Slain Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden urged his children to go live peacefully in the West and get a university education, his brother-in-law said in an interview published Sunday.
Zakaria al-Sadah, the brother of bin Laden’s Yemeni fifth wife Amal, told Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper that the Saudi-born extremist believed his children “should not follow him down the road to jihad.”
“He told his own children and grandchildren, ‘Go to Europe and America and get a good education,’” al-Sadah told the Sunday Times.
Al-Sadah said bin Laden told them: “You have to study, live in peace and don’t do what I am doing or what I have done.”
Bin Laden was killed in a commando raid in May 2011 by US Navy SEALS at a house in the garrison town of Abbottabad, northwest Pakistan, where he had been living for several years.
Al-Sadah said that in November he had seen his sister for the first time since she was shot in the knee during the raid, and had since been allowed to have a number of meetings with her in the presence of guards.
He said the three wives and nine children who were in the compound — some are bin Laden’s children and others are his grandchildren — have been held for months in a three-room flat in Islamabad.
They are guarded by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, he said.
The Sunday Times published what it said was the first photograph to show some of the young children from the compound: two sons and a daughter, and two grandsons and a granddaughter.
The children were still traumatised after seeing the raid in which bin Laden died, al-Sadah said.
“These children have seen their father killed and they need a caring environment, not a prison — whatever you think of their father and what he has done,” he said.
A Pakistani commission investigating the raid said in October that it had lifted travel restrictions on Bin Laden’s family and al-Sadah flew to Islamabad in November to take Amal and her children home.
But he said Pakistani officials had refused to let him take them.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
chinedu emmanuel
February 14, 2012
Dear belove my people of nigeria
i thank GOD for his love over my nation nageria,i believe GOD love nigeria without minding what the enemy are doing but one thing i know is as many that take part in this evil act in nigeria who call themself boko haram i mean those who are spornsoning and those who allow them to be use for this evil that is going on in nigeria,i want them to know that the time have come for GOD of nigeria to arise and envange for his people who are kill in the presence of GOD.the only ascape for them is by giving their live to JESUS CHRIS if not all of them will die like animal who they are becouse only animal can act this.no one that fight GOD and remain a life,the only ascape is to surinder to JESUS CHRIT.I want you to tell my belove nigeria thos who love nigeria to beging to pray PSALM 35 for nigeria.you can sand my greeting to president J GOODLOCK. GOD will continue to lead him to fulfil the good vission he have for nigeria.
thanks very mush for publishing this comment in news paper in nigeria
am CHINEDU EMMANUL(bestman