The son of slain al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden claimed Osama trained him in terrorism, set him on fire as a child in Afghanistan and used his dogs to test chemical weapons.
Osama bin Laden’s son claims, “I said goodbye and he said goodbye. I’d had enough of that world. He wasn’t happy that I was leaving.”
by Press Trust of IndiaOne of the sons of slain al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has claimed that his father was training him to follow in his footsteps, teaching him to wield a gun and test chemical weapons as a child in Afghanistan. had to use their dogs for
Bin Laden’s fourth eldest son, Omar, claimed in an interview with The Sun newspaper during a trip to Qatar that he was “victimized” and tried to forget the “bad times” with his father.
The 41-year-old, who now lives in Normandy, France, with wife Zaina, remembers bin Laden as the son he chose to carry on his work. However, he chose to leave Afghanistan in April 2001, a few months before the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York.
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“I said goodbye and she said goodbye. I’d had enough of that world. She wasn’t happy I was leaving,” he tells the newspaper.
“I saw it,” he says, in reference to the chemical experiments conducted by his father’s henchman.
He said, “They tried it on my dogs and I was not happy. I try to forget all the bad times as much as I can. It’s very difficult. You suffer all the time.”
Now a painter, Omar believes his art is like therapy and his favorite subject is “mountains after living five years in Afghanistan”. His artwork reportedly sells for up to GBP 8,500 a canvas.
Omar, born in March 1981 in Saudi Arabia to bin Laden’s first wife Najwa, said, “They give me a safe feeling, like I’m untouchable.”
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“My father never asked me to join al-Qaeda, but he told me that I was the son chosen to pursue his cause. When I said I was not suited to that life, he Disappointed.”
When asked why he thought his father had chosen him as his successor, he told the newspaper: “I don’t know, maybe because I was more intelligent, which is why I’m alive today.”
His 67-year-old wife Zaina told the newspaper that Omar is her “soul mate” and she believes he is suffering from “very bad trauma, stress and panic attacks”.
“Omar loves and hates Osama at the same time. He loves him because he is his father but hates what he has done,” she says.
Omar was in Qatar on May 2, 2011, when he heard the news that US Navy SEALs had killed his father, who was hiding in a safehouse in Pakistan, The Sun reported. The official US account is that bin Laden’s body was buried at sea from the supercarrier USS Carl Vinson within 24 hours of his death.
However, Umar has doubts: “It would be better to bury my father and find out where his body is. But they didn’t give us a chance.
“I don’t know what they did to him. They say they threw him overboard, but I don’t believe it. I think they took his body to America for people to see.”
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