|
Omar Osama bin Laden
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
 |
Omar bin Osama bin Muhammad bin 'Awad
bin Laden (Arabic: ??? ?? ????? ?? ???? ?? ??? ?? ?????; born 1981)
better known as Omar Osama bin Laden (also Omar bin Laden or Omar Awad
bin Laden) is one of the sons of Osama bin Laden and his first wife and
first cousin Najwa Ghanem, (see Bin Laden family). He is the fourth
eldest son among nineteen children of Osama bin Laden. Older reports
have described him and his brother Abdallah Osama bin Laden as nephews
or cousins of Osama bin Laden.
Omar was born the grandson of Muhammed bin Awad bin Laden, the founder
of what has been said to be the wealthiest non-royal family in Saudi
Arabia, and the son of Osama bin Laden, whose partisan activities shaped
his childhood. Omar accompanied Osama on his exile to Sudan from
1991-1996, and then to Afghanistan after that. He has said that he
trained in al-Qaeda camps beginning at the age of 14, but after training
with al-Qaeda for six years and sharing a house with Ayman al-Zawahiri,
al-Qaeda's second-in-command, he left al-Qaeda in 2000 because he did
not want to be associated with killing civilians and his father did not
object. Reportedly he helped to organize the U.S. branch of the World
Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY, occasionally reported as the World
Congress of Muslim Youth, formerly at 5134 Leesburg Pike, Alexandria VA)
in Falls Church, Virginia during the 1990s with his brother Abdallah and
Kamal Helwabi or Kamal Helbawy, a member of the Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood who now characterizes himself as a moderate. WAMY was
criticized for disseminating "hate speech", employing persons calling
for violence against Jews, and sued for damages by survivors of the
September 11th attacks before being shut down in May 2004 in a federal
raid in which all files and computer hard drives were seized. Anonymous
sources have said that the Bush administration told FBI investigators to
"'back off' when it came to investigating bin Laden's family", forcing
an end to the investigation of WAMY, Abdallah, and Omar in 1996. Other
national WAMY affiliates have been accused of acting as a Hamas front or
have hosted Hamas speakers, [16] and the 2004 raid was based in part on
an affidavit citing ties with Hamas.
Omar's association with WAMY exposed him to FBI investigation beginning
on September 19, 2001. Omar bin Laden and WAMY are named as represented
by defense counsel Jones Day in a lawsuit filed by the family of John
Patrick O'Neill, Sr., a victim of the September 11th attacks. Jones Day
was one of 43 firms including the United States Attorney's Office and
the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice acting as
defendant's counsel.
Adult life
On September 11, 2001 Omar was in Saudi Arabia when the September 11
attacks occurred. A special chartered flight to Saudi Arabia, embarking
eight days after the September 11th attacks, carried 13 bin Laden
relatives including Omar Awad bin Laden, described as a nephew of Osama
bin Laden living with Abdullah bin Laden, founder of WAMY. Omar runs his
own company in Jeddah as a contractor and scrap metal dealer. Jeddah, a
major city and important transit port for Saudi Arabia, is the site of
the headquarters of the Saudi Binladen Group and has been reported to be
"truly" ruled by Bakr bin Laden.
He married Zaina Mohamed Al-Sabah aka Jane Felix-Browne, a parish
councillor from Moulton, near Northwich in Cheshire UK in July 2007. The
marriage was conducted in April 2007 in Islamic ceremonies in both Egypt
and Saudi Arabia, after which the couple spent three weeks together in
Jeddah before Zaina returned to Britain for several months. Zaina had
been married five times previously, beginning with a Saudi man at the
age of 16, who introduced her to several members of the bin Laden
family. She believes she met Osama bin Laden at a party in London in the
1970s. They met while she was undergoing treatment for multiple
sclerosis. Their mutual love of horses brought them together when they
met on a ride at the Giza pyramids in Egypt. She has declined to take
her new husband's surname. She is his third wife and 24 years older than
him, with five grandchildren. She was aware when she married Omar that
he had another wife and a two year old son. In August it was reported
that Omar's first wife, Rasha Bin Laden, a Saudi woman in her 20's, was
angered by publicity surrounding the second marriage and vowed never to
return to Omar until he ended the marriage with Zaina.
After their wedding, Zaina described the stress of Omar's family
background: "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. But when we are together he forgets his
life." The couple announced their divorce in September 2007, which was
said to be in response to threats to their "lives and liberty" from two
unspecified sources known to them in Saudi Arabia. At the time Zaina
said she did not regard herself as divorced and that the divorce under
duress did not have legal standing under Sharia law.[28] After 2 weeks
Zaina and Omar decided not to part and would not let threats destroy
their marriage. They are now together, have just finished filming for a
BBC documentary, and plan to live in Europe. Omar has applied for a
British spousal immigration visa which would permit him to reside
indefinitely at his wife's AU$1.5 million home in Moulton, Cheshire, a
process which required him to provide original documentation of his
divorce from his first wife. The couple stated their desire to have a
child using a surrogate mother. One report stated the visa application
was denied because Omar failed to provide his father's permanent
address.
Public life
Widespread news coverage beginning with an Associated Press interview in
Cairo, Egypt on January 11, 2008 has featured Omar with dreadlocks and a
black leather biker jacket promoting a 3,000-mile (4,800 km) horse race
for peace across North Africa. The race is in the planning stages,
awaiting approval from governments along the route and sponsors to
provide money to benefit child victims of war. Omar describes the race
as an equine counterpart to the cancelled 2008 Paris-Dakar car rally,
saying "I heard the rally was stopped because of al-Qaida. I don't think
they are going to stop me." The race was cancelled after the killings of
four French tourists near Aleg, Mauritania on Christmas Eve 2007.
Following the murders race organizers received threats directly from
heavily armed and organized groups linked to al-Qaeda, which led them to
cancel the race on January 4, 2008 and soon after to plan the 2009 event
for South America.[34] Police in Guinea-Bissau said that two of five men
arrested for the crime on January 11, 2008 admitted al-Qaeda
involvement.
Relationship to father and al-Qaeda
Omar has said he doesn't criticize his father and has said that Osama
bin Laden is just trying to defend the Islamic world, and that his
father is not a terrorist "because history tells you he's not"[9]. In an
interview with ABC News he said, "My father is very kind man. And he
very sorry when he do something like 11th September." Osama ordered the
attacks "Because he believe if he put two buildings down, maybe some
people, little will die, but millions other will (be) save(d). He
believe that. ... I believe he did it the wrong," In a January 21, 2008
CNN interview, he said "I try and say to my father: 'Try to find another
way to help or find your goal. This bomb, this weapons, it's not good to
use it for anybody,' " Regarding the September 11 attacks he said, "I
don't think 9/11 was right personally, but it happened. I don't think
... [the war] in Vietnam was right. I don't think what's going on in
Palestine is right. I don't think what's going on in Iraq is right. If
we make what is right and not right, we will make a very big list."
Omar stated that he had not been in contact with his father since
leaving Afghanistan in 2000. When asked whether he would tell the
Americans if he found out where his father was living, he said with a
smile "Actually, I would hide him. Because he is my father."
According to Time Magazine's website, Omar has stated a desire to become
an "ambassador of peace" between Muslims and the West. Omar has said
that Osama bin Laden offered a truce to Europe in a 2004 videotape and a
conditional truce with the United States in a 2006 videotape, and
believes a truce 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." The truces offered in these videos
of Osama bin Laden were rapidly rejected at the time.
|
