Courtesy: "Guardian, UK", 6 May 2011
Osama bin Laden: family guy with three wives, nine children and a cow to keep
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Note: The viewpoint expressed in this article is solely that of the writer / news outlet. "FATA Awareness Initiative" Team may not agree with the opinion presented.
....................
We Hope You find the info useful. Keep visiting this blog and remember to leave your feedback / comments / suggestions / requests / corrections.
With Regards,
"FATA Awareness Initiative" Team.
Osama bin Laden: family guy with three wives, nine children and a cow to keep
Behind the walls of the compound, Bin Laden was a father and husband, as well as leader of a global terrorist network
By Jason Burke in Delhi and Saeed Shah in Abbottabad
It would make the ultimate reality TV programme: Osama bin Laden was confined to the house in Abbottabad for at least five years, with three wives and several children.
But then Bin Laden was not just the head of a global terror network, he was head of a family that comprised at least five wives and 20 or more children. Their future, and in some cases their loyalty to his cause, is now steeped in doubt. Three of his wives and as many as nine of his children – the youngest still a toddler – were living in the small compound in Pakistan where he was killed last weekend, according to Pakistani intelligence services.
Officers contacted by the Guardian have built up a picture of Bin Laden's domestic arrangements behind the five-metre (18ft) walls of the compound, where furnishings were modest, children were home-schooled and rabbits, chickens and a cow were nurtured.
The Bin Laden family lived on the top two floors of the large home raided by US special forces. They never left the compound, which covered nearly an acre, perhaps never left the house itself. According to Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, Bin Laden's Yemeni wife, who was injured during the US assault, she never left the upper floors of the three-storey house.
A senior official from Inter-Services Intelligence, the main Pakistani spy agency, said that in addition to Sadah, two other women found at the three storey home by local authorities after the Americans had left had also been identified as wives of the al-Qaida leader.
"Three wives have been taken into custody. One had been shot. She told us they had been living there for five years," said another senior Pakistani military official. "The children are also in our protective custody."
The Bin Laden family lived with two Pakistani brothers – Arshad and Tariq Khan – and their families in austere conditions. Pictures showed modest furnishings, cheap foam mattresses, no air conditioning (but central heating) and old televisions.
Architectural plans showed that a series of extensions had been made after the home had been built six years ago, possibly to accommodate more of the family. Such details would match those already known about life with the world's most-wanted terrorist.Several bedrooms have their own attached kitchen, as well as bathrooms, according to Pakistani security personnel who have been inside, which would allow occupants to live independently of other people in the house. The household seemed to be trying to be as self-sufficient as possible. There was a large, seemingly well-tended, vegetable garden at the back of the house. Shamraiz, a neighbour who is a farmer, would occasionally be called over to plant vegetables, perhaps twice a year, according to his son Muhammad Qasim.
Shamraiz was one of the few people therefore to ever get behind the high walls of the compound but he never got inside the house. The grow-your-own style was set to expand. Days before the raid, Shamraiz was called over to the house to prepare the large connecting compound so that it could be planted with crops.
"Shamraiz ploughed up the grass in the garden using a tractor," said Zain Muhammad, his 80-year-old father.
The house also had at least one cow, some rabbits and about 100 chickens in the yard. Muhammad Ishaq, who lives nearby, said that about 18 months ago, Arshad Khan brought over a cow so that it could be impregnated by Ishaq's bull.
The Pakistani brothers would frequently visit the local shops, usually with young children, who were assumed by residents to be their offspring, but beyond greeting people, they were never willing to chat. They would buy sweets and soft drinks for the children at Rasheed's corner store, just about one minute walk from the house, while the brothers would get bulker supplies from Sajid general store down the road and buy freshly baken naan bread from the shop with a tandoor oven next to the general store.
The children from the house never went to school. Instead, they were tutored at home, in Arabic, in one of the first floor rooms that served as a classroom, judging by the whiteboard, markers and textbooks found there.
The food seen at the house by Pakistani security officials was basic: dates, nuts, lots of eggs, olive oil and dried meat. Bin Laden married at least five times. His first wife, a Syrian, left him in Afghanistan weeks before the 9/11 attacks and returned to her homeland. A second wife was divorced in the early 1990s. Sadah, who married him in 2000, was gifted to him when just 15.
This leaves third and fourth wives, both Saudis, whom he married in the 1980s. In conservative parts of Pakistan, keeping women in strict seclusion is a common custom. Further questions as to how much local authorities might have known about the location of bin Laden, or at least his family, were raised by the presence of what appeared to be a census marking on the gates of bin Laden's compound. A census is currently underway in Pakistan.
As well as the Pakistani brothers, who were both killed, the Americans removed the remains of Bin Laden's son Hamza, believed to be 28 years old. His mother was Bin Laden's first wife. There was also another body – possibly another of Bin Laden's 11 sons.
Former associates and family members have described Bin Laden as a father and husband. One, the son of a senior militant who lived with the Bin Ladens in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, described the man behind the 9/11 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people died, as "a human being. He has issues with his wife and he has issues with his kids. Financial issues, you know. The kids aren't listening, the kids aren't doing this and that."
Abdurrahman Khadr, who was detained in Afghanistan in 2001, described Bin Laden's children as "normal". "They love horses and their father had promised them that he would get them a horse if they memorised the Qur'an," he told an interviewer. There have been reports that members of the family in Abbottabad gave rabbits to local children.
However, Omar, the fourth child of Bin Laden and his first wife, published a book in which he recalled a strict father who allowed no toys, no ventilators for boys who suffered from asthma and took his family on hikes in the desert with no water to toughen them up. According to former bodyguard Abu Jandal, who was detained in 2001 trying to flee Afghanistan, Bin Laden's three wives had lived happily together in the same house. The entire family would go on outings together, Abu Jandal said, in a convoy of cars and minibuses.
After the 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden was reported to have sent many of his family out of Afghanistan. About 20 family members were detained by authorities in Iran, where they have since been held under house arrest.
The three women and children pose a diplomatic and logistic problem for Pakistan. It is unclear whether Saudi Arabia will accept their return. Though Bin Laden was rumoured to have huge personal wealth, Pakistani officials havetold the Associated Press news agency the 54-year-old was "cash-strapped". An amount of money – believed to be €500 (£440) – was found sewn into his clothes, it has been reported.
Intelligence services concluded after 9/11 that Bin Laden had no great fortune and had been cut off from any inheritance from his wealthy family by the mid-1990s. According to local or Arab traditions, it should be the close relatives of the dead family head, usually the brothers, who look after the bereaved spouses and children. However, this is unlikely given the rift between Bin Laden and his family, one of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest business dynasties.
Nor is it likely that Abdullah, Bin Laden's oldest son, will take on the role. Having split from his father more than a decade ago and rejected his extremism, he is believed to be running an advertising agency in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The nationality of the children is also unclear as Bin Laden was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994.
Bin Laden was 17 when he married for the first time, to a 15-year-old Syrian Najwa Ghanem. She bore him 10 of his 20 or more children but left him a short time before the 9/11 attacks.
At least two of Bin Laden's sons - Hamza and Saad – apparently followed him into radicalism. Both were groomed as extremist leaders from an early age. Bin Laden had told interviewers that he hoped his daughter Safiya, now believed to be 12, would also take up arms. She is in Pakistani custody and has said that she saw her father shot dead during the raid, a senior ISI officer said.
But then Bin Laden was not just the head of a global terror network, he was head of a family that comprised at least five wives and 20 or more children. Their future, and in some cases their loyalty to his cause, is now steeped in doubt. Three of his wives and as many as nine of his children – the youngest still a toddler – were living in the small compound in Pakistan where he was killed last weekend, according to Pakistani intelligence services.
Officers contacted by the Guardian have built up a picture of Bin Laden's domestic arrangements behind the five-metre (18ft) walls of the compound, where furnishings were modest, children were home-schooled and rabbits, chickens and a cow were nurtured.
The Bin Laden family lived on the top two floors of the large home raided by US special forces. They never left the compound, which covered nearly an acre, perhaps never left the house itself. According to Amal Ahmed al-Sadah, Bin Laden's Yemeni wife, who was injured during the US assault, she never left the upper floors of the three-storey house.
A senior official from Inter-Services Intelligence, the main Pakistani spy agency, said that in addition to Sadah, two other women found at the three storey home by local authorities after the Americans had left had also been identified as wives of the al-Qaida leader.
"Three wives have been taken into custody. One had been shot. She told us they had been living there for five years," said another senior Pakistani military official. "The children are also in our protective custody."
The Bin Laden family lived with two Pakistani brothers – Arshad and Tariq Khan – and their families in austere conditions. Pictures showed modest furnishings, cheap foam mattresses, no air conditioning (but central heating) and old televisions.
Architectural plans showed that a series of extensions had been made after the home had been built six years ago, possibly to accommodate more of the family. Such details would match those already known about life with the world's most-wanted terrorist.Several bedrooms have their own attached kitchen, as well as bathrooms, according to Pakistani security personnel who have been inside, which would allow occupants to live independently of other people in the house. The household seemed to be trying to be as self-sufficient as possible. There was a large, seemingly well-tended, vegetable garden at the back of the house. Shamraiz, a neighbour who is a farmer, would occasionally be called over to plant vegetables, perhaps twice a year, according to his son Muhammad Qasim.
Shamraiz was one of the few people therefore to ever get behind the high walls of the compound but he never got inside the house. The grow-your-own style was set to expand. Days before the raid, Shamraiz was called over to the house to prepare the large connecting compound so that it could be planted with crops.
"Shamraiz ploughed up the grass in the garden using a tractor," said Zain Muhammad, his 80-year-old father.
The house also had at least one cow, some rabbits and about 100 chickens in the yard. Muhammad Ishaq, who lives nearby, said that about 18 months ago, Arshad Khan brought over a cow so that it could be impregnated by Ishaq's bull.
The Pakistani brothers would frequently visit the local shops, usually with young children, who were assumed by residents to be their offspring, but beyond greeting people, they were never willing to chat. They would buy sweets and soft drinks for the children at Rasheed's corner store, just about one minute walk from the house, while the brothers would get bulker supplies from Sajid general store down the road and buy freshly baken naan bread from the shop with a tandoor oven next to the general store.
The children from the house never went to school. Instead, they were tutored at home, in Arabic, in one of the first floor rooms that served as a classroom, judging by the whiteboard, markers and textbooks found there.
The food seen at the house by Pakistani security officials was basic: dates, nuts, lots of eggs, olive oil and dried meat. Bin Laden married at least five times. His first wife, a Syrian, left him in Afghanistan weeks before the 9/11 attacks and returned to her homeland. A second wife was divorced in the early 1990s. Sadah, who married him in 2000, was gifted to him when just 15.
This leaves third and fourth wives, both Saudis, whom he married in the 1980s. In conservative parts of Pakistan, keeping women in strict seclusion is a common custom. Further questions as to how much local authorities might have known about the location of bin Laden, or at least his family, were raised by the presence of what appeared to be a census marking on the gates of bin Laden's compound. A census is currently underway in Pakistan.
As well as the Pakistani brothers, who were both killed, the Americans removed the remains of Bin Laden's son Hamza, believed to be 28 years old. His mother was Bin Laden's first wife. There was also another body – possibly another of Bin Laden's 11 sons.
Former associates and family members have described Bin Laden as a father and husband. One, the son of a senior militant who lived with the Bin Ladens in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, described the man behind the 9/11 attacks, in which nearly 3,000 people died, as "a human being. He has issues with his wife and he has issues with his kids. Financial issues, you know. The kids aren't listening, the kids aren't doing this and that."
Abdurrahman Khadr, who was detained in Afghanistan in 2001, described Bin Laden's children as "normal". "They love horses and their father had promised them that he would get them a horse if they memorised the Qur'an," he told an interviewer. There have been reports that members of the family in Abbottabad gave rabbits to local children.
However, Omar, the fourth child of Bin Laden and his first wife, published a book in which he recalled a strict father who allowed no toys, no ventilators for boys who suffered from asthma and took his family on hikes in the desert with no water to toughen them up. According to former bodyguard Abu Jandal, who was detained in 2001 trying to flee Afghanistan, Bin Laden's three wives had lived happily together in the same house. The entire family would go on outings together, Abu Jandal said, in a convoy of cars and minibuses.
After the 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden was reported to have sent many of his family out of Afghanistan. About 20 family members were detained by authorities in Iran, where they have since been held under house arrest.
The three women and children pose a diplomatic and logistic problem for Pakistan. It is unclear whether Saudi Arabia will accept their return. Though Bin Laden was rumoured to have huge personal wealth, Pakistani officials havetold the Associated Press news agency the 54-year-old was "cash-strapped". An amount of money – believed to be €500 (£440) – was found sewn into his clothes, it has been reported.
Intelligence services concluded after 9/11 that Bin Laden had no great fortune and had been cut off from any inheritance from his wealthy family by the mid-1990s. According to local or Arab traditions, it should be the close relatives of the dead family head, usually the brothers, who look after the bereaved spouses and children. However, this is unlikely given the rift between Bin Laden and his family, one of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest business dynasties.
Nor is it likely that Abdullah, Bin Laden's oldest son, will take on the role. Having split from his father more than a decade ago and rejected his extremism, he is believed to be running an advertising agency in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The nationality of the children is also unclear as Bin Laden was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994.
Bin Laden was 17 when he married for the first time, to a 15-year-old Syrian Najwa Ghanem. She bore him 10 of his 20 or more children but left him a short time before the 9/11 attacks.
At least two of Bin Laden's sons - Hamza and Saad – apparently followed him into radicalism. Both were groomed as extremist leaders from an early age. Bin Laden had told interviewers that he hoped his daughter Safiya, now believed to be 12, would also take up arms. She is in Pakistani custody and has said that she saw her father shot dead during the raid, a senior ISI officer said.
Note: The viewpoint expressed in this article is solely that of the writer / news outlet. "FATA Awareness Initiative" Team may not agree with the opinion presented.
....................
We Hope You find the info useful. Keep visiting this blog and remember to leave your feedback / comments / suggestions / requests / corrections.
With Regards,
"FATA Awareness Initiative" Team.
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