done," al-Sadah said.

 

"They have never had a normal life. They do not know what it is like to see the sun and to run around the garden. It breaks my heart to see them," he said.

 

Amal, the youngest of Bin Laden’s three widows, was shot in the leg as she lunged at the US troopers to try to protect her husband during the raid.

 

Of the two elder wives, Khairiah Sabar is a child psychologist, and Siham Sabar is a teacher of Arabic.