Region | Egypt

Bin Laden's son wants to be peace ambassador

Osama Bin Laden's son Omar wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West.

  • AP
  • Published: 20:21 January 18, 2008
  • Gulf News

  • Omar Bin Laden with his British wife Jane ride horses at the site of the Giza Pyramids in Cairo, Egypt. The couple plans to ride 50km a day with periodic week-long rests in each country.
  • Image Credit: AP

Cairo: Omar Osama Bin Laden bears a striking resemblance to his notorious father - except for the dreadlocks that dangle halfway down his back. Then there's the black leather biker jacket.

The 26-year-old does not renounce his father, Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden, but in an interview with The Associated Press, he said there is better way to defend Islam than Al Qaida's militancy: Omar wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West.

Omar raised a tabloid storm in Britain last year when he married a 52-year-old British woman, Jane Felix-Browne, who took on the name Zaina Al Sabah. Now the couple say they want to be advocates, planning a 5,000-kilometre horse race across North Africa to draw attention to the cause of peace.

"It's about changing the ideas of the Western mind. A lot of people think Arabs - especially the Bin Ladens, especially the sons of Osama - are all terrorists. This is not the truth," Omar said last Friday at a cafe in one of Cairo's new shopping malls.

Of course, many may have a hard time getting their mind around the idea of "Bin Laden: peacenik." "Omar thinks he can be a negotiator," said Al Sabah, who is trying to bring her husband to Britain. "He's one of the only people who can do this in the world." Omar, the fourth eldest of Osama Bin Laden's 19 children, lived with his father in Sudan, then moved with him to Afghanistan when Khartoum forced out the Al Qaida leader in 1996.

Not off the radar

Although there is no way to confirm the details he describes of his childhood and upbringing, the strong family resemblance and Omar's knowledge of Osama's family life have convinced many that he is Bin Laden's son.

"Omar Bin Laden is the son of Osama Bin Laden and his first wife Najwa," a US intelligence official said on Thursday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media, confirmed Omar was raised in Sudan and Afghanistan after his father was forced out of Saudi Arabia.

A US counterterrorism official said on Thursday that Omar didn't seem to be tied to the current activities of his father but indicated he wasn't totally off the radar screen.

"Anyone with that last name is bound to pique interest," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity for similar reasons. Omar and his wife insist they have not been bothered by Egyptian officials, who said on Thursday that the terror leader's son did not pose a threat.

"He comes and goes just like any other tourist," said a security official, also speaking on condition of anonymity.

"He is taking a line that is totally different from his father." In Afghanistan, Omar says he trained at an Al Qaida camp but in 2000 he decided there must be another way and he left his father, returning to his homeland Saudi Arabia.

"I don't want to be in that situation to just fight. I like to find another way and this other way may be like we do now, talking," he said in English. He suggested his father did not oppose his leaving - and Al Sabah interjected that Omar was courageous in breaking away, but neither elaborated.

He said he hasn't seen or been in contact with his father since leaving Afghanistan. "He doesn't have email," Omar said. "He doesn't take a telephone ... if he had something like this, they will find him through satellites." Omar doesn't criticise his father and says Osama Bin Laden is just trying to defend the Islamic world.

"My father thinks he will be good for defending the Arab people and stop anyone from hurting the Arab or Muslim people any place in the world," he said, noting that the West didn't have a problem with his father when he was fighting the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Omar is convinced a truce between the West and Al Qaida is possible.

"My father is asking for a truce but I don't think there is any government [that] respects him. At the same time they do not respect him, why everywhere in the world, they want to fight him? There is a contradiction," he said.

Osama Bin Laden, believed to be in hiding in the Pakistan-Afghan border region, offered a truce to Europe in a 2004 audiotape and a conditional truce to the United States in a 2006 message. In November, he called on European nations to pull out of Afghanistan in a message seen by some experts as an effort to reach out to Europe.

But in a series of messages since last fall, he has also been calling for Muslims to rally around jihad, or "holy war," encouraging fighters in Iraq in particular to continue their battles with US and Iraqi forces.

At least two of Osama Bin Laden's sons, Hamza and Sa'ad, are believed to have an active role in Al Qaida - with Hamza believed to be operating in the Pakistan-Afghan border zone and Sa'ad thought to be in Iran, perhaps in Iranian custody.

But most of his children, like Omar, live as legitimate businessmen. The family as a whole disowned Osama in 1994 when Saudi Arabia stripped him of his citizenship because of his militant activities. The family is a large and wealthy one - Osama Bin Laden's billionaire father Mohammad, who died in 1967, had more than 50 children and founded the Bin Laden Group, a sprawling construction conglomerate that is given many major building contracts in the kingdom.

Since leaving his father's side, Omar has lived in Saudi Arabia, where he runs a contracting company connected with the Bin Laden Group, and he spends much of his time in Egypt. It was during a desert horseback ride at the Pyramids of Giza that he met his wife.

Planning stages

Their marriage in April made them tabloid fodder, particularly in Britain, where headlines touted the "granny who married Osama Bin Laden's son" - Al Sabah, who has married five times, has five grandchildren. She and Omar had interviews with the British Broadcasting Corp. and other British media.

Now they have applied for a visa to Britain. And they are planning their endurance horse race across North Africa, which they hope to start in March. They admit they are still in the planning stages, seeking approval of governments along the route. They are also looking for sponsors to help pay for the event and raise money for child victims of war.

Omar said they plan to ride 50 kilometres a day, with periodic week-long rests in each country.

Teams from around the world will be encouraged to join in what the couple envision as an equine version of the famous Paris-Dakar car rally. That rally was cancelled this year due to fears over terrorist threats made by Al Qaida-affiliated groups in North Africa.

Omar, however, said he isn't worried. "I heard the rally was stopped because of Al Qaida," he said. "I don't think they are going to stop me."

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