Subject: Re: [RC] [RC] [Endurance Tracks]
Bin Laden Son Wants to Be Peace Activist - Jan 17 2008
I think I met this guy at Morad's one night with Salem, who is
Omar's cousin. Pretty ordinary fellow actually. The Binladens are very big
into horses in Egypt. Salem's father has a gorgeous farm up the road from me
where they breed various sorts of Arabians, and his wife takes riding
anxiety-classes with me whenever she can grab the time from managing her
family. They are very, very nice people. The way I figure it, is that if a
family of three or four kids usually has a dud, a family with almost a hundred
kids in it is far more likely to have a HUGE dud. LOL
If anyone could
get a ride across Africa (with all the attendant bureaucratic insanity)
together, that family could if they wanted to. They are more like a very large
corporation or a small country than a family in terms of resources. I'd do it
in a heartbeat.
CAIRO, Egypt
(AP) - 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
militancy: Omar wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and
the West.
Omar - one of bin Laden's 19 children - raised a tabloid
storm last year when he married a 52-year-old British woman, Jane
Felix-Browne, who took the name Zaina Alsabah. Now the couple say they want
to be advocates, planning a 3,000-mile 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 told the AP last week at a cafe in a Cairo shopping mall.
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 Alsabah, who is trying to bring her husband to Britain. "He's one of
the only people who can do this in the world."
Omar lived with the
al-Qaida leader in Sudan, then moved with him to Afghanistan in
1996.
There, 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 of 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 Alsabah interjected that Omar was courageous in
breaking away, but neither elaborated.
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.
U.S. and Egyptian
intelligence officials have not commented on his identity, but Omar and his
wife insist they have not been bothered by Egyptian officials.
Omar
said he hasn't seen or been in contact with his father since leaving
Afghanistan. "He doesn't have e-mail," Omar said. "He doesn't take a
telephone ... if he had something like this, they will find him through
satellites."
Omar doesn't criticize 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 also has
been calling for Muslims to rally around jihad, or "holy war," encouraging
fighters in Iraq in particular to continue their battles with U.S. and Iraqi
forces.
At least two of Osama bin Laden's sons, Hamza and Saad, are
believed to have an active role in al-Qaida - with Hamza believed to be in
the Pakistan-Afghan border zone and Saad thought to be in Iran, perhaps in
Iranian custody.
But most of the al-Qaida leader's 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 wealthy: Osama bin Laden's
billionaire father Mohammed, who died in 1967, had more than 50 children and
founded the Binladen Group, a construction conglomerate that gets 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 Binladen Group, but 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.
Their marriage in April made them tabloid fodder,
particularly in Britain, where headlines touted the "granny who married
Osama bin Laden's son." Alsabah, who has married five times, has five
grandchildren.
The couple has applied for a visa to Britain. And
they are planning their endurance horse race across North Africa, which they
hope to start in March. It is in the planning stages — they are seeking
approval of governments along the route and need sponsors to help pay for
the event and raise money for child victims of war.
Omar said they
plan to ride 30 miles a day, with periodic weeklong rests in each
country.
Teams from around the world will be encouraged to join in
what the couple envisions as an equine version of the Paris-Dakar car rally.
That rally was canceled 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."
